A Proper Lady's Gypsy Lover Read Online Free PDF

not comfort, not respectability.
    I care too much for you to dally with you further.
    When we have sufficient money, my family and I will emigrate to America. If my luck runs out before then, I will be hanged or transported to the prison colony in Australia.
    I will leave London as soon as I am able. I must finish some business at the Bartholomew Fair, and then I will be gone.
    We will not meet again.
    Your Faithful Servant,
    Liberty Wood
     
    Lucy-Ann threw herself on her bed, buried her head in the pillows, and wept copiously. After a while, she interrupted her orgy of self-pity by throwing the pillows one by one across the room. Finally, she got to her feet. This would never do.
    “I’ll be damned,” she whispered, and then snuffled, remembering how, long ago, Liberty had taught her to swear. “I’ll be damned,” she said again in a low voice—no sense causing an uproar in the house should anyone hear her—”if I shall spend my life as a fine lady. How dare he suggest that I couldn’t lead the life he leads?”
    She poured some water from the pitcher on the table in the corner of her room into the bowl, splashed her face, and wet a handkerchief, which she held against her eyes. “I’ll be damned,” she said once more between gritted teeth, “if he shall know I was weeping.”
    She told her aunts that the letter was from Miss Darnsworth requesting her presence at luncheon again.
    “But surely,” Aunt Louisa said, “you should have invited her here.”
    After a few seconds of desperate thought, Lucy-Ann said, “So I would have, but her foot is injured.”
    She ran upstairs to change her dress. Once again she rode with Aunt Emily. Once again the footman accompanied her around the corner and turned his back, and once again she walked quickly to the field. Her heart beat madly; her breath was ragged. She could not wait to be in Liberty’s arms, to tell him that she wanted no part of life in society, that she wanted to be free, and that she wanted to be with him.
    She gasped and her hand flew to her chest. The vardos were gone! A new animal pen was being erected where the encampment had been. She saw no one working with the horses. Instead there were men hammering and sawing and sheep being led across the grass, the sheep dogs barking excitedly and running back and forth.
    She stood stunned for a moment, uncomfortably aware that all the people she saw about were men, and she was unescorted. Unless the carriage had lingered, she would remain that way for the entire day until it returned for her at dusk. Heart pounding, she turned and ran as fast as she could, skirt held up above her knees, back to where she had left the carriage.
    Thank goodness! It was still there, but the coachman was climbing onto his box and the footman was already in his place.
    “Elijah,” she called out. “Don’t go. Wait for me.” The coachman started and turned. Seeing the shock on his face, she stopped running, let down her skirt, and walked decorously the rest of the way.
    The footman helped her into the carriage where Aunt Emily said something about the footman having lingered to talk to a parlor maid. Lucy-Ann managed to blurt out something about mixing up luncheon dates and promptly burst into tears.
    “Don’t cry, darling,” Aunt Emily said, patting her knee. “We’ve all made the occasional social faux pas in our lives. It is truly unpleasant, but really, it’s not worth crying about.”
    “One more minute and you would have been gone,” Lucy-Ann wailed.
    “Does Miss Darnsworth’s family not keep a carriage?” asked Aunt Emily. “If not, surely they could have sent you in a hansom cab—perhaps Miss Darnsworth’s personal maid could have accompanied you. It would have been perfectly decent. But all is well that ends well.”
    After some time, Lucy-Ann gained control of herself and stared morosely out the window, hiccupping occasionally, while Aunt Emily slept.
    She tried to think reasonably. Of course the vardos