by Jane Feather
"Aye, and afterward we're goin' on the town," Brian declared with an expansive gesture. "I've been chaste as a monk for the last week and I've heard tell there's a decent house hard by the cathedral."
Gareth thought rapidly. Miranda had disappeared to the outhouse while he'd been negotiating the horse exchange. If his two old friends came face to face with her it would be useless to hope that they wouldn't immediately notice the startling resemblance to Maude.
"I'll join you shortly. I've yet to complete my business with the livery stable," he demurred.
"Oh, we'll send for the man to wait upon us in the inn. No need for you to hang around at his beck and call." Brian flung an arm around Gareth's other shoulder with an exuberant bellow of good-fellowship. "Come, my throat's as dry as an old maid's tits."
At that moment Miranda appeared from the corner of the inn, Chip, dressed once more in his now-dry jacket and cap, sitting on her shoulder.
She saw him, half lifted a hand in greeting, then abruptly turned on her heel and sauntered back the way she had come, her orange dress fluttering around her calves.
Gareth exhaled in slow relief. His companions had their backs to the corner and wouldn't have spied her. She had swift reactions, this little d'Albard.
"I'll join you in the parlor directly," he said. "I've need of hot water and clean linen after the day's ride."
The Rossiter brothers agreed amiably to meet him in half an hour in the private parlor and he hurried into the inn and upstairs to the large front chamber he had earlier bespoken for himself and Miranda.
Miranda had gone immediately to the chamber, where she hitched herself up on the high bed and sat swinging her legs in the gloom as dusk's shadows lengthened. She had reacted without a moment's thought when she'd seen the earl with the two men and she had no doubt that she had done the right thing. But she was feeling a little forlorn until she heard the earl's footsteps on the landing outside. The door was not fully closed and he stepped into the doorway, peering into the dimness.
"Why are you sitting in the dark, Miranda?"
"I don't know," she said frankly. "I felt as if I ought to stay hidden somehow, and it seemed more appropriate to sit in darkness." She slid off the bed and struck flint on tinder, lighting the branched candlestick on the low table beside the bed. The golden light glowed through the veil of her hair as it fell forward from her bent head, sending dark red flares shooting through the rich brown locks.
So like her mother's, Gareth thought. He could remember watching his cousin Elena brush her hair at her dresser and the candle had set alight exactly the same fires in the thick, dark mane.
"What made you disappear like that?" he inquired curiously, leaning against the dresser, resting his hands on the smooth cherry wood on either side of his hips.
"I didn't stop to think," she said. "It just seemed obvious that if we were to practice a deception in London then I probably shouldn't show myself to people you know before then."
"Not everyone would have thought so shrewdly… or so swiftly," he said, smiling. "I congratulate you."
Miranda flushed with pleasure at the compliment. "Do those men know your cousin?"
"They've seen her several times… more often than most people." He unbuckled his sword belt, laying it over a stool, then threw off his cloak on his way to the washstand where he poured water from the jug into the ewer. "They would certainly notice your resemblance to her."
"Even with my short hair and when I'm dressed like this?"
He looked over at her, saying consideringly, "It requires a leap of faith, I grant you."
Miranda knew that tone by now and she grinned. "I suppose I'd better stay up here for the evening."
"I think it would be best if you dined up here. You won't be too lonely, will you?"
Miranda shook her head, although she knew that she would. She was not accustomed to being alone.
Gareth hesitated, unconvinced by the headshake, but he could see no alternative. As he began to remove his doublet, his fingers slid inside the inner pocket as they did without conscious thought countless times a day. The waxed parchment was there and the little velvet pouch with the bracelet. He glanced at Miranda, who had wandered to the window and was looking out into the gathering dusk.
Her slim, straight back, the long, delicate stem of her swanlike neck, reminded him so much of her mother. Elena had had just such grace of movement, just such naturally erect posture. And the bracelet that had so graced her mother's slender wrist would grace the daughter's. For him it took no leap of faith to imagine the grubby, tattered urchin in courtier's dress. She was Elena's daughter.
He turned back to the washstand, rolling up the sleeves of his white shirt.
Miranda turned away from the window. She watched him as he performed the simple gesture. His fingers were so long and elegant, meticulously folding over the cuffs of the shirt before pushing the sleeves up to his elbows, baring the brown muscular forearms and strong wrists. The candlelight caught the fine dusting of dark hair on his forearms. A pulse in her throat began to beat fast and she felt a strange quickening low in her belly, a strange fullness in her loins. It was not a sensation she had ever before experienced.
"Could you look in my portmanteau for a clean shirt? This one reeks of sweat and horseflesh after that mad ride this morning."
Gareth bent to splash water on his face and Miranda found herself gazing at the curve of his back, the taut swell of his buttocks in the short trunk hose, the long, hard thighs outlined under close-fitting black stockings. She swallowed as the strange sensation in her lower body intensified and she felt her cheeks warm.
Hastily, she turned her attention to the portmanteau, finding a clean shirt of soft cream linen.
Gareth took it from her with a word of thanks, tossed it over the bedrail, and pulled the shirt he was wearing over his head. His chest was broad and smooth, paler than the strong brown column of his neck. The muscles rippled in his upper arms, almost as powerful as Raoul's, the strongman in the troupe.
Miranda's eyes went to the sword and the heavy studded belt. She remembered the strength with which he'd wielded both that morning at the Adam and Eve. Maybe Milord Harcourt was a courtier, but he was also a powerful swordsman, it seemed.
Gareth emerged from the lavender-smelling folds of his clean shirt and tucked it into the waist of his trunk hose. Then he leaned against the bedpost and examined Miranda, suggesting with a quizzically raised eyebrow, "Maybe you'd like to use the water, too."
"I wish I had clean clothes," she said sorrowfully. "Or just a clean chemise. All my possessions are probably back in France by now."
"We'll remedy the situation as soon as we reach London," he promised, lif
ting her chin on a forefinger. She looked so bereft. "Don't look so mournful, firefly. I'll order you a very special dinner to be sent up." Now where had that oddly affectionate nickname come from? Then he heard Mama Gertrude's robust tones as she'd stormed past him muttering: That girl… like a firefly she is with her darting about.
He continued hastily, "I expect I'll be late returning, but I've ensured that there's a truckle bed for you." He released her chin with a smile, picked up his sleeveless doublet again, and left the chamber, pulling the garment on as he went.
Miranda sat down again on the bed. Chip jumped into her arms and gently touched her face with one hand. She rubbed his neck, wondering why she was feeling so forlorn. She and milord were so easy, so companionable together that it was hard to believe they'd only known each other for two days.
Gareth stretched his long legs beneath the oak refectory table and reached for his tankard of mead. Around him the buzz of voices ebbed and flowed, the light, eager tones of the women interspersed with the rougher, more gravelly tones of men who had drunk deep throughout the evening. Ribald laughter gusted upward to the smoke-blackened rafters.
A thin- faced serving girl appeared at his side with a jug of mead. She refilled his glass, holding herself away from him as if she expected him at any minute to grab, pinch, tickle, or slap. But Gareth to his surprise found that he had no interest in the women on sale in the house hard by the cathedral. All around him, men examined, women displayed, and when negotiations were completed, the pair would disappear into one of the many curtained niches ranging along the sides of the great hall.
The bawd who owned the whorehouse, a sharp-featured woman, richly dressed in orange damask, crossed the thronged hall purposefully toward the earl.
"You find nothing to tempt you, my lord?" She sat on a stool beside him, resting her cheek on her hand, regarding him with narrowed, calculating eyes and a smile that didn't deceive him for a moment. "Your friends seem to be perfectly satisfied."
Gareth nodded and drank from his tankard. "I find I'm not in the mood for play tonight, mistress."
"We can satisfy any tastes, my lord. My girls are always ready to oblige in any way." She winked. "Ellie." The bawd beckoned imperiously to a young woman who had just emerged from behind one of the curtains. "Ellie has some very particular specialities, my lord. Isn't that so, dear?" She smiled at the girl, a smile radiating menace.
Ellie immediately leaned over the earl, encircling his neck with her arms, and whispered into his ear. Her hair brushed his cheek and her skin exuded the scent he always associated with whores-a musky perfume overlaying the dirt and the smell of other men.
Once Charlotte had come to him smelling exactly like this. After one of her wild nights when she'd given herself to anyone who'd wanted her. As usual she'd been drunk, her eyes almost feral in their predatory hunger. She'd rubbed herself against him just as the whore was doing now, whispering lasciviously in his ear, inviting and yet taunting at the same time. Only her husband had ever refused the invitation of her lush body, her sharp little teeth, her ferocious hungers. Hungers that no one man could satisfy.
The whore purred her filth into his ear, moving sinuously around his body, rubbing and pressing herself against him. With a violent oath, Gareth pushed back his stool and stood up. The girl fell back, only just managing to keep her feet. The bawd rose, too, her narrowed eyes filled with anger.
"Stupid girl," she hissed at Ellie, who stood with her hand pressed to her mouth, utterly nonplussed by the client's reaction. "A little finesse, a little delicacy. Isn't that what I'm always tellin' you?"
"It's not the girl's fault." Gareth imposed his large frame between the bawd and her whore. "Here." He handed the bawd a guinea and swung on his heel, making for the door and the freshness of the night air.
"Gareth… eh, Gareth, m'boy. Where're you off to in such haste? The night is young, and there's some choice wares I've yet to sample." Brian barreled across the room, without his doublet, his shirt unbuttoned, his hose unlaced. He flourished a goblet in the air and beamed. "Kip's found himself a nice young thing, just what he likes."
"I'm going back to the inn," Gareth said brusquely. "I find I've no taste for this tonight. Enjoy yourself. I'll see you in London."
"Eh, but you won't journey with us on the morrow?" Brian looked as injured as it was ever possible for such a man to be.
"No, my friend. I'll be on the road at dawn. You'll not have opened your eyes by then."
Brian chuckled. "If I've closed 'em by then."
Gareth merely raised a hand in salute and plunged outside into the quiet street. He strode back to the inn under the bulking shadow of the cathedral. His head cleared in the fresh air and he began to feel clean again as the soiled memories retreated.
Since Charlotte's death he had satisfied his sexual need with simple, clean, unemotional encounters with willing women who wanted nothing more themselves- unsatisfied wives, lonely widows, the occasional whore. He was resigned to a lifetime of such satisfaction. Mary would be dutiful, of course, but there was no passion there. After Charlotte, he needed as wife a woman who would lie still, be glad when it was over, and grateful for each pregnancy that freed her from her marital duty.
The reflection brought a cynical twist to his mouth as he entered the inn beneath the lantern that threw his profile into harsh relief. He was unaware of the figure in the bedchamber above the door, kneeling on the window seat looking down at the street.
Miranda jumped off the window seat and dived under the covers on the truckle bed. She lay looking up into the darkness, listening for his footfall in the corridor outside. How strange he had looked. How cold, his mouth twisted out of shape so that he didn't look like the man she knew.
But then of course she didn't know him. How could she? After a mere two days in his company? He came from a world she knew nothing about, and she had sat up waiting for him because she was not used to sleeping alone and the bedchamber had seemed vast and gloomy and so empty. Even Chip's familiar company had not been quite enough. But now, as she heard the latch lift, her heart lurched as if the man who entered the chamber was a stranger.
She closed her eyes tightly, concentrated on breathing deeply, felt him approach the truckle bed, felt his scrutiny as he looked at her in the starlight from the unshuttered window. Only Chip stared back with his bright eyes as he curled in the crook of Miranda's neck.
Gareth bent and delicately adjusted the cover, drawing it up to her neck so the draught from the open window wouldn't chill her. He scratched the monkey's neck with a fingernail because somehow it seemed impossible to ignore the animal's presence, and then threw off his clothes, aiming for the chest at the foot of his bed.
&nbs
p; He climbed into bed. A great wash of weariness swamped him, the melancholy fatigue that had dogged him since the end of his idyll with Charlotte, those few short months of happiness. He knew with familiar dread that in his sleep the dreams would return.
Miranda listened as the earl's breathing dipped into the even rhythms of sleep. Only then did she allow herself to sleep. And she awoke at some point in the darkest hour of the night, her heart thudding. She sat bolt upright, aware that Chip had left her and was on the window seat gibbering anxiously to himself.
The occupant of the big four-poster was thrashing around, the covers had fallen to the floor. His breathing was harsh and ragged, and half-formed words, rushed and nonsensical phrases, escaped from his lips.
Miranda thrust aside the covers and slid off the truckle bed. She approached the big bed tentatively. The earl's large frame was twisted among the sheets. But it was his face in the starlight that brought her heart to her throat. His mouth was hard and cruel, with a white shade about the lips, and deep lines scored his face alongside his nose.
Resolutely, she put her hand on the earl's shoulder, shaking him as she shook Robbie when the nightmares had him in thrall. She spoke softly, steadily, telling him who he was, where he was, that everything was all right, that he should open his eyes.
Gareth's eyes suddenly flew open. He stared unseeing at the small white face above him, dominated by huge blue eyes filled with anxiety. The sweet, melodious voice continued to wash over him and slowly the words penetrated and the horrors of the night receded. Her hand was warm on his shoulder and as the demons left his own eyes she wiped his sweat-soaked brow with a corner of the sheet.
