Just like Mama, only Papa hadn’t even been kind.
“Just what I was hoping for.” Luke’s voice interrupted her thoughts. He steered her to where a pile of cloaks lay draped over a trestle table. He lifted one up. Made from warm merino wool and dyed a bright scarlet, it was lined for extra warmth and had a hood edged with soft black fur. Bella let the silky fur trail through her fingers.
“Mink,” the stall keeper told her.
“Rabbit,” Luke and Bella said in unison. They exchanged looks and laughed.
“Try it on,” Luke told her and draped the cloak around her.
It was soft and warm and buttoned down the front to hang in elegant folds around her ankles. He stepped back and inspected it, then adjusted the hood. His fingers brushed cool against her skin. Warmth pooled in her stomach.
Luke gave a brisk nod and, without waiting for her response, began to bargain with the stall keeper.
The chill of the evening was whispering down from the mountains, so Bella kept the cloak on. She loved it, loved all the gifts she’d received. Loved the man who’d given them.
I don’t need gifts to seduce you.He was right.
She enjoyed the shopping so much, but no amount of gifts could endanger her heart. It was the man himself.
But the happiness bubbling up inside her was a warning, and when he turned and gave her a slanting white grin, her heart gave such a leap, it hardened her resolve.
She would not make love with him. Not tonight. Not until her feelings were more under control. Or until they reached England.
Night fell, and while some parts of the market closed, others opened. Lanterns and burning brands spilledpools of golden light across the cobblestones, turning the market square into a place of warmth and shadows. The smell ofcooking spiced the chill night air.
Luke and Bella ate smoky grilled chicken from one of the stalls, almost burning their fingers on the crispy-skinned, tender pieces. They nibbled on salty roasted nuts and sweet pastries and drank dark and mellow wine from grapes grown in the valleys below.
A fight broke out near a tavern. The burning brands were fading. One by one they started to smoke. Bella struggled to hide her yawns.
“I think that’s our signal to retire,” Luke murmured in her ear.
Bella nodded. She was very tired. She’d been spinning the evening out as long as she could, delaying the moment when she’d face him across the bed and tell him no. And then try to resist him.
They left the market area and strolled down quiet, dark streets. Passing a shadowy alley, Bella heard the sound of music and the rapid staccato steps of boot heels. At the end of the alley, light flickered, beckoning.
“Someone’s dancing. Let’s see,” she said and tugged Luke toward the music.
“You’re just putting off the inevitable.” His voice was dark, smoky chocolate. It lapped enticingly at the barrier of her willpower. “There’s no reason to be nervous, Isabella.”
He had no idea. “I want to see this,” she said, stubbornly.
He gave a lazy shrug and allowed her to lead him down the alley, the tiger indulging the tethered goat.
In a derelict courtyard a ragged band of gypsies was gathered around a fire. The light of the leaping flames caught in the bright, tawdry finery of the gypsies. Silence fell. One or two gypsies glanced their way, but nobody moved.
“It’s finished—” Luke began. At the same instant, a guitar sobbed a single, imperative chord, and the silence took on a new quality. A woman began to sing, a throaty, mournful song in a language Bella did not know. She sang alone, unaccompanied but for the occasional guitar notes, lifting her blind, impassioned face to the night sky, singing of love and of pain and of death.
The hairs stood up at the back of Bella’s neck as she listened. She might not know the words, but she could feel the emotion. The woman’s voice throbbed as it rose and fell in a wailing, hypnotic rhythm, pouring out her tale of passion and betrayal.
She finished on a long, sobbing note that scraped across Bella’s nerves, it was so full of raw pain.
And then there was silence. The firelight danced with shadows. The cold air pressed around her. She could feel Luke standing at her back, a solid masculine warmth down the length of her body.
For a long time nobody seemed to move. Then a single loud clap sounded. Then another. One pair of hands. One man. A slow, emphatic clap!Clap! Clap!
Bella was about to join in the applause when Luke’s hands came over hers. “Wait,” he murmured. He drew her back against him.
The guitar strummed a chord.Clap! Clap!
