Gypsy Moon Read Online Free PDF

leaving.
    “Wait!” she cried. “Will I see you again?”
    He turned slowly toward her and seemed to be looking her through and through, memorizing her face and form. His eyes, heavy-lidded, measured her inch for inch, until Charlotte felt herself quivering inside her worn velvet traveling suit. It was almost as if his gaze had the power to touch her physically and in the most intimate places.
    “You don’t want to see me again, sunaki bal —golden-haired one.” The sound of his coiled whip slapping the top of his boot was the only noise in the quiet lobby. “I can bring nothing but trouble to you.”
    Before Charlotte could say another word, Mateo was gone.
    “They’re odd ones, them Gypsies,” the desk clerk remarked, shoving the ledger toward Charlotte.
    She was quick to come to Mateo’s defense. “They are a proud people. That one in particular is a fine man.”
    “Know him right well, do you, Miss Buckland?” the clerk asked, after a quick glance at the register to get her name and marital status. He peered at her over his wire-rimmed spectacles with accusing eyes. “This here’s a high-class hotel, miss. The best one north of St. Louis. We got a reputation to uphold. Don’t cotton to no hanky-panky, if you get my drift.”
    The man was being absolutely insulting. No one spoke to Charlotte Buckland in such a manner and got away with it. She gave him a level gaze in return and snapped, “I’m quite afraid I do! You can rest assured that as soon as I find a decent boardinghouse, I’ll be leaving your high-class hotel!”
    Struggling with her trunk, Charlotte started from the lobby to find her room without assistance. The desk clerk got in the parting shot: “That’s up to you. Miss Buckland. But until you’re out of here, that Gypsy boyfriend of yours is to stay clear! We don’t allow his kind on the premises!”
    Too angry to reply, Charlotte swept down the hallway in seething silence, wondering at the same time why she had been so quick to defend a man she hardly knew and would probably never see again.

Chapter 3
    The Planters Hotel offered a very real luxury after days of travel on the sooty train—a porcelain bathtub. Charlotte shed her grimy clothes and climbed in for a good scrub and soak. Slowly, her travel-weary body revived. By the time she emerged from the water, her whole outlook had changed for the better—all gloom washed away with the grime of her trip.
    What could be so terrible? Here she was in an exciting new place that absolutely vibrated with life. She had a comfortable room and enough money left to buy herself the best steak in town at Delmonico’s. On her way to supper, she would stop on Delaware Street and speak to Mr. C. Clark about that position. How could he turn down a freshly scrubbed, rosewater-scented woman with a polished eastern accent? She was accustomed to drinking from Waterford and eating off Sevres before the war. “She was a natural for the glass and china trade, Charlotte assured herself.
    She hand-pressed the wrinkles out of her best dress—a spring-green afternoon gown of crisp lawn. It was a few years out of style and rather tight, since her figure was more mature now at nineteen than when Granny Fate had made the dress. Still, the color looked good on her, contrasting nicely with her shining hair and bringing out the flecks of gold dust in her brown eyes. And the fullness of her breasts was quite becoming, she decided, rather than shocking like Phaedra’s.
    That thought focused her mind on the Gypsies once more. From her window Charlotte could see the red-and-blue tents, their bright flags fluttering in the afternoon breeze. The crowds gathering in the area must mean a matinee was about to begin.
    She looked in the mirror over the washstand and smoothed back her curls, pinning each side in place with a pair of ivory combs. As she watched her reflection, she saw a mischievous smile playing about her lips. She tried frowning it away, but the devilish