by Jane Feather
"My ward is somewhat overawed, madam," he said.
"Indeed, I thought her remarkably at her ease," the queen observed with another flicker of her lips, and Miranda wasn't sure whether Her Majesty had guessed her predicament. Had anyone else? She shot a swift sideways glance at Lady Mary. It was not reassuring; the lady was looking stunned.
Miranda approached the queen. Elizabeth took her right hand. "So tell me, Lady Maude, how does the duke of Roissy please you?"
"I cannot say, madam. I have not seen a likeness of His Grace, although he has seen one of me."
"Dear me, Harcourt. That is an omission." The queen, still holding Miranda's hand, turned to Gareth and tapped his arm playfully with her closed fan. "You can't expect the poor child to regard her nuptials with enthusiasm if she has no picture of her intended."
Lucifer! Matters were going from bad to worse. It was a veritable hornet's nest. Why oh why hadn't she simply said yes to the queen's question with a shy smile? Lord Harcourt had told her not to volunteer anything and here she was chattering with the queen as if they were old friends. "Oh, please do not blame mil… Lord Harcourt. The duke was unable to furnish a likeness and I know mi… Lord Harcourt will give me a verbal description if I asked it of him."
"I shall draw you a portrait, my ward," Gareth said gravely. "I hadn't realized it was important to you. But I do assure you there is nothing displeasing in your suitor."
"No… no, I'm sure there's not," Miranda said fervently. "I know that you would not have me wed to someone displeasing."
"My… my. What a champion you have in the child!" the queen declared with another laugh. "I could wish more wards regarded their guardians with such respect and favor… And indeed had such good reason to do so," she added.
Gareth's only response was a bow of acknowledgment. The queen turned her attention back to Miranda, who was desperately wishing the floor would open and swallow her. "I understood the girl to be of a frail constitution, Lord Harcourt. She seems hale and healthy enough."
"I believe my ward has grown out of the indispositions that haunted her childhood."
"Ah, yes. It does happen." Her Majesty nodded again, then her eye was caught by the bracelet on Miranda's wrist. She lifted the wrist. "Why, this is a pretty bauble. Most unusual."
"A gift from Roissy, madam. As earnest of his intent," Gareth said smoothly. "It belonged to Lady Maude's mother. A betrothal gift from Duke Francis."
"Oh, how appropriate." The queen bent closer over the bracelet, examining it with a frown. "We should be quite delighted to find such a bauble for ourselves."
Miranda instantly moved to unclasp the bracelet. "If Your Majesty would be so kind as to-"
"Goodness me, no, child!" the queen interrupted, although she was clearly pleased. "Your suitor would be deeply offended, and rightly so, to have his gift so carelessly given away." She released Miranda's hand.
"I give you good day, Lord Harcourt. Bring your ward to me again. I find her refreshing."
Gareth moved immediately. He bowed himself backward to the door, Miranda curtsying in synchrony, and then they were beyond the doors.
Miranda straightened, blowing out a relieved breath. "I nearly fell over," she said as the full horror of the near-disaster hit her.
"I noticed," Gareth said with a tiny smile.
"Thank goodness you did. But how could it have happened? I'm never clumsy!" She stood still, heedless of the crowded antechamber. "I told you I couldn't do this, milord. Why did I say all those things?" She looked up at him in frustration. "Why couldn't I have kept quiet?"
"You were certainly more forthcoming than most young girls on their presentation to the sovereign," Gareth observed gravely. "Ah, Imogen." He greeted his sister as she sailed through the crowd toward them.
"Well?" she demanded. "How did it go?"
"Without disaster," Gareth returned with a non-committal smile. "We may congratulate ourselves that the worst is over."
"Yes, indeed," Imogen said with a flourish of her fan. "Come now, Maude. Lord and Lady Ingles are anxious to renew their acquaintance with you. They haven't seen you since you were a child." She took Miranda's arm and swept her away.
The rest of the evening was one of interminable torture for Miranda. She seemed to be curtsying, nodding, smiling, meaninglessly and without cease. Names and faces blurred and although Lord Harcourt stayed always in her vicinity, she had no conversation with him.
Lady Mary, released from attendance on the queen, joined them after an hour. "My dear Maude, whatever were you thinking of?" she demanded immediately. "Talking to the queen in that impertinent fashion. I was never so shocked." She shook her head. "My lord Harcourt, were you not shocked?"
"Not in the least," Gareth responded.
"Goodness, what did the girl do?" Imogen asked. "My brother said the presentation had gone well." She looked accusingly at Gareth.
"So it did," Gareth said.
"Oh, come, sir, you must admit your ward was unpleasingly forward," Lady Mary said.
"Her Majesty didn't appear to mind, madam. I thought her quite taken with Maude's unusual candor."
Mary didn't know what to make of this defense. It vexed her and yet, in honesty, she had to admit that Maude's forwardness had not done her any harm in the queen's eyes, for all that it had shocked her ladies. But she had not expected Gareth to come to his ward's defense. Gareth was as much a stickler for the conventions and ceremonies as she herself was. Or so she had believed.
“Tell me exactly what transpired, Mary. Tell me at once!" Imogen demanded.
Miranda listened in silence as Lady Mary recounted every detail of the interview. But she didn't seem to have realized how close to disaster Miranda had come with the curtsy, and for that she supposed she should be grateful. There didn't seem to be anything for her to say in her defense, and even the earl had turned aside as if the subject no longer interested him, leaving the two women to an animated discussion that quickly moved from Lady Maude's sins to other gossip.
Miranda was dreadfully thirsty but there seemed nothing to drink. No refreshments seemed on offer, not even a glass of water. Surreptitiously, she pried off her shoes, releasing her feet from torment.
"Lady Maude, what do you think of Greenwich?"
Miranda didn't register the question at first, until it was repeated. She came to with a start, responding to Kip Rossiter, "I like it very much, sir. The gardens are delightful."
"Perhaps you'd care to walk down to the river. There's a very pleasant path through the shrubbery." He offered her his arm. He was smiling but his eyes were shrewd and watchful and Miranda felt immedi�
�ately uncomfortable. But she could think of no polite way of refusing. He was clearly an old and valued friend of Lord Harcourt's.
She took his arm and moved away with him.
Behind her, Lady Imogen gave a little shriek. Miranda's discarded shoes, hidden by her gown for as long as she stood still, lay revealed in the grass. Lady Mary stared in disbelief. Miranda glanced over her shoulder, then paled, aghast. Her escort appeared not to have noticed the commotion, and swallowing hard, she continued on her way, barefoot across the grass. No one would know as long as she kept her feet concealed in her skirts.
Gareth, in conversation with Miles, turned idly at his sister's little scream. His astonished gaze fell on the pair of kidskin slippers lying side by side in the grass, as if in expectation of their owner's return. He cast a swift glance to where Miranda was strolling on Kip's arm, her head held high, her back very straight. Gareth didn't know whether to laugh or emulate his sister's scream. Surely Miranda was aware of being shoeless. But perhaps not. It was probably a very familiar condition.
"What are we to do?" Imogen hissed, stepping back so that she had covered the evidence with her own skirts. "She's barefoot."
"Ignore it," Gareth advised in an undertone. "Kick the damn shoes under a bush and pretend it hasn't happened."
"But she's barefoot"
"So you said."
"Gareth, whatever is your ward thinking of?" Lady Mary recovered herself somewhat. "She took off her shoes."
"Maude's physician encourages her to walk barefoot to correct a problem in her arches which gives her some trouble," Gareth heard himself saying with the utmost gravity to his astounded and horrified betrothed. "I daresay she… she… um… slipped out of her shoes for a moment, on his instructions."
"But… but this is the queen's palace." Mary was clearly far from mollified or convinced by this explanation for such incredible, aberrant behavior.
"But Her Majesty is not here to see it," Gareth pointed out a shade tartly. "I see no point in further discussion, madam. The lass is shoeless and we'd do well to ignore the fact."
Mary stepped back, a flush mounting from her neck to flood her cheeks. She turned her shoulder to Lord Harcourt, saying distantly, "You'll forgive me, my lord, but I must return to Her Majesty."
Gareth's response was a formal bow. "I bid you farewell, madam."
Mary walked away without a word for anyone and Imogen chided, "How could you be so sharp, Gareth? You've offended her sadly and she spoke only the truth. It seemed as if you were taking the girl's part against your fiancee."
Gareth brushed aside his sister's anger with a casual gesture. " The deed is done, Imogen, our task is not to draw attention to it. Now, kick those shoes away while I retrieve Miranda and you may take her home out of harm's way."
He strode off after Kip and Miranda, exasperated, but not, he realized, by Miranda's mistake. His sister and his fiancee had made a mountain out of a molehill. It was quite ridiculous, and Imogen, at least, should have known better than to draw attention to the situation. It was only to be expected that Mary would be horrified, given her etiquette-bound, court-oriented outlook on life.
Prudish was probably the word, he caught himself thinking, increasing his speed as he spied his quarry some fifty yards away.
Kip was making casual small talk, but all the while Miranda was aware of his occasional glances. His eyes were shrewd but also slightly puzzled, and she adopted once more the slight rasp in her voice, keeping her eyes lowered whenever possible, and answering only in monosyllables. She greeted Lord Harcourt's approach with undisguised relief, despite her barefoot condition.
"Ah, there you are, milord." She bit her lip at the earl's instant frown. She coughed, rubbing her throat. “The night air is in my throat, my lord," she said.
"Lady Imogen is ready to take you home." He offered his arm.
"So soon," Kip lamented. "I was enjoying your ward's company, Gareth."
"There will be many other occasions," Gareth said with a smile. "Now that Maude has made her debut, she will be often in society."
Miranda shuddered at this promise, but she turned to make a polite farewell to Sir Christopher, still massaging her throat as if to emphasize a hoarseness that might reasonably have made my lord sound rather more French than English.
Kip didn't accompany them as they returned through the shrubbery. He was frowning, wondering what it was about Lady Maude that puzzled him. She looked just as he remembered her, but there was something indefinably different. A sense of the unexpected was the nearest he could come to identifying it. But what could possibly be unexpected about Lord Harcourt's ward?
Lord Harcourt's silence as they walked back to where Lady Dufort and her husband awaited didn't encourage breaking, and Miranda said nothing, wondering what had happened to her shoes, and how she could put them on again without drawing attention to herself. They were too tight to slip into even when her feet weren't swollen.
But there was no sign of her shoes and no one said anything about them as they returned to the water steps where the barge was waiting. She stepped into the barge with barely a flutter of her skirts so that only the most observant eye would have caught a glimpse of a white foot, and took her place on the middle bench, tucking her feet well beneath her.
"You will return with us, Gareth," Imogen stated, settling into a chair just as Brian Rossiter came barreling out of the shadows.
"Gareth, m'boy. We've been waiting this age. Here's Warwick and Lenster, eager for some gaming." The lords emerged into the torchlight, full of boisterous laughter and the pressing invitation to join them for a night of cards and dicing.
"Aye, I've a mind for some sport," Gareth said easily.
"But my lord…" Imogen protested. She was bursting with the need to discuss the evening and all its near-disasters with her brother. "Surely you can play some other time."
There was a short silence, then Gareth said, "I believe I'll play this night, madam. Lord Dufort will escort you and my ward safely home. You can have no need of my escort in his company."
Miles looked longingly at the party on the riverbank but kept silent. Imogen compressed her lips and Miranda watched forlornly as the earl disappeared arm in arm with his friends.
Imogen didn't speak to her on the return trip and Miles's occasional well-meaning conversational gambits fell into a black well of silence until the boat touched the water steps of the Harcourt mansion.
"Well, that was a trial and a tribulation," Imogen declared as she stepped ashore. "But I suppose we should be grateful it didn't become a complete disaster. Miles, give me your arm! What are you waiting for?" She turned with a querul
ous frown. "I have the headache. It has been a most trying evening."
"Yes, yes, my dear madam. I'm right here." Miles, who had been waiting to hand Miranda from the barge, rushed to his wife's side, leaving Miranda to fend for herself. Not that that troubled her in the least. She was so absorbed in her own dark and turbulent mood she barely noticed anyway.
The waiting porter stood at the wicket gate with his lantern held high and moved ahead of Lord and Lady Dufort to light their way up the path to the house. Miranda, ignored, followed behind, curling her sore toes in the soothing coolness of the damp grass.
The glass doors to the wainscoted parlor were opened as the small party approached and the Duforts passed inside as the porter stepped back. Neither Imogen nor Miles acknowledged the sleepy footman who had let them in, but Miranda gave him a quick smile as she padded past him.
He stared stone-faced at the ground where her bare feet left wet prints on the oak boards.
Lady Imogen swept up the stairs without so much as a farewell and Lord Dufort with a quick good-night scuttled away into the shadowy reaches of the house. The footman, however, was waiting by the door, holding the long candlesnuffer. He cleared his throat expectantly as Miranda walked back to the glass doors.
"Oh, I suppose you want to go to bed. I'll snuff the candles and close the doors."
"It's my task to see that all's closed up for the night, madam. And I must snuff the candles," he said woodenly.
"But his lordship is still out."
"His lordship uses the side door at night. Light is left for him." The man spoke into the air, not meeting Miranda's eyes.
