The Emerald Swan (23 page)

“Until you answer God’s call, you will continue to live in darkness,” Berthe pronounced with what seemed to Miranda like a degree of satisfaction. The elderly woman looked up from her mending, her eyes glittering with near-fanatical conviction. “But our Holy Mother is waiting for you. You must open your heart, my child, offer yourself in all humility, and give yourself up to the Madonna’s intercession.”

Miranda doubted she had sufficient humility to accept anyone’s intercession, but she didn’t say so. “Will you be able to look after Chip while I’m gone, Maude? Will Father Damián mind, do you think?”

“No, he loves all God’s creatures,” Maude responded, stroking Chip, who was sitting on her pillow, nursing Miranda’s old orange dress and looking very forlorn. He was well aware he was about to be abandoned again.

The clock struck three and Miranda stiffened her shoulders, her nervousness returning. “I had better go down.”

“Just remember whose tender reputation you hold in your hands,” Maude said. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” Then she looked astounded, realizing that she had made a joke, the first she could ever remember making.

Miranda grinned, bent to kiss Chip, who stroked her cheek and muttered under his breath.

“There, there,” Miranda said. “Maude will look after you.

“Yes, see what I have for you, Chip.” Maude slipped a hand under her pillow and drew out a folded lace handkerchief. “Sugar plums and almond comfits.”

Chip, with an excited jabber, reached out a hand and delicately selected a sweetmeat from the palm of Maude’s hand. Miranda smiled and slipped quietly from the chamber.

Maude stared at the closed door. The room seemed lifeless all of a sudden. The prospect of Father Damian’s arrival took on a gray cast, and she felt as leaden as the gray sky beyond the window. It was the bleeding, she told herself resolutely.

Miranda’s smile faded when she reached the head of the stairs leading down to the raftered hall. The maids who had dressed her in her finery had told her she was bidden to present herself in the hall at three o’clock. Her heart was beating uncomfortably fast. She wiped her palms on her skirt, flicked open her fan and waved it vigorously to cool her suddenly burning cheeks. Then, swallowing her trepidation, she descended, one hand holding the wooden banister, feeling its smooth coolness grounding her.

Three people stood in the hall at the foot of the stairs and they turned as one to look up as Miranda reached the bend in the staircase.

For a minute Gareth almost doubted what he knew to be the truth. Surely this was Maude. It could be no one else. Beside him Imogen’s breath whistled through her teeth as she too stared, astounded. Lord Dufort,
however, saw no more than the success of the costume he had selected.

“Ah, how charmingly you look, my dear,” he said warmly, clapping his hands softly together. “Is she not charming, Harcourt? Is not the gown perfect for her?”

“Perfect,” Gareth agreed. This was Miranda, not Maude. Her coloring was too robust for the wan invalid, her frame too supple. But that morning, he’d enjoyed the wonderful contrast of the lady and the vagabond contained in the one person. Now the vagabond had disappeared completely and only the lady remained, the perfect courtier. And for some perverse reason, he found himself disliking the very perfection of the imposture.

Miranda paused three steps from the bottom. Lord Harcourt wore a short cloak of silver cloth lined with peacock blue. His doublet was of silver embroidered with turquoise, his very brief trunk hose of darker blue slashed to reveal bands of silver from his underhose. A jeweled belt clasped his hips, and one gloved hand rested on the gem-studded hilt of his sword.

Her color rose, pure delight was pouring through her veins, all her trepidation vanquished by the same turbulent sensations she’d experienced in the inn at Rochester, when she’d watched him washing, changing his shirt, every simple movement filling her with the strangest hungers.

She raised her eyes to meet his and read the shock of recognition in the lazy-lidded brown eyes. She moistened her lips, tightened her thighs, trying to control their quivering.

“Do I please you, milord?” But she knew the question asked much more than it appeared to.

“It is a most remarkable transformation,” Gareth responded deliberately. “Is she not most amazingly transformed, sister?”

“Yes, indeed,” Imogen said. “I congratulate you, brother. I would never have seen such a complete match in the girl when I first laid eyes on her.”

Gareth extended his hand in invitation and Miranda laid her own in it, descending the last three steps. The serpent bracelet glittered on her wrist. Gareth turned it around with one finger. “Are you more comfortable with this now?”

“Good heavens, why should she be uncomfortable with it?” Imogen exclaimed. “It’s the most beautiful piece.”

“I don’t care for the bracelet,” Miranda said firmly, “but the swan charm is exquisite.” She lightly traced the shape of the emerald swan.

“Well, how very fortunate that you should find it so,” Imogen said waspishly. “I daresay you’ve seen many such jewels and are well qualified to judge of their quality.”

Miranda flushed and Gareth said, “Come, it’s a good hour along the water to Greenwich and we have no time to waste.”

Miranda said no more until they were all seated in the barge. Two liveried footmen accompanied them and two of Imogen’s maids. Lady Imogen took one of the two chairs in the stern and the maids arranged her skirts, settled the cloak around her shoulders, and then backed off to stand in the bow.

“Sit with me, Gareth.” Imogen gestured imperatively to the chair beside her.

“I believe my ward has some questions for me and they will be best asked quietly,” her brother responded.
“We shall sit on the bench amidships. Miles, do take the chair beside your wife.”

Miles didn’t look too happy about the arrangement, but hastened to seat himself, examining the duck-boards before carefully placing his feet in the soft red leather slippers neatly side by side. “Do be careful of your shoes, my dear madam. I believe there is some moisture just beneath your chair and kidskin stains so badly.”

Imogen glanced down, her nose twitching. “You … man … come here and wipe the boards,” she commanded one of the menservants, who rushed over with a canvas cloth, sliding on the slick boards as he dropped to his knees to mop up the few errant drops.

Miranda took her place where the earl indicated on a wide bench in the middle of the barge. The bench was thickly cushioned and a canopy had been erected although it was no longer raining and a fitful sun now flirted with the clouds. The black-and-yellow pennants flew the Harcourt colors from both stern and bow, and the four boatmen wore black-and-yellow livery, plying their long poles as the barge slid into the middle of the river, weaving through the traffic.

“Will Maude’s suitor come soon?” Miranda asked as Lord Harcourt sat beside her, swinging his sword to the side.

“I imagine so. He intended to start off from France soon after me.”

Miranda played with the bracelet. “The queen will approve this match?”

“Most certainly.”

“And people will believe me to be Maude?” Despite Maude’s reassurances, she needed to hear it from the earl’s lips.

“They have no reason to believe otherwise.” He confirmed Maude’s reasoning. “My cousin has not yet made her debut at court. You are making it for her this afternoon.”

“Will the queen wish to talk with me?”

“She will talk
at
you, if she notices you beyond a mere nod,” he told her. “You will have no need to speak, indeed, it will be considered unseemly for you to do so. You will curtsy, keep your eyes lowered, and speak only if asked a direct question. And you will keep your answer very short and simple.”

This was just as Maude had said, but her apprehension would not be stilled. “Will you stay beside me, milord?”

He glanced at her. “Lady Imogen will be your chaperon.”

“But I think I will need you beside me. For confidence … to tell me what to do if I’m in doubt.” She wondered if she sounded as desperate as she felt.

“You will not be in doubt,” he said in bracing accents. “You will find that you’ll know exactly what to do. But remember to call me by my name.”

Why was he so impervious to her fears? Just what made him think this was all so easy? “Gareth?” she inquired innocently.

Gareth looked momentarily startled, then annoyed, then slowly he smiled. “Touché, firefly. I’ll stick closer than your shadow.”

Miranda was satisfied.

It was close to five o’clock when the barge arrived at the water steps of Greenwich palace. A long line of barges waited to unload their passengers, and boatmen, jockeying for position, shouted out their employers’ names as they asserted their rights of precedence.

Gareth, much more unconcerned at being kept waiting than his servants, stood in the bows, assessing the crowd, looking for familiar faces, for anyone who might, having seen Maude, look askance at the present embodiment of Lord Harcourt’s ward. Maude had been seen by so few people and was intimately known to none but their own household, so he was not expecting any difficulties, nevertheless he was aware of a quickening of his blood as his eyes raked the throng.

“This is disgraceful,” Imogen declared. “Who is ahead of us? We must take precedence over almost everyone here.”

“Not over the duke of Suffolk, madam.”

“Nor His Grace of Arundel,” Miles put in.

Imogen subsided but Miranda jumped to her feet with such energy that the barge rocked alarmingly. Gathering her skirts, she picked her way to stand beside Lord Harcourt.

“Sit down, girl!” Imogen exclaimed. “Sit down until we are ready to disembark! It’s most unseemly to gape and gawk in that fashion.”

Miranda hesitated, resenting Lady Imogen’s tone. It would have been so simple to have asked her to return to her seat, but the lady didn’t seem to know how to ask.

“Come,” Gareth said pacifically. “Let us both sit down. We’ll be in the way when the bargemen have to tie up.”

Miranda couldn’t see that this would be so, but she recognized the compromise. She’d noted before that milord chose to avoid direct conflict with his sister. “Coward,” she whispered, but with a catch of laughter in her voice.

“On occasion, discretion is the better part of valor,
firefly,” Gareth observed in the cool, dry tone that always made her laugh. He placed a hand in the small of her back, urging her return to the bench.

Miranda felt the warm pressure through the layers of gown and petticoats. The fine hairs on her nape lifted, little prickles of sensation ran down her spine, and a jolt of something akin to fear shivered in her belly. Without volition, she looked over her shoulder, up at his face.

Gareth met the deep blue gaze. Her eyes were always open and honest, easily read by whoever chose to do so. And they were no different now. He inhaled sharply at the naked desire they contained. A desire mingled with confusion and apprehension. A curiously innocent desire that stirred him to his core. Miranda didn’t know exactly what it was she was feeling.

But Gareth knew what he was feeling. His hand dropped from her back. Miranda sat down again, aware of the rapid pattering of her heart, trying to control her speeding blood, the confusing sensations that set her emotions tumbling wildly so she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

The minute the craft was securely tied, Miranda jumped up. She leaped lightly to dry land, disdaining the bargeman’s offered hand, and caught Imogen’s sudden hiss of indrawn breath.

First mistake! She must concentrate, forget this confusion and remember where she was and whom she was supposed to be. Hastily she composed herself, adjusting her skirts, opening her fan with a casual air as she glanced around, hoping no one had remarked her less than decorous disembarkation.

Gareth came up beside her. “Step aside so my sister
and her husband can go before us. They take precedence over you at the moment.”

Miranda stepped off the narrow path and Imogen swept by on her husband’s arm.

When she was married to Henry of France, this waif and stray would take precedence over all but Elizabeth of England.
Gareth looked down at Miranda, noting her supple grace, the elegance of her posture, the natural confidence, almost arrogance, in the tilt of her head, the assured gaze, the set of chin and mouth.

They walked up from the river along the red-tiled path running between clipped yew trees. Although it was still light, lampboys at regular intervals held pitch torches to illuminate the heavily shadowed path. The Harcourt party walked behind a footman who proclaimed their presence and approach to the palace in a continuous cry of “Make way for my lord Harcourt, Lord and Lady Dufort, Lady Maude d’Albard.”

Miranda was aware of the interest her name caused among their fellow courtiers in the long procession to the palace. Curious glances came her way, whispers were exchanged. She felt another surge of stage fright, her palms dampening, her heart beating fast.

The path emerged from the high hedges, opening onto a gravel sweep before a wide terrace. The terrace was thronged with courtiers, and the incessant chatter of voices fought and won the battle with the groups of musicians positioned on the terrace and on the lawns below.

Imogen moved forward, her husband bobbing at her side, like the buoy attached to a vessel in full sail, Miranda thought. And then she had no more time for irreverent thoughts as they were engulfed in the crowd. Her three companions were greeting and being greeted
and she was being drawn forward and introduced. She curtsied, murmured responses, tried for a modest demeanor but found it impossible to keep her eyes lowered. She was far too fascinated with the sea of faces, the gorgeous apparel, the effete mannerisms of those surrounding her. But she was instantly aware when Lord Harcourt moved away.

She took a step after him but Lord Dufort laid a hand on her arm, gently restraining her. She looked startled and he said in an undertone, “You must stay with us. Gareth will be back. He has just gone to let the chamberlain know that we’re here.” Then, still holding Miranda’s arm, he greeted a passing acquaintance and introduced his wife’s cousin, Lord Harcourt’s ward, and Miranda found herself once more back in her role.