Honor and Secrets: A Risqué Regency Romance (The Gypsy Gentlemen Book 1) Read online

  The Gypsy Gentlemen

  Book I

  Honor and Secrets

  (The stories of Viktor and Pyotr)

  Sahara Kelly

  Copyright © 2016 Sahara Kelly

  Cover Art Copyright © 2016

  Sahara Kelly, P and N Graphics, LLC

  Acknowledgements

  These lovely gypsy gentlemen were part of my writing life quite a few years ago now, and first met readers as “The Gypsy Lovers”. Now that they are back home with their Mum, I can brush them up and turn them loose once more on a new generation of readers. I hope you love them as much as I do.

  Thanks go to my personal source of Hungarian phrases…my hubby. You see, honey? I was listening when you hit your thumb…

  And to those who have encouraged me by buying my historical romances and letting me know they enjoy them – my profound gratitude.

  As always, thanks and hugs to my partner, Scott, for his unfailing support, humor, wisdom and sometimes really terrible jokes. You always know which one I need, and I probably wouldn’t be writing this now if you didn’t.

  Author’s Note

  This work was previously published as part of “The Gypsy Lovers”, and has been revised and re-edited for this edition. It is the first in a series of three novels, so Sahara recommends reading them in order to fully enjoy the adventures of these six amazing men. Book II (Control and Compassion) is available now from Amazon.com and Book III (Endings and Beginnings) concludes the series – also on sale now at Amazon.com.

  Viktor

  Chapter One

  Viktor Istvan Karoly was bored.

  He glanced around the elegant salon and noted that the same could not be said for his fellow entertainers. The dark eyes, white teeth and flashing smiles of the five other men who had accompanied him this evening gave evidence of their enjoyment.

  Cigar smoke hung thickly near the high ceiling, the candlelight flashed from the crystal decanters that held the finest port, and the conversation was mellow and punctuated with rich laughter.

  Their host for the evening, Lord Alfred Eventyde, slouched in his tall chair, enjoying the after-dinner conversation with the band of “Gypsies” he’d invited to his home for the weekend.

  Viktor knew they were all the rage with London society at the moment, and his lips twisted wryly. Six months ago, they’d been a penniless troupe of dancers and musicians traveling in one cramped caravan, and earning pennies or trading work for food wherever and whenever they could on the Continent. The ravages of war had left little for anyone, let alone wandering minstrels.

  Then his father had died and in a series of unexpected coincidences, he had become Count Karoly, man of wealth and property, with a name that could be traced back at least seven centuries. Most of them bloody and riddled with treachery, debauchery and murder. The name was valid and the wealth accessible, but the property almost non-existent. Napoleon’s army had seen to that.

  He’d return to Karoly soon. But not yet. He wasn’t ready.

  His friends had cheered his good fortune, and he saw no reason not to share some of it with them. They had bought the finest clothing in Paris, the best musical instruments available, ordered custom caravans, and now traveled in a degree of luxury they could only have dreamed of up until recently. But they were, at heart, still Gypsies.

  Still wild, unpredictable, in love with their music and the women it charmed for them.

  Women that Viktor knew were waiting in the parlor across the hall. Fluttering over their teacups, pulling their gowns down over their inadequate breasts, hoping to attract the attentions of one or other of the half-dozen amazingly handsome foreigners who had invaded their genteel English houses and set a spark to their virginally proper English souls.

  The pastime had paled on Viktor. Very rapidly.

  “But Vir,” wailed Pyotr. “I have two lovelies just waiting for me to fuck them into heaven after we leave here.”

  Several others had echoed the complaint when Viktor had announced that they would accept Lord Eventyde’s invitation for the weekend.

  “They will survive, Pyotr,” answered Viktor. “As will you.”

  In truth, Viktor needed to escape from London. He was uncomfortable in the noise, unhappy with the amount of attention they were receiving, and frustrated that his audiences demanded the same round of music—traditional, characteristic of what the English imagined Gypsy music to be, and stuff he could have played in his sleep with his eyes closed.

  He was tired of the same seductive game, and disgusted with the way it was so blatantly played by married women whose husbands were on the opposite side of the room.

  He felt hunted, haunted, and stifled.

  A servant opened the long windows to let in the soft night air and he felt his soul wander outside.

  With a muttered apology to his host, Viktor followed his soul, pausing only to grab his violin on the way.

  “Ah, there goes Viktor.” He heard Gyorgy’s deep voice as he left. “Off to make more music to charm the hearts of your so beautiful English roses.”

  Bless Gyorgy, he thought. There was a man who would always cover one’s back.

  He walked across the carefully manicured lawns and down a slope towards the forest that bordered Lord Eventyde’s gardens, but spared little thought for his host. The man had been all that was acceptable and gentlemanly in London, and had offered a pleasant respite from the hustle and bustle of Society’s demands on them.

  But here in his home, he had changed slightly, and the change made Viktor uncomfortable. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was, but a shiver had crossed his skin when Lord Eventyde welcomed them yesterday afternoon, and the premonition had not gone away.

  Perhaps it was a look in his eye as he introduced his guests to the ladies, none of whom, Viktor guessed, were ladies by birth or by nature. They had been effortlessly elegant during today’s round of strolls, polite conversation, lunch al fresco on the terrace, and their impromptu outdoor concert in the late afternoon.

  But there was something. An undercurrent, perhaps, an unsettling air of unfinished business that set his teeth on edge and made him wary of the evening to come.

  It spoke volumes that Lord Eventyde’s family, comprised of his wife and daughter, were not present at this weekend in the country. Or if they were, they had not joined the guests.

  Viktor was no saint. But he’d grown up with some basic values instilled in his heart and his soul. He had a nasty feeling that Lord Eventyde had no such scruples to moderate his behavior, and Viktor really was not in the mood for an evening of debauchery.

  Pyotr was insatiable and would love it. Gyorgy would go along with the games out of curiosity, and Lukasz and Matyas like the brothers they were, would probably share.

  And then of course, there was Fabyan. Oldest of the six, Fabyan had really been the one who had brought them together from their diverse roots. Only Fabyan knew the truth about each man, what secrets he hid, and what sorrows he had left behind to join their little band of Gypsies.

  And Fabyan would never tell.

  For Fabyan never spoke.

  He was, in Viktor’s opinion, the best looking one of them all, with his tall, lean body honed to muscular perfection by years of dancing the energetic Hungarian Csardas or dances. His eyes were dark brown, and his hair was an unfashionably long shimmer of light and dark brown, offset by his darker brown beard and moustache. But there were silver threads showing now around his ears, and his eyes occasionally looked weary instead of joyful.

  Viktor had no idea
whether Fabyan’s silence was self-imposed or physical, but he’d also never felt the need to ask. The older man had a presence, a level of control, which radiated from him and made conversation redundant.

  He, like Viktor, found solace in his music, although he was not as bold as to leave a host’s table in pursuit of his muse.

  Viktor was. And at this moment he was very glad of it.

  The night air washed over him, blowing away the scent of stale tobacco and refreshing his mind.

  A nightingale sang plaintively from the depths of the woods and its liquid voice lured Viktor on.

  He was happiest when alone, and surrounded by nature. After some of his experiences, this sort of isolation was the next best thing to heaven. Clean and pure, the forest offered solace and peace and Viktor took pleasure in both.

  He raised his violin to his chest and nestled his chin into place, feeling as comfortable walking with the instrument as another man might have felt with a cane. It was an extension of him, a part of his being, and he knew that life without it was almost unbearable.

  The first notes he played echoed the song of the nightingale and he paused as he walked to listen to the rest of the clear piping sounds produced from the throat of one tiny bird.

  Once again he mimicked the melody, letting his imagination free to soar into the night sky with the strains of his violin. A flurry of notes followed and Viktor walked on slowly, playing from his heart rather than from some meticulously transcribed score.

  It was moments like these that reaffirmed his decisions, his determination to let the music in him flow freely, to create something unique, special and essentially him.

  He was quite used to playing and walking, since many of their performances had followed the old traditions of music around a crackling campfire. Guests adored the strolling minstrels, and Viktor had developed a sixth sense for stepping over whatever might be in his path as his bow urged its plaintive song from the strings.

  The night swallowed him, the forest seemed to pause and listen, and Viktor breathed deeply, filled with the magic that such moments always produced. How the others could stay in the stifling, smoke-filled rooms of Eventyde Manor, he didn’t know. This was paradise for him.

  There was only one thing missing. The right person with whom to share it.

  Viktor had loved and left as many women as his fellow gypsies, but none as yet had touched his heart.

  He sighed and the strings echoed the sound, the melody turning plaintive as he considered the possibility that no such woman existed. That he would be alone for the rest of his life. Destined for years of hopping from one willing woman to the next, satisfying his physical needs, but leaving his inner desires unsated.

  His steps took him down a path that was less well-tended, but a flicker of moonlight on water beckoned him. His music was pulsing now, throbbing from his instrument and filling the silence around him with a yearning, wild song. A plea to the gods, as it were, for someone to understand.

  To take him as he was, not for his title, or the fact that he was a new and fascinating bump in their ordinary aristocratic lives. To look beneath the handsome face and tall, well-muscled body, and see the man within. The man who held such deep and lingering scars. Marks that bore witness to the cruelty humans could inflict upon each other.

  Marks that only the right person could erase.

  Moving steadily, he reached the opening at the end of the path and with a final sorrowful chord, he lifted his violin away from his chin and let his hands relax at his sides.

  It was beautiful.

  A small lake stretched away from him, banked by overhanging willows shining silver in the moonlight. The water rippled as it was fed by a stream bubbling off to his left, and gurgled again as the lake narrowed to a small waterfall of stones and made its way on its never-ending journey.

  An artful arrangement of rocks had been set next to the murmuring falls, and a movement from one of them caught his eye.

  Viktor blinked. And blinked again.

  It must be a water sprite, or a nymph. Or a goddess.

  For once, his brain emptied of music and his heart beat in an irregular rhythm.

  She was neither nymph nor sprite. She was real.

  *~~*~~*

  Madelyne Eventyde struggled to catch her breath. For the last few minutes, she’d been held captive by the sound of an incredible and heart-wrenching melody, drifting through the night to where she sat perched next to the waterfall.

  The soft noise of the waters had been a counterpoint to the soaring chords and almost painfully beautiful sounds, and had frozen her to the spot as she listened to the music.

  And now he stood a few yards away from her, violin in one hand, bow in the other.

  She knew who he was, of course. One of the Gypsies she’d been forbidden to meet. Along with everyone else her father invited to Eventyde Manor these days.

  No one ever had the chance to greet the daughter of the house. The shamed daughter. The one who had brought such social scandal down upon the Eventyde name. The one who had nearly dishonored them all, and sent five hundred years of proud heritage tumbling downstream along with the river that burbled at her feet.

  Or so her father had told her, anyway.

  The man was watching her, and she knew she had to move. To leave before he could speak to her and bring down even more of her father’s wrath upon her head.

  But as she stood, he neared her, his footsteps light and almost silent as he crossed the grass towards her.

  “You are real,” he breathed.

  Madelyne couldn’t help herself. She chuckled. “Indeed yes. But perhaps your music wasn’t. Nothing that beautiful could be of earthly origin. I am thinking you must have an angel dancing on your bow.”

  He smiled, teeth flashing white against his dark complexion. “Perhaps it was you.”

  Madelyne drew back a little, unsure of herself now that he was so close to her. “I’m no angel, sir.”

  One dark eyebrow lifted a little. “Are you sure? You are here, in the moonlight, as silver as the rays that light our paths. Insubstantial as the mist, beautiful as the flowers I passed along the way…I think that qualifies for the title of ‘angel’?”

  Madelyne felt an unusual sensation flood through her as this tall man swept bold eyes up her body.

  “Forgive me for disturbing your composition, sir. I will take my leave and let you return to the pursuit of your muse.”

  Her brain was telling her to get away from him now, before the damage was done. Her heart was telling her other things.

  “I find I no longer need pursue my muse, lady. She is here. In front of me.”

  Madelyne’s eyes opened wide as he lifted his violin once more to his chin. The bow stroked across the strings, producing a joyous sound, and one that found an answering pleasure deep within her.

  He played carelessly, wildly, circling her as he did so and entrapping her in the sound of his music.

  Her feet began to twitch. The rhythm of his melody sank into her very bones, and she found herself swaying in time to the notes.

  She couldn’t help herself—or stop herself. She raised her arms and began to dance.

  As if held in thrall by some magical spell woven by the strings of his violin, Madelyne swayed slowly at first. She felt her skirts brush around her legs as she took cautious steps, letting the music dictate her movements.

  She turned and spread her arms wide, responding to an increase in the tempo of his playing. The nature of the music changed, becoming wilder and more primitive and finding an echo inside Madelyne.

  She picked up the speed of her steps and her heart began to pound. His liquid notes flooded her ears, the vibrant melody resounded throughout her body, and she found herself restricted by her gown.

  How she would have loved to be free to dance the way she really wanted. To let her arms fly high and her legs follow her soul. To jump and spin and lose herself in this moment, this music. To fly higher than was humanly possible and
leave all her earthly troubles behind.

  Once again the music changed, becoming faster, but darker now, more seductive.

  She raised her eyes as she danced and met his. They were sparkling at her over the dark mass of his violin, and never left her face as she responded to his every chord.

  His bow was bringing more than music to her heart. It was as if he stroked her body with that piece of wood and catgut. Her nipples tightened beneath her fichu and her breath came in little gasps as she surrendered to his musical seduction.

  For that was indeed what it was. His playing seduced her, reaching deep within her to places she’d buried long ago. Making her blood pound fiercely in her ears and her belly ache with some fundamental need. She twirled again, trying hard to stop herself from crying out with the pleasure of it.

  His nimble fingers flew over the strings and Madelyne’s nimble feet answered the call. She spun and leaped as if possessed, finally coming to a stop as his last notes trailed off into the silence of the night.

  They faced each other, Madelyne’s heart pounding as she stood before him staring into those dark eyes.

  He bent and let the violin rest on the grass, rising again to take a step nearer.

  Madelyne held her breath at the expression in his eyes, and for a long moment it seemed the whole world stood quite still.

  Then he took her in his arms and kissed her.

  Chapter Two

  At the first touch of her mouth to his, Viktor’s mind had emptied of music and filled with need.

  She was sweet and sensual, and as his tongue swept her lips demanding they part for him, she’d answered with her own desires.

  She’d opened for him, welcoming him, and touching her tongue to his, as eagerly and wantonly as any woman he’d ever kissed.

  But she wasn’t any woman.

  He could feel her heart pounding through her breasts as he pressed their bodies together, and he hoped it was from his touch not her recent dance.