“Would it please you if I was?”
She paused in her exploration and met his eyes, considering her answer. “I do not think it would please you.”
“My mother flung herself from a window shortly after my birth. No soul knows who fathered me... I very well could be.”
She heard deeper disquiet concealed with the conversational conceit of one who feigned not to care. “My mother left when I was small. She was not Romani, and my father drank a great deal. For all I know, she has a new family, pale children that would not disgrace her as I would have... had she taken me with her.”
The tight brows returned, the man’s face dark. “What was her name?”
Shaking her head, Arabella explained. “When someone leaves, it’s as if they never were. They are never spoken of. The most I remember of her was her hair.”
Grunting, Mr. Harrow’s fingers spread wide and gathered a bunch of waves to admire. “Red?”
The memory was a nice one. Arabella smiled softly. “Fairer than mine. Pretty.”
Carding his fingers through a streak of crimson, Gregory toyed with the loose strands. “This is the Imp I know. Barefoot, hair wild...” He looked down where her bodice hung at her neck for a full view of breast. “...wanton.”
His teasing made her laugh. “I was never wanton.”
“I stand to disagree.” Playfulness fading, arms like fetters tightened around her, Gregory grew hard. “Arabella, if you go back to the caravans, I will set them ablaze. There will be no fireside chats or bartering with vagrant men. Do you understand me?”
There w
ere so many replies cooking on her tongue, so many ways she thought to bite. Instead, she stared hard at those impossible eyes, looking at the man holding her in the heather and knowing he was capable of every last threat.
So was she. “Speak to me that way again, Gregory, and Crescent Barrows will lie vacant in the blink of an eye. Where I’d go, you’d never find me.”
Her temper did not move him. “You say London knows what you are. That wave will crash here in gossip and tale-telling. But to be seen in the gowns you despise, covered in spangles and feathers when it comes, is a far cry different than rubbing locals’ faces in the fraudulent liar you are.”
Growing flushed with anger, hating what she’d heard, Arabella hissed, “What lies?”
Gregory was not one to back down. “I would make their lives ash, Arabella. Leave them scattered on the winds, broken. Do not take another sack of coin to the gypsy camp. Foolish charity will destroy you.”
“I did not go to the caravans out of charity.”
He was having none of her elusive phrasing or attempts to scramble away. “You invite more trouble than you prevent throwing coin at strangers.”
Trouble? What did he know of trouble? Green eyes snapped to his, weighted with horrific experiences a man could only imagine. “You want to know why I married Baron Iliffe? My father sold me to him.”
His expression softened. His grip reduced in strength and altered in implication. Dragging his attention over her face, brought wickedness to his eye—but it was not the playful kind.
Point made, a large hand caught hers to hold up what shined on her finger. “What is this, I wonder?”
Irritated by the change of subject, Arabella grumbled, “A gift Lilly foisted on me at the fair. I forgot it was there.”
He toyed with the silver band. “You are very difficult to please, but so effortless to taunt. How easily she pokes at you. And you let her do it.” Fingering the cheap bauble, Gregory pinched the band and slipped it off her finger, transferring it onto his pinky to inspect in the dawn. “I shall keep it.”
The dull metal looked far richer against the tanness of his hands, but that did not stop her from reaching for it. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing?”
Making a fist so Arabella could not slip it off, Gregory asked, “What if I were to wear it in front of her?”
Arabella tried in vain to pry his fingers open. “I won’t be a party to your petty games. Give it back.”
“No.”
Shoving the chuckling man off, Arabella stood and kicked him roundly. “Keep it! And may the curse take you!”
Chapter 11