The Emerald Swan by Jane Feather Read Free Book Online Page B

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 hadseen in her entire life. “Just for pretending to be someone else.”
    “Just for agreeing to pretend to be Maude,” he corrected. “You may not even have to play the part.”
    “Oh.” A deep frown corrugated her brow.
    “But I’m afraid the monkey is not included,” he said gently.
    Her response was immediate. “Oh, no, then I couldn’t agree.”
    “You would throw away fifty rose nobles for the sake of a monkey?” Gareth was so incredulous he lost his carefully preserved calm.
    Miranda’s mouth set and she said firmly, “Chip belongs to me. Where I go he goes.”
    It was the set of her mouth that convinced him. How many times had he seen Maude look exactly like that, the same damnably stubborn expression in the cerulean eyes, the same line of the mouth? Henry would never know the difference between the two of them.
    He bit the bullet and accepted the ultimatum. “Very well. But God help us all when Imogen sees him.”
    “Who’s Imogen?”
    “My sister. And I’m afraid you will not like her.” He stood up on the words. “Are we agreed, Miranda?”
    Miranda continued to hesitate. With fifty rose nobles she could do anything. Even buy Robbie the special shoes that would lift his shorter leg. The cobbler in Boulogne had said he could make such shoes for a lame person. But he wanted five guineas for them, and where was a strolling player to find five spare guineas? Until now.
    She looked up, met his dark eyes, grave and unsmiling now, but she was once again struck nonetheless bythe steadiness, the sense of security, that emanated from his large loose-limbed frame.
    He held out his hand and silently she took it, as she stood up. “We are agreed, milord.”
    His hand closed warmly over hers, then he smiled and all the gravity was chased from his expression. “Good, I believe we shall deal extremely well, you and I. But it’s late and we must leave at dawn. You may sleep up here tonight since you are now in my employ, and I suggest you go to your rest now. It’ll be a long and tiring ride tomorrow.” With a little smile, he raised her rather grubby hand to his lips. “I give you good night, Miranda.”
    She touched her hand where his lips had brushed, swamped with a mixture of wonder and embarrassment. No one had ever kissed her hand before.
    The door