‘I know you’ve changed. Something or someone has changed you.’
Stephano laughed.’Ask Magda if you want to know why I’ve changed.’
‘Magda?’
‘Who sees and knows all. Have you ever asked what future she sees for you?’
‘You don’t believe in her drabbering. No more than do I.’
‘I believe in destiny. Someone has tampered with mine.’
‘Did Magda tell you that?’ Nadya’s tone was derisive. Leave it to the old woman to try and stir up his ambitions.
‘Magda tells me things because I pay attention. Do you?’
‘To Magda’s prophecies?’ Nadya laughed. ‘Did you remember to cross her palm with silver, Stephano? Be warned. If it wasn’t enough, she may weave you a bad fortune. Maybe she’ll even put a curse on you.’
‘Someone’s already done that, my dear. Magda is simply trying to help me find a way to remove it.’
With that, her half-brother made a sweeping bow, as if they were in some London ballroom and the cotillion had just ended. Before Nadya could think of a suitable rejoinder, he had walked away.
As she watched, he joined a group of men smoking beside one of the tents. Their heartfelt welcome made her realize anew how adept Stephano was at playing the chameleon.
Someone’s already done that, my dear. Magda is simply trying to help me find a way to remove it.
Clearly Stephano preferred to remain cryptic about his intentions. Nadya knew the old woman well enough to know that she would, no doubt, relish the telling of how the two of them were scheming to get back at the gadje who’d ruined Stephano’s life.
Nadya glanced back at her vardo. It seemed that her half-brother might be content to leave Rhys alone until he had considered every possible way in which he might use the Englishman and his connections.
That meant that, for now at least, her patient was safe. And she would have a chance to find out what poison their grandmother had been feeding Stephano.
‘I thought you didn’t have any use for the past. That’s what you always tell me. “None of your old stories, Mami. What’s done is done.”’
Her grandmother wasn’t as forthcoming as Nadya had anticipated. Still, she had years of experience in dealing with the old woman. Making a mystery of things was part of Magda’s stock in trade.
‘People change,’ Nadya said. ‘Look at Stephano, for example.’
‘You think he’s changed? Maybe you’ve simply become more aware of the difficulties your brother faces because of his birth.’
‘What difficulties? Stephano does exactly what he wants. He’s successful both here and in the gadje world. He comes and goes between them as he pleases. If anyone is master of his fate, it’s Stephano.’
‘And you envy him that.’
Nadya shrugged, but she couldn’t deny her grandmother’s perception. Nadya knew that she was very lucky not to live under some man’s thumb. Neither a husband nor a father.
The influence Stephano exerted as head of their kumpania was the closest thing to control she was subject to. Given their blood ties, his rule over her had always been remarkably loose. Now, distracted with whatever was going on in the other world her halfbrother inhabited, he had been even less concerned with her affairs.
If it hadn’t been for Stephano’s increasingly obvious unhappiness, she would have been content to leave matters as they were. But because she loved him, she wanted to know what was driving his self-destructive behaviour.
‘Why shouldn’t I envy it?’
‘Your brother had suffered in ways you can’t begin to imagine, chavi. As a child, Stephano was assured of everything a man could desire. Money, position, power. With his father’s murder, all those promises disappeared. Whatever Stephano has now, he stole from the hands of fate. Nothing was given him.’
The English lord who was Stephano’s father had been stabbed by a friend. After his death, his widow’s family had quickly seen to it that the half-breed bastard he’d foisted on her was sent away to a foundling home. It didn’t bother them in the least that they were throwing a seven-year-old child out of the only home he’d ever known.
‘What more can he want than what he has now?’
‘Justice,’ Magda said simply. ‘For his father. And for himself.’
‘When has the Rom ever had justice? Especially at the hands of the gadje.’
‘Ah, but that’s the difference between the two of you. You don’t expect the world to do right by you, so you’ll do right by yourself. Stephano, on the other hand.’ Magda’s shrug was expressive.
‘Stephano expects the gadje to treat him fairly? He isn’t that naïve.’
‘Not expects, chavi. Demands. There’s a difference. Stephano believes justice is his birthright.’
‘Stephano is half Rom. That half, if nothing else, precludes justice at the hands of the gadje. As for his English half, the courts hanged the man responsible for his father’s death. Isn’t that justice enough?’
‘Your mother didn’t think so.’
‘Because she was obsessed with the death of her lover.’
‘How would you feel if it were your father who’d been murdered, chavi? Or your lover?’
For an instant, the handsome features of the exsoldier she’d cared for the past week were in her mind’s eye. Nadya banished the memory with the practicality she had learned from both her grandmothers.
‘What can Stephano hope to accomplish after all these years? His father’s dead. The nobleman who murdered him has been punished by the English courts. Under their laws, Stephano has no claim to his father’s title or estate. Instead of encouraging him in this insanity, you should make him realize that what’s done can’t be undone.’
That was a truth Nadya’s mother Jaelle—Magda’s beloved daughter—had never accepted. Overcome with grief at her lover’s death and obsessed with seeking justice for her lost son, Jaelle had eventually hanged herself.
In doing so, she had left Nadya motherless and her Romany husband heartbroken. Thom Argentari had never recovered from the loss of his wife or from the sense of betrayal her suicide had engendered. Nadya would always believe that had played a role is his own too-early death.
Left in the care of her beloved grandmothers, Nadya had thrived, despite her grief. Perhaps if Stephano had been returned to the Rom after his father’s death, he might not have been scarred to the extent Magda suggested he had been. As for what he was doing now.
‘I don’t understand why Stephano would choose
