The Emerald Swan

Chapter Nine

"What should I call your betrothed, milord? And how will I know who she is? There will be Lord Dufort's sister, too, won't there?" Miranda tried to keep her anxiety out of her voice but everything was happening too quickly, before she'd had time even to accustom herself to her surroundings.

You'll recognize Lady Beringer by her resemblance to Miles," Gareth said. "And you'll call my fiancee Lady Mary, as everyone else does."

“There is one thing, though." Gareth paused at the head of the stairs and looked quizzically into her immediately upturned face. "I have a name; it would be appropriate for you to use it." Without conscious thought, he lightly pressed a fingertip against her small nose. It was a silly little caress, but the feature seemed to invite it, and it instantly gave birth to Miranda's ready smile, chasing the anxious shadows from her eyes.

The parlor seemed full of people although sense told her there were only six. Miranda's heart was pounding uncomfortably against her ribs as she stood in the doorway beside the earl.

The chaplain was there as Maude had said he would be. He was easy to identify as much by his demeanor as by his dark clothes. He stood slightly apart, an expression of alert willingness to please on his rotund countenance that sat rather oddly with an air of self-consequence.

Chaplain George was very conscious of his position as a man of the cloth, God's representative on earth, who was responsible for the good consciences of the Harcourt household. But he was also aware that his position in this gathering was more employee than guest. He tended to be invited to the dinner table only when Lady Imogen considered he might be useful.

"Maude is feeling well enough to join us this evening," Gareth said calmly. "Although her throat is still a trifle sore. But the news of her suitor has cheered her up considerably. Isn't that so, my dear cousin?" He smiled and casually raised her hand so the bracelet caught the light." The duke of Roissy will be as honored by such a wife as my cousin will be by such a husband."

The chaplain bowed, an obsequious little smile on his mouth. "Lady Dufort was telling us of the offer you brought back from France, my lord. Magnificent. You're to be congratulated, Lady Maude."

"Oh, my lord, I have been so anxious for your return." A lady moved out of the shadows and crossed the room with stately step. "Your dear sister and Lord Dufort have grown positively tired of the sight of me."

"I find that hard to believe, madam." Gareth took the lady's hand and raised it to his lips. "I trust you have been well in my absence."

Miranda, standing for the moment ignored, regarded Lady Mary with covert interest. She was tall, very pale, very stately. Her face was long, her features somewhat sharp, her eyes a grayish green beneath a very narrow brow. Her hair, smoothed back from her forehead, was a pale brown beneath a small lace-edged cap. She looked to Miranda exceedingly well-bred, and the set of her head, the slight lift of her nose, seemed to indicate an awareness of this fact. Her gown was of rather modest cut, in a neutral shade of pale lavender, contrasting dramatically with Lady Imogen's gown of vermilion velvet and Lady Beringer's turquoise ropa over a gown of golden silk banded with purple.,

"Ah, Maude, how happy I am to see you in company." Lady Mary turned with a kind smile to Lord Harcourt's ward. "You're looking remarkably well, my dear."

"Thank you, madam." Miranda curtsied, keeping her eyes lowered.

"Indeed, my dear, it is a real pleasure to see you in such health." Lady Beringer smiled from her chair beside the Lady Dufort. "And may we offer our congratulations."

"My thanks, Lady Beringer." Miranda smiled as she spoke very softly, with a slight rasp.

"Cousin, I hadn't realized your throat was still troubling you." Lady Imogen rose from her chair and came over to Miranda. She took her chin and examined her face with an expression of concern that to Miranda looked more like a butcher inspecting a carcass. With a tiny frown, she adjusted the snood.

"I was shocked to discover that it was necessary to cut my cousin's hair during her fever," Gareth observed.

"Indeed," Imogen said, responding with swift comprehension. "But it Was considered wise." She moved away from Miranda, deflecting attention from the girl. "And how is your son, my dear Anne? Returned from his little holiday in the country, I trust." Her smile was malicious and Miranda watched with interest as Lord Dufort's sister blushed.

"The lad's a wastrel," boomed an immensely fat man whose belly strained against the lacing of his doublet. His thighs wobbled in tight pink stockings below red trunk hose that could barely contain his backside. "It's the second time the queen has banished him from court, and if there's a third, she'll not let him back. If he weren't my son, I'd blame it on bad blood!" He glared for a minute at Lady Beringer, whose color fled at this implication, a white shade appearing around her mouth.

"He's the spitting image of you, Beringer," Miles observed, his voice unusually taut. "And with the same fondness for the bottle."

Miranda was becoming so absorbed in this developing scene that she lost her nervousness.

"Maude, do come over here and show me the bracelet," Lady Mary said in her sugary tones.

When Miranda failed to answer, Imogen spoke sharply. "Maude!"

"Forgive me, madam," Miranda murmured, realizing with a start that she'd missed her cue. "I think the fever must have affected my ears as well as my throat."

"A glass of wine, cousin? It might soothe your throat."

"Why, thank you, mil… Gareth." She took the goblet he handed her and became aware of the sudden silence in the room. The earl was regarding her with a frown and Lady Imogen was glaring at her.

"D'ye care for one of these lobster patties, m'dear?" Miles came over to her, extending a salver of tiny tartlets. The silence was broken, Gareth moved away from her, and she took a patty from the salver.

Miles gave her a little smile of encouragement. "Don't worry, it'll be forgotten in a minute," he whispered.

What would? Miranda was completely nonplussed. She approached Lady Mary, whose eyes were sharply disapproving.

"You've become remarkably familiar with your guardian, my dear," she said as Miranda reached her.

"My cousin has been so little in company just recently that I daresay she forgot that this evening we are rather more than an intimate litde family gathering," Imogen said, her icy gaze shivering Miranda into silence. She felt the ground shifting beneath her feet, her earlier confidence collapsing.

"I'm surprised Lord Harcourt would consider it appropriate in any circumstances for his ward to call him by his given name," Mary said, her disapproval sugar-coated, her smile uncomfortably searching.

"He… he told me to use his name…" Miranda fell silent, cursing her stupidity. He had meant simply that she should call him Lord Harcourt, not milord. Of course a ward would not have the freedom to use her guardian's Christian name.

"Dinner is served, my lady." The chamberlain bowed in the doorway, bringing the scene to a merciful close.

"Come. Let us go in. Chaplain, you will escort Maude." Imogen gestured to the chaplain. In an undertone she said to Miranda, "You had best keep silence as much as possible from now on."

Miranda was so mortified she didn't think she'd open her mouth again.

Gareth, with Lady Mary on his arm, followed his sister and Lord Beringer into the dining room across the hall. It was a vast chamber with a vaulted ceiling, a massive oak refectory table in the middle, long benches on either side, X-shaped chairs at head and foot. Great mahogany sideboards stood against the walls, and a massive iron chandelier hung from the rafters, ablaze with myriad wax candles.

From the gallery running the width of the chamber, a group of musicians played softly.

Gareth seated Lady Mary on his right before taking his own place at the head of the table. His sister sat upon his left, the remainder of the guests taking their places on the benches on either side. Miranda and the chaplain, as the least important, were almost below the salt. The small party took up a fraction of the table's length.

Miranda momentarily forgot her mortification in her awed astonishment at the size and grandeur of the chamber. Her place setting bore a silver platter, a silver knife, spoon, and a three-pronged fork. This was not an implement she had used before and she glanced covertly around the table.

Instead of using bread as trenchers, her companions were placing food from the communal pots onto their silver platters. Well, that was easy enough. When the tureen of turtle stew came to her, she took a ladleful and fished around for some of the succulent turtle meat. The liquid sloshed on her plate, which seemed rather flat for soup. However, no one else appeared to find it unusual.

"May I pass you the bread, Lady Maude?" Her neighbor held a wooden breadboard.

"My thanks, sir." Miranda took a piece of soft white bread and hastily sopped up some of the liquid on her plate before it could slurp over the edge. She looked around again. There were no warning glares or horrified glances in her direction although no one else seemed to be doing the same thing.

Her companion picked up his spoon and attacked his soup. Miranda followed suit.

Gareth watched Miranda closely. That had been a telling slip. What other such errors was she likely to make?

"How well your cousin looks, my lord," Mary said to Gareth. She gave a little laugh. "But I confess it shocks me to hear her so familiar with you. But then perhaps I spend so much time at court in the queen's company that I've grown rather old-fashioned in my ways."

"I doubt that." Gareth took up his wine goblet. "But you forget perhaps that I have known Maude since she was two years old."

"But to hear her call you Gareth in public!" Lady Mary fanned herself vigorously. "I would consider it inappropriate in private, I must confess, but in public…" She shook her head, tutting. "Forgive me for speaking my mind, sir, but perhaps I might be forgiven for anticipating the moment when such confidences will be commonplace between us." She smiled and lightly brushed his hand.

Gareth's answering smile was a mere flicker of his lips. His eyes remained cool and distant.

"Why, even I wouldn't make free with your name," Lady Mary continued.

"No, I'm certain you wouldn't, madam," Gareth replied. "It's inconceivable to imagine that you might let your feelings run away with you."

"But of course not." She patted his hand again. "You may rest assured, my dear lord, that you will have nothing to be ashamed of in your wife."

Her slightly protuberant eyes were fixed upon him with speaking intensity. His betrothed knew all too well what shoes she was stepping into but flames would consume her before she was indelicate enough to speak openly of that dreadful history.

"I don't doubt it, madam," Gareth said with another bland smile, looking away from that unnerving stare, his gaze returning to Miranda. She was tense, he could tell, her eyes darting around the table, observing, taking note. Her complexion was paler than usual, her mouth rather taut, and although she didn't look in his direction he knew that the blue of her eyes would be deeper than ever with the power of her concentration.

Mary glanced sideways at him. He was smiling to himself, and unobservant though she was, Mary could see how soft his mouth had become. She followed Gareth's gaze down the table. He was looking at his ward and there was a most peculiar glow in his eyes. She was certain she had never seen anything like it before. Indeed, he had frequently been quite open about his irritations with Maude. But something had changed. Was it simply that the girl had submitted?

Mary stared fixedly at Maude. There was something different about her. It was indefinable, yet it was there. Perhaps it was just that she was livelier. She had never been lively before, lying around in a miasma of medicinal preparations and a cocoon of shawls. But now there was something akin to a sparkle in her eyes, although she was still pale, but even her pallor had an underlying color to it, it wasn't the gray and lifeless pallor of an invalid.

"So, my dear Lady Maude, have you been studying the fives of the saints again?" The chaplain's smile was jocular.

"I find my interest in martyrs has diminished, sir." Miranda regarded the baron of beef that was being carved at their end of the table, praying that that didn't mean it would come to her first.

"Good heavens!" the chaplain exclaimed in mock astonishment. "Can it be that your fascination with the rites of our Catholic brethren grows less?"

Miranda didn't immediately reply. She watched from beneath her lashes as the salver of beef was carried to the head of the table and presented to Lord Harcourt. The earl forked meat onto his platter.

"Come, come, my dear Lady Maude," the chaplain persisted in the same jocularly teasing tone. "It's nothing to be ashamed of. Reflection can lead one back to the true paths. And one has no need for public confession to receive redemption."

Maude had said the chaplain was tedious and she clearly knew what she was talking about, Miranda decided. Carefully, she forked meat onto her own platter and surveyed the compote of mushrooms presented by a servant at her elbow. There didn't appear to be a serving spoon. Should she use her own spoon and thus risk contaminating the contents for her fellow diners? The mushrooms were sliced too small for fishing with a fork. Should she dip her bread in as she was accustomed to doing?

The mushrooms smelled delicious but Miranda decided they were a trap for the unwary. With a regretful smile, she waved the bowl away. It was presented to the chaplain, who without hesitation used his own spoon to help himself.

Miranda took a sip of wine, only half listening as the chaplain continued on his merry prattling way, obviously convinced that he was being both benignly amusing and extremely tolerant.

"Indeed, sir," she said, interrupting what had become a sermon on the miseries of convent life, "I do assure you I have seen the error of my ways." Her voice sounded very loud and without the slightest rasp of hoarseness. Eyes turned toward her and the chaplain looked both astounded and offended.

"My dear cousin, the error of what ways?" Gareth inquired with a lifted eyebrow. "I find it hard to believe one so young and sheltered should find herself with too much to confess." The remark produced chuckles and Miranda felt her cheeks warm slightly. He was making game of her, and she knew it was designed to distract attention from her impatient dismissal of her neighbor.

She cleared her throat, lowered her eyes, said with becoming hesitancy, "I had once a desire for the religious life, but as I was trying to explain to the chaplain, I no longer have those leanings." She speared a piece of beef with the point of her knife and was about to put it in her mouth when she remembered the fork.

Her cheeks grew hotter. She placed the knife on her platter and drank from her wine goblet, before surreptitiously transferring the meat from knife to fork.

“The religious life, indeed!" boomed the unpleasant Lord Beringer. "What girl would go for that when she has a husband in the offing? And such a husband. That's a devilish fine bracelet you're wearing, Lady Maude."

"A gift from Roissy," Imogen reminded him. "An earnest of his intent to court my cousin."

Miranda felt all eyes on the bracelet as her arm rested on the table. They were all assessing its worth. All but the chaplain, who was clearly still offended and offered little in the way of conversation for the remainder of the meal. Miranda was able to sit in silence, keeping her eyes on her plate while the conversation hummed around her. It seemed safest to refuse all unfamiliar dishes and her generally healthy appetite was barely satisfied when the interminable dinner drew to a close.

"Let us return to the parlor." Imogen rose from the bench." The musicians shall play for us there. My lord brother, will you accompany us, or will you and the gentlemen stay over your wine?"

Gareth caught Miranda's glance of anguished appeal and said, "We'll join you, madam. I'm loath to be parted so quickly from my betrothed."

Gareth picked up the brandy decanter. "Come, gentle-men, we shall drink as well in the parlor as here."

Lord Beringer brightened somewhat and hefted two flagons of fine canary, as he tottered after his host, his wobbling thighs rubbing together like pink blancmange.

The chaplain didn't accompany them to the parlor and his bow to Miranda was distant, but she didn't think Maude would mind particularly if her future relations with the man of God were a little cool.

Miranda's head was aching, whether from too much wine or strain she didn't know. She sat on the window seat, away from the group of women who gathered together on one side of the empty grate, while the men congregated beside the sideboard, where the bottles were placed. The musicians plucked their strings plaintively.

"Are you fatigued, my ward?"

At Gareth's question, Miranda jerked herself out of her rather miserable reverie. "A little, sir."

He laid a hand on her brow, saying solemnly, "Perhaps you have a touch of fever again. I do believe you're a little warm. Imogen, I believe Maude should retire to her chamber. We don't want her to try her strength before Roissy arrives to do his courting."

"No, indeed not, brother," Imogen replied with a credible appearance of concern. "Maude, my dear, I should ask your maid to prepare you a tisane. It will help you sleep. Or perhaps you would prefer a sack posset."

"You're very kind, madam," Miranda managed as she rose with alacrity at the prospect of escape. "I give you good night, my lord Harcourt," she said formally, before curtsying to the room at large. She hastened to the green bedchamber, where Chip was waiting for her, clutching her orange dress and chattering distressfully. He leaped into her arms, flinging his own scrawny ones around her neck.

Miranda cradled him. "Oh, Chip, what a dreadful evening. I don't think I can endure to do this. I didn't realize how difficult and how horrible it would be." She held him tightly for a minute, then wandered over to the window. The garden below was in darkness, except for a gravel pathway that wound from the house to the river wall. Torches flared from posts set at intervals along the path, and as she leaned out, Miranda could hear the sounds of the river traffic, voices carrying on the night breeze. She could see bow lamps flickering from the wherries crisscrossing the river highway and hear the plash of oars and the rhythmic calls of the bargemen.

"How was it?"

Miranda turned from the window. "I thought perhaps you'd be asleep."

"I don't sleep much," Maude said, closing the door behind her. "Do you like this chamber? I've always thought it very gloomy."

"It is," Miranda agreed. Chip jumped onto her head and perched there, regarding Maude with customary alert intelligence.

"So, how was the evening?" Maude shivered into her shawls, curling into a carved wooden armchair. "The night air is very bad for you."

"I've slept outside in a thunderstorm," Miranda said, but she drew the shutters partly closed out of courtesy to her visitor. "And to answer your question, the evening was detestable."

“Told you it would be." Maude sounded remarkably cheerful about it to Miranda.

"So you did, I was forgetting." It occurred to Miranda that she sounded as dry as Lord Harcourt. "You were certainly right about the chaplain, and Lady Mary is… is so stately and proper." She shook her head and perched on the broad windowsill, enjoying the slight riff of the breeze coming through the small aperture, the river smells, the faint sounds of the world outside this dark, confining chamber.

"Why would milord wish to marry her?"

It was Maude's turn to shake her head. "He has to marry someone. He has to have an heir, and his first wife didn't give him one."

"What happened to her?"

"An accident. No one talks of it. I never knew her because I was living with Lord and Lady Dufort in the country when it happened. After she died, we all moved here."

"Oh." Miranda frowned. "But why would he pick Lady Mary as his second wife? I admit she's quite well-looking, and has an elegant figure, but there's something so… so forbidding about her. There must be hundreds of women who'd give their right arms to wed Lord Harcourt. He's so charming, and amusing, and… and… well-favored," she added, aware that she was blushing.

"Do you think so, indeed?" Maude looked doubtful. "You don't find him rather cold and unapproachable?"

"No, not in the least."

"You don't think his eyes are very sardonic and intimidating?"

Miranda was about to deny this, then she said slowly, "Sometimes, they are. But mostly they seem to be laughing. He seems to find a lot of things very amusing."

"That's interesting," said Maude. "I've never thought he had a vestige of humor, which is why I always assumed Lady Mary was the ideal partner for him. I'm sure he has friends, but they never come here."

She rose from the chair with a yawn. "I'd better go back before Berthe comes looking for me."

She drifted toward the door, shawls dangling, then paused with her hand on the hasp, struck for the first time in her life by a sense of hospitable responsibility. "I don't suppose Lady Imogen's assigned you a maid. Is there anything you'd like Berthe to get for you? Hot milk, a hot brick for the bed, or something else?"

"No, thank you." Miranda was touched by the offer.

"Will you be able to undress yourself?"

At that Miranda grinned. "I believe so."

"I suppose if you're accustomed to sleeping out in the rain and lighting fires, there's very little you couldn't do for yourself," Maude observed. "Well, I give you good night." She wafted from the room, leaving the door just slightly ajar.

Miranda went to close it. She stood with her back against it, frowning into the middle distance. There was something so barren, so purposeless about Maude's existence, and it began to seem as if she too were getting sucked into this cavernous void. The outside

world, the world she knew, where the aroma of freshly baked bread mingled with the reek of sewage, the world where shouts of joy competed with wails of loss and pain, a world of blows and caresses, of hatred and love, of friends and enemies, seemed to have receded, leaving her beached on a hard, featureless shore.

She began to unlace her bodice, shrugging out of the unfamiliar garments, stripping off the confining farthingale. It went against the grain to leave such finery in a heap on the floor, and yet she did so with a defiance directed only at her own conscience molded from years of thrift. Clad only in the chemise and stockings, she went back to the window, flinging wide the shutters, breathing deeply of the fresh air, the promise of freedom.

How could she survive in this place, for as long as it took before milord decided she had earned her fee? She couldn't breathe.

She didn't know how long she'd been sitting lost in miserable reverie when she heard gravel scrunching beneath the window. Lord Harcourt moved out of the shadows into the light of one of the torches. He wore a dark cloak, but his head was bare, and once again Miranda recognized the hardness of his profile, the curl of his lip. The face that Maude knew but that Miranda had seen only rarely.

She ducked back into the chamber. She didn't stop to think, but pulled on her old orange dress, and ran back to the window. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a pile of soft blue wool. Maude had dropped one of her innumerable shawls. Miranda picked it up and flung it around her shoulders, drawing it up over her head.

The earl was a dark figure now, almost at the water gate at the bottom of the garden. Miranda threw one leg over the sill, feeling for the thick ivy with her bare foot. She curled her toes around the thick fibers, and swung herself over the sill. Hand over hand, she climbed down the ivy as surefooted as if she were on the balance beam.

Chip, chattering gleefully, raced ahead of her, reaching the ground several minutes ahead. She jumped down beside him. There was no sign of Lord Harcourt in the garden. Miranda ran across the grass to the water gate, Chip leaping ahead of her. The gate was closed but unlocked. She could hear the earl's voice exchanging pleasantries with the gatekeeper on the other side.

“‘Ave a good evenin', m'lord."

"Don't expect me back before dawn, Carl." Lord Harcourt was moving away from the gate. "Good even, Simon. Blackfriars, if you please."

"Aye, m'lord."

Miranda eased through the gap in the gate. The keeper was standing foursquare on the bank, a pipe of tobacco in his hand. Lord Harcourt was entering a barge from a short flight of stone steps. An oil-filled cresset swung from the stern of the barge. The gatekeeper untied the painter that held the barge to the steps. The four oarsmen took up their oars.

Chip leaped into the waist of the vessel a minute before Miranda jumped from the bank onto the stern, ducking beneath the cresset.