Mrs. Hathaway was alarmed by the sight of him, battered and bloody-nosed, and had demanded to know how it had happened. "I sent you to fetch a round from the cheesemaker, and you come home empty-handed, and in such a condition," she cried. "What violence did you do, and why?"
Kev hadn't explained, only stood grim-faced at the door as she berated him.
"I won't tolerate brutality in this household. If you can't bring yourself to explain what happened, then collect your things and leave."
But before Kev could move or speak, Win had entered the house. "No, Mother," she had said calmly. "I know what happened-my friend Laura just told me. Her brother was there. Merripen was defending our family. Two other boys were shouting insults about the Hathaways, and Merripen thrashed them for it."
"Insults of what nature?" Mrs. Hathaway asked, bewildered.
Kev stared hard at the floor, his fists clenched.
Win didn't flinch from the truth. "They're criticizing our family," she said, "because we're harboring a Rom. Some of the villagers don't like it. They're afraid Merripen might steal from them, or place curses on people, or other such nonsense. They blame us for taking him in."
In the silence that followed, Kev trembled with undirected rage. And at the same time, he was overwhelmed with defeat. He was a liability to the family. He could never live among the gadje without conflict.
"I will go," he said. It was the best thing he could do for them.
"Where?" Win asked, a surprising edge to her voice, as if the notion of his leaving had annoyed her. "You belong here. You have nowhere else to go."
"I'm a Rom," he said simply. He belonged nowhere and everywhere.
"You will not leave," Mrs. Hathaway astonished him by saying. "Certainly not because of some village ruffians. What would it teach my children, to let such ignorance and despicable behavior prevail? No, you will stay. It is only right. But you must not fight, Merripen. Ignore them, and they will eventually lose interest in taunting us."
A stupid gadjo sentiment. Ignoring never worked. The fastest way to silence a bully's taunts was to beat him to a bloody pulp.
A new voice entered the conversation. "If he stays," Leo remarked, coming into the kitchen, "he will most certainly have to fight, Mother."
Like Kev, Leo looked much the worse for wear, with a blackened eye and a split lip. He gave a crooked grin at his mother's and sister's exclamations. Still smiling, he glanced at Kev. "I thrashed one or two of the fellows you overlooked," he said.
"Oh dear," Mrs. Hathaway said sorrowfully, taking her son's hand, which was bruised and bleeding from a gash where he must have caught someone's tooth with his knuckle. "These are hands meant for holding books. Not fighting."
"I like to think I can manage both," Leo said dryly. His expression turned serious as he gazed at Kev. "I'll be damned if anyone will tell me who may live in my home. As long as you wish to stay, Merripen, I'll defend you like a brother."
"I don't want to make trouble for you," Kev muttered.
"No trouble," Leo replied, gingerly flexing his hand. "After all, some principles are worth standing up for."
Chapter Three
Principles. Ideals. The harsh realities of Kev's former life had never allowed for such things. But constant exposure to the Hathaways had changed him, elevating his thoughts to considerations beyond mere survival. Certainly he would never be a scholar or a gentleman. He spent years, however, listening to the Hathaways' animated discussions about Shakespeare, Galileo, Flemish art versus Venetian, democracy and monarchy and theocracy, and every imaginable subject. He had learned to read, and even acquired some Latin and a few words of French. He had changed into someone his former tribe would never have recognized.
Kev never came to think of Mr. and Mrs. Hathaway as parents, although he would have done anything for them. He had no desire to form attachments to people. That would have required more trust and intimacy than he could summon. But he did care for all the Hathaway brood, even Leo. And then there was Win, for whom Kev would have died a thousand times over.
He would never degrade Win with his touch, or dare to assume a place in her life other than as a protector.
She was too fine, too rare. As she grew into womanhood, every man in the county was enthralled by her beauty.
Outsiders tended to view Win as an ice maiden, neat and unruffled and cerebral. But outsiders knew nothing of the sly wit and warmth that lurked beneath her perfect surface. Outsiders hadn't seen Win teaching Poppy the steps to a quadrille until they had both collapsed to the floor in giggles. Or frog-hunting with Beatrix, her apron filled with leaping amphibians. Or the droll way she read a Dickens novel with an array of voices and sounds, until the entire family howled at her cleverness.
Kev loved her. Not in the way that novelists and poets described. Nothing so tame. He loved her beyond earth, heaven, or hell. Every moment out of her company was agony; every moment with her was the only peace he had ever known. Every touch of her hands left an imprint that ate down to his soul. He would have killed himself before admitting it to anyone. The truth was buried deep in his heart.
Kev did not know if Win loved him in return. All he knew was that he didn't want her to.
"There," Win said one day after they had rambled through dry meadows and settled to rest in their favorite place. "You're almost doing it."
"Almost doing what?" Kev asked lazily. They reclined by a clump of trees bordering a winterbourne, a stream that ran dry in the summer months. The grass was littered with purple rampion and white meadowsweet, the latter spreading an almondlike fragrance through the warm, fetid air.
"Smiling." She lifted on her elbows beside him, her fingers brushing his lips. Kev stopped breathing.
A pipit rose from a nearby tree on taut wings, drawing out a long note as he descended.
Intent on her task, Win shaped the corners of Kev's mouth upward and tried to hold them there.
Aroused and amused, Kev let out a smothered laugh and brushed her hand away.
"You should smile more often," Win said, still staring down at him. "You're very handsome when you do."
She was more dazzling than the sun, her hair like cream silk, her lips a tender shade of pink. At first her gaze seemed like nothing more than friendly inquiry, but as it held on his, he realized she was trying to read his secrets.
He wanted to pull her down with him and cover her body with his. It had been four years since he had come to live with the Hathaways. Now he was finding it more and more difficult to control his feelings for Win.
"What are you thinking when you look at me like that?" she asked softly.
"I can't say."
"Why not?"
Kev felt the smile hovering on his lips again, this time edged with wryness. "It would frighten you."
"Merripen," she said decisively, "nothing you could ever do or say would frighten me." She frowned. "Are you ever going to tell me your first name?"
"No."
"You will. I'll make you." She pretended to beai against his chest with her fists.
Kev caught her slim wrists in his hands, restraining her easily. His body followed the motion, rolling to trap her beneath him. It was wrong, but he couldn't stop himself. And as he pinned her with his weight, felt her wriggle instinctively to accommodate him, he was almost paralyzed by the primal pleasure of it. He expected her to struggle, to fight him, but instead she went passive in his hold, smiling up at him.
Dimly Kev remembered one of the mythology stories the Hathaways were so fond of… the Greek one about Hades, the god of the underworld, kidnapping the maiden Persephone in a flowery field and dragging her down through an opening in the earth. Down to his dark, private world where he could possess her. Although the Hathaway daughters had all been indignant about Persephone's fate, Kev's sympathies had privately been on Hades' side. Romany culture tended to romanticize the idea of kidnapping a woman for one's bride, even mimicking it during their courtship rituals.
"I don't see why eating a mere half-dozen pomegranate seeds should have condemned Persephone to stay with Hades part of every year," Poppy had said in outrage. "No one toid her the rules. It wasn't fair. I'm certain she would never have touched a thing, had she known what would happen."
"And it wasn't a very filling snack," Beatrix had added, perturbed. "If I'd been there, I would have asked for a pudding or a jam pasty, at least."
"Perhaps she wasn't altogether unhappy, having to stay," Win had suggested, her eyes twinkling. "After all, Hades did make her his queen. And the story says he possessed 'the riches of the earth.'"
"A rich husband," Amelia had said, "doesn't change the fact that Persephone's main residence is in an undesirable location with no view whatsoever. Just think of the difficulties in leasing it out during the off-months."
They had all agreed that Hades was a complete villain.
But Kev had understood exactly why the underworld god had stolen Persephone for his bride. He had wanted a little bit of sunshine, of warmth, for himself, down in the cheerless gloom of his dark palace.
"So your tribe members who left you for dead…," Win said, bringing Kev's thoughts back to the present, "… they're allowed to know your name, but I'm not?"
"That's right." Kev watched the brindling of sun and leaf shadows on her face. He wondered how it would feel to press his lips to that soft light-tricked skin.
A delectable notch appeared between Win's tawny brows. "Why? Why can't I know?"
"Because you're a gadji." His tone was more tender than he had meant it to be.
"Your gadji."
At this foray into dangerous territory, Kev felt his heart contract painfully. She wasn't his, nor could she ever be. Except in his heart.
He rolled off her, rising to his feet. "It's time to go back," he said curtly. He reached down for her, gripped her small extended hand, and hauled her upward. She didn't check the momentum but instead let herself fall naturally against him. Her skirts fluttered around his legs, and the slim feminine shape of her body pressed all along his front. Desperately he searched for the strength, the will, to push her away.
"Will you ever try to find them, Merripen?" she asked. "Will you ever go away from me?"
Never, he thought in a flash of ardent need. But instead he said, "I don't know."
"If you did, I would follow you. And I would bring you back home."
"I doubt the man you marry would allow that."
Win smiled as if the statement were ridiculous. She eased herself away and let go of his hand. They began the walk back to Hampshire House in silence. "Tobar?" she suggested after a moment. "Garridan? Palo?"
"No."
" Rye?"
"No."
"Cooper?… Stanley?…" "No."
To the pride of the entire Hathaway family, Leo was accepted at the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he studied art and architecture for two years. So promising was Leo's talent that part of his tuition was assumed by the renowned London architect Rowland Temple, who said that Leo could repay him by working as his draughtsman upon returning.
Few would have argued that Leo had matured into a steady and good-natured young man, with a keen wit and a ready laugh. And in light of his talent and ambition, there was the promise of even more attainment. Upon his return to England, Leo took up residence in London to fulfill his obligation to Temple, but he also came frequently to visit his family at Primrose Place. And to court a pretty, dark-haired village girl named Laura Dillard.
During Leo's absence, Kev had done his best to take care of the Hathaways. And Mr. Hathaway had tried on more than one occasion to help Kev plan a future for himself. Such conversations turned out to be an exercise in frustration for them both.
"You are being wasted," Mr. Hathaway had told Kev, looking mildly troubled.
Kev had snorted at that, but Hathaway had persisted.
"We must consider your future. And before you say a word, let me state that I am aware of the Rom's preference to live in the present. But you have changed, Merripen. You have advanced too far to neglect what has taken root in you."
"Do you want me to leave?" Kev asked quietly.
"Heavens, no. Not at all. As I have told you before, you may stay with us as long as you wish. But I feel it my duty to make you aware that in staying here, you are sacrificing many opportunities for self-improvement. You should go out into the world, as Leo has. Take an apprenticeship, learn a trade, perhaps enlist in the military-"
"What would I get from that?" Kev had asked.
"To start with, the ability to earn more than the pittance I'm able to give you."
"I don't need money."
"But as things stand, you haven't the means to marry, to buy your own plot of land, to-"
"I don't want to marry. And I can't own land. No one can."
"In the eyes of the British government, Merripen, a man most certainly can own land, and a house upon it."
"The tent shall stand when the palace shall fall," Kev had replied prosaically.
Hathaway had let out an exasperated chuckle. "I would rather argue with a hundred scholars," he had told Kev, "than with one Gypsy. Very well, we will let the matter rest for now. But bear in mind, Merripen… life is more than following the impulses of primitive feeling. A man must make his mark on the world."
"Why?" Kev asked in genuine bewilderment, but Hathaway had already gone to join his wife in the rose garden.
Approximately a year after Leo had returned from Paris, tragedy struck the Hathaway family. Until then none of them had ever known true sorrow, fear, or grief. They had lived in what had seemed to be a magically protected family circle. But Mr. Hathaway complained of odd, sharp pains in his chest one evening, leading his wife to conclude that he was suffering dyspepsia after a particularly rich supper. He went to bed early, quiet and gray-faced. No more was heard from their room until daybreak, when Mrs. Hathaway came out weeping and told the stunned family that their father was dead.
And that was only the beginning of the Hathaways' misfortune. It seemed the family had fallen under a curse, in which the full measure of their former happiness had been converted to sorrow. "Trouble comes in threes" was one of the sayings Merripen remembered from his childhood, and to his bitter regret, it proved to be true.