by Jane Feather
"Milord?" she said hesitantly, when his silence had continued for an eternity.
"There is no one else who could play the part as well," he said with perfect truth. "If you will not do it, then I shall have to give up something that's very dear to my heart. But the choice is yours."
Miranda looked up at him. He was staring out across the water so she couldn't see his eyes, but his jaw was set.
"Why is it so important that Maude marry this French duke?"
At that he turned and looked down at her, standing with his hands resting on the rail behind him. And now she saw again that slightly contemptuous curl of his lip, the mocking sardonic glitter in his eye.
"Ambition, Miranda. My ambition, pure and simple. Selfish, if you like, but it's very important to me that my family are returned to the sphere of power we enjoyed before the persecution of the Huguenots in France. A connection with Roissy and thus the French court will do that."
"It will make you powerful?" "Yes." He turned back to his contemplation of the water, adding almost in an undertone, "Very." What he did not say, because he couldn't, was that achieving his ambition, setting his feet firmly on the rungs of power, was the only way he could bury Charlotte's legacy-the dreadful deadening inertia of shame, and the guilt of a knowledge that would never be shared.
Miranda nibbled at a ragged fingernail, frowning. "But if Maude really doesn't wish it, you would compel her to sacrifice herself for your ambition?"
"I believe that Maude will come to her senses," Gareth replied. "But until she does, it's essential that her suitor be welcomed by a willing prospective bride."
Miranda swallowed. Maybe she could do it; but could she bear to? Even for fifty rose nobles? Money that would help Robbie, would enable the troupe to find winter quarters without the annual misery of the hand-to-mouth struggle in the long bitter months. Money that would, if carefully harvested, give her a measure of security for years to come. Did she even have the right to deny her friends such relief? People who had taken her in as a baby, shared what they had with her, cared for her, the only family she had ever known, or would ever know.
Gareth, aware of her eyes on him, looked down at her again and met her questioning and speculative regard. "I need you to do it for me, Miranda."
Her misgivings faded. Her expression cleared and slowly she nodded. "Very well, milord. I'll try my best." She had no good reason to refuse him, and many to oblige him. He'd been kind to her, even before he'd wanted her to do this thing for him. And more than anything, she liked him. She liked being with him, liked feeling his eyes on her, the warmth of his smile, the easy way he touched her, the companionable way he talked to her.
He smiled, and the mask that she so disliked vanished, showing her once again the merry, lazy-lidded eyes, the flash of his white teeth as his mouth curved. "I shall be eternally in your debt, firefly." Catching her chin on his finger, he bent his head and kissed her mouth.
It was intended as a light expression of gratitude, a sealing of a bargain, and Gareth was not prepared for the jolt in the pit of his stomach as her mouth opened slightly beneath his. The scent of her skin and hair filled his nostrils, his hands came to cradle her face, her skin exquisitely soft beneath his fingers. She moved on the shifting deck and her slight, supple body brushed against his, a tentative, fleeting pressure that nevertheless brought his loins to life, his blood to sing in his ears.
He drew back, swung round to face the water again. His hands closed over the stern railing and he shook his head in an effort to free his mind of the rioting tangle of confused images.
Miranda touched her mouth. Her lips were tingling although there'd been no pressure to the kiss. But her heart was thumping and she was suddenly hot, feverishly hot, perspiration gathering on her back, in the cleft of her breasts. And they too were tingling. Her nipples were hard, pushing against her bodice, and there was a strange liquid weakness in her belly and her thighs.
The barge bumped lightly against the steps of Black-friars. Narrow lanes led up from the river to Ludgate Hill and to the right the dome of Saint Paul's Church rose over the jumble of close-packed roofs.
“The bargemen will take you back," Gareth said, his voice sounding hoarse in his ears. "Simon, I'll make my own way home."
"Aye, m'lord." The bargeman reached out to grab the pole at the head of the steps, pulling the barge alongside. " 'Tis said, m'lord, that the new church is almost finished," he commented. "Quite a sight it is."
"Aye," agreed Gareth, stepping ashore. "I've a mind to stroll up there now and see how it's progressed since the spring." He glanced back at the barge. Miranda was still standing at the rail, frowning, her hand still unconsciously pressed to her lips.
"I give you good night, Miranda," Gareth said, then turned and strode off toward Carpenters' Street, which would take him into Whitefriars and an abundance of taverns and houses of pleasure. His hand rested on his sword hilt, where it would remain throughout his walk through the lanes of London.
Miranda didn't hesitate. She couldn't just return as if nothing had happened… not until she'd understood exactly what had happened. She jumped ashore just as the bargemen pushed off. Chip leaped after her, cramming his hat back on his head.
Despite the early morning hour, people still scurried about their business. A merchant in a fur-trimmed cape strode past, two liveried footmen clearing the path for him, two more watching his back. A litter borne by four stalwart porters was carried along at a trot toward the Temple. A white hand drew back the curtains and Miranda glimpsed a small sharp face under a jeweled bonnet before the conveyance turned into an alley.
"Need a light, m'lord?" A small boy darted out of a doorway on Carpenters' Street, holding aloft a lantern, as yet unlit. He offered the noble lord a gap-toothed grin but his face was thin and pale, his eyes sunken.
"Light your lamp," Gareth said, reaching into his pocket for a coin. "Lead the way."
The boy pocketed the farthing, struck flint on tinder, lit the precious wick of his lamp, and set off ahead, holding the lamp high, his little shoulders stiff as if he were truly proud of his mission.
"Milord… milord."
Gareth turned. Miranda and Chip were running toward him. "Do you mind if we accompany you, milord? I've never been to London." Miranda brushed her hair out of her eyes and regarded him gravely, but her confusion was easily read.
"I'd prefer my own company tonight," Gareth said. If he made nothing of the kiss, then they could both forget it. It hadn't meant anything, after all. How could it have? "Go back to the barge and they'll take you home."
With a smile that he hoped would soften the rejection, he set off again. Miranda hesitated. She couldn't see how
she could bring up what had happened
on the barge if the earl wouldn't give her an opening, and he certainly wouldn't give her one if she went meekly home.
She caught up with him again, and although he appeared not to notice her, she kept at his side, never falling back despite the length and speed of his stride.
After a few minutes, she broke the silence. "Are you going a-whoring again, milord?"
Gareth sighed. He'd already recognized that this d'Albard twin had as strong and persistent a will as her sister. "If I was, I'm not now, it seems. Must you accompany me?"
"If you please," Miranda said. "I might get lost on my own."
"You'll forgive me if I have a rather better opinion of your natural resourcefulness," Gareth remarked.
Miranda felt an immense sense of relief. She knew that tone and the confusion of the barge receded as the ease in his company returned. If Lord Harcourt wasn't troubled by it, then she shouldn't be.
Presumably he kissed Lady Mary in the same way. But for some reason, that reflection brought her no comfort, only a sense of revulsion. She couldn't imagine it somehow. That haughty, impeccable, perfectly composed woman in an embrace that Miranda had experienced as vivid scarlet, bright crimson, hot as hellfire.
The alley was narrow and dark, the roofs of the opposing houses meeting overhead, the top stories so close a man could sit on one windowsill and fling his leg over the sill opposite. But as they emerged into Whitefriars, the lane broadened and light spilled from open doorways and windows with the sounds of raucous laughter, music, singing.
At the sign of the Golden Ass, Gareth said to the lampboy, "You may leave me here." He gave the lad another coin and the boy carefully extinguished his lamp to preserve both oil and wick and trotted back to the waterfront.
Gareth stepped through the wide-swinging gates into the cobbled courtyard of the Golden Ass, Miranda at his heels. The inn formed three sides of the courtyard; doors to the various downstairs rooms stood open to the night air and the procession going in and out was ceaseless. A railed gallery ran along all three sides on the second floor and men and women hung over the railing, shouting down to those beneath, while music and laughter poured out from the open doors behind.
Horses, carts, and carriages stood on the littered cobbles and the smell of spilled ale, tobacco smoke, manure, rotting matter, and night soil was as thick as clotted cream on the air that was so much warmer and closer than on the river.
Miranda followed the earl through the drunken revelers, their progress causing barely a stir in the ceaseless tide of humanity. She was not in the least shocked by the sight of women with bared breasts soliciting custom, or men with their hose unlaced, doublets unfastened, lurching from" dark corners with a satisfied leer. She had roamed such places as the Golden Ass all her life.
Gareth climbed the outside stairs to the second-floor gallery with the air of one who knew precisely where he was going. Miranda, at his side, peered with unabashed interest into the various chambers. On two sides of the gallery, they were for the most part drinking rooms, but on the third side something different was happening. Women hung on the railings, leaned out of low windows opening onto the gallery. They were half-naked, bodices unlaced, and the ill-lit rooms behind them were sparsely furnished.
But Gareth turned into a low-ceilinged drinking room and called to the potboy, "Malmsey, lad." He pulled out a bench at the long drinking table and swung himself astride it. Miranda cheerfully sat beside him, perfectly at home, and Chip, equally at home, pranced down the table, flourishing his hat and inviting pennies.
Miranda sniffed hungrily. A group of men and women were crowded around a stewpot at the top of the table. "I smell venison. I'm ravenous."
"But you've just had dinner."
"I didn't really feel like eating," she confessed with a grimace. "I'm not criticizing your table, milord, but…"
He nodded. "You'll become accustomed to our ways." He gestured to the potboy. "Bring a bowl of that stew and some bread, lad."
There were no implements, just a bread trencher. Miranda used her fingers in the pot, sopping up the liquid with the bread. But she was careful to eat as daintily as possible, and to avoid spilling gravy on anything but the bread. It was, however, the most delicious meal she thought she'd tasted since she'd left Dover quay. And she was under no illusions that it was the familiar surroundings that made it so.
With a comfortably full belly and the spreading relaxation from her own tankard of malmsey, she found herself asking the question that had been dogging her for hours. "Do you have strong feelings for Lady Mary, milord? For your betrothed?"
Gareth's expression changed and she regretted the question immediately. But she still waited for his answer.
"Lady Mary is to be my wife," he said after a minute. "She will be an admirable wife and, God willing, will give me heirs."
"Your first wife-"
"What do you know of her?" he interrupted, his voice both soft and very cold.
"Nothing." Miranda took a sip of her wine. "Maude said that there had been an accident… I didn't mean to pry." She didn't like the look on his face at all.
An accident. As far as the world knew, it had been an accident. That shadowy figure behind Charlotte, the instant before she fell, could have been a figment of his overstretched imagination. He'd been standing on the gravel, three stories below. He could easily have been mistaken. But Charlotte had been up there with her lover- that poor besotted youngster whose torments of jealousy Gareth had watched with something akin to sympathy as Charlotte tortured him with her indifference, her sudden wild passions, and then the casual dismissal when she cast him aside for someone fresher, better able to satisfy her. John de Vere had been with Charlotte on that fateful afternoon. Gareth had heard his desperation, seen it in the white face and wild eyes as the young man had pushed past the husband of his mistress as blindly as if Gareth didn't exist. Had pushed past him and raced up the stairs. The door had slammed. Gareth had left the house, unable, despite the many times it had occurred, to stay under the same roof while his wife made the beast with two backs with another man. He'd stood beneath the window. And he'd seen Charlotte fall. And he'd seen the shadow behind her the minute before. A shadow that had stayed, watching, until Charlotte's body had crashed to the gravel, and the blood had clotted beneath her head. And then it had gone, and he, Charlotte's husband, had checked her pulse, closed her eyes, and his heart had sung with joy. A crime of passion, it was not his place to judge such an act. And if that shadow had not been de Vere… then Charlotte's death had still been a crime of passion, but passion of a different breed. "Milord… milord?"
He became aware of Mi
randa's voice, her hand on his sleeve, and her face swam into focus. Her eyes were wide and frightened.
"What is it, milord?"
"Nothing. Come, let us go. It's near dawn." He swung himself off the bench, threw a handful of coins onto the warped planking of the table, and headed for the river.
Miranda got up more slowly. Just so had he looked in his nightmare. She clicked her fingers at Chip and followed the earl back to the river. There were things here a wise woman would leave well alone. But Miranda wasn't sure how wise she was.
A jagged fork of summer lightning split the black sky, illuminating the dark mass of the walls of Paris looming above the Seine's high banks. The almost simultaneous crash of thunder set the still air reverberating and the heavens opened to let loose a torrent of stinging rain, slashing down onto the parched earth, great drops bursting against the greasy steel-gray surface of the river.
Pickets huddled into their cloaks as they marched the line at the foot of the walls, and within the besiegers' camp Henry of Navarre stood outside his tent, raising his face to the rain, greedily catching the drops in his open mouth. His hair and beard were drenched and his soaked linen shirt clung to his sinewy chest.
Within the shelter of the tent his advisors watched him as he grew increasingly bedraggled and the ground beneath his boots turned into a mud-thick swamp. To a man, they were bemused by this strange behavior. Henry was a hard campaigner and a little water wouldn't trouble him, but to put himself in the way of a drenching was most unlike their pragmatic and deliberate commander.
It was too much finally for the king's physician. "My liege… my liege… this is madness. You'll be sick of an ague." The old man ventured into the rain, drawing his thick cloak tightly around him, stepping gingerly through the mud. Water dripped from his long beard as he came beside his king. "Come into shelter, sire. I beg you."