Free The Emerald Swan by Jane Feather Page B

dinner and the loan of a decent horse. But Miranda couldn’t be easily explained, not without risking his secret.
    She stopped at the head of the path and stood shading her eyes, gazing out at the view stretched below them. The town clustering against the cliffs, the peaceful waters of Paradise Harbor, the white-flecked waves of the sea beyond.
    “I’ve never been to London,” she said as he came up beside her.
    It seemed to come out of the blue but he understood that she was looking toward France, twenty miles across the water to where all the family she had ever known would soon be landing. He detected a sheen of tears in her eyes as she looked up at him. But Miranda was a d’Albard, not a strolling player anymore, and she must leave the past behind.
    “Then it’s time you tasted the pleasures of the metropolis,” he said bracingly. “Come. The path is straight now and this beast can carry us both.” He leaned down, offering her a hand.
    Miranda took it and settled behind him, whistling again for Chip, who appeared out of a tangle of gorse bushes, clutching a handful of leaves and gibbering with pleasure.
    “You’ve found your own dinner, then,” Miranda observed, receiving him into her arms as he leaped upward. “Where will we dine, milord?” Her interrupted breakfast seemed a long time ago.
    “At the Arms of England in Rochester,” Gareth said. “There’s a livery stable close by where I should be able to trade in this pathetic excuse for horseflesh for something a little more robust. It should make tomorrow’s ride rather more comfortable, not to mention quicker.”
    “Tell me about your sister. Why won’t I like her?”
    “You’ll have to see for yourself,” he said. “But I warn you that her disposition will not be improved by sight of that monkey.”
    “Chip will behave,” she assured him. “Does she have a husband, your sister?”
    “Lord Miles Dufort.”
    “Will I like him?”
    “He’s inoffensive enough. Somewhat henpecked.”
    “Oh.” Miranda chewed her lip for a few minutes. “Is your house very grand? Is it a palace?”
    He smiled slightly. “On a small scale. But you will soon learn your way around it.”
    “Does the queen ever visit you?”
    “On occasion.”
    “Will I meet the queen?”
    “If you take my cousin’s place, most certainly you will.”
    “And your cousin … will she like me?” There was anxiety in her voice and she put her hand on his shoulder. Her body was very close to his back, not exactly pressed against him, but very close nevertheless.
    “That’s hard for me to say,” he replied neutrally, trying not to respond to the distracting, sinuous little body at his back. “I know very little about the workings of my cousin’s mind. I’m not really very well acquainted with her.”
    “And you don’t know very much about me, either,” Miranda said thoughtfully, with another little wriggle against him. “But I could tell you anything you wanted to know.”
    “Perhaps later,” Gareth said. “Is it necessary for you to sit so close to me? I find it rather hot.”
    “His back slopes so I keep rolling down the hill,” she explained, but obligingly hitched herself backward. “I’ll try and hold myself here.”
    “My thanks,” he murmured with a secret smile. It seemed an eternity—not since the early months of his marriage—that he had last felt true amusement instead of the twitch of cynical derision that passed for humor.
    The road wound its way inland, dropping downfrom the cliffs, and the nag picked up his pace. They were approaching a crossroads when an immense din reached them. A raucous sound of pipes, clashing of pans, drumming of bones on tin, and a roaring surge of shouting, chanting voices mingling with shrieks and hoots of a mirth that had an unpleasant edge to it.
    “Whatever is it?” Miranda peered around Gareth’s substantial frame to look down the lane to the right of the crossroads. A group of ragged men came around the