Free Follow Your Heart by Barbara Cartland Page B

he would decide to fetch her back and would send the grooms to find her. They would certainly not be looking for a dark–haired girl, so she should be safe until she was ready to return.
    â€˜I know it cannot be too long,’ she pondered. ‘At the same time I shall have time to think about my fate.’
    The thought made her feel apprehensive because, when she did return home, Jason would undoubtedly be waiting for her.
    But she did not want to think about him at all at this particular moment.
    She allowed the gypsy woman to very gently smooth the dark liquid on to her hair and then she looked at herself in the small cracked mirror that was all Mireli kept in her caravan.
    She certainly looked so very different that not even her best friend would recognise her and, because she was so unselfconscious, she did not realise how the dark hair now accentuated the clear translucence of her skin.
    Her mother had always been told that she had skin like a pearl and when she thought about it Della was glad she had inherited it.
    â€œNow you look just like us ,” trumpeted Mireli.
    Yet there was really very little resemblance between Della and the dark skinned Romanies, although she did indeed look most attractive in her new guise.
    They sat down and talked to each other.
    There was no chance of moving into any other caravan until late in the afternoon and Mireli told her that when they were travelling they usually only stopped for breakfast and then enjoyed a big meal at six o’clock.
    â€œCook over camp fire,” she said. “Better than little bites without substance.”
    Della laughed.
    She liked the rather pedantic way Mireli talked. She realised it was because she was trying to copy Lendi, while she was taking her lessons in fortune–telling.
    â€œVery interesting,” Mireli told her when Della questioned her. “Tomorrow you come with me and listen to Lendi. Her very, very clever and she has learned from moon.”
    Della knew there could be no higher compliment and although her eyes twinkled she did not make any comment.
    Because the gypsies owned good horses they travelled further during the day than she would have expected. In fact she was not surprised to learn that they had already left Hampshire and were now moving into Wiltshire.
    She only noticed how far they had gone after she had looked at some of the signposts they passed and realised they did not belong to her own County.
    She understood only too well, however, that the gypsies did not like to be asked too many questions about themselves, their own language, their beliefs or their destination. It was, Della guessed, because of many centuries of persecution. Years of never knowing what would happen tomorrow made them as secretive as possible.
    She therefore did not ask Mireli or the other gypsy women where they were going.
    The woman who had dyed her hair came in several times to see if everything was all right.
    Before they finally reached the place where they intended to stay the night, Piramus came to visit Della.
    â€œLady happy?” he asked, as if it worried him to think that she might not be.
    â€œI am very happy, Piramus,” enthused Della. “Mireli has been very kind to me and so has Ellen.”
    That was the name of the woman who had dyed her hair.
    Della had been slightly surprised to find she had such an ordinary name. Then she remembered what her uncle had told her, when they were talking about the gypsies, that those who had come to Britain had deliberately changed their foreign names for English ones.
    They had chosen the most ordinary local names possible. There were therefore now gypsies called Smith, Brown, Lee and Davis instead of their more exotic ancestral names.
    Some of their women had also adopted ordinary English Christian names and Della thought it was a pity as they did not sound as romantic as their own, although she could understand it was much easier for them to move about the