Free For Love of a Gypsy Lass by Juliet Chastain

 

     
    For Love Of A Gypsy Lass
     
    Juliet Chastain
     
    Breathless Press
    Calgary, Alberta
    www.breathlesspress.com
     
    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or
    persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
    For Love of a Gypsy Lass
    Copyright© 2012 Juliet Chastain
    ISBN: 978-1-77101-805-0
    Cover Artist: Mina Carter
    Editor: Spencer Freeman
    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in reviews.
    Breathless Press
    www.breathlesspress.com
     

    Glossary of Gypsy terms
     
    The Gypsies (Roma, Rom, Romani) came to Europe from India a thousand years ago and kept to their own wandering ways for generations. They were always considered outsiders and often mistreated as a result. Some eventually found their way to England, where they referred to themselves as Romanichal .
     
    Baba —Grandmother
    Dadro —Dad, daddy
    Gadje —Non-Gypsies or adjective describing non-Gypsies
    Gadji —Non-Gypsy woman
    Gadjo —Non-Gypsy man
    Kori —Penis
    Prikaza —Bad luck, especially as a result of coming in contact with something impure (such as non-Gypsies)
    Puri Dai —Wise woman (usually older), who also takes care of the finances for her clan and whose advice is considered in any major decision
    Puro dad —Grandfather
    Rawni —A great (non-Gypsy) lady. An upper class Englishwoman
    Romanichal —The name the English gypsies use for themselves
    Romani —An adjective used to describe Gypsy-related people or objects
    Rom baro —The chieftain; the leader of a band of gypsies
    Vardo —Horse-drawn Gypsy home. Often resembles a small trailer
    Ves’tacha —beloved, darling
     

     

     
    Chapter One
     

     
    Bored with cards, bored with social rounds, bored with simpering, proper young ladies—bored even with the less proper ones—Lord Harry Beresford put his booted feet up on the balustrade of the enormous veranda behind Beresford Hall and leaned back. Should he stay here and watch the sun go down? Or should he call on the widowed Lady Jameson who had simpered only a little? Last time he saw her at a perfectly dreadful little concert at her house, she’d intimated that she was quite ready to give him her all. Or should he simply drink himself into oblivion?
    John Long’s lanky frame came around the corner and the front legs of Harry’s chair came down with a plunk as he got to his feet to greet his friend.
    “An unexpected pleasure.” He shook John’s hand enthusiastically. “I’ve been having the devil of a time with boredom.” He leaned back on his heels, crossing his arms across his chest as he looked up at his aptly named friend who was a good half foot taller than his own six feet.
    “Your problem, my friend, stems from the fact that you can so easily satisfy every whim or wish.”
    “Except the wish to not be bored.”
    “A band of Gypsies is camping on Grinell Green and they are, I hear, exceedingly entertaining,” John said.
    “Shall we have our fortunes told?”
    “That is always amusing. The fortune tellers always say that some great and beautiful lady will wish to marry me.”
    “Odd, they invariably tell me the same.”
    “In your case no doubt it will come true,” John said. “As for me, I paid court to some ladies, but none came to care one whit for me.”
    “Except Jane.”
    “Yes, Jane. But Jane, alas, although she is of excellent family, is no great lady. And my family will settle for nothing less than a woman with a title.”
    “My family wishes the same as yours, and perhaps one day I will oblige them—produce a suitable heir and all that.” Harry smirked.
    “Ah, but in your case you are exactly what the ladies of the ton wish to marry—the Beresford name and a fortune