by Jane Feather
"Yes, Lady Imogen decided to leave court in a hurry." Miranda perched on the edge of the table, well away from the blazing fire. "She says she has preparations to make for when the duke of Roissy arrives tomorrow." Her frown was somewhat abstracted. "I'm just wondering exactly what preparations she has in mind."
"What do you mean?" Maude leaned forward on the settle, eyes alight with interest.
"Well, she seems to think that this charade isn't working. And it does appear that there are people who are noticing that I'm rather different from what they remember of you." She told Maude what they'd overheard behind the arras, then said thoughtfully, "I think she intends to compel your obedience somehow."
"She has often threatened thus," Maude said with an obstinate turn of her mouth. "But I have told her that she could break me on the wheel and I will not abjure. And if I do not abjure, I cannot marry a French Protestant."
"No, I'm sure that's so," Miranda said a touch impatiently. "But I wonder if you really know what pressure can be brought upon you if the woman is determined. And I do believe she is utterly determined. Milord is not here at the moment to take your part, and I believe Lady Imogen is ever one to strike while the iron is hot." Her clear blue eyes held the other girl's twinned gaze and after a minute uncertainty crept into Maude's eyes.
"I cannot know what I can endure until I am put to trial," Maude said with a clear effort at bravery. "It was so with the saints."
"Yes, but I don't think you're ready to be canonized," Miranda returned with energy. "I think we should change places tonight. Just in case your cousin has some mischief in mind. You sleep in my chamber and I will sleep here."
"But why should you suffer my cousin's wrath?"
"Because I will not." Miranda grinned. "Believe me, Maude, I will prove to be more than a match for Lady Dufort."
Maude looked doubtful, but already Berthe was gathering up her chamber robe and slippers. "Come, my pet." She bustled over to her, enfolding her in the robe. "It's a good plan. The girl was sent here for a purpose and it's not for us to question the Almighty's arrangements. You know that you're far too frail to withstand Lady Dufort's ire. You'll be quite safe in the green bedchamber and I'll kindle the fire. We'll make it quite cozy, you'll see."
"But I can't leave Miranda to face the consequences of my defiance!"
"Yes you can." Miranda bundled her to the door. "You can, because I will not. I understand that you wouldn't wish anyone to suffer in your place, but you must believe that I won't. If anyone is going to suffer it'll be Lady Imogen." "What of Chip?"
"Oh, yes, he'll give the game away if he stays in here with me." She reached up and detached the monkey from her shoulder. "Chip, go with Maude, just for a little while."
The monkey allowed himself to be handed over, tucking himself into a fold of Maude's chamber robe and regarding his mistress reproachfully. She tickled his chin. "It won't be for long."
"Come, come, my pet. We mustn't linger," Berthe said urgently. "Her ladyship could come at any minute." She looked anxiously over her shoulder into the dimly lit corridor. Maude, after another hesitant look at Miranda, allowed herself to be hurried away with Chip.
Miranda unlaced her gown and removed the farthingale and petticoats, bundling them under the bed where they wouldn't be noticed. She extinguished all the candles and climbed into Maude's bed in her chemise, leaving the curtains open so that she could see the door in the firelight. If Lady Dufort was going to arrive bent on mischief, she wouldn't catch her prey napping. Maude's nightcap lay on the pillow and Miranda slipped it over her cropped hair as a final artistic touch.
The clock struck eleven, and then midnight. Miranda was growing sleepy in Maude's cozy feather bed and the fire was burning low. She began to wonder if she was mistaken. Maybe Imogen had thought better of her plan. Maybe her brother had already returned from court. But Miranda was fairly certain that the earl was not in the house. Somehow she was sure that she would know if he was.
The last strokes of midnight had faded into the night when the door burst open and Lady Dufort entered like an ill wind, accompanied by what to Miranda's startled gaze seemed a positive army of women.
Imogen had removed her black ropa and pushed up the sleeves of the cream gown in businesslike fashion. Her little eyes flashed venomous determination as she swept up to the bed, the phalanx of maids at her back. In her hand she hefted a thick blackthorn.
Miranda was still taking stock of the numbers of her potential attackers when her ladyship loomed at the bedside. With one thrust of the blackthorn, Imogen swept aside the covers.
"Seize her to the bedposts," she commanded in throbbing accents.
The maids fell upon Miranda, grabbing arms, legs, lifting her bodily from the bed.
Miranda let out an unearthly shriek and allowed her body to go limp as if she were overcome with shock. Her eyes darted to the door but it had been firmly closed, although she didn't think it had been locked.
"Bind her securely," Imogen ordered. "Arms and legs. You, woman, you have the tapes." She pointed with her stick to the oldest of her minions, a rat-faced woman who attended closely upon Lady Dufort.
"Yes, m'lady." The Woman came forward with what struck Miranda as unbecoming eagerness, thin strips of linen in her hands.
The maids had set Miranda on her feet at the foot of the bed and she hung limply in their hold, offering no resistance. It seemed that Maude was to be tied by wrists and ankles to the bedposts so that Lady Dufort could wield her stout blackthorn without hindrance.
Poor Maude, it would have gone hard with her, Miranda thought, the instant before her body jackknifed in her captors' now-slackened grip. Her arms jerked up, breaking their grasp. Two scissor kicks sent two of her assailants tumbling into the corner of the room. She spun on the balls of her feet, her arms windmilling in a wide arc, catching the rat-faced woman with the bindings across her midriff. With a faint breathy sound of astonishment, the woman fell backward onto her skinny rump.
Miranda bounced onto the bed out of reach, backing up against the headboard, where she stood at bay surveying the general carnage.
Imogen was so startled she gave vent to a banshee's scream of outrage, competing with the cries of the fallen maids.
Footsteps raced down the corridor as servants hurried from all corners of the house, emerging from the closets and attics where they slept, white-faced with terror at a noise that could only herald fire or violent intruders set to massacre the inhabitants of Lord Harcourt's mansion.
The chamberlain didn't pause for a second's reflection at the door to Lady Maude's chamber. The noise was coming from within, and with the air of one about to confront a hostile
army he flung up the latch and burst open the door. Behind him, men and women crowded into the doorway, staring at the scene in Lady Maude's bedchamber, their eyes slowly, disbelievingly, following Lady Dufort's wild-eyed gaze and pointing finger to the small figure standing on the bed, arms akimbo.
Gareth, entering the house through the side door, expected to find a sleeping household. He had left the palace earlier than he'd intended. All his attempts to distract himself at the card table and in the usually congenial company of his friends over a decent bottle of burgundy had failed miserably. He ached with fatigue, his temples throbbed, and his mouth tasted of ashes. The previous sleepless night was the obvious reason and the remedy equally obvious. Miranda would be long abed and his household quiet, his own chamber a peaceful, welcoming haven of solitude.
As he emerged from the side passage into the central hall, a confusion of noise billowed down the great staircase. Male and female voices shouting, exclaiming, and above it all his sister's unmistakable rage-driven screaming. It wasn't often these days that Imogen completely lost control, but Gareth knew that sound of old. Imogen was beside herself.
He mounted the stairs two at a time and strode down the corridor toward the noise. Unless he was much mistaken, it was coming from Maude's chamber. The milling crowd at the door parted as he swept through them. "What the devil is going on?"
Imogen turned at his entrance, her finger still stabbing toward Miranda's motionless figure. "It's… it's… the oth… the other one!" she stuttered. "It's not Maude. How did she get in here? She's the devil's tool! A changeling, suckled at a witch's tit!"
At the accusation, the noise around Gareth swelled and people fell back, gasping, staring fearfully at the girl standing on the bed. Gareth said quietly, "Don't be absurd, Imogen. Take a grip on yourself. You can't go around throwing accusations of witchcraft. You know you can't."
Slowly sanity returned to Imogen's wild eyes. She shivered, clasped her arms across her breast, suddenly cold as ice. Her gaze focused finally on the room, on the gaping crowd in the doorway, on her shocked maids. And the realization that she had created this scene penetrated her befogged brain.
Gareth spoke as quietly to the chamberlain. "Send the household back to their beds, Garrison."
"Aye, m'lord." The chamberlain in his furred bed robe turned to the gawping servants. "Be off to your beds. There's nothing here for you to gape at. Be off now." He shooed at them as if they were chickens escaped from the henhouse and with obvious reluctance they obeyed, but their voices, though muted, continued to carry their excited speculation down the corridor.
"Oh, what is happening?" Maude, her eyes fixed and resolute in her white face, ran into the room. "I can't let you suffer for me, Miranda!" Chip, with a high-pitched squeal, leaped from her arms and up onto the bed, where he crouched on Miranda's shoulder and glared down with eyes like black pinpricks.
Imogen gave a low, defeated moan and covered her face with her hands.
"Lady Dufort, I believe your business is with me." Maude stepped in front of Imogen.
"Your heroics are a little late, cousin," Gareth said calmly. "Miranda, please would you get down from there?"
"I'd prefer it if you'd disarm your sister first, milord." Miranda braced her hands against the headboard. "She was going to beat Maude into submission with that great thick stick."
"What?" Gareth took in the blackthorn for the first time.
"You could break bones with it," Miranda continued with something akin to relish. "And she was going to tie her to the bedposts to do it. See the tapes that rat-faced woman has."
Gareth found the object of this accurate description without difficulty. The woman was sitting on the floor with a bemused expression on her countenance, but the strips of linen were still clutched between her hands. As Lord Harcourt's fierce gaze fell upon her, she scrambled to her feet with difficulty, her farthingale swinging wildly as she caught a toe in her petticoat with a harsh, tearing sound.
"She assaulted me, my lord," she declared as if in explanation, her voice frightened, as well it might be under the harshness of his lordship's stare. "She struck me, knocked me over."
"Well, what else would you expect?" Miranda demanded reasonably. "When someone's going to tie you up so you can be tortured, of course you defend yourself."
Maude, her moment of heroism over, gazed in astonishment at Miranda. Her eyes began to brim with laughter as she glanced sideways at Imogen, and with a stifled little sound, she sank onto the settee, burying her face in a cushion.
With a curt gesture, Gareth dismissed Imogen's maids. There was little point blaming them for obeying their mistress's orders. Then he turned back to Imogen.
Imogen, her hands shaking, was sitting on the window seat. Her eyes were blank with shock and the aftermath of hysteria. She looked at her brother. "I did it for you, Gareth," she said in a low voice. "Only for you. I did it for you."
"I know, Imogen," he said, and there was both sadness and a great weariness in his voice. He came over to her, took her hands, and gently drew her to her feet. "When will you realize that I don't need…" Then he shook his head. "Never mind. What is, is. Go to bed, now." He touched her cheek with his fingertips as if in benediction, then escorted her to the door.
"Were you sleeping in Miranda's chamber, Maude?"
Maude raised her head from the cushion. "I wasn't sleeping, sir. I couldn't possibly sleep when I was waiting for something to happen."
"No, well, perhaps you can now. I suggest you return there for tonight."
"Why, do you think Lady Imogen will try again?"
"No, but I wish to have private speech with Miranda, so do as I ask, please."
Maude cast a startled look at Miranda, then she turned and left the chamber.
Gareth walked to the high bed. Reaching up, he hooked Miranda's waist and lifted her down. He held her off the ground and away from him, looking into her face. She regarded him gravely, trying to read his expression, but it was completely impassive, offering no clues to his thoughts.
"God help me," he said finally, sounding perfectly affable. "If I'd known how you were going to turn my life upside down, firefly, I'd have run from Dover as if all hell's hounds were on my heels."
"You wouldn't have expected me to stand aside and let your sister do her worst, though. Not when I knew she was planning to force Maude."
He shook his head equably. "No, I wouldn't have expected you to do that. Knowing you as I do. I wouldn't even have expected you to have stayed with Maude as protection until I returned." A fleeting smile tugged at his mouth." That would have been really too simple."
Miranda wondered if he was ever go�
�ing to set her on her feet again, but she made no protest. His hands were warm and firm at her waist, and there was an intensity in his eyes that belied his casual tone. "In truth, milord, I didn't think of that."
He nodded. "Of course you didn't." There was silence again. Chip, who was now sitting on the pillows, began to comb his hair with his fingers, but despite this absorbing activity, his eyes darted watchfully toward the two figures in the middle of the room. A green log flared in the fireplace. The clock chimed the half hour.
Miranda touched Gareth's mouth with her little finger. It was a light, delicate little brush that brought a tingle to his lips. He snapped at her finger, drawing it into his mouth, and she laughed softly, bringing her other hand up to trace the line of his jaw, before moving her head and kissing his eyelids. She fluttered her eyelashes against his cheekbones and her breath was a warm rustle on his skin. She kissed the point of his chin, her tongue rasping over his nighttime beard.
Slowly, he allowed her to slide through his hands until her feet were on the floor. Cupping her face, he brought his mouth to hers. With a delighted little sigh, Miranda closed her eyes and yielded to the leisurely arousal of a kiss that engulfed her so completely that her mouth became the focus of all sensation, a warm crimson pool of pleasure.
Gareth finally raised his head. His eyes, where reason and passion fought for supremacy, were almost black. Then Miranda moved against him and he could smell her hair, her skin, the powerful fragrance of arousal mingling with the delicacy of rosewater and jasmine. And reason lost the battle. He tucked her neatly beneath his arm and strode from the chamber, Chip scampering after them.