Free Sheri Cobb South by Of Paupersand Peers

that assailed his nostrils was anything to judge by. The gypsy crone settled herself on a stool behind a low table covered with a threadbare cloth, then shuffled a deck of cards with surprisingly nimble fingers. Having mixed the cards to her satisfaction, she laid them out face down on the table in a geometric pattern.
    “You.” She spoke to Amanda, who clung to James’s arm in a manner he would have found highly gratifying, had their circumstances been more conducive to romance. “I tell your fortune first.”
    With the agility of long practice, she turned the cards up, revealing not the simple black and red pips seen in parlor games, but highly detailed scenes featuring elaborate configurations of swords, coins, batons, or cups.
    “Ah!” The old gypsy woman grinned, exposing the gaps where several teeth were missing. “Two of cups, six of cups, ten of coins—good, good! You have good and loving husband, much money, and many children. Is very good, no?”
    “Oh, very good indeed!” exclaimed Amanda, letting out her breath on a sigh of relief. “See, Meg? I told you everything would come about in the end.”
    “Amanda, love, one has only to look at you to predict such an outcome,” chided Margaret in an undervoice, while the gypsy crone prophesied for Philip a future of travel, wealth, and adventure. “You would be wise not to set too much store by her predictions, however felicitous you may find them. I daresay she tells everyone the same thing, for who would pay good money only to be told of poverty, or illness, or spinsterhood? Depend upon it, she will predict a brilliant marriage for me as well, and assure Mr. Fanshawe that he will inherit a fortune or some such thing.”
    It was not to be expected that any lively young lady would allow such a statement to go uncontested, and Amanda was more than equal to the challenge.
    “I won’t believe it! Do let the gypsy tell your fortune next, Mr. Fanshawe, and prove my sister wrong,” she urged, tugging at his sleeve.
    “Yes, do, Mr. Fanshawe,” agreed Margaret, tongue firmly in cheek. “By all means, let us see what delights await you.”
    Philip was quick to add his entreaties to those of his sisters, and James, seeing all three Darrington siblings allied against him, submitted meekly to his fate. The seer stacked and reshuffled the cards, then dealt them out in the now-familiar pattern and turned them up one by one.
    “Interesting,” she muttered aloud, after studying the cards in silence for a long moment. “Most interesting. Three of swords—you have suffered a broken heart, yes?”
    She pointed to a card picturing a red heart pierced with three swords.
    James shrugged, shifting his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other. “Yes, well, who among us has lived for twenty-seven years on this earth without being disappointed in love at some time or another?”
    The old gypsy woman nodded. “True, very true. But the other cards say your luck will change. Soon, very soon, you have love—yes, true love and wealth beyond your wildest dreams.”
    Margaret leaned closer to Amanda to whisper in her ear. “I told you so.”
    “And now we shall see what lies in store for the other young lady, yes?”
    Margaret, finding three pairs of eyes fixed expectantly upon her, lifted her chin. “Very well. What, pray, does my future hold? A handsome and wealthy husband, I daresay.”
    But the cards beneath the gypsy woman’s hand revealed a series of increasingly grim-looking pictures: a man in medieval robes struggling to balance two large coins; a woman, similarly garbed, standing blindfolded and bound amidst eight upright swords; and, most ominous of all, a skeleton on horseback, wielding a scythe. The caption beneath identified this last as Death.
    “By Jove!” exclaimed Philip with ghoulish zeal. “Are we going to be putting poor Meg to bed with a shovel?”
    “No, no,” the old woman assured him. To Margaret, she added, “The card does not mean physical