He’d never seen her so excited. How could he deny those dancing turquoise eyes? “Ten minutes.”
Emerald was already waving to the short, round-faced woman. “Hallo!” she called as they pulled close.
“Hallo, me lady,” the Gypsy woman returned. She wore a long, many-layered skirt in a myriad of bright colors and a head scarf of another color altogether. Thick gold loops hung from her ears. “Will you buy?”
“I could have told you that’s what she wanted,” Jason muttered.
“Wheesht!” Emerald admonished. She slid from Chiron. “I haven’t any money.”
The woman patted Chiron’s flank. “A beauty.” She pulled an apple from her pocket and held it out for the horse to munch. “How much?”
Jason dismounted and held the reins possessively. “He’s not for sale.”
“Pity.” She sighed. “Trade?” With an expansive gesture, she offered several horses grazing nearby. “Two for one?”
Jason laughed. “No trade, either.”
“Pity.” Giving a dismissive wave, the woman turned and walked into the tent village.
Emerald shrugged. “Come, let’s find the music. They don’t usually mind visitors.”
He lifted Chiron’s reins. “Is it safe to leave him here?”
“They won’t be stealing him, if that’s what you mean.”
It felt deucedly strange to be asking Emerald for advice, but the truth was, he felt completely out of his element. As a boy in exile he’d lived all over the Continent, but he’d never felt as much at odds with his environment as he did in this little pocket of foreignness here in his native land.
He tethered the horse, then followed her into the encampment. They wove between tents made from fresh-cut hazel pushed into the ground and bent over, which formed a resilient frame the Gypsies covered with colorful blankets. Delicious smells came from a huge iron kettle suspended over a stick fire. Women sat on stools around it, weaving lace and chattering in the Romani language, guarded by soft-eyed lurcher dogs.
As they walked by, a woman rose to stir the soup. When she set down the wooden spoon, a dog came up to lick it. “Bah!” she said, throwing the spoon into the fire.
At Jason’s sound of surprise, Emerald turned to face him, walking backward. “It’s mockadi,” she explained. His face must have registered his confusion, because her laugh rang out over the lute’s music. “Dogs and cats are unclean,” she clarified. “You really are a gaujo, aye?” She laughed again. “A house-dweller.”
“The woman fed Chiron by hand,” he said. “Horses are not mock”—he frowned as he searched unsuccessfully for the word—“unclean?”
“Nay. Horses are revered. And they’re not mockadi because—” She stopped walking backward, and when he nearly ran into her, she put a hand to his chest and raised on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. “They cannot lick their own backsides.”
He laughed so loudly they attracted several stares. A tall, gaunt man with a wide mustache ducked out of a tent. He wore ordinary breeches and a shirt topped by a colorful vest. His black eyes fastened on the sword hanging at Jason’s side. “Sharpen it, milord?”
“No, thank—” Jason started.
“Oh, for certain it should be razor sharp, my lord.” The sparkle in Emerald’s eyes revealed her amusement at the thought of him bearing such a title.
If only she knew.
“You must let him do it.” Reaching for the hilt, she pulled the rapier from his belt. “Since you’ll be wanting to”—she cleared her throat conspicuously—“take care of Gothard with it.”
It was plain she still thought he was out to kill, but Jason didn’t argue. He let her hand the sword to the fellow, though he had no intention of killing anyone with that blade ever again. One man was more than enough.
The man sat at a portable whetstone and began grinding. Over the sound of the wheel, the delicate notes of the lute were joined by other instruments: a guitar, a violin, drums, maybe something else. The music rose, becoming even livelier. After Jason retrieved his sword and handed the man a coin, Emerald took off in search of the musicians, leaving him to follow.
In a small clearing, dancers swirled, a wild mass of colors. Emerald turned to him eagerly. “Shall we dance?” She took both his hands, held them up between them, and pulled him toward the clearing.
He took several tentative steps, then stopped. “This isn’t the minuet, nor even a country dance.”
She giggled up at him. “Nay, it’s not. Can you feel the music?” Indeed, it seemed to vibrate from the grass beneath their feet. “Cameron and I dance with them every year. Doesn’t the music make you want to move like they do?”
They were whirling in circles, stomping their feet, clapping their hands, snapping their fingers. “No, it doesn’t,” he said honestly.
“Come, try it!” She tugged his hands harder, until he stumbled into the midst of the dancers. But his feet refused to move like theirs, no matter how hard he tried. After a few halting steps, he pulled his hands from hers and backed away with a small bow and a sheepish smile of apology.
And he watched. Watched her swirling and dipping, swaying to the music that quite clearly spoke to her. Others watched as well, their own feet slowing as they watched hers fly.
Her hat flew off, and he ducked into the fray to retrieve it, then hurried back out. Her plaits whipped around, shimmering in the summer sunshine. The daisy chain about her neck whirled in her breeze, swooping up and down and around with her.
Murmured conversations sprang up all around him. Though he didn’t know a word of Romani, he did know admiration when he heard it. Emerald was a—gaujo, had she called the house-dwellers?—connecting with the essence of their vibrant music.
He shifted on his feet, his eyes riveted to her lithe body, a blur against the backdrop of colorful clothing, tents, and trees. She’d come alive, an effervescence he’d never seen before spilling out of her.
Here was a small piece of England where she was more comfortable than he.
