Jane Feather - The Emerald Swan

"Good Lord above!" Mama Gertrude flung up her arms in astonishment. A few gull feathers had settled into her piled coiffure, looking strangely at home with the grubby lace cap she wore. Without the gold plumes, she appeared somewhat diminished.

Chip leaped onto her shoulder, wrapping his arms around her neck, and she patted him absently. "Now, just where in the name of tarnation did you two… three… spring from? That Lord 'Arcourt said as 'ow you'd be stoppin' wi' 'im."

" 'Tis to be 'oped 'is lordship's not goin' to want them fifty rose nobles back."

"Oh, hush yer mouth, Jebediah," Gertrude said, her ruddy complexion darkening. "Don't ye be takin' no notice of Jebediah, m'dear. Lord 'Arcourt said as 'ow it was right fer ye… seein' as 'ow…" She stopped, nonplussed.

"Seeing as how what?" Maude prompted. She hitched herself onto the seawall of Folkestone quay as if she'd been doing it all her life, and flicked at a burr clinging to her skirt. The last carter's wagon they'd taken from Ashford to Folkestone had previously carried sheep's wool to market and the bales had been full of prickly burrs.

"Seein' as 'ow you an' Miranda are sisters," Luke stated.

"Oh," Maude said. "That." She raised her face to the sun, closing her eyes, letting the warmth beat gently onto her lids, listening to Robbie's excited treble as he hurled himself into Miranda's embrace.

Miranda laughed and Maude instantly opened her eyes. Her sister had been very quiet since the previous day. There had been no more tears, but she hadn't smiled much, either, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. But now she was smiling with genuine pleasure at the grubby child in her arms as she kissed his thin cheek.

"Y'are not goin' away again, M'randa?" Robbie pulled at her hair, curling his legs around her hips. "Y'are not!"

"No, Robbie," she said softly. These were her family. For better or worse, this was where she belonged.

"Well, what about them fifty rose nobles?" Jebediah muttered.

"God's bones, d'ye never sing another tune?" Raoul said disgustedly. "Let's 'ear what the lassies 'ave to say."

"It's quite simple," Miranda began.

"Less than you think." A voice spoke from behind her.

All eyes slowly swiveled toward the earl of Harcourt, who stood holding his horse a few feet away.

“Told ye the man'd want 'is money back," Jebediah said with an air of righteous satisfaction.

"As it happens, money is the last thing on my mind," Gareth said. "I've come to reclaim my wards, before they become too accustomed to the delights of traipsing around the country like a pair of itinerant peddlers."

"My lord?"

"Yes, Maude?" He smiled at the girl, sitting on the wall like a veritable urchin. He noticed the dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose, the sun-kissed pink of her cheeks. The hem of her petticoat was grubby, and she appeared to have a cluster of burrs clinging to her dimity gown. "Have you enjoyed your journey?"

"Yes, my lord," Maude said. "And… and I think-"

"No," he interrupted with a wry chuckle. "Please don't say I've come too late and you're already lost to the wandering life."

"I seem to have more in common with my sister, sir, than you might think." Maude reached for Miranda's hand, drawing her closer to the wall.

"On the contrary, Maude, I've long recognized that fact," Gareth said. "But my business lies with Miranda. Lord Dufort should be arriving at the Red Cockerel on Horn Street within the hour. If Luke would escort you to await him there, I would be much in his debt."

Maude looked at Miranda, whose fingers were tightly clenched around hers. Miranda was very pale, very still. Robbie unhooked his legs from her hips and stood up, and for once she didn't seem to notice his actions.

"I don't believe we have any further business, milord," Miranda said, gently extricating her hand from Maude's and taking a step forward. "I believe I fulfilled my obligations as far as it was possible and the money you paid to my family is only what you promised. I believe it is owed."

"Oh, yes," he said quietly. "It is owed them, and much, much more, for their loving care of a d'Albard. You shall decide what is owed your family, Miranda." He looped his mount's reins over a hitching post and came toward her, his smile rueful.

"But I claim the right to say what is owed you, sweeting." His hands moved to encircle her throat. "I would prefer privacy, but if I must say this here, then so be it." His thumbs pressed lightly against the fast-beating pulse in her throat. "You said you loved me. Could you ever again say that you love me, firefly?"

The ground slipped and slid beneath her feet. Miranda was aware of the silence in the circle surrounding them, of the close silence and yet also of the faraway, noisy bustle of the quay. She was aware of Maude's startled and yet suddenly comprehending gaze, of Robbie's bewilderment, of Luke's puzzled hostility. She swallowed, her throat moving against Gareth's thumb.

It was Maude who broke the silence in a high, clear voice. "Luke, will you escort me to this Red Cockerel, please?" She slid off the wall. "Cousin, I shall wait with Lord Dufort until you and my sister return to the inn."

"Bravo, Maude," Gareth said softly, moving one hand from Miranda's throat to lift his young cousin's fingers to his lips.

"Should I take Chip?" Maude smiled radiantly at Miranda, her confusion now cleared. It seemed extraordinary that Miranda and the earl should love each other, but then so many extraordinary things had been happening lately, what was one more? And it had to mean one vital thing. Miranda was not going to go out of her sister's life.

"Yes, take him." It was Lord Harcourt who answered her, and Gertrude who handed the monkey over, her own expression still rapt at the drama unfolding before them.

"Miranda?" Gareth said, now taking a step away from her, as if to give her room to answer the most important question he had ever asked or would ever ask in his life.

"Everyone will know there are two of us," she said.

"That would ruin everything for you. The king of France can't know that you deceived him."

"I suppose I deserve that you should think it still matters," Gareth replied. "But only one thing is truly important to me now, Miranda. You. Can you believe that?"

She wanted to believe it. Oh, how she wanted to believe it. But the hurt still bled. "I don't know," she said helplessly.

Gareth looked around the circle of attentive faces. Every word he said was being weighed against Miranda's happiness.

Then Gertrude stepped forward. "What are you offerin' 'er, m'lord?"

"Goddammit!" Gareth finally lost his patience. "I'm proposing marriage to the Lady Miranda d'Albard."

Maude, some five feet away, stopped in her tracks, suddenly remembering an inconvenience. "I don't see how you can do that honorably, my lord, when you're already betrothed to Lady Mary," she pointed out.

"As it happens, I am not."

"Oh, how did that happen? Not that I thought you would suit in the least."

Gareth turned slowly. There was a mischievous gleam in his young cousin's eye; then with a wave and an astonishing wink, she went off with a skipping step.

Gareth turned back to Miranda. She was smiling. "I didn't think you would suit, either, milord."

Gareth knew that he'd won the hardest batde of his life. "How right you are, my love," he said equably. "And fortunately Lady Mary came to that conclusion herself. Ladies and gentlemen… if you'll excuse us." Catching Miranda around the waist, he tossed her up onto his horse, unlooped the reins, and mounted behind her. "Perhaps you would join us for a betrothal dinner at the Red Cockerel in two hours' time."

Maude was sitting with Luke in the taproom of the Red Cockerel when her guardian rode up. She and Luke watched from the taproom doorway as Lord Harcourt dismounted and, sweeping Miranda ahead of him, entered the inn and mounted the stairs.