The Emerald Swan (37 page)

“See what I have.” Miranda bounced into the room, breaking a train of thought that wasn’t going anywhere anyway. Maude glanced idly at the tray Miranda hefted aloft on the palm of her hand.

“There’s venison pasty, larks’ tongues in aspic, and a mushroom compote. Oh, and I took the liberty of borrowing a bottle of milord’s canary wine from the butler’s pantry.”

Miranda set her booty on the table, expertly drew the cork on the bottle, and filled two pewter cups. “I couldn’t find the Venetian crystal, so I hope you don’t mind lowly pewter, madam.”

Maude laughed. Miranda’s high spirits were so infectious it wasn’t possible to brood for long in her company. Indeed, Maude had almost forgotten what it
was to be melancholy. In fact, on occasion, she even forgot what it was to be pious. She confessed these lapses to Father Damián, of course, but he didn’t seem to regard them as any great matter and handed down paltry penance.

It was the sound of their laughter that, half an hour later, brought Henry of France to a halt in the passage outside. “That sounds like the Lady Maude.”

“I daresay it is,” Gareth said truthfully. He could distinguish Maude’s laughter from Miranda’s and she certainly seemed to be as merry as her twin.

“She seems to be amusing herself. I had not thought she would be so late abed. Does she have a female companion?”

“Yes, a distant relative my sister brought into the household to provide companionship for Maude and to share her education,” Gareth said carelessly. “Your chamber is this way, sir.” He gestured that they should continue down the corridor. Henry, with an accepting shrug, followed his host.

Behind him, the door to Maude’s chamber opened a fraction and a pair of bright blue eyes peeped around. Feeling something at his back, Henry turned. The eyes met his and then abruptly were withdrawn and the door closed rather less quietly than it had opened.

“I believe he saw me.” Maude leaned against the closed door, her hand at her throat. “He turned around just as I was looking.”

“Well, did you like what you saw?” Miranda mumbled through a mouthful of venison pasty.

“I didn’t have long enough to judge,” Maude replied. “Anyway, I’m not really interested one way or the other.”

“No, of course not,” Miranda agreed equably. “I’m
sure you had some other perfectly good reason for wanting to spy on him.”

Miranda left the house at dawn, to walk into the city, Robbie’s new clothes tucked into a bundle beneath her arm. Chip, expressing his approval at being out and about in the wide world on such a fresh, sunny morning, danced ahead of her, tipping his hat to their fellow travelers, maintaining a nonstop cheerful chatter.

Miranda was wearing her old orange dress, a shawl tied over her head, wooden pattens on her feet. She was once more a gypsy vagabond and mingled with the crowd of folk going into London for the day’s business without drawing so much as a sidelong glance.

She had slept badly and it hadn’t taken much insight to know the reason. For a very long time, she’d lain awake hoping for, expecting, the sound of the door latch lifting. But nothing had disturbed her night. The earl had remained in his own chamber and she had tossed and turned at the mercy of unresolved longings that left her body taut and stretched like a violin string, waiting for someone to wield the bow.

She told herself that with the duke sleeping under the same roof, Gareth would have to be particularly careful. But she also knew that she could have crept undetected into his chamber and out again if she’d had the faintest hint of an invitation. But they’d had no contact since he’d turned and walked away from her so abruptly when she’d emerged from the arras with the duke.

She turned into the street where the troupe had their lodgings. Chip bounced up to the cobbler’s shop
ahead of her. He hadn’t needed to be told where they were going.

“Good morning.” Miranda greeted the cobbler, who was unbarring the shutters.

He yawned and looked at her sleepily and with some suspicion, but quite without recognition.

“I have business with your lodgers,” Miranda explained, moving past him into the interior of the shop.

“They’ve up an’ left,” the man said, following her in. He picked at his teeth with a grimy fingernail, trying to dislodge a stringy strand of bacon from between his front teeth.

“But they can’t have.” It was so absurd, Miranda laughed. She made for the stairs.

“Eh, I tell yer, they ain’t there no more.”

And Miranda now knew it. The silence from the chamber at the head of the stairs was deafening. Her heart beating fast, she raced upward, lifted the latch, and flung open the door. The small chamber was deserted, the window still shuttered. Chip leaped in and then jumped into her arms with a distressful chattering, covering his face with his hands and peering through his fingers at the empty space.

“They can’t have gone,” Miranda whispered, still unable to believe the evidence of her eyes. She opened the shutters, flooding the room with sunlight. Something caught her eye in the corner and she picked it up. It was a scratched wooden top that Robbie played with. Jebediah had fashioned it for him in an unusually mellow mood.

Tears started in her eyes. Tears of betrayal, of disbelief, of loss. She turned to the cobbler, who had followed her up and was now standing in the door.

“Why did they go?”

“ ’Ow should I know?” He shrugged. “Paid up and left yesterday mornin’.”

“But they didn’t say anything to me. They couldn’t go without saying anything to me.” She realized she was almost shouting, as if trying to convince the cobbler of something she knew for a fact but that he persisted stubbornly in denying.

“Don’t take on so, lassie,” he said, softening at her obvious distress. “Per’aps the gennelman what came to see ’em ’ad summat to do wi’ it. Mebbe he drove ’em away in an ’urry.”

“Gentleman!” Miranda stepped closer to him. “What gentleman?”

“Dunno ’is name, but a right proper lord, ’e was. Come straight up ’ere as if ’e knew ’em right well. Then ’e went out wi’ two of ’em. The big woman and one of the men … That’s the last I saw of ’im. T’others come back after a while, an’ they pays me an’ off they goes. The littl’un was wailin’ summat awful.”

“Robbie,” Miranda whispered. She had a dreadful pain in her chest and she was finding it hard to breathe properly. “This gentleman. Did he have black hair? No beard? Brown eyes?” She knew the answer but it was still impossible to believe.

The cobbler frowned, and sucked his front teeth. “Can’t say as I remember ’im. Tall, ’e was. Aye, black ’air, an’ no beard.”

Why?

Miranda pushed past the cobbler and stumbled down the stairs, Chip still clutched in the crook of her arm. Why would Gareth send her family away? He knew how important they were to her. He’d heard her telling them she was coming back with clothes for Robbie.
Why?
And where had they gone?

She ran back through the streets to Ludgate. The pain in her chest was growing fiercer, tighter, as if she’d been stabbed; and it was like a stab wound, this dreadful knowledge of betrayal. So unfair, so unjust, so without reason.

She raced through the gates and down the road to the Strand, heedless of the startled glances she drew. She was sobbing for breath, sobbing with anger, sobbing with pain.

The gates of the house stood open to admit a drayman’s cart laden with wine barrels for Lord Harcourt’s cellars. Miranda darted into the courtyard, heedless of the watchman’s shout behind her, up the stairs, and into the house. She ran up the great staircase, along the corridor, and flung open the door to Lord Harcourt’s chamber.

Gareth was barefoot, dressed only in his britches. He spun from the washstand, razor in hand, lather smothering his face. “God’s blood! What are you doing in here? What are you doing in those clothes?” He grabbed a towel and wiped his face. “Get out of here, Miranda.”

“Why?” she demanded. “Why did you send them away? It was you, wasn’t it? You sent them away!”

Gareth glanced over her shoulder at the door she’d left open. He strode past her and slammed it. He spoke softly, yet with fierce intensity. “Now, listen, you are about to ruin everything. Go back to your chamber. Get dressed properly. Then we’ll talk about this.”

Miranda shook her head, her eyes glistening with angry tears. “I don’t care what I ruin. I want to know what you said … what you did … why you sent them away. I
demand
to know.”

Her usually melodious voice was harsh with pain
and she made no attempt to speak quietly. Gareth, with a sense of desperation, took her by the shoulders and shook her. “Hush. For Christ’s sake, be quiet a minute! Hen … the duke is in the next-door chamber. The entire household is up and about and you’ll have them around our ears like a swarm of hornets in a minute.”

“I don’t care,” Miranda said, trying to twitch away from his hands. “I don’t care, damn you!” A tear finally broke loose and rolled down her cheek. He had betrayed her. She loved him and he had stabbed her in the back and now his only concern was that in her unhappiness she’d ruin his plans.

Angrily, she grabbed the towel from his hand and swiped at the tears that were now falling as if a dam had broken. The towel was damp and fragrant with the soap he’d been using to shave and for some reason this made her cry all the harder.

Gareth was stunned by her tears. Anger he could have dealt with, but this bitter distress was so unlike Miranda, so painful to watch that he forgot all the urgency of the moment. Gathering her into his arms, he sat on the bed with her, rocking her as if she were a hurt child.

“Hush, sweeting. Don’t weep so. Please, don’t weep so.” He took the towel from her and mopped at her drenched face, brushing her hair back from her forehead with his palm.

“They’re my family,” Miranda gasped, pushing against his bare chest, struggling to sit up. “What did you say to them to make them leave me?”

“They knew it was for the best. They did it for you.” He heard the note of desperation now in his voice and knew immediately that it would achieve nothing. He had to take back the situation, had to prove to Miranda
that he was in control, that he was in the right. He drew her back against him and when she twisted in his hold, trying to free herself, he tightened his grip, enclosing her in a fierce embrace that was as much a vise as a hug. “Stop struggling and listen to me. How can I explain anything when you won’t be still?”

Miranda ceased a struggle that for all her sinuous strength was clearly futile. She found she was breathless, that her chest ached, that her throat was scratchy and her eyes stung. But she no longer felt like weeping. She remained very still, but her body was taut as a bowstring in his arms.

Gareth ran the pad of his thumb over her mouth, moving his open hand upward to caress the curve of her cheek against his chest. She didn’t move or respond in any way. Her eyes remained open, but they were not looking at him.

“All I said to your friends was that I didn’t believe you could substitute for Maude with proper conviction while they remained in London and you were likely to run off and join them whenever the mood took you.” He spoke firmly. “I explained that it was difficult for you to have divided loyalties, and while you felt that you could help them, then you would want to be doing that and would find it hard to concentrate on playing the very different part you play here.”

Miranda listened to the quiet, level tones, feeling his breath rustling across the top of her head. His hand continued to caress her mouth and cheek. The bare skin of his chest pressed warm through the thin material of her dress.

“Mama Gertrude and Bertrand both agreed that it would be easier for you if they left town.”

“They decided that for themselves?” She spoke and looked up at him for the first time.

Gareth nodded and moved his caressing thumb to her eyelids, stroking delicately. “After I’d pointed the situation out to them.”

“But why didn’t they say goodbye? Where are they going? Where will I find them again?”

“Everything will be all right,” he whispered, tilting her face further. His mouth hovered over hers, and when her lips parted on another question, he closed them with his own.

His hand moved down her throat and he raised his mouth from hers just long enough to murmur, “Trust me, little one. That’s all you have to do.”

Miranda’s eyes closed involuntarily as she tried to fight her body’s insidious yielding to the practiced caresses. Her mind told her that his explanation was logical, but the less rational part of her brain screamed that something still wasn’t right. She wanted to trust him, wanted to believe in him, wanted to surrender to the deft fingers unlacing her bodice, the hard assertion of his mouth on hers. But deep inside her the darkness of hurt still stirred.

She tried to push away, to turn her jaw against the fingers that held her face to his, but his free hand now globed one bared breast and its crown rose hard, totally independent of wish or will, against his palm. Prickles of arousal jumped across her skin and her belly jolted with the now-familiar current of lust. But still she struggled to resist, holding her mouth closed against him as if somehow it would protect her from this slow, sensuous assault on her hurt and her anger and her mistrust. But he explored the curve of her mouth with the tip of his tongue, not forcing entrance,
but simply tasting the sweetness of her lips, even while his fingers on her jaw held her immobile.

Throughout the long, lonely reaches of the night she had ached for just this and now slowly her body was betraying her, refusing to acknowledge anything but its own hungry need. Her mind’s protests grew ever fainter until they were little more than a vague and incoherent echo.

As he sensed this, the gentleness of his kiss changed, became a searing, insistent invasion that forced her lips apart. Her breasts were flattened against his chest and she could feel his heart beating hard almost in rhythm with her own. He lifted her, turned her sideways on his lap, and now she could feel the hard shaft of flesh pressing against her hip. With one last effort, she tried to push away again, but his hand had slid up beneath her skirt and now gripped her bottom tightly, clamping her against him as his tongue continued to plunder her mouth.