The Emerald Swan

Chapter Twenty-four

"Do you remember anything of that night?" Maude leaned back against the tree trunk on the riverbank, taking a large bite out of the very crisp green apple that went by the name of breakfast.

"No." Miranda tossed her apple core into the stream, watching the circle of ripples expand on the brown surface as the core sank. "Do you?"

Maude shook her head. "No. I don't remember anything about France at all. My first memories are all of Imogen and Berthe." She wrinkled her small nose. "Not very auspicious, really."

Miranda chuckled. It was a rare sound these days and Maude sat up, hugging her knees to her chest. She knew that somewhere in the middle of the astounding story Miranda had told her there was something buried that her twin was not confiding. Something that was making her unhappy.

"Are you certain you want to go back with the troupe?"

"Yes, of course." There was the hint of a snap in the rapid response. "They're my family." Miranda picked a daisy from the bank and tossed it into the stream, watching it swirl away on the current's eddy.

"But-"

"But nothing, Maude." Miranda jumped up. "Come on, the sun's high and we want to reach Ashford tonight."

She whistled for Chip, whose small face appeared above them as he pushed aside the leaves of the tree.

Maude scrambled to her feet, holding up a hand to the monkey, who leaned down to take it, then swung with a gleeful gibber to the ground.

"How are we going to get to Ashford?" Maude hurried after Miranda. She was still unaccustomed to the freedom of skirts without farthingales and couldn't keep up with Miranda's long, loping stride even after two days of practice.

"We're not going to walk all the way, are we?" She caught up with her sister, who had stopped at the edge of the field to wait for her.

Miranda seemed to consider the question. She glanced up at the cloudless blue sky. "It's a lovely day for walking."

"But Ashford is miles away. We're only just outside Maidstone!" Maude wailed, then caught the glint in Miranda's eye. "It's not fair to tease me," she grumbled.

"You only think that because you're not used to it," Miranda pointed out, clambering over the stile into the lane. "You can tease me as much as you like, I won't mind."

"But I don't have anything to tease you about," Maude stated, joining her in the lane. "I don't know anything about this traveling life and you know everything."

"We'll wait here and get a ride from the next carter's wagon," Miranda said.

"Why can't we go to an inn and hire a gig or something? It would be so much quicker and surer than begging rides from passersby. It isn't as if we don't have money."

Miranda frowned. How to explain to Maude that she was in no hurry to reach Folkestone? She had enough difficulty admitting it to herself. "I like traveling slowly," she temporized. "It's part of the fun not knowing where the next ride is coming from, or who you might meet on the way."

Maude made no reply, but she cast her sister a quick, appraising glance. "After you've met up with your family and explained things to them, you could always come back to London with me."

"I'm not suited for that kind of life," Miranda replied, stepping into the road to wave vigorously at an approaching hay wagon. "It was all very well for a short time, just as a game. But now you're prepared to marry Henry…" She broke off to hail the driver of the wagon. "Can you take us as far as you're going on the Ashford road, sir?"

"Aye, above five miles," the man said amiably, jerking a thumb toward the back. "'Op in."

"My thanks, sir." Miranda jumped agilely into the back of the wagon and leaned down to give Maude a hand. Chip bounded up beside them. The driver stared at the monkey, then shrugged, shook the reins, and set the horse in motion.

"I didn't say I was prepared to marry the king," Maude declared, when they were comfortably ensconced among the hay. "There's still this question of religion, in case you've forgotten."

"It's all the same God," Miranda pointed out. "It seems a lot of nonsense to me."

This was such astounding heresy, even from Miranda, that Maude was silenced. She sank into the cushion of hay, knowing from experience now that she had to let her body roll with the wagon's uneven motion over the rutted lane if she wasn't to end the day aching and bruised in every limb.

"People died for that nonsense," she said soberly. "Our mother died for it." She drew from her pocket the serpentine bracelet where she kept it for safekeeping. It would draw too much unwelcome attention on her wrist while they were traveling in this haphazard fashion. She held it up to catch the sun's rays. "It's so beautiful, yet it's so sinister. Maybe it's because of all the blood and evil it's seen. Do you think that's fanciful?"

"Yes," Miranda said, holding out her hand for the bracelet. Maude dropped it into her open palm. It was fanciful, but she couldn't deny that the bracelet gave her the shivers. She traced the shape of the emerald-studded swan with the tip of her finger, thinking of her mother… of her mother's violent death and all that had resulted from that murder.

Tears pricked behind her eyes and she blinked them away. If that dreadful night had never happened, she wouldn't now be so completely adrift. She belonged nowhere anymore. She was no longer suited for the life she had always known, and she couldn't enter the one that was her birthright because…

Because she had been betrayed by the man she loved. She had offered her heart and her soul and the gift had been swept aside like so much dust by a man who didn't know the meaning of love.

She couldn't go back to London because she couldn't live in the same world as the earl of Harcourt. Her hand closed tightly over the bracelet as she fought back the threatening tears, the great wall of misery that threatened to fall and suffocate her.

Maude laid her hand over Miranda's. It was all she could think of to do until her sister chose to share her pain.

"Good Lord above!" Mama Gertrude flung up her arms in astonishment. A few gull feathers had settled into her piled coiffure, looking strangely at home with the grubby lace cap she wore. Without the gold plumes, she appeared somewhat diminished.

Chip leaped onto her shoulder, wrapping his arms around her neck, and she patted him absently. "Now, just where in the name of tarnation did you two… three… spring from? That Lord 'Arcourt said as 'ow you'd be stoppin' wi' 'im."

" 'Tis to be 'oped 'is lordship's not goin' to want them fifty rose nobles back."

"Oh, hush yer mouth, Jebediah," Gertrude said, her ruddy complexion darkening. "Don't ye be takin' no notice of Jebediah, m'dear. Lord 'Arcourt said as 'ow it was right fer ye… seein' as 'ow…" She stopped, nonplussed.

"Seeing as how what?" Maude prompted. She hitched herself onto the seawall of Folkestone quay as if she'd been doing it all her life, and flicked at a burr clinging to her skirt. The last carter's wagon they'd taken from Ashford to Folkestone had previously carried sheep's wool to market and the bales had been full of prickly burrs.

"Seein' as 'ow you an' Miranda are sisters," Luke stated.

"Oh," Maude said. "That." She raised her face to the sun, closing her eyes, letting the warmth beat gently onto her lids, listening to Robbie's excited treble as he hurled himself into Miranda's embrace.

Miranda laughed and Maude instantly opened her eyes. Her sister had been very quiet since the previous day. There had been no more tears, but she hadn't smiled much, either, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. But now she was smiling with genuine pleasure at the grubby child in her arms as she kissed his thin cheek.

"Y'are not goin' away again, M'randa?" Robbie pulled at her hair, curling his legs around her hips. "Y'are not!"

"No, Robbie," she said softly. These were her family. For better or worse, this was where she belonged.

"Well, what about them fifty rose nobles?" Jebediah muttered.

"God's bones, d'ye never sing another tune?" Raoul said disgustedly. "Let's 'ear what the lassies 'ave to say."

"It's quite simple," Miranda began.

"Less than you think." A voice spoke from behind her.

All eyes slowly swiveled toward the earl of Harcourt, who stood holding his horse a few feet away.

“Told ye the man'd want 'is money back," Jebediah said with an air of righteous satisfaction.

"As it happens, money is the last thing on my mind," Gareth said. "I've come to reclaim my wards, before they become too accustomed to the delights of traipsing around the country like a pair of itinerant peddlers."

"My lord?"

"Yes, Maude?" He smiled at the girl, sitting on the wall like a veritable urchin. He noticed the dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose, the sun-kissed pink of her cheeks. The hem of her petticoat was grubby, and she appeared to have a cluster of burrs clinging to her dimity gown. "Have you enjoyed your journey?"

"Yes, my lord," Maude said. "And… and I think-"

"No," he interrupted with a wry chuckle. "Please don't say I've come too late and you're already lost to the wandering life."

"I seem to have more in common with my sister, sir, than you might think." Maude reached for Miranda's hand, drawing her closer to the wall.

"On the contrary, Maude, I've long recognized that fact," Gareth said. "But my business lies with Miranda. Lord Dufort should be arriving at the Red Cockerel on Horn Street within the hour. If Luke would escort you to await him there, I would be much in his debt."

Maude looked at Miranda, whose fingers were tightly clenched around hers. Miranda was very pale, very still. Robbie unhooked his legs from her hips and stood up, and for once she didn't seem to notice his actions.

"I don't believe we have any further business, milord," Miranda said, gently extricating her hand from Maude's and taking a step forward. "I believe I fulfilled my obligations as far as it was possible and the money you paid to my family is only what you promised. I believe it is owed."

"Oh, yes," he said quietly. "It is owed them, and much, much more, for their loving care of a d'Albard. You shall decide what is owed your family, Miranda." He looped his mount's reins over a hitching post and came toward her, his smile rueful.

"But I claim the right to say what is owed you, sweeting." His hands moved to encircle her throat. "I would prefer privacy, but if I must say this here, then so be it." His thumbs pressed lightly against the fast-beating pulse in her throat. "You said you loved me. Could you ever again say that you love me, firefly?"

The ground slipped and slid beneath her feet. Miranda was aware of the silence in the circle surrounding them, of the close silence and yet also of the faraway, noisy bustle of the quay. She was aware of Maude's startled and yet suddenly comprehending gaze, of Robbie's bewilderment, of Luke's puzzled hostility. She swallowed, her throat moving against Gareth's thumb.

It was Maude who broke the silence in a high, clear voice. "Luke, will you escort me to this Red Cockerel, please?" She slid off the wall. "Cousin, I shall wait with Lord Dufort until you and my sister return to the inn."

"Bravo, Maude," Gareth said softly, moving one hand from Miranda's throat to lift his young cousin's fingers to his lips.

"Should I take Chip?" Maude smiled radiantly at Miranda, her confusion now cleared. It seemed extraordinary that Miranda and the earl should love each other, but then so many extraordinary things had been happening lately, what was one more? And it had to mean one vital thing. Miranda was not going to go out of her sister's life.

"Yes, take him." It was Lord Harcourt who answered her, and Gertrude who handed the monkey over, her own expression still rapt at the drama unfolding before them.

"Miranda?" Gareth said, now taking a step away from her, as if to give her room to answer the most important question he had ever asked or would ever ask in his life.

"Everyone will know there are two of us," she said.

"That would ruin everything for you. The king of France can't know that you deceived him."

"I suppose I deserve that you should think it still matters," Gareth replied. "But only one thing is truly important to me now, Miranda. You. Can you believe that?"

She wanted to believe it. Oh, how she wanted to believe it. But the hurt still bled. "I don't know," she said helplessly.

Gareth looked around the circle of attentive faces. Every word he said was being weighed against Miranda's happiness.

Then Gertrude stepped forward. "What are you offerin' 'er, m'lord?"

"Goddammit!" Gareth finally lost his patience. "I'm proposing marriage to the Lady Miranda d'Albard."

Maude, some five feet away, stopped in her tracks, suddenly remembering an inconvenience. "I don't see how you can do that honorably, my lord, when you're already betrothed to Lady Mary," she pointed out.

"As it happens, I am not."

"Oh, how did that happen? Not that I thought you would suit in the least."

Gareth turned slowly. There was a mischievous gleam in his young cousin's eye; then with a wave and an astonishing wink, she went off with a skipping step.

Gareth turned back to Miranda. She was smiling. "I didn't think you would suit, either, milord."

Gareth knew that he'd won the hardest batde of his life. "How right you are, my love," he said equably. "And fortunately Lady Mary came to that conclusion herself. Ladies and gentlemen… if you'll excuse us." Catching Miranda around the waist, he tossed her up onto his horse, unlooped the reins, and mounted behind her. "Perhaps you would join us for a betrothal dinner at the Red Cockerel in two hours' time."

Maude was sitting with Luke in the taproom of the Red Cockerel when her guardian rode up. She and Luke watched from the taproom doorway as Lord Harcourt dismounted and, sweeping Miranda ahead of him, entered the inn and mounted the stairs.

"Where are they going?" Luke demanded. Suspicion flared in his eyes and he took a step forward. "Has the earl debauched Miranda?"

"I don't know what's happened between them," Maude replied cheerfully, laying a restraining hand on his sleeve. "But it doesn't seem to matter in the least. Miranda knows what she's doing. Chip, do you really think you should go… Oh, well, I suppose you should." She gave up the struggle to hold the agitated monkey and let him race after his mistress. Turning back to the taproom, she said, "I would like some more of that mead, I believe, Luke. Do you have coin? If not, I believe I still have a few pennies left."

"My love, can you forgive me?" Gareth took Miranda's hands in a grip so tight she could feel the bones crunching. "Do you think you'll ever be able to trust me again? I have been such a fool."

"I love you," Miranda said simply. "I have always loved you.”

Chip gibbered and swung from the bed canopy. "Aye, and I have loved you since the first moment 1 met you. I just didn't know it." Gareth stroked her face, tracing the line of her jaw, running a thumb over her eyelids, over the soft pliancy of her lips. "Will you be my wife, madam?"

"I must bring Robbie," Miranda said. "I can't leave Robbie behind. There's so much we can do for him. Boots are just the beginning."

"If you wish, we will provide habitation and employment for all your family." Gareth's fingers unlaced her bodice, his hands reaching inside to cup her breasts, run the pads of his thumbs over the nipples, feeling them rise hard and small to his caress.

"No, I don't think they'd wish that," Miranda said earnestly. "They're independent. They wouldn't take charity."

"No, of course they wouldn't." His mouth closed over hers, as he drew her down to the bed. One day he'd get this right. "But will you be my wife?"

Miranda moved beneath him, loosening the bunched-up folds of her gown as his hands slid over her thighs, searching for her. "Are you certain you don't still want me to marry Henry of France, milord?"

Gareth didn't reply but his hand moved over her, his fingers opening, nipping at the tight little bud of pleasure. Miranda murmured, her hips lifting as the joy began to bloom deep in her core. And then, just as the flower was about to burst open in glory, he took away his hand.

"Yes," she whispered. "Yes, Gareth."

He smiled and brought his mouth to hers." Try not to ask silly questions, firefly."

She laughed softly and the last shards of pain and unhappiness drifted from her in the soft glow of renewal.

Chip took up his usual place on the rail at the foot of the bed and tucked his head under his arm, whispering to himself as the soft sounds of a deep and affirming pleasure filled the chamber.

Miles entered the taproom and his eye fell immediately on Maude. She appeared to be keeping company with a ragged youth at the bar counter, but her own attire was so disheveled that she seemed perfectly suited to her companion. Her hand was circling a pewter tankard with all the familiarity of one who'd begun drinking what it contained with her wet nurse's milk.

Gareth's message, received some hours after the earl had left the Harcourt mansion, had been brief and un-informative. Lord Dufort was to repair to the Red Cockerel in Folkestone and await developments. This, Miles conceded, was an interesting development.

"Maude?"

"Oh, Lord Dufort. Lord Harcourt said you would be arriving soon." Maude smiled merrily. "May I introduce Luke, he's a friend of Miranda's. Would you care for some mead? Or perhaps ale? We seem to be running out of coin, but I expect you have some."

"Ale," Miles said, gesturing to the potboy. He nodded to Luke and took the stool beside Maude. "I daresay I can settle your account." He looked around. "But isn't your guardian here to do so?"

"Yes, but he's abovestairs with Miranda."

"Ah," Miles said, taking up his tankard. "Ah," he said again.

"I believe they're to be wed," Maude informed him, signaling to the potboy for a refill.

"Ah," Lord Dufort repeated. "Precisely."

Maude smiled. "Are you not surprised, sir?"

"Not precisely," Miles said, taking up his tankard. "But I'd give my immortal soul to know how he's going to explain to the world the sudden appearance of your double."

"My twin,' Maude said.

Miles looked at her sharply. Then he let out his breath with a little popping sound. "Ah," he said. "Precisely."