The Emerald Swan

Chapter Fifteen

Miranda saw Robbie the next morning. She was walking in the long gallery, alone with her thoughts, which were as confused as they had ever been. Confused and yet infused with excitement, with a sense of physical wonder that filled every cell and pore of her body. She longed to see Gareth, and yet deliberately kept herself out of his way. She didn't know whether that was because she was afraid, or because she wanted to treasure this glorious feeling alone for as long as possible. It was a feeling centered not just on the wonders of their love-making but on the deep certainty of her love. She knew what it was to love her family, but this feeling was very different. There was no obligation, no rationality, it was a fact, a huge golden ball of conviction that both filled her and encompassed her. And she knew her life would never be the same again.

So now she walked alone, while Chip watched her from the mantelpiece, his entire demeanor expressing his unease and disapproval. Miranda hadn't even visited Maude that morning. She cherished this newborn emotion, sensing that once it was exposed to the outside world, it would be altered in some way, and for as long as she could keep it pristine and secret she would.

It was warm and muggy in the gallery. The day was still overcast but close and thundery. Miranda dabbed at a bead of sweat gathering in the cleft of her bosom and went to open one of the long windows overlooking the front courtyard.

And then she saw the small figure standing across the narrow roadway that ran past the Harcourt gates. Her heart jumped with shock. How could it be Robbie? The troupe would be safe in France by now. Then with a wave of delighted surprise, she knew that it was. Even at this distance, the small figure was unmistakable. Her family were not in France, they were here, in London.

She ran from the gallery, lifting her skirts clear of her feet, Chip bounding at her heels.

Imogen emerged from the parlor as Miranda hurried across the hall to the front door. "Where are you going, girl? You can't go out without an attendant."

Miranda barely heard and paid her no attention. She wrestled for a minute with the great double doors, then flung one of them wide and leaped down the steps to the courtyard. She flew across to the gates, demanding of the porter even as she ran, "Open the wicket for me."

The porter stared at Lady Maude. It was Lady Maude, despite the strangely short hair and the oddity of the monkey at her feet. Her voice was imperious and impatient, her eyes snapping. He hastened to open the wicket gate and she slid through before he'd opened it wide. He stared in astonishment as she ran across the roadway, dodging a carter's wagon, narrowly avoiding a porter with a laden basket on his head, then she was lost to view behind a knot of traffic and he didn't see the reunion.

Robbie gazed upward at the magnificent figure that was and was not Miranda. She swept him into her arms, heedless of his grubby hands grabbing the crisp lace partlet at her bosom, or his filthy bare feet curling into the folds of her richly embroidered tangerine damask skirts.

"Robbie… Robbie." She laughed as she kissed him. "Where did you spring from?"

"We come lookin' fer ye," the child said, when he could manage to speak." They said in Dover that you was taken by a lord to Lunnon and we come lookin' fer ye."

"Everyone's here?"

"Aye, we got lodgin's above a cobbler's in Ludgate. Oh, there's Chip." He struggled to get down and when Miranda set him on his feet he embraced the dancing monkey. Chip chattered excitedly, clearly delighted, as he wrapped his scrawny arms around the boy's neck.

"Oh, I must go and see them. There's so much I have to tell you all." Miranda examined Robbie as he whispered to Chip, and some of her elation faded as she absorbed his pinched white face, sunken eyes, the lines of pain and fatigue around his little mouth. "Has no one been looking after you, Robbie?"

"Luke 'as."

Miranda nodded in comprehension. Luke would do his best but it wasn't enough in this instance. "Come," she said, hitching him onto her hip. "We'll go into the house and get you some breakfast."

"In there?" Robbie squeaked, his eyes opening wide. "In that lord's 'ouse? We can't go in there, M'randa."

"I've just come out of it," Miranda said with a laugh. "So I see no reason why we can't go back in it."

"But 'e'll 'ave me taken up and 'anged," Robbie whimpered.

"Who will?"

"Lord 'Arcourt. Jebediah says so." "Oh, pah!" Miranda dismissed Jebediah with an indignant gesture. "What does he know about anything?"

She plunged back into the roadway, expertly dodging and weaving until she gained the safety of the Harcourt gates just behind Chip.

The porter's jaw dropped, but he opened the wicket again and Miranda hurried across the courtyard to the house. Robbie clung tightly to her. "Is it an 'orehouse, M'randa?"

"What?" She tilted her head to get a good look at his face. "Don't be absurd, Robbie."

"Mama Gertrude said it don't look like one," the child said. "But Jebediah-"

"Oh, fiend take Jebediah!" Miranda marched into the hall and ran straight into Imogen, who was still standing in the parlor door, trying to decide what to do about Miranda's sudden disappearance.

"God in His heaven! What have you got there?" She flung up her hands in horror. Robbie began to cry and buried his head in Miranda's neck.

But before Miranda could reply, Gareth came down the stairs. "What in the world-"

"Oh, milord, see who I found. It's Robbie." Miranda hurried across the vast hall to the foot of the stairs. "My family are here. They didn't go to France and leave me behind after all. They came looking for me and they're here, in London." Her eyes shone as she looked up at him, and he Could see that she was thinking of nothing but this new development. And then consciousness flooded her gaze, and she smiled at him, a smile of such devastating candor and joy that it rocked him to his core.

"Gareth, what is going on here?" Imogen demanded. "What's that filthy vagrant doing here? He's ruining the girl's gown."

Miranda ignored this. "I'm going to take him up to see Maude. Is it all right if I have breakfast sent up for him, milord? I haven't been there to look after him and I don't suppose he's had enough to eat."

"Of course." What else was there to say? Miranda raced up the stairs, her speed unchecked by her burden, leaving Gareth struggling with this new complication.

His carefully constructed scheme was already tottering on the verge of collapse; it didn't need another attack on its foundations. He hadn't slept, hadn't even attempted to go to bed, remaining instead in the garden until day was full broken, wrestling with the consequences of what had surely been no more than a fit of madness. He'd fallen into some trap sprung by his overstretched mind, and he had to find a way to mitigate the consequences. It was as simple as that, wasn't it? But his thoughts had circled without cease, nothing clear coming out of his desperate searching for a way out of the ghastly tangle.

His eyes felt full of sand, his limbs aching, his head too thick and muzzy to wrestle further… and now this. Miranda's family had returned to her life just when it was vital that she see herself as a d'Albard, that she become a d'Albard, that she forget as far as possible her previous life and immerse herself in the one that was to be her future. But Gareth knew Miranda well enough to know that she wouldn't forsake her friends now that she'd found them again.

"Gareth!" Imogen's voice took on an edge of desperation. She couldn't read her brother's expression but it filled her with unease. "Gareth, what is going on? Who was that boy she was carrying?"

Gareth shook his head as if to clear it. "Someone from Miranda's past. Leave it to me, Imogen, I'll sort it out." He swung away from his sister and made for the peace of his own privy chamber at the rear of the house. Flinging himself in a chair at the document-strewn table, he rested his aching head in his hands.

He had taken the virginity of the woman destined to become the wife of Henry of France. That need not be a disaster in itself. Henry was too lusty and pragmatic himself to mind overmuch if he discovered the bride in his bed was no virgin. And it would be obvious to her husband that Miranda was still far from experienced. If nothing was said, Henry would say nothing.

As long as there was no child. Gareth thrust that hideous possibility from him. It was not a useful anticipation.

The cold, calculating part of his brain told Gareth that if the simple loss of virginity was the only issue, then the situation was retrievable. But he knew that he had taken more than Miranda's virginity in that wondrous, magical encounter in the garden. He'd taken her soul. He had seen it in the way she'd looked at him before she'd left him last night, and again this morning, just before she'd taken Robbie upstairs. She didn't know how to conceal her emotions, even if she wanted to. And his trespass on her honesty and her innocence was unforgivable.

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, open-mouthed, 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 fitter 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.

And Miranda began to feel that she had never left them. She slipped into the welcoming maw of her family, swallowed up in the babble of their familiar voices, the richness of familiar scents, the aching comfort of familiar faces. Then with a guilty start, she remembered Maude.

"Maude." She fought her way out of the combined embraces and turned back to the door. Maude was looking both forlorn and distressed but she couldn't resist Miranda's apologetic smile, her warm, "I didn't mean to neglect you. Come and meet my family."

"Holy Mother!" Mama Gertrude said, finally taking in both Miranda's clothes and her companion. "It's unnatural, that's what it is. Unnatural."

Maude didn't know what to do or what to say. She felt as if she'd strayed into some totally alien world. She couldn't imagine how all these people could get into this one small space; they all seemed both larger than life and bursting with life.

"So, who are you, child?" Mama Gertrude demanded above the renewed cacophony as the impact of Maude's presence was felt. She stood back, holding Maude by the shoulders, examining her. "Lord love us," she murmured, then turned back to Miranda. "Lord love us, but look at those clothes!" Suddenly she laughed, her massive bosom quivering beneath the loose and rather dingy linen robe she wore over her chemise and petticoat.

"Ah, but it's a heap o' trouble she's caused us, an' I'd like to know what's goin' on 'ere," Bertrand declared.

"Well, I'll tell you as best I can." Miranda perched on the corner of a rickety table and recounted her adventures to a rapt audience. "And when I've completed the task, Lord Harcourt will fee me with fifty rose nobles," she finished.

"That's a fortune, by God!" Jebediah exclaimed, for once without a hint of pessimism. "Yes," Miranda said simply.

"And what else does this Lord 'Arcourt want of ye?" Bertrand demanded.

"Nothing," Miranda said stoutly. What was between herself and Gareth had nothing to do with the task she was performing for him.

"Don't be a fool, girl!" Bertrand suddenly leaned forward and boxed her ears, not hard but with a degree of emphasis. "Don't talk rubbish! You've no experience of the nobility, girl. He'll have his way with you and discard you when he's had enough."

Maude cried out in shock, but Miranda merely rubbed her ear, not in the least surprised or put out by the blow. Bertrand was always one to act first and reflect later. "You're wrong," she said flatly.

"He hit you," Maude said, her voice almost a whisper. "He hit you, Miranda."

"A flea bite," Miranda said cheerfully. "It's Bertrand's way."

"I think I want to go." Maude backed toward the door, regarding the room's occupants as if they were caged lions.

"When are you coming back to us?" Luke asked in a bewildered tone.

"I don't know." Miranda spoke the truth quietly.

"So you don't know 'ow long it'll take fer you to do this job?" Raoul asked, heaving himself away from the wall where he'd been leaning, massive arms akimbo, his bare chest gleaming with perspiration in the close room.

Maude shrank back as the strongman approached. She didn't think she'd ever seen such a giant before.

"No," Miranda said. "But if you stay in London, I'll come and see you often."

"We're 'ard-pressed without you. Takin's are down summat chronic," Bertrand declared. "An' they'll not get better 'angin' around the city. Competition's too strong."

"Aye," Mama Gertrude agreed, "but the girl's got another job to do. An' a right good un, if what she says is truth, an' our Miranda's never one to lie." She took Miranda's face between her large hands. "Finish the job you're doin', child. Earn your fifty rose nobles, then come back to us."

Maude coughed and Miranda said suddenly, "Maude, how would you like to see us earn our bread? In fact, you can help." "Help?"

"Yes, you can play the tambourine while Bertrand's trying to get an audience together. You'll be such a draw, a real lady playing for us! Come on, it's time you saw something of the world outside your bedchamber, and if you're going to spend your days in a nunnery, you might as well have some memories to take with you."

Maude looked around the circle of faces. And suddenly they didn't seem so alien. They took on their own individual characteristics and she saw the person behind the features. They were smiling at her with good-natured acceptance, all except for the old man they called Jebediah, who looked dour and miserable, as if expecting Armageddon at any moment.

"Oh, yes, play the tambourine!" Robbie piped up. "I'll play the castanets. I'm good at that, but they don't make good music alone so someone has to play something else and usually everyone's too busy."

Maude looked at the small face, transformed by excitement and anticipation, and a warmth bloomed in her belly, spreading through her veins. She could help this child, give him pleasure, do something useful. Miranda was watching hex with a strange little smile as if she could read her thoughts, and when Maude said, "Very well, if you wish it," Miranda merely nodded.

"You'd best get outta that gown," Raoul pointed out, flexing his massive biceps. "Can't tumble in that, stands t' reason."

"Yer clothes is all in 'ere." Gertrude rummaged in an osier basket. " Try them boy's garments. Folks like the britches."

Maude giggled when Miranda pirouetted in front of her, clad in a lad's britches and jerkin. "It's shocking, Miranda."

"It draws the men," Miranda said with a shrug. "Once they realize I'm a woman, it has 'em salivating like a rutting stag." She grinned at Maude's expression. "Forget you're a lady for an hour or two, otherwise you won't enjoy it."

And Maude to her astonishment found it very easy to forget. While Bertrand stood on his box and began to harangue the passersby, she played the tambourine, Robbie beside her clicking his castanets. Various members of the troupe offered examples of the entertainment to come and as people slowed, paused, Maude felt a surge of pride at her part in drawing the audience. Chip danced in front of them, mimicking Bertrand with such wicked accuracy that the audience began to laugh, to settle their feet, adjust their postures, with the telltale signs that they were prepared to stay put for a while.

Miranda judged the moment, then began her turn, with Chip adding his mite, tumbling with her. She was constantly criticizing and assessing her performance as she moved, was conscious that she was less than perfect, and aware that if she hadn't religiously practiced in the confines of her bedchamber she would be even less so. But it was so exhilarating to be back doing what she'd done ever since she could remember, feeling the blood racing in her veins, the stretch of her muscles, the supple snap of her body, hearing the heady approval of the crowd.

She walked on her hands among the audience, blatantly tantalizing the eager, laughing men with the lines of her body in the tight-fitting britches and jerkin.

And then a hand grasped her ankle, halting her progress. Her eyes at ground level took in a pair of thigh-length riding boots, the folds of a long riding cloak brushing the boots. But it was the feel of the fingers around her ankle that told her.

"Milord?" she whispered.

"The very same," the earl of Harcourt said, as dry as sere leaves.