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the ragged wrapping from a green dress, “this was Mother’s. I think it will fit you well, and the patches aren’t as easily seen as the ones on your dress.” She held up a grass-green dress embroidered with bright flowers. She stroked one of the flowers. “Mother did these herself. I hope this dress will bring you good luck, sister.” She held it out to Talaitha.
    Naomi and Delilah helped her out of her deep yellow dress, and tut-tutted at the condition of her shift. Naomi insisted on trading shifts, hers being less patched and frayed than Talaitha’s own. Both women pulled off their gold bangles and put them on Talaitha’s wrists and Naomi tied her gold coin necklace around her sister’s neck.
    “You look very beautiful, ves’tacha , my beloved.” Baba Florica said as she entered the vardo . “Here, wear mine as well.” She pulled off the five bangles that her husband had given her on her wedding day and the gold earrings she had inherited from her own grandmother and handed them to Talaitha.
    “There!” Naomi said. “With all that gold, he will think you are as rich as himself!”
     
    ***
     
    Harry rode hard around the countryside trying to not think about Talaitha Grey—why could he not stop murmuring her name to himself? Why could he not stop thinking about her?
    When the shadows grew longer and his horse grew tired, he decided to return to the inn and prepare to depart first thing in the morning. Why was that thought so painful? Why could he not get the Gypsy singer out of his mind? Talaitha. He would say her name aloud one last time and then think of her no more. He whispered it to himself, and then cursed aloud as his blood ran hotter.
    The Gypsies had granted him permission to court her. Why on earth had he decided not to? Every time he thought of her, his heart raced, the fire in his belly flared and he felt… He couldn’t quite put it into words. It was more than mere affection, much more than that. He loved Talaitha. He wanted her—needed her—to be part of his life.
    He cursed himself for having decided otherwise. Instead of returning to the inn, he persuaded the tired horse to gallop toward the gypsy encampment. He would speak with Talaitha .
    If she will allow me, I shall tell her that I love her beyond all reasoning.
     
    ***
     
    The encampment lay in a little dip in a fallow field between gentle hills. He rode slowly around the top of the rise, thinking about what he might say, about what she might say, and if she did what he would say then. So unlike himself, but he had never felt so unsure of a woman—of anyone or anything—as he felt about her. Nor had he ever cared as much. “Talaitha,” he murmured. Her name was honey on his tongue.
    For a few seconds, he did not know that it was she, standing beneath a scraggy tree at the top of the hill with ribbons in her hair and a scowl on her pretty face.
    He rode to her and dismounted hastily.
    “Talai—” he started to say her name and realized they were most certainly not intimate enough to use given names, though that was how he’d been thinking of her. “Forgive me, Miss Grey.”
    “It does not matter,” she said coldly. “Many people do not give the Romanichal the courtesy of addressing them as miss or mister.”
    “Truly, I did not mean to be discourteous, but your given name has been on my mind, perhaps unrightfully so, and for a moment it came to my lips. You…you have been much in my thoughts and I did not intend any lack of respect.”
    She shrugged. “I had expected you earlier,” she said looking him up and down and frowning. “And now you come in disarray.”
    He realized suddenly that he was in his old riding breeches and that he wore no coat or stock. Also that his shirt was wet and sticking to him and sweat trickled down his forehead.
    “I…”
    What could he say but “forgive me.” He looked at her, feeling as though his heart might burst. He knew that she was the one he wanted, the one he loved, and