The Emerald Swan

Chapter Twenty-two

Miranda rose slowly to her feet as Lord Harcourt entered the green bedchamber. Her voice was thin as she said, "I'm glad you're here, milord, for I have something to ask you."

"Aye, and I believe you need to explain why you would disappear for the entire day. Did it not occur to you that the duke might have noticed the substitution?" he demanded, as the hours of anxiety yielded to anger. "Other people have noticed it. It's a damned miracle that the duke doesn't appear to have done so."

Miranda merely shrugged, and the dismissive gesture infuriated him further. He took a step toward her. She took a step back from him and regarded him with a coldness that couldn't disguise the dreadful hurt swimming beneath the surface of her eyes. The hurt that he thought he'd banished that morning.

Her composure alarmed him. There was something so determined, so fixed, in her regard, in her posture, despite the fact that she was clad in a chamber robe, her feet bare, her hair disheveled, as if she'd been running her fingers through it.

"If the duke hasn't noticed it, milord, then I believe you should be grateful for the substitution. You can have no need of me now. Maude grows ever closer to accepting her destiny."

"Miranda-"

"No!" she interrupted fiercely. "No, milord. Answer me! Did you pay them to leave me? What did you say to make them go? Did you threaten them, first, then bribe them?"

Gareth was so taken aback for a minute he couldn't gather his thoughts for a response.

"Did you pay them, sir?" she repeated, her eyes flaring against her deathly pallor.

Gareth knew with grim resignation that he'd gone as far as he could with this deception. He still felt it was too early for Miranda to hear and accept the truth easily, but his hand was now forced. "Aye," he said quietly, "I paid them the fifty rose nobles I promised you. And for very good reason. Now, if you would just listen to me for a minute, you will understand."

"And they took it… they took your blood money," she said bitterly, turning away with a disgusted and defeated gesture.

Gareth grabbed her shoulders and swung her round to face him. "Will you listen to me, Miranda. Just hear me out and don't interrupt until I've finished. Afterward you may say what you wish, and ask whatever questions you wish. But I swear to you it's not as you think. No one has betrayed you."

Miranda heard the words, saw the conviction in his dark eyes, but nothing could stop the deep shudder of foreboding quivering in her belly, lifting the fine hairs on her nape. She looked at him in silence and he was reminded of a prisoner facing the headman. Resolutely he began with the story of Saint Bartholomew's eve…

He seemed to have been speaking for hours but when at long last he finished, the only sound in the chamber was Chip's low muttering from the window where he was swinging by one arm from the curtain rod.

When Gareth thought he could bear her silence no longer, Miranda spoke, her voice oddly dispassionate. "How can you be sure that I'm Maude's sister?"

"That little crescent mark on your hairline," he replied, keeping his tone as calm and matter-of-fact as it had been throughout the disclosure. "Maude has it. I have it. Your mother had it. It's a mark of the Harcourts."

Miranda raised her arm to feel beneath her hair. The mark was not raised in any way but she knew it was there, just as she knew that all denial of the earl's revelation was pointless. She and Maude were twins. She knew that truth in her blood, and she knew that Maude would accept it as inevitably as she did.

"Very few people knew of the missing twin," Gareth said. "On that dreadful night, there were so many murders that the loss of a ten-month-old baby became absorbed in the horror."

The grim silence fell again. Gareth grew seriously alarmed by Miranda's extreme pallor, and the strange flicker in her eyes. She wouldn't look at him directly, and when he reached out a hand to catch her chin, to turn her face toward him, she drew back as if he'd struck her.

"Do you understand what this means?" He wondered if she had really taken in what he'd said. He wouldn't be surprised if she hadn't fully absorbed all the implications of this disclosure that he knew to be premature.

"Yes," she said. "I understand that you used me and deceived me. But I already understood that when you sent my family away."

"They are not your family," he said bluntly. "And they left because they knew it was necessary. They made me promise to tell you that they hadn't abandoned you. They knew the truth and they knew that they no longer had a part in your life." Surely that was obvious to her, he thought. How could it not be?

"Who said they no longer have a part in my life?" Fury shot through her like a lightning bolt, setting her eyes on fire, bringing a flush to her pale cheeks. What was obvious to Lord Harcourt was not so self-evident to Miranda.

" You! You decided that. They are my family! They have cared for me and they belong to me as I belong to them. I'm not a Harcourt or a d'Albard… not in any meaningful way. I am what I've always been and you had no right, no right at all, ever to interfere. To ride roughshod over me, buying off my family as if they were… were of no more account than commodities you could dispose of at your will. You betrayed me, my trust, my-"

"Sweeting, hush, please." Gareth reached for her, gathering her against him, trying to silence the dreadful outpouring. "Sweeting, listen to me. You're not being reasonable. Once I realized who you are, I couldn't leave you on the streets. You must see that. I had a family obligation to return you to your birthright."

Miranda wrenched her head away from his chest. "No, milord, you saw a way to satisfy your own ambition," she stated flatly. "And you didn't… don't… care whom you used."

Gareth tried to bring her head back against him, stroking her hair as he said, "I won't deny that ambition was a powerful force. But my ambition is also

yours. Think, Miranda. Think what I've been working toward. You would be Queen of France and Navarre."

"And if I don't want that?" she demanded, pulling out of his arms. "If such a prospect merely fills me with revulsion? What then, milord?"

"You were not meant to live on the streets, you know that yourself," he said, trying to sound rational. "I've just opened the door to a new life. I know it's overwhelming at first, but I swear to you that this is where your destiny lies."

Miranda shook her head. "No, it is not," she said bitterly. " There is no place for me here." She regarded him with a pitiless clarity. "Maude will marry for the sake of Harcourt ambition. Not me."

She turned away, nauseated by the deep and dreadful ache of betrayal. Nothing he had said lessened it, indeed, it made it even worse. Never once since he'd met her had he thought of her as anything but the means to his own ends. Not even when he was loving her… not even then. Even his revelations had no impact upon her. She was still what she had always been and that couldn't be changed by mere words.

"Miranda, my love-"

"Don't call me that," she snapped." There have been enough lies between us, milord, let's not add another one. Not once have you cared a groat for me. What were you thinking when you made love to me, milord? That it would sweeten me, that it would-"

He couldn't bear it. He seized her shoulders, swung her into his body, stroking her back, running his fingers up through the glowing auburn hair, caressing the back of her head, desperate to silence the dreadful accusations. "Miranda! Stop! Making love to you had nothing to do with any of this. It was separate from-"

"This morning?" she demanded, twisting away from him with a strength she hadn't known she possessed. "Making love to me this morning had nothing to do with sweetening me, cozening me, bringing me to heel?" She stared at him with the same pitiless clarity. "Can't you bear the truth?" Then her shoulders slumped, the rigidity of anger left her. She said softly, making it sound like an accusation, "I loved you."

"Miranda, dearest girl-"

"Go away!" she cried, stopping her ears with her hands in a gesture that was as futile as it was desperate.

Her distress was so overwhelming that Gareth couldn't bear to add to it by forcing his presence on her a moment longer. He'd expected difficulty, but nothing as hideous as this. He stood awkwardly, not knowing what to say, how to back away without making things even worse. "Later," he said. "We'll talk later."

He went to the door in too much distress of his own to notice that it was not properly closed. He pulled it shut quietly behind him and turned toward the haven of his own bedchamber. But that sanctuary must wait. The queen of England was still his guest.

As he strode away toward the stairs, Lady Mary Abernathy stepped out of a small closet opposite the green bedchamber. She stood still, staring at the closed door opposite, thinking bitterly of the old adage that eavesdroppers rarely heard things to their own advantage.

Making love to me this morning… So had spoken the girl who was not Maude. The girl who was Gareth's mistress. He kept his mistress under his own roof. I loved you… the girl had said.

Mary stroked her throat, trying to swallow the nut of nausea. Harcourt had foisted upon her, upon his sister, upon the queen herself, such a monumental deception, such a betrayal, that she couldn't begin to absorb it. Men had whores, even mistresses. But they kept them apart from their wives, their fianc?es, their family ties. There were no entanglements. Just a simple business arrangement. But that was not the situation here. She had never heard Gareth speak in such tones, sound so distressed, so involved, so at sea. So absolutely enmeshed in a vulgar morass that no true, self-respecting knight of Her Majesty's empire could ever so much as contemplate.

She returned downstairs to the gathering as quietly and as unobserved as she had left it.

It was an hour later when Maude peered around Miranda's door into the shadowed chamber. The queen and her retinue had finally returned to Whitehall, with the escort of the earl of Harcourt and the duke of Roissy. "Are you in bed, Miranda?"

Miranda was so raw, so adrift in this fearful confusion of loss, where her own identity was somehow disintegrating, all the parameters of her existence destroyed, that she didn't know what to say to Maude. Whether she could share the evening's disclosures with her, or whether to leave her in blissful ignorance.

"No, I'm not in bed."

"Why are you sitting in the dark?" Maude came in, closing the door behind her. Miranda was sitting on the window seat, her feet curled up beneath her, Chip sprawled indolently on his back in her lap.

"I was watching the evening star."

Maude frowned. Miranda's voice didn't sound quite the same as usual. It was scratchy as if she had a cold. Maude came over to the window seat and leaned over to tickle Chip's stomach. Her neck was bare, her hair caught smoothly into a snood of gold thread, and Miranda saw the faint crescent mark against her sister's hairline. Her hand went to the back of her own neck.

"So, tell me what happened downstairs?"

"Oh, yes." Maude squeezed onto the window seat beside Miranda, paused to collect her thoughts, then with a deep breath poured forth her bubbling excitement and confusion.

"He kissed me," she finished. "It felt so strange and, well… well, wonderful. Do you know if that's how it's supposed to feel?"

"I believe so," Miranda said dully.

"What's the matter?" Maude reached for her hands. "You're so sad, Miranda. What is it?"

Miranda waved her hand in a brusque gesture of dismissal. "Are you prepared to agree to the betrothal now, then?"

Maude shook her head. "I don't know. Everything I believed about myself seems to have turned topsy-turvy."

Miranda almost laughed at the bitter irony. Like sister, like sister. They were both adrift now, because the earl of Harcourt had decided to play God.

"What is it, Miranda?" Maude asked insistently. "I hate it that you're sad. There must be something I can do to help."

Miranda slid off the window seat, still cradling Chip. "I'm going away," she said.

"So soon?" Maude looked aghast. "Is it because I've taken your place with the duke? Because you don't think you're needed anymore?"

"I'm not," Miranda said. "But that's not the only reason I'm going. I have to find my family before they take ship for France. There was a misunderstanding and they thought I wasn't coming back to them. So I have to leave at daybreak."

"I don't want you to go," Maude said slowly, almost wonderingly.

"Then come with me." Miranda said it without thinking but then the impossible idea became possible, and a surge of life renewed her. "One last adventure together," she urged, her voice once more vibrant. "Come with me to Folkestone, Maude. It'll give you time to think about what you really want. Time to be yourself, answering only to yourself. You'll never have that chance again."

Maude stared at her, saw her own image reflected in Miranda's eyes. Saw Miranda reflected in Miranda's eyes. And she saw her own life, pushed and pulled by forces over which she had no control. Even when she asserted herself, defied her guardians, she was only responding, she was not initiating, not truly making up her own mind. It was her one chance to see things clearly… see what she wanted for her life. Even if it turned out that she couldn't have it, she would at least have had the opportunity to find out, to get to know herself.

"What will they tell the duke?" she said slowly. "They're to sign the betrothal contracts tomorrow."

"That you're ailing."

Maude nodded. "That won't surprise anyone. But they'll be so angry."

"No, I don't think so," Miranda said. "We'll leave word that you're safe and that you'll return in a week. Milord will understand."

"Why would my guardian understand something so completely incomprehensible?"

"Because he will." Miranda reached for Maude's hands. "We leave at daybreak. I have no money, but Chip and I can earn it."

"Oh, I have money," Maude said. She gazed at Miranda in dawning wonder. "Why am I doing this?"

"Because I need you," Miranda said. "And because you need to do it for yourself."

And for some strange reason, the answers made perfect sense to Maude. They seemed to fit with all the neatness of an interlocking jigsaw piece into the picture of herself that she was now creating.

Wearily Gareth moved his rook to king four and wondered how long it would take before the queen finally tired. He contemplated deliberately losing the game to bring this interminable evening to a speedier conclusion but then dismissed the idea. The queen was too good a chess player and far too nimble-witted to be deceived and incurring her displeasure wouldn't get him back to the peace of his bedchamber any quicker.

Elizabeth moved her bishop, her long white beringed fingers still touching the piece until she was certain it was the right move. Then she smiled. "Check, sir."

Gareth surveyed the board. He could play to a draw, or he could resign. He glanced up at his queen and saw a slightly malicious glint of comprehension in her bright black eyes.

"I will accept your resignation, my lord Harcourt," she said. "I fear you have too much on your mind tonight to give me a run for my money."

Gareth toppled his king and smiled ruefully. "Your Majesty sees too much for comfort."

Elizabeth laughed, not displeased by the compliment. She rose from the chess table and Gareth got to his feet immediately. Elizabeth had sent her wilting ladies to bed as soon as they'd reached Whitehall from the Harcourt mansion. The duke of Roissy had been early excused with the consideration owed an honored guest, but a mere subject was expected to dance to Her Majesty's tune. And Elizabeth, who needed little sleep, was in the mood for conversation and chess.

"I find the duke of Roissy an interesting man," she commented, opening her fan. "And no fool."

"Indeed not, madam."

"He seems absolutely certain that Henry will prevail in the siege of Paris." The queen raised one plucked eyebrow. "I wish I could be so certain. What think you, my lord?"

"He has right on his side, madam."

The queen closed her fan and stood tapping it into the palm of her hand. "I would expect you to believe that, of course. After what happened to your family in the massacre. If Henry succeeds in securing the crown of France, this marriage of your ward's will bring fortune to the Harcourts, will it not?"

Gareth knew it was a rhetorical question so he merely bowed.

"I am not as yet certain how England will benefit from having Henry of Navarre on the throne of France," Elizabeth "said consideringly." The opinions of those close to the French court will always be of great use to me."

"My service and my loyalties lie first and foremost with my queen."

Elizabeth nodded slowly. "I like ambitious men around me, Lord Harcourt. Ambition and power are reliable motives." She smiled with that same hint of malice. "They're unflinching and they lead a man along welltrodden paths." Abruptly, she turned toward the door leading to her bedchamber. "I bid you good night, my lord."

"I trust Your Majesty will sleep well." Gareth bowed and remained in obeisance until the queen had passed from the privy chamber. Then with a soft exhalation of relief, he left himself, acknowledging the salute of the chamberlains at the door with a brief nod. He had gone no more than halfway along the night-quiet corridor when a door opened just ahead of him.

Lady Mary Abernathy stepped directly in front of him, barring his way. She stood beneath a lamp in a wall sconce and Gareth's first thought was that she was unwell or had had some dreadful fright, or perhaps received some hideous news. Her face was a mask- ghostly white, her eyes fixed unmoving in their deep sockets. She stood stock-still in the corridor. She stared at him as if he were some monster emerged from the deeps.

"Mary?" He stopped. "Is something the matter? What has happened?"

"I would have private speech with you, sir." Her voice was a monotone. She stepped back into the small paneled room where she'd been awaiting him. Gareth followed her, puzzled and alarmed.

"What has happened?" he repeated, bending to turn up the wick on a lamp sitting on a small table. He lifted the lamp to see her better, then said with concern, "You look ill, Mary."

"I am sickened," she said in the same flat voice. "You… you… have had carnal knowledge of that girl." Her voice took on tone and color. "She's not your ward. You have conducted a carnal relationship under your own roof… with… with… what is she?"

Gareth carefully set the lamp back on the table. They were in a very small antechamber, sparsely furnished, the wooden paneling unadorned with tapestries or molding. He had no idea how Mary knew what she knew, but as he faced his betrothed, he felt a sense of relief. The relief of confession, he supposed with self-directed cynicism.

"What is she?" Mary demanded again. Two bright spots of color burned now on her high cheekbones, startling against her pallor, and her eyes now flared with righteous anger. "Did you bring her into the house so she could serve you as your mistress?"

Simple truth seemed the only possible road to take. "No, not initially. Miranda was traveling with a group of strolling players when I first met her."

"A vagabond! And a thief, no doubt. You've been consorting under your own roof with a roadside whore!" Mary choked on her outrage.

"Miranda's not a whore, Mary," Gareth said quietly. He was astounded at her passion. This woman who had never evinced the slightest lack of control, who never said or did anything that was not carefully considered and perfectly appropriate, was confronting him with all the fierce outrage of a cornered vixen.

"You would defend such a creature? You insult your sister, your honor, me!" Her voice caught, but when Gareth prepared to speak, she held up an imperative hand." That creature talked of love⁷. What do you say to that, my lord Harcourt? A roadside harlot talked to you of love. I heard every word!"

"Ah," Gareth said, understanding now how his betrothed had come by her information." There is a little more to this than meets the eye, Mary, but-"

"Oh, you'll be telling me next that you love her!"

Mary interrupted, disgust dripping from her voice. "The ultimate vulgarity! People in our position don't love."

Gareth regarded her in rueful silence. He ran a hand over the back of his neck, at something of a loss. He hadn't expected to be accused of vulgarity, of all things. But then he supposed he should have expected it from Mary. He couldn't tell exactly what aspect of this whole mess troubled her the most. Was it the sex? The fact that it had taken place under his own roof? The fact that the girl was not what she'd been made out to be? Or the vulgarity of such a word and emotion applied to the relationship?

And just how in the name of the good Christ was he to salvage anything out of this debacle? Mary knew there were two Maudes, although as yet she obviously hadn't taken time to consider the whys and wherefores of that aspect of her betrothed's vulgarity. Kip knew there were two Maudes. How long would it take before Henry knew?

Mary gazed at the man she'd been intending to marry. A man who had lowered himself into the gutter, become entangled with a common thief, a roadside harlot, committed the one unforgivable sin. She belonged to the family of the dukes of Abernathy. Her lineage was as good as any Harcourt's. And she could not swallow such an insult. Not even for a husband.

"You may take it, my lord, that our engagement is broken," she said icily.

Gareth's eyes, almost black, were unreadable as they returned her regard and he spoke the form words, "Your wishes are my command, madam."

Mary didn't move for a minute, but she glared at him with such wrathful disgust that he nearly winced.

Then with a sudden movement she snatched off her betrothal ring. To Gareth's everlasting astonishment she threw it at him… hurled it across the room. It struck his right temple painfully. Both force and aim had been well judged.

Astounded, Gareth put a hand to his forehead. It was sticky with blood where the diamond-encrusted setting had broken the skin. For a moment they looked at each other and it was clear that Mary was as shocked by her action as Gareth. Then she turned with a swish of skirts and left him.

Numbly, Gareth bent to pick up the ring from where it had fallen at his feet. His temple throbbed as he did so. He straightened slowly, rubbing his fingertip over the wound. He was beginning to wonder if he'd ever really known Mary at all.

The sun was already rising in the eastern sky when Gareth alighted at the water steps under the rose-streaked sky. His step was less brisk than usual as he went up the path and entered the house through the side door. The servants were already up and about, busy with setting breakfast in the dining hall, and Gareth turned aside to take the back stairs. He didn't want to meet Henry, a notoriously early riser, until he'd had a chance to think through his next step.

The door to the green bedchamber stood ajar as he passed it. He stopped and stepped inside, aware that his heart was beating too fast. The bed was rumpled, the linen press and drawers in the armoire were open.

Gareth silently cursed his stupidity. It seemed he was forever underestimating women. Of course Miranda had gone. He had thought that a night's reflection would give her some distance, and instead she had left him.

As he stood there, dumbfounded, trying to grapple with this new twist, a cry came from Maude's chamber behind him. He spun round. Berthe stood in the doorway, flourishing a sheet of parchment, her face gray, her mouth opening and closing like that of a gaffed fish.

"My lord…" she managed at last. "Lady Maude…"

Gareth strode toward her. He moved her back into the bedchamber and closed the door. One glance around told him all he needed to know. Maude's chamber looked very much like Miranda's. They had both gone.

"Calm down, woman." In a state of icy calm himself, he took the parchment from Berthe, who sank with a half sob, half groan onto the settle and buried her face in her apron.

"My pet… my pet. What has happened to her? How could she do such a thing?"

Gareth ignored Berthe's moans and ran his eye over the neatly penned missive. His ward informed him succinctly that she had gone away with Miranda to find Miranda's family. There was no reason for alarm. They had money for the journey and she would return in a week. In the meantime, perhaps it would be sensible to explain to the duke of Roissy that she had been taken ill.

The penmanship was Maude's but the composition was Miranda's. That at least was clear as day to Gareth. He thought he understood the rest, but wasn't entirely certain. There was no indication here that Maude knew the truth about her relationship with Miranda, and if she didn't, then why would she run away with her?

"Oh, do stop moaning, woman," he said in exasperation as Berthe's keening grew ever louder. "I'm trying to think."

Twins. He supposed that had to be the explanation. A bond that Maude acknowledged even if she didn't understand why it existed.

"Gareth, the girl has gone!"

"Yes, Imogen." He glanced, unsurprised, toward the door. It would have surprised him if his sister had remained in ignorance of Miranda's disappearance for more than another five minutes. Imogen had entered without knocking and now stood gazing around the empty chamber in total astonishment.

"But why? Why did she leave?"

His expression was grim. "She had her reasons, God knows."

"But Maude? Where's Maude?" "Gone!" Berthe wailed. "Gone! Gone where?"

" To Dover, or Folkestone… possibly Ramsgate," Gareth mused, tapping Maude's letter into the palm of his hand.

"But why?" Imogen's voice rose dangerously.

"Let's continue this somewhere else." Gareth couldn't face combined hysterics. "Berthe, you will remain in here, and you will tell anyone who asks that Lady Maude is ailing and is keeping to her bed. I'll talk to you later."

He took his sister's arm and eased her out of the room. The green bedchamber was close enough to be the obvious choice. "In here, sister." He closed the door behind them. "Now, we may discuss this in peace."

Imogen fanned herself and looked pathetically bewildered. "I don't understand. Why are you so calm?

Maude has gone. The other one has gone. And Henry is ready to sign the betrothal contracts this morning. And there's no bride!" Her voice rose again.

"A little awkward, I grant you," Gareth said in the tone that Miranda would have recognized, but that merely sent his sister's agitation up several notches.

"Has she taken her away? Has the other one taken Maude away? I know she has. I knew it was a misconceived plan. You have no idea about women, Gareth. You never have had." Imogen paced the room. "Why wouldn't you let me deal with this in my own way, brother?" She threw up her hands in despair.

"All is not lost, Imogen," he said, perching on the end of the bed. "Maude will be back. She's already well on the way to finding Henry agreeable-"

"She's met him?" Imogen stared at him as if he were beside himself. "She's been-"

"Last night… yesterday morning on the river…"

Imogen's jaw dropped. "So that was what Dufort meant. It was Maude last night, not the other one."

Gareth nodded wearily. "Precisely."

Imogen's expression lit up." Then everything is perfect. We've got rid of the other one, and Maude will wed Henry, and everything is exactly as it should be."

"Yes," Gareth agreed, standing up. "Everything is exactly as it should be."