Mouth gaping, she shut it, and gave a look she hoped intimidated him.
“I didn’t talk about the woman in the painting because she’s a part of my past. She hasn’t been in my life for more than twenty years.”
Stunned, she blurted, “But that means you?—”
“She’s my mother. The woman in the portrait is my mother.”
Chapter Forty-Three
After Logan’s groundbreaking admission, he’d immediately clammed up, refusing to explain further. Haven didn’t care so much about what he refused to say, it was that he didn’t want to share what so obviously needed to be said. Something was buried there, deep, and it strangled him like the spreading roots of a long-neglected oak.
He’d effectively concluded their conversation with a sharp look, and a growled, “No more,” and then spurred his horse into action. She clumsily followed, hoping the Romany camp wasn’t much farther.
After another forty-five minutes of painful, loaded silence, she heard the sounds of a camp in the distance. People working, laughing, shouts, and murmurings of conversations.
Scared and a little excited, she turned to glance at Logan. As she’d expected, the vulnerable, open, passionate man disappeared and had been replaced by the guarded, withdrawn, stoic duke.
She liked the man better, but the duke looked just as good.
“The camp is through this line of trees. There’s a clearing there beside a stream where they’ve set up their wagons and tents.” Bringing his horse to a stop outside the tree line, hejumped from its back, and came around to help her down. “We have to walk from here. There’s not enough clearance beneath the trees for us to ride through safely. I’ll lead the horses.”
“Is the whole camp surrounded by the forest?” Excitement tinged with anxiety fluttered through her stomach.
“No. On the further side, the side nearest the southern pasture, there is a wide opening.”
“Ah.”
The horses trailing behind them, they ducked and maneuvered through the leaves, fallen branches, and roots along the forest floor, and she wondered what the camp would be like. Would it look like the Romany camps in the movies? Would there be fortunetellers, and dark-haired women in scarves and big, looping earrings? Would there be bare-chested men in leather vests participating in rousing knife fights?
Snuffing out a giggle before it could escape, she rolled her eyes.
Of course, it wouldn’t look a thing like it did in the movies.
The dense trees began to thin, and she saw the backsides of several wooden wagons topped with dark canvas. They reached the wagons, and she knew a twinge of disappointment.
There weren’t brawny, shirtless men slicing at one another, or vibrantly dressed women with crystal balls in their clutches. It was just a camp. Men and women went about their business, preparing meals, smoking pipes as they chatted, children chasing one another in and out and around the wagons, fires burning beneath boiling pots, and clothes hanging from lines crisscrossing between the canopied wagons.
“Wow.”
Logan didn’t acknowledge her outburst.
He led her out into a clearing, and a slender, balding man with a long curling mustache approached. Halting to greet the man, Logan gave her a quick warning glance.
Shifting from foot to foot, she watched as the balding man looked at Logan, then looked at her, then looked back to Logan.
“You were expected.” He had a thick accent.
Lifting a curious brow, Logan asked, “I didn’t send word. Who is expecting us?”
“Esmae.” One name.
Logan tensed, and the look of surprise slipped from his face.
It was replaced by uneasiness.
That didn’t bode well.
Who was Esmae, and why did she make Logan so tense?
