The Emerald Swan by Jane Feather Page A

passion. A woman who knew her power and her beauty and knew exactly how to use them.
    But Miranda’s sublime indifference to her nakedness, her blithe ignorance of the effect it was having upon him, was more alluring than all of Charlotte’s knowing wiles.
    One too many rum punches, he told himself, turning away from the bed. His voice had a slight catch to it as he said, “That’ll do fine. Get back under the covers before you catch cold.”
    Miranda obeyed with alacrity. It was true that the night air coming through the unshuttered window was quite chilly on her bed-warmed flesh. She drew thecovers up to her chin and asked companionably, “Did you have a pleasant evening, milord?”
    Gareth’s murmured response didn’t encourage further friendly discussion.
    The moon was for the moment obscured by cloud and Gareth hastily blew out the candle, plunging the chamber into darkness. Taking advantage of the gloom in which his body would be visible as only a pale shape, he threw off his clothes, leaving them on the floor where they fell, and climbed into bed. The mattress sank under his weight and Miranda’s slight body rolled against the separating pillow. Gareth could feel the warmth of her body beneath the covers, although they weren’t touching, and he could smell her skin and hair, a faintly earthy yet curiously innocent scent in the air around him.
    Miranda rolled onto her side, tucked up against the pillow. “I give you good night, milord.”
    “Good night, Miranda.” But it was long before Gareth finally slipped into slumber.
    When he woke, daylight was pouring through the unshuttered window and there was no sign of either Miranda or the monkey. He stretched, yawned, flung aside the covers, and stood up, surprised at how clearheaded and remarkably well he felt, given his rather short and not entirely dreamless night. His eye fell on Miranda’s orange dress lying on the window seat and his well-being suffered a small dent. If she wasn’t in the room, and she patently wasn’t, then where in the devil’s name had she gone in a state of undress?
    Applause, whistles, and catcalls drifted through the open window from the inn’s courtyard beneath. He went to the window, looked out, looked sideways, then stared, his heart in his mouth. Miranda was on thepoint of the steeply pitched, black-leaded, red-tiled roof to his right. She was barefoot, clad only in the leather leggings and her chemise, and she was performing an acrobatic routine for the enjoyment of the inn’s staff many feet below.
    She was standing on her hands, or rather on one hand, he amended sickly; the other hand was waving to the audience. Chip was standing on the sole of her upturned foot, raising his hat in a similar salute.
    Gareth bit back a yell of fury, terrified of disturbing that precarious balance. He held his breath as she back-flipped on the razor-thin edge of the roof pitch, sending Chip soaring through the air in a tumbling somersault. Miraculously they both landed on their feet, but his mind wouldn’t lose the image of her body tumbling over and over through the air, legs and arms flailing as if they could halt her fall, until she landed on the cobbles beneath, sprawled and limp as a rag doll, a pool of blood spreading from beneath her head and the strange sharp angle of her neck.
    Charlotte. No, that was Charlotte.
He could still hear her scream as she tumbled backward from the window, to land at his feet. He could still feel the warmth of her skin beneath his hands as he touched her fallen body.
    Gareth shook his head to banish the ghosts. He looked down at his hands, slim, white, strong. They had confirmed her death, closed her eyes on that hideous afternoon. Each movement so cold, so deliberate …
    He let his hands fall to his sides. It was not Charlotte he had to worry about, not now, not ever again. He leaned out of the window as far as he could.
    “Miranda.” He kept his voice low and even as if he were hailing her calmly on