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A muscle flickered in his jaw. ‘It’s more of a curio than anything. We wouldn’t have lived in it, obviously—’
‘Why not?’ She frowned, instantly defensive. ‘It’s beautiful and romantic and it’s got everything you need—’
‘Everything but a toilet and a shower and hot running water.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Give me a Willerby Westmorland any day!’ His eyes gleamed. He watched her with mild amusement. ‘And there’s nothing romantic about not being able to wash,’ he added drily.
‘Why did Mihaly have it?’ She glanced up at him tentatively.
His eyes met hers. ‘He and my uncle restore vardos. They’ve been holding on to it for me.’
He paused and Prudence felt her face grow warm.
‘That’s where I went the other day,’ he said softly. ‘After I ran away. I went to my uncle’s and I remembered it was there. Only I couldn’t bring it back because one of the wheels was damaged. So Mihaly said he’d bring it over to me today.’ His golden eyes moved over her face like the sun. ‘I wanted you to see it before you leave,’ he added calmly.
His matter-of-fact tone went some way towards taking the bite from his words but Prudence still heard the blood rush inside her head and felt her stomach clench as she came crashing down to earth. But of course she was going to leave. Her contract wasn’t permanent and Laszlo had just agreed to divorce her. So why did she feel so cold? As though she’d suddenly stepped into the shadows?
Pushing that troublesome question away, she took a step towards the vardo.
‘Is it really mine?’ She turned to face him. ‘I mean, could I spend the night here?’
He took so long to answer that she thought he hadn’t heard her, but then he stared at her, his eyes impossibly gold and translucent, like clear new honey, and nodded. She hesitated, suddenly tongue-tied and blushing.
‘I mean, with you.’
The words caught in her throat and the air felt suddenly charged around them. Their eyes locked and then slowly he walked towards her. Sliding his hands through her hair, he tipped her face to his.
‘Me? Stay in your caravan?’ Frowning, he pretended to think. ‘Are you sure? I don’t know. That sounds complicated,’ he whispered.
She pulled away from him and held out her hand. ‘Then I think we should keep things simple,’ she murmured. ‘Stick with what we do best.’
And then, taking his fingers in hers, she began to lead him up the steps into the vardo.
* * *
Prudence woke to the sound of birdsong. The vardo was warm with sunlight and for a moment she lay sleepily on her back, revelling in the ache of her body. Then, rolling over, she reached out and touched the space beside her in the bed. The sheets were still warm and, closing her eyes, she breathed in Laszlo’s clean, salty, masculine smell.
In the last few days when they’d been together
every private moment had been spent in bed. And every night Prudence lost count of the number of times they made love. At first, despite lack of sleep, she hadn’t wanted the morning to come, for fear that daylight would break the spell between them. But on waking that first morning, without any apparent effort on their part, everything had fallen quite naturally into place, and now their days and nights had slipped into a pattern.
Most mornings Laszlo would wake long before she did—often before dawn. Sometimes he would get up and dress and return, waking her with breakfast. Other times he would reach out for her in the darkness, pressing her body against his, the beat of his blood in time to her heart...
At the memory of the way his mouth sought out hers, of his hands so gentle, yet demanding, she felt a familiar ache deep inside her pelvis that made her press her legs together. Blushing, she gave a squirm of pleasure. The sex was so good, and his desire for her was so intoxicating, so quick, so urgent—like pollen bursting from a flower. He made her feel so alive, utterly unlike herself. Lost in him she became passionate, brave and wanton.
She bit her lip. But soon it would be over. She would be back in England and back to a life without passion; a life without Laszlo. Slowly she rolled out of bed and sat up straight. A hard knot was forming in her stomach. She had spent the last week living in the moment, trying not to think, and more particularly trying not to think about the future. Easy at first, with the days and nights stretching out ahead of her, to do just that. Easy, too, to accept the rationale for what they were doing and ignore the fact that physical intimacy encouraged the senses to play all kinds of stupid, dangerous tricks on the mind.
Sighing, she lay back down and rolled onto her side. She had no one to blame but herself, for Laszlo had never offered anything other than sex. In fact, he couldn’t have made it clearer that their affair was simply a finite means to an end—a way for both of them to find sexual closure. But being with Laszlo seemed to be doing little to reduce her hunger for him. Instead the hours she spent in his company seemed only to remind her why she’d fallen in love with him seven years ago.
* * *
‘I don’t normally like talking about work over lunch...’ Janos paused and glanced apologetically around the dining room table. ‘But I just wondered, Prudence, how you think the cataloguing is going?’
Prudence frowned and put down her fork. It was a perfectly reasonable question, but there was a tension in the old man’s voice that made her hesitate and, looking across at him, she felt a ripple of concern when she saw that he looked drawn and tired.
‘It’s early days,’ she said slowly. ‘But we are making progress.’
Looking across at his grandfather, Laszlo frowned. ‘You look a bit pale, Papi. Are you feeling all right?’
Janos shook his head. ‘I’m fine, Laci. I’m just being a silly old man.’
