The Emerald Swan

Chapter Four

It was two hours later when the earl of Harcourt set down his tankard of rum punch in the taproom and made his way back up the narrow staircase to the chamber above the washhouse. His carrying candle threw his greatly elongated shadow ahead of him on the half-timbered plastered walls. He stepped carefully over the stack of dirty supper dishes neatly piled outside the door. Miranda apparently had some inclination for housekeeping.

He lifted the latch and entered the chamber. It was dimly lit by the moon shining through the small unglazed window. He set down his candle and gazed around, his eyes somewhat unfocused. The landlord's rum punch had been potent and the company in the taproom surprisingly convivial.

He blinked, frowning. The room appeared to be empty. Then his eye fell on the bed and a very small mound beneath the covers on the far side.

He picked up the candle again and approached the bed. The soft yellow light illuminated a slender white arm curved on the pillows, a pale turned shoulder, and two very bright eyes as the monkey, curled in the crook of Miranda's neck, regarded the earl somewhat balefully.

Gareth stood looking down at Miranda and debated. She was naked, but that was only to be expected. No one slept in their clothes. He should have thought about where she was to sleep but it hadn't occurred to him. He glanced around the chamber. Apart from the floor and the narrow window seat, the bed was the only option.

It seemed his intention to have a bed to himself, a privilege for which he'd paid handsomely, was to be thwarted, he thought ruefully. Reaching over, he eased the pillow out from under her head.

Miranda was lost in the depths of a pleasant if ill-defined dream. Feather beds were a rare luxury in her life and the warmth and softness of this one had lulled her to sleep within minutes of clambering into it. But she was a light sleeper and her eyes flew open the minute Gareth leaned over her. Disoriented, she blinked in the yellow light of a candle held close above her, for a moment unable to place the face gazing down at her.

Then she remembered. She flung an arm over her eyes to shield them from the light. "Is something the matter, milord?"

"Only that I hadn't expected to find you in my bed," he replied, shaking out the pillow he'd removed from behind her head.

Miranda sat up, the covers falling to her waist, revealing a pair of small but perfectly formed breasts and an amazingly narrow rib cage." There didn't seem anywhere else and I don't take up much room. Everyone I share a bed with says I sleep very still. I won't disturb you."

Gareth was not so sure about that. Naked women in his bed were inclined to disturb him.

"I'm sure you're a very considerate bed partner," he said, leaning over and thrusting the pillow beneath the quilt down the middle of the bed. "However, since I may be a somewhat less tidy sleeper than you, we'll create a little separation."

"Let me help." Miranda threw off the bedcovers, slid to her feet, and busily set about positioning the pillow, fluffing up the bolster, and straightening the sheet.

Gareth stepped away from the bed, aware that his heart was thudding. She was perfectly formed. A perfect miniature of a woman with dainty breasts, a tiny waist, and the merest hint of a curve to her hips. She carried not an ounce of spare flesh, but the muscles moved smoothly beneath the taut skin, reminding him of some superbly and purposefully constructed machine. She turned her narrow feet out like a dancer, and her belly was so flat it seemed to cleave to her backbone.

If asked for his ideal of womanhood Gareth would have produced a description of Charlotte: tall, deep-bosomed, well-hipped. A lush, sensual creature with rippling golden hair and a full red mouth and eyes that drew a man down and down into the seductive maelstrom of her passion. A woman who knew her power and her beauty and knew exactly how to use them.

But Miranda's sublime indifference to her nakedness, her blithe ignorance of the effect it was having upon him, was mote alluring than all of Charlotte's knowing wiles.

One too many rum punches, he told himself, turning away from the bed. His voice had a slight catch to it as he said, "That'll do fine. Get back under the covers before you catch cold."

Miranda obeyed with alacrity. It was true that the night air coming through the unshuttered window was quite chilly on her bed-warmed flesh. She drew the covers up to her chin and asked companionably, "Did you have a pleasant evening, milord?"

Gareth's murmured response didn't encourage further friendly discussion.

The moon was for the moment obscured by cloud and Gareth hastily blew out the candle, plunging the chamber into darkness. Taking advantage of the gloom in which his body would be visible as only a pale shape, he threw off his clothes, leaving them on the floor where they fell, and climbed into bed. The mattress sank under his weight and Miranda's slight body rolled against the separating pillow. Gareth could feel the warmth of her body beneath the covers, although they weren't touching, and he could smell her skin and hair, a faintly earthy yet curiously innocent scent in the air around him.

Miranda rolled onto her side, tucked up against the pillow. "I give you good night, milord."

"Good night, Miranda." But it was long before Gareth finally slipped into slumber.

When he woke, daylight was pouring through the unshuttered window and there was no sign of either Miranda or the monkey. He stretched, yawned, flung aside the covers, and stood up, surprised at how clearheaded and remarkably well he felt, given his rather short and not entirely dreamless night. His eye fell on Miranda's orange dress lying on the window seat and his well-being suffered a small dent. If she wasn't in the room, and she patently wasn't, then where in the devil's name had she gone in a state of undress?

Applause, whistles, and catcalls drifted through the open window from the inn's courtyard beneath. He went to the window, looked out, looked sideways, then stared, his heart in his mouth. Miranda was on the point of the steeply pitched, black-leaded, red-tiled roof to his right. She was barefoot, clad only in the leather leggings and her chemise, and she was performing an acrobatic routine for the enjoyment of the inn's staff many feet below.

She was standing on her hands, or rather on one hand, he amended sickly; the other hand was waving to the audience. Chip was standing on the sole of her upturned foot, raising his hat in a similar salute.

Gareth bit back a yell of fury, terrified of disturbing that precarious balance. He held his breath as she back-flipped on the razor-thin edge of the roof pitch, sending Chip soaring through the air in a tumbling somersault. Miraculously they both landed on their feet, but his mind wouldn't lose the image of her body tumbling over and over through the air, legs and arms flailing as if they could halt her fall, until she landed on the cobbles beneath, sprawled and limp as a rag doll, a pool of blood spreading from beneath her head and the strange sharp angle of her neck.

Charlotte. No, that was Charlotte. He could still hear her scream as she tumbled backward from the window, to land at his feet. He could still feel the warmth of her skin beneath his hands as he touched her fallen body.

Gareth shook his head to banish the ghosts. He looked down at his Bands, slim, white, strong. They had confirmed her death, closed her eyes on that hideous afternoon. Each movement so cold, so deliberate…

He let his hands fall to his sides. It was not Charlotte he had to worry about, not now, not ever again. He leaned out of the window as far as he could.

"Miranda." He kept his voice low and even as if he were hailing her calmly on the street.

"I give you good morrow, milord," she called merrily, turning her body into a taut triangle, one hand clasping one ankle, the other hand and ankle raised way above her head.

"Come in," he said, still quietly, his heart throbbing thickly in his throat. She merely laughed and his fear gave way to a surge of black rage. "Come in this instant!"

Miranda heard his tone but at first didn't recognize it for what it was. It didn't occur to her that he could be frightened for her. She had been performing such antics ever since she could remember and no one in the troupe would ever have considered them dangerous. The occasional sprain was a routine hazard, but that she might be endangering her life didn't occur to her. So she ignored the earl's instruction and continued her performance, which was as much for her own amusement as it was for the audience in the court below.

Gareth withdrew from the window when he finally realized that she wasn't going to take any notice of him and he could bear to watch no longer. Furiously, he snatched clean linen from his portmanteau and began to dress swiftly, only the roars of approval from the crowd reassuring him that Miranda was continuing to perform without mishap. And paradoxically with each reassuring burst of applause, his anger grew.

He was buttoning his shirtsleeves when the applause ceased and Miranda jumped exuberantly through the window, landing on the floor on the far side of the window seat with a neat scissor kick of her leather-clad legs.

"Just what in Lucifer's name were you doing?" His voice was ominously quiet.

"Practicing," she informed him cheerfully. "I have to practice every day and the roof was a perfect place."

She dropped her palms flat on the floor as she continued her chatter, stretching out her calf muscles.

"Chip needed to go out… he's very well house-broken, you should know… and since I wasn't sure what kind of reception we'd receive if we went downstairs, the roof seemed the only alternative. And while we were out there, it seemed sensible to kill two birds with one stone and get some practice in."

Gareth closed his eyes briefly. Miranda straightened and looked at his set face, the taut line of his mouth. "You're vexed," she said in astonishment.

The astonishment was the last straw. "Of course I am! What do you expect when I wake up to discover you breaking your neck out of sheer reckless exhibitionism? Or were you intending to send that monkey round with the hat?"

Miranda looked as confused as she felt. "No… I explained… I was just practicing. I have to practice every day. If people want to watch then I don't mind."

He massaged the back of his neck, regarding her in frustration. "Didn't it occur to you that you could have broken your neck?"

Miranda looked even more bewildered. "You were afraid I might slip… and fall?"

"Goddamn it! Of course I was!" he exclaimed.

"But it's not possible for me to make such a mistake."

Gareth stared at her, incredulous. She believed it. The conviction shone unshakable in her eyes, was carried in the firm line of her jaw. She believed that out there on that roof she had been utterly safe. And then he understood that the slightest hesitation, the faintest flicker of a doubt in her own ability, would be fatal. Of course she had to believe in her invulnerability, to perform as she did.

He exhaled slowly. In a different tone, he said, "Would you pass me my boots? And you'd better finish getting dressed."

Miranda passed him his leather boots, her fingers unconsciously caressing the butter-soft cordovan leather. She had never touched anything quite so luxurious. She handed the boots to him and offered a tentative smile, aware of an odd feeling. He had been afraid for her.

Miranda didn't think anyone had ever been afraid for her before and she didn't know quite what to make of it, or of the strange warmth it brought her.

Her smile was utterly irresistible, Gareth recognized with a wry resignation. The bodice of her chemise was only partially laced and the creamy curves of her breasts, the dark rose of their crowns, peeked between the thin ribbons. The garment was tucked roughly into the waistband of her leather leggings, producing a roll of material around her hips that he found peculiarly endearing.

Without volition, he pulled the chemise free of the leggings and smoothed it down over her hips, then tied the ribbons of her bodice more securely. "You are an untidy wretch," he muttered. "It's not enough for you to risk breaking your neck for the edification of a pack of stable lads, but you have to do it half-naked."

"I beg your pardon," Miranda said meekly, looking down at his fingers deftly threading the laces into the eyelets on her bodice.

She dropped her orange dress over her head. It was more of a shift than a gown, with a laced bodice through which the white holland of her undergarment as visible, and short sleeves that finished above her elbows, revealing the sleeves of her chemise. She noticed that those sleeves were grubby and cast a discomfited look at milord's pristine linen.

"If I'm to pretend to be this Lady Maude, I'll need another gown," she suggested.

"At least one," he agreed, pulling on his boots, turning the high cuffs over below his knees. "But there'll be time enough to see to your wardrobe while your hair's growing."

Miranda ran her hands through the short straight bob, fluffing it out around her face. "Long hair is a nuisance when I'm tumbling."

"Yes, but you will not be tumbling while you're taking my cousin's place in the world," he pointed out.

"I suppose not." Miranda pushed her feet into her wooden pattens. "I don't suppose your cousin has any acrobatic tendencies." She went to the door. "Shall I ask them to send up hot water for you?"

"If you please." Gareth was still trying to imagine Maude with acrobatic tendencies but the image was too absurd. "And perhaps you'd tell them in the kitchen to send a message to the livery stable to have the nag saddled and ready to leave within the hour."

"Are we to ride to London?"

"Yes." He caught her doubtful look and said, "Can you not ride?"

"Packhorses and mules. But London is a very long way, is it not? Too far to ride on a mule."

"You may ride pillion. Tell them to use a pillion saddle on the nag."

Miranda went cheerfully on her way, Chip leaping ahead of her down the narrow staircase. At the foot, however, he jumped into her arms when she whistled for him. She was greeted in the kitchen with great good humor after her rooftop performance, and having relayed milord's instructions she went off in the direction of the privy.

She had the noisome outhouse to herself, which augured well for the day. It wasn't that she objected very strongly to sitting hip to hip with her fellows, but privacy was a definite pleasure. An almost unheard-of pleasure in the rough-and-tumble of life on the road.

Her family would be nearing the coast of France by now, if the wind and weather had been set fair for the crossing. Would they be wondering about her, about what she was doing, how she was faring? Of course they would. Mama Gertrude, Bertrand, and Luke in particular. And Robbie would be miserable without her. Luke would make sure he had food when they all ate, but he wouldn't be watching for when the boy grew fatigued as he stumbled along in the troupe's wake. Robbie would never admit his tiredness and ask to ride on the hand-pulled cart that carried most of their possessions; it was always Miranda who lifted him up, ignoring his protests.

Chip had been sitting on the roof of the shed waiting for her and jumped down onto her shoulder as she emerged from the privy. Her customary bubbling optimism was somewhat subdued, and she was feeling rather lonely and forlorn as she returned to the kitchen yard. How could she be certain she could do what Lord Harcourt wanted? What kind of life did he lead in London? What kind of people would she meet? Like none she had known hitherto, of that much she was certain. And the familiar faces and voices, the familiar way of life, hard though it was, suddenly seemed very precious, with a value she had not properly appreciated.

She paused at the rainwater butt and splashed water on her face, smoothing down her hair with wet fingers. She tried to sponge the grubby marks from her sleeve but without much effect. Milord Harcourt would be freshly shaven, his linen fresh and clean, at the breakfast table, while she looked as disreputable as any street urchin.

She was scrubbing with renewed vigor when Gareth stepped into the kitchen yard. He watched her as she combed through her hair with her fingers, wiped her wet face on her skirt, and disconsolately examined her sleeves.

She looked up from her ablutions and saw him in the kitchen doorway. "I beg your pardon, milord, have I kept you waiting?" She hurried over to him, confiding ruefully, "I was trying to tidy myself, but I don't seem to have had much success."

"No," he agreed, scrutinizing her with the glinting smile that always reassured her. "But then you were hardly starting from a promising point. Come, let us break our fast." He put a hand on her shoulder, urging her ahead of him through the kitchen and into the taproom, deserted save for a serving wench laying dishes on the long scrubbed central table.

Miranda licked her lips at the spread of coddled eggs, sirloin, manchet bread, and a pig's head. She slid onto the long bench, her mood of loneliness and apprehension lifting. "I'm ravenous."

"I'm not surprised after your dawn exercise." Gareth took up the carving knife. "Brawn? Or sirloin?"

"Both, if it wouldn't be greedy." She pushed her bread trencher toward him so he could lay the slices on it, then dipped her spoon into the dish of eggs.

The serving wench put tankards of ale beside them, curtsied, and hurried to the inglenook to rake through the previous night's embers.

Miranda ate in appreciative silence for a few minutes then said, "Where's Chip? He's disappeared."

"God's in His heaven after all," Gareth murmured. "I was wondering why my breakfast was so peaceful."

Miranda swung her legs over the bench and went to the window that looked out onto the street. A lad with a tray of pies passed by, shouting his wares, followed by a man pushing a handcart laden with onions and cabbages. An elderly woman was sweeping rubbish out of her house and into the kennel in the middle of the lane. She retreated hastily at the alerting cry of "Gardyloo," just managing to escape the contents of a chamber pot hurled from a window above.

A perfectly ordinary early-morning street scene, but there was no sign of Chip.

Miranda returned to the table, but her appetite had gone. "I'll just go and see if he's still in the kitchen yard."

Gareth nodded amiably and took up his tankard again.

A piercing scream brought him to his feet, knocking his tankard over, dropping his knife to the table. He was halfway to the door to the kitchen before he realized that the scream was not human, and he was through the door before the animal shrieks were joined by Miranda's no longer melodious tones. She was yelling, wordlessly, but at such an extreme pitch of rage and pain that the sound went through his head like a knife.

He raced through the kitchen, pushing through the circle of gawping kitchen folk crowding the door. In the yard, he stopped. Chip was screaming in high-pitched terror, a burning brand tied to his tail. He was running round and round in panicked circles as Miranda tried to capture him amid a group of laughing louts pelting both the petrified animal and the girl with stones and lumps of horse dung.

"Miranda, you won't catch him if you don't stop screaming!" Gareth ran forward, catching her shoulders. "Speak to him calmly."

"But he's on fire," she cried, tears pouring down her cheeks, her face white, her lips even whiter.

Gareth swung sideways, picked up the bucket by the pump, and hurled the contents over the screaming monkey. Then in almost the same movement he turned on the convulsed louts. He had his sword in one hand and with his other he was unbuckling his belt before anyone understood what was happening. Then he was in the middle of the group of ruffians, the flat of his sword swinging in one arc, his thick studded belt in another, and now the lads were screaming to rival the monkey, racing to escape this devil of vengeance and the agonizing cuts of steel and leather.

They were gone in a squealing, earsplitting scramble like so many stuck pigs and Gareth's arms slowly ceased their windmill action. He rebuckled his sword belt, sheathed his weapon, and came over to Miranda, who, calmer now, had managed to catch the sodden Chip and removed the brand from his tail. She was cradling him in her arms as she examined his singed fur.

She raised her tear-stained face to Gareth and her eyes were brightly vengeful as she said with ringing triumph, "Oh, you really thrashed them! But I wish they hadn't escaped so soon."

Gareth, who could guess how much damage he'd inflicted in a rage more violent than any he'd experienced in many a long year, thought they had probably escaped in the nick of time. But he said only, "How is he?"

"Just a little charred fur. He's more terrified than anything. How could they do such a thing?" Her eyes filled with tears again. "I'm sorry I was stupid. I should have thought to throw the water… but I couldn't think clearly."

"No, that's hardly surprising," he said, reaching to brush a lock of hair, sticky with tears, from her cheek. "Bring him inside now."

The monkey pushed his head out of the sheltering curve of Miranda's arm and surveyed his rescuer with glittering eyes that Gareth would have sworn had tears in them. The monkey chattered softly, lifting one small scrawny hand toward the earl.

"He's saying thank you," Miranda interpreted and Gareth, for all his skepticism, was inclined to believe her. "He'll always trust you. He'll be your friend forever now," she said.

"How lucky can I get?" Gareth murmured and was rewarded with a watery smile before she returned to soothing the still-quivering Chip. Her head was bent, her glowing hair parting on her nape to swing behind her ears. Gareth, in a manner rapidly becoming familiar, put a hand on her shoulder to urge her inside. Then he stood immobile, staring down at the pale slender column of her exposed neck. His hand moved from her upper arm to her neck, his fingers tracing the tiny silvery crescent mark tucked up against her hairline.

"How did you get this?"

"Get what?" She raised her head against the warm clasp of his fingers, twisting to look at him over her shoulder.

"This little crescent mark. It's a scar of some kind." He moved her head around again, bending her neck so he could look more closely. The blood was suddenly racing in his veins.

Miranda reached behind her neck, trying to feel what he was talking about. "I don't know what it is. I've never seen it… not having eyes in the back of my head," she added with a tiny laugh that did nothing to disguise her sudden unease. She could feel his tension in the fingers on her neck and she began to have the unpleasant sensation that, all unknowing, she had been carrying some deforming stigma around with her all her life.

"You don't recall ever cutting your neck, falling perhaps?"

"No." She shook her head. "Whatever it is must be a part of my skin. Is it very nasty-looking?" She tried to sound indifferent, casual, but there was a residual quiver to her voice.

"Not in the least," he said swiftly. "It's very tiny and hidden by your hair most of the time." He took his hand away and she raised her head, her hair swinging back over her neck. "Come, let's be on our way."

But he paused in the yard as she went ahead of him back to the inn. It was extraordinary. He knew now with absolute certainty that the itinerant acrobat was very much more than Maude's look-alike.