Jane Feather - The Emerald Swan

"I believe this is a jugged hare." Gareth sniffed appreciatively at the contents of an earthenware stew-pot. He dipped his knife into the pot and cut off a piece of rich dark meat, spearing it on the point of his knife. He tasted it and nodded. "Excellent." He gestured that she should help herself and broke off a chunk of the soft fresh white bread.

Miranda needed no second invitation. She dipped her spoon into the savory juice and was about to use her fingers on the meat when she remembered that her companion had used his knife. Such niceties were not the habit of the traveling folk but she was adept at imitation and followed suit. It was with relief however that she saw he didn't have any scruples about dipping his bread into the communal pot.

Gareth paused in his eating to fill pewter goblets from the leather flagon of Rhenish wine. He was covertly watching the girl at her supper, noticing how daintily she was eating, how she wiped her fingers clean on her bread instead of licking them, how she chewed with her mouth closed.

Chip leaped from the top of the bed and perched on the end of the table with his head on one side and a somewhat mournful air. "He doesn't eat meat," Miranda explained, breaking off a piece of bread and holding it up to him. "He likes fruit and nuts, but he'll have to make do with bread today."

"I expect mine host can produce a dish of raisins and a couple of apples," Gareth suggested, looking pained. "Do you think you could encourage him to leave the table? I don't care to eat in the company of even well-behaved animals."

Miranda lifted Chip off the table but he promptly jumped onto her shoulder, still clutching his piece of bread. "I don't think I can persuade him to go any farther away," Miranda said apologetically.

Gareth shrugged in resignation. "As long as he stays off the table." He took up his goblet. "Your family are French?"

Miranda gave the question rather more thought than such a simple inquiry might ordinarily have warranted. " The troupe are French, English, Italian, Spanish. We come from all over," she said eventually. "Is that what you meant?"

"What about your own family?"

"I don't know. I was found." She sipped her wine. It always embarrassed her to have to confess to being a foundling, even though she had never lacked for a sense of family.

Lord Harcourt, however, seemed to find nothing to condemn about such a careless beginning. He merely asked, "Where?"

Miranda shrugged. "In Paris somewhere, when I was a baby."

He nodded. "And how old are you now?"

Miranda shook her head. "I don't know exactly. Mama Gertrude thinks I must be about twenty. She found me in a baker's shop and since I didn't seem to belong to anyone she took me with her. And now she wants me to marry Luke. Which is absurd. Luke's been my brother all my life. How can one marry one's brother?"

"Without benefit of clergy."

Miranda grinned at this dry response. "You know what I mean."

He just laughed and refilled her goblet. "So the troupe is the only family you've ever known. You speak English as if it's your mother tongue."

"I speak lots of languages," she said almost indifferently. "We all do. We travel all over, you see… Oh, Chip!" She gave a mortified cry, grabbing up the monkey, who had slid from her shoulder while her attention was diverted and was now digging into the stew-pot. He flourished a piece of carrot between two fingers before cramming it into his mouth, chattering gleefully.

"I do beg your pardon, milord. He must have realized there were vegetables as well as meat in the pot." Miranda looked stricken. "His fingers are quite clean, though."

"How reassuring," Gareth replied without conviction. "Fortunately, I've satisfied my appetite for the moment, so you might as well let him dig to his heart's content."

"It's very kind of you to feed Chip, milord," Miranda said as they watched Chip forage. "So many people seem to be afraid of him. I can't understand why, can you?"

"Your fellow players presumably accept him."

"Some of them don't like him." Miranda sipped her wine. "But he earns his keep. The crowds love him and he's very good at collecting money after our act… and Robbie loves him. He makes him laugh." Her smile was sad, her lovely blue eyes momentarily shadowed.

"That's the little crippled boy?"

She nodded. "One foot is badly formed and one leg is shorter than the other. It means that he can't do much toward earning his keep, but I share my takings with him and he does what he can."

"Whose child is he?"

"No one knows. He was found, too. I found him in a doorway."

Gareth was startled by his response to this simple speech, to the simple generosity and the depths of human feeling that lay behind it. The girl had so little to give, but what she had she freely shared with those even less fortunate than herself. And no one could describe the hand-to-mouth existence of a strolling player as a fortunate one. He'd grown accustomed to the idea that his own better nature had died with the discovery of Charlotte's betrayal. Life had seemed so much easier once he'd stopped expecting anything from people that he had embraced his own cynicism with pleasure and relief, but this diminutive scrap seemed to make nonsense of such cynicism.

"So what is your proposition, milord?" She changed the subject, resting her chin on one elbow-propped palm, her other hand firmly clutching Chip's jacket.

"I would like you to stand in for someone," he stated. "In my house just outside London, I have a young cousin who is frequently unwell. She looks rather like you… in fact you are astonishingly alike… and I think it might be helpful if you were to take her place in some situations that might arise."

Miranda blinked in astonishment. "Pretend to be someone else, you mean?"

"Precisely."

"But this cousin… won't she object? I wouldn't like someone pretending to be me."

His smile was a trifle sardonic and took Miranda aback. She hadn't seen such an expression on his face before. "In the circumstances Maude will not mind," he said.

"Is she very ill?"

He shook his head, and the sardonic smile would not go away. "No. Maude is more of an imaginary invalid."

"What situations are going to arise?"

The arrival of the king of France expecting to woo the

Lady Maude d'Albard. Gareth stroked his chin, regarding Miranda in a silence that she began to find unnerving. The man she had felt so easy with a few minutes before seemed to have changed. "Milord?" she prompted.

He said briskly, "That I can't tell you at this point. I don't even know for sure that I will want you to take Maude's place. I don't know if it will be necessary… in the end. But I would like you to accompany me to my house and stay there for a while and practice conducting yourself like the Lady Maude d'Albard."

Miranda's gaze dropped to the table. This sounded very strange and not entirely honest. "You want me to practice a deception, milord?"

"I suppose you could call it that," he said. "But I assure you that no one will be harmed by it. Quite the opposite. You'll be doing many people a great favor."

Miranda chewed her lip. It still sounded very peculiar. She crumbled bread between her fingers. "How long is a while?"

"Again I don't know precisely."

"But I have to go back to France and find my family," she said doubtfully. " They will wait in Calais for a week or two, but then they'll have to travel and I might never find them again."

Gareth remained silent, sensing that pressure from him would only drive her away.

"If I say I will come for two weeks…?" she suggested.

Gareth shook his head. "No, you must agree to remain until the task is completed. Then I will fee you with fifty rose nobles."

"Fifty rose nobles!" Her eyes became as round as saucers. One rose noble was more money than she had seen in her entire life. "Just for pretending to be someone else."