The Emerald Swan (29 page)

And yet … and yet he could feel no shame. When he thought of those moments of joy he felt only a vibrant surge of renewed joy. Miranda had given him something he had thought would never be his. She had touched his own soul. Their physical fusion had been but the expression of a deeper, almost mystical union. And his entire being throbbed with the longing to repeat it.

Gareth pushed back his chair, and reached for the flagon of wine on the sideboard behind him. He put
the flagon to his lips and drank deep, hoping it would clear his head. There was Mary, too. He’d betrayed Mary, not by the carnal act, she would never consider that in itself a betrayal, not even after their marriage, but by that other connection, the knowledge that in Miranda he had found something so precious he couldn’t bear to contemplate letting it go.

But he must.

He scowled as someone knocked at his door. He had no wish to talk to anyone but he bade the knocker enter and tried to look neutrally at his sister, who was bursting with excitement. She flourished a rolled parchment. “A letter, Gareth. It bears the seal of the constable at Dover Castle. It must mean that Henry has landed.”

“We should find him some new clothes. These are all rags.” Maude hovered over Robbie. “Berthe, see what you can find. There must be a spare set of clothes that would fit him in the servants’ quarters. I’ll pay well for them.” Berthe left with an audible sniff that Maude either didn’t notice or chose to ignore. She sat on a stool beside Robbie and stirred a spoonful of jam into the contents of a silver porringer. “Try some of this with jam, Robbie. It will make you strong.”

Robbie shook his head; his little belly was tight as a drum. “Can’t eat no more.” He gazed in continued wonderment at this pretty lady who was so exactly like Miranda he couldn’t tell them apart.

Maude looked disappointed, but she set the spoon down. “We shall keep him here, Miranda. Don’t you think we should?”

“I’d like to,” Miranda said doubtfully. “At least while I’m here.” She bit her lip. Until last night, she had seen
this episode in her life as just that, a brief interlude that would bring her financial security for years to come. But now things had changed. How could they not have done? She couldn’t leave here now. Gareth would know that as surely as she did. Wouldn’t he?

The image of Lady Mary Abernathy rose unbidden to her mind’s eye. That perfect lady of the court. The perfect wife for the earl of Harcourt. But men had mistresses as well as wives. She could not be a wife, but she could be a mistress.

“Miranda … what’s the matter, Miranda? You seem miles away this morning.”

“I didn’t sleep very much last night,” Miranda offered in partial explanation. “I suppose I was too excited about seeing the queen.”

“The queen!” Robbie’s mouth fell open. “You saw the queen, M’randa?”

“Mmm,” she said with a smile. “And I didn’t just see her, I spoke to her as well.”

That was too much for Robbie. He stared, openmouthed, trying to imagine his Miranda, the acrobat who sucked lemons to make Bert’s mouth go dry and squabbled with Luke, actually talking to the queen.

“Have you finished eating, Robbie? We must go into the city and see the others.” Miranda lifted the boy off his stool. “You can remember the way?”

“ ’Course.”

“How will you go?” Maude inquired.

“Walk, of course.”

“Walk!”

“Yes. What’s wrong with that?”

“But you can’t possibly walk,” Maude said in the patient tone one might use to the completely misguided.

Miranda frowned. In her present guise, perhaps she
couldn’t. Lady Maude d’Albard certainly wouldn’t walk anywhere, and most particularly not into the city.

“You can go in a litter,” Maude said. “It’s how I take the air.”

“Why don’t you come with us?” Miranda said suddenly. “I’ll introduce you to my family.”

“What? Acrobats?” Maude’s eyes widened.

“They’re as good as you,” Miranda declared with a dangerous glitter in her eye.

“Yes … But …” Maude shook her head.

“Come on,” Miranda coaxed. “You’ve never seen anything of the real world. I’ll show you the streets, the way people live on the streets. We can eat pies and gingerbread from a stall. Mama Gertrude will die of shock when she sees us together.” Her eyes sparkled. “You’ve shown me your world, Maude, now come and see mine.”

Maude’s gaze wandered between Miranda and Robbie, who was regarding her with interest, following the conversation and yet not really understanding it. In fact, he understood little except the wonderful sensation of satisfied hunger.

“Shall I?” Maude murmured, glancing almost guiltily to Berthe’s empty chair. Then she said, in wonder at her own audacity, “All right, I will. But let us go quickly before Berthe comes back.” She hurried to the linen press and pulled out a cloak, flinging it around her shoulders, drawing up the hood. “We’ll leave by the side door and go directly to the mews and tell them to ready the litter for us. Then no one will know.”

“I think we have to tell someone,” Miranda said. “They’ll be frantic if you disappear without a word. Berthe will go into hysterics.”

This was too strong a possibility to be ignored. Maude
hastily scribbled a note for her maid. “Quickly,” she said. “Before someone stops us.”

“Come, Robbie.” Miranda swung the boy into her arms again and whistled for Chip, who was trawling through the breakfast dishes in search of goodies. The monkey leaped from the table with an excited jabber and followed the procession from the room.

The liverymen looked askance at Lady Maude’s companions. But Maude could produce a satisfactorily arrogant demeanor when required and they obeyed her orders without comment. Robbie burbled with excitement at finding himself in a litter, just like the one he’d seen emerging from the house the previous day. He pulled back the curtains and thumbed his nose at passersby. Chip caught on quickly and began to imitate him. The litter bearers, in the black-and-yellow Harcourt livery, had no idea why they were followed by yells of indignation as they trotted along.

“Robbie, come in,” Miranda said, stifling her laughter. She hauled on the back of his britches, pulling him back inside the litter. “You’ll give Lord Harcourt a bad name, throwing insults when you’re traveling under his livery.”

They entered the city gates without challenge and Miranda leaned out of the litter, calling to the bearers to stop and set them down. “You may leave us here, and wait for us.”

The head bearer looked askance at Lady Maude as she stepped from the litter. “That all right, m’lady?”

“Yes,” Maude said with a lofty wave of her hand. “Wait here.” In truth, as she looked around at the chaotic scene and her senses were assailed with the smells and sounds of the streets, she wasn’t sure it was all right, but when she glanced at Miranda, who seemed completely at home, despite
her fine clothes, she felt better. It was the first adventure she had ever had, and might well be the last, so she would embrace it.

“Come.” Miranda linked her arm through Maude’s. “You’ll be quite safe with me.” Robbie hobbled beside them, unerringly directing them through the warren of narrow cobbled alleys.

Maude felt like a freak and wondered how Miranda could be so heedless of the glances they drew from carters, barrow boys, country folk heading for the city markets with flat baskets of produce balanced on their heads. Maude had never entered the city except in a carriage or litter, with Harcourt heralds going ahead, clearing the way. And such a lofty method of transport, enclosed in the carriage, isolated from the hurrying throng, was very different from being on foot. Down here, she was engulfed in the immediacy of the crowds of pedestrians, the sounds and smells of laboring humanity. She was aware of the uneven, pebble-strewn, mud-ridged cobbles beneath her thinly shod feet.

She so rarely walked anywhere, even in the gardens, that her feet encased in their silk hose and satin slippers soon began to ache. Around her, bare feet slapped heedlessly on the stones, surefooted feet in crude clogs and pattens clattered along, and she felt unbearably clumsy, as out of place in this world as if it existed in another realm.

Chip, on the other hand, was clearly in his seventh heaven. He sat on Miranda’s shoulder, chattering cheerfully, taking off his hat to all and sundry, and when they reached a grassy triangle at a crossroads where a group of men with a dancing bear were entertaining a crowd, he jumped down expectantly and raced forward.

“No, I don’t like working around dancing bears,” Miranda said. “They’re so sad and ill-used.”

“Besides, you’re not dressed for it,” Maude put in with a touch of acidity. She didn’t want Miranda disappearing from her side, losing herself in a world that for her was so utterly familiar.

“I’ll not leave you,” Miranda said, instantly comprehending. “Just relax and enjoy yourself. There’s so much to see.”

That was certainly true. Reassured, Maude allowed her curiosity free rein. They climbed the hill toward Saint Paul’s, pausing to examine the wares in the little shops lining the street, buying apples and gingerbread. Music came from an alley at the back of the church and Miranda instinctively followed the sound, drawn to it as by a magnet. The trio of musicians was playing in a doorway, the lute player accompanying his music with a ballad in a deep tenor. An upturned cap lay on the cobbles before them.

“Let’s listen for a while,” Miranda said, and they stopped in a doorway. Chip instantly jumped from her shoulder and began to strut in front of the musicians, his face assuming a long and mournful expression as he adapted his movements to the lyrical sadness of the music.

The musician playing the viol chuckled. “Let’s see if he can dance properly, Ed.” He strummed, struck a note, and the three men launched into an Irish jig.

Chip paused, listened, then began to dance. A crowd was gathering and Miranda sighed, but she was smiling. “I’ll never get him away now.”

“Anyway, we’re almost there,” Robbie said, sitting down in the doorway, nursing his foot.

The crowd applauded the monkey’s performance
and the musicians grinned. At the end, when they ceased to play, Chip dived into the crowd with his hat.

“Eh, we’ll have our share of that!” the lute player declared, his eyes narrowing as he saw how successful the monkey was in his fee collecting. He jumped to his feet and went after Chip, who dodged him expertly, returning to Miranda’s side, proudly proffering his coin-filled hat.

“Eh, that’s ours,” the man announced, his eyes widening as he took in Miranda’s costume. Beside her Maude drew back into the doorway, terrified, convinced that this man was going to cut their throats for the contents of Chip’s hat.

But Miranda was quite unperturbed. “You may have it all,” she replied, taking the hat from Chip and bending to empty its contents into the musicians’ cap on the ground beside them. “He was only having fun.”

The lute player scratched his head, looking bemused, then he said, “No offense meant, m’lady.”

Miranda grinned. “None taken.” She linked arms with Maude again. “Lead on, Robbie.”

They were halfway along a slightly wider thoroughfare when a voice shouted from ahead of them. “Miranda … Miranda …!” A young man was galloping toward them, as ungainly as a new-foaled colt.

“Luke! Oh, Luke!” Dropping Maude’s arm, she raced toward the youth.

“We’ve been so worried about you!” he exclaimed, hugging her with one arm, reaching the other to receive Chip, who leaped into the crook of his elbow. “But I’d never have recognized you in those clothes, if it wasn’t for Chip and Robbie.” He stared at her in awe, seeming not to see Maude, who had approached cautiously and stood slightly to one side.

“I saw Chip first. I was leaning from the window looking along the street and I knew it had to be Chip, it looked so like him with the coat and hat and all, and then I saw Robbie, and I rushed downstairs and managed to open the door … it was locked, you see, and I couldn’t find the key … but then I found it on a hook by the kitchen, which I suppose I should have thought of, but anyway…” He paused. “Anyway, here I am, and Mama Gertrude and Bertrand will be so pleased.”

“I found ’er,” Robbie put in. “I went to the ’ouse an’ I found ’er and brought ’er back.” He glared at Luke. “You didn’t find ’er, Luke.”

“No … no, I know I didn’t,” Luke said impatiently, then his eye fell on Maude. He stared in disbelief.

“Oh, this is Lady Maude,” Miranda said, drawing Maude forward. “She’s Lord Harcourt’s ward.”

Luke couldn’t manage to do more than bob his head. “Is she coming to see the others?”

“Yes, so let’s go. Come, Maude, don’t look so bewildered.”

“We’re lodging in the house with the gray shutters,” Luke said, accepting Maude now as just another of Miranda’s frequently puzzling appendages. “Above a cobbler’s shop and it’s very cramped with all of us, but it’s very cheap and we can work the streets … only there’s so much competition,” he added with a sigh. “Since you and Chip left, the takings have gone down dreadfully. And it didn’t help to spend a night in gaol, and we had to pay the fisherman a guinea to look after our belongings.”

“Gaol?”

“We were picked up as vagrants because of some hue and cry over you and Chip.”

“Oh, how dreadful. And I thought you’d taken the tide and left me behind.”

“Never mind, you’re back now,” Luke said cheerfully, leading the way through the dusty cobbler’s shop and up a narrow, creaking staircase.

The single room above the cobbler’s shop was so full of the troupe’s clutter that it would be hard for anyone unaccustomed to such conditions to imagine how twelve people could squeeze themselves into the space. But Miranda had no such difficulty. She stood on the threshold, Luke grinning behind her like a retriever who’s brought home the dinner.

Faces looked up at the opened door. Looked, blinked, then as Chip leaped into the middle of the room jabbering wildly, there was a collective exclamation. Miranda was engulfed. Mama Gertrude scolded, alternating slaps and pinches with kisses. Others demanded explanations, Bertrand complained at all the trouble she’d caused, even as he beamed at her and patted her head.