The medieval serpentine bracelet with its emerald swan charm had belonged to Maude's mother. It was a unique and most precious piece of jewelry. How it had come into the king's possession, Gareth didn't know. He presumed Francis d'Albard had given it to his king at some point and Henry now considered it a most appropriate gift as earnest of his intent to woo d'Albard's daughter.

And so it had come about that Gareth now carried in his doublet the proposal that would send Imogen into transports of delight and panic. And God alone knew what it would do to Maude.

He passed through the broken gateway in the crumbling town wall. The town was well protected by the castle on the clifftop and the three forts built along the seafront by Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII, and had long given up maintaining its walls-they were too susceptible to a cannonade from the water to make it worthwhile anyway. He turned toward Chapel Street and the Adam and Eve Inn, where he could bespeak a bed to himself that night and be reasonably sure of getting one. Innkeepers were notorious for promising such precious privacy and then inflicting unwanted bedfellows on their patrons at an hour of the night when a man could do nothing about it.

He had ducked his head beneath the low lintel of the inn, when the unmistakable sounds of a hue and cry surged around the corner from Snargate Street. He stepped back to the narrow dirt-packed lane just as a blur of orange flashed past. The pursuing crowd bellowing "Stop, thief." would have knocked him from his feet if he hadn't jumped back into the doorway.

Ordinarily, the prospect of mob justice wouldn't have concerned Gareth in the least. Beatings and stonings were a fact of life when the populace took the law into their own hands with one of their own, and no one gave them a second thought. It was more than likely that the girl was a thief. The life she led tended to engender a rather relaxed attitude to other people's property.

He turned again to the promise of ale and a pipe of tobacco in the tavern's taproom, and then hesitated. Suppose she wasn't guilty? If the hue and cry caught her, innocence wouldn't save her from their rough justice. They wouldn't stop to ask questions. And even if she was guilty, the thought of her being subjected to a mauling mob revolted him.

He turned back to the street and walked briskly in the wake of the hue and cry. Judging by the continued baying they hadn't caught her yet.

Chapter Two

Miranda, a gibbering Chip clinging to her neck, dived into a narrow gap between two houses. It was so small a space that, even as slight as she was, she had to stand sideways, pressed between the two walls, barely able to breathe. Judging by the cesspit stench, the space was used as a dump for household garbage and human waste and she found it easier to hold her breath anyway.

Chip babbled in soft distress, his scrawny little arms around her neck, his small body shivering with fear. She stroked his head and neck even while silently cursing his passion for small shiny objects. He hadn't intended to steal the woman's comb, but no one had given her a chance to explain.

Chip, fascinated by the silver glinting in the sunlight, had settled on the woman's shoulder, sending her into a paroxysm of panic. He'd tried to reassure her with his interested chatter as he'd attempted to withdraw the comb from her elaborate coiffure. He'd only wanted to examine it more closely, but how to tell that to a hysterical burgher's wife with prehensile fingers picking through her hair as if searching for lice?

Miranda had rushed forward to take the monkey away and immediately the excitable crowd had decided that she and the animal were in cahoots. Miranda, from a working lifetime's familiarity with the various moods of a crowd, had judged discretion to be the better part of valor in this case and had fled, letting loose the entire pack upon her heels.

The baying pack now hurtled in full cry past her hiding place. Chip shivered more violently and babbled his fear softly into her ear. "Shhh." She held him more tightly, waiting until the thudding feet had faded into the distance before sliding out of the narrow space.

"I doubt they'll give up so easily."

She looked up with a start of alarm and saw the gentleman from the quay walking toward her, his scarlet silk cloak billowing behind him. She hadn't paid much attention to his appearance earlier, having merely absorbed the richness of garments that marked him as a nobleman. Now she examined him with rather more care. The silver doublet, black-and-gold velvet britches, gold stockings, and silk cloak indicated a gentleman of considerable substance, as did the rings on his fingers and the silver buckles on his shoes. He wore his black hair curled and cut close to his head and his face was unfashionably clean-shaven.

Lazy brown eyes beneath hooded lids regarded her with a glint of amusement. His wide mouth quirked in a smile, revealing exceptionally strong white teeth.

She found herself smiling back, confiding, "We didn't steal anything, milord. It's just that Chip's attracted to things that glitter and he doesn't see why he shouldn't take a closer look."

"Ah." Gareth nodded his understanding. "And I suppose some poor soul objected to the close examination of a monkey?"

Miranda grinned. "Yes, stupid woman. She screamed as if she was being boiled in oil. And the wretched comb was only paste anyway."

Gareth felt a flash of compassion for the unknown hysteric. "I daresay she was unaccustomed to having monkeys on her head," he pointed out.

"Quite possibly, but Chip is perfectly clean and very good-natured. He wasn't going to hurt her."

"Perhaps the object of his attention didn't know that." The glint of amusement grew brighter.

Miranda chuckled. Her predicament somehow seemed much less serious in the company of this lazy-eyed and clearly well-disposed gentleman. "I was about to take him away but they set on me, so I had to run, which made me look guilty."

"Mmm, it would," he agreed. "But I don't see what other choice you had."

"No, exactly so." Miranda's smile suddenly faded. She cocked her head, listening to the renewed sounds of a mob in full cry.

"Come, let's get off the street." The gentleman spoke with sudden urgency." That orange gown is as distinctive as a beacon."

Miranda hesitated. Her instinct was to flee again, to put as much distance as she could between herself and the approaching hue and cry, but she found her hand seized in a firm warm clasp, and without volition, Chip clinging to her neck, she was half running to keep up with the gentleman's long stride as he returned to the Adam and Eve.

"Why would you bother with me, milord?" She skipped up beside him, her eyes curious as she looked up at him.

Gareth didn't reply. It was a good question and one to which he had no ready answer. There was just something remarkably appealing about her, something both defenseless and indomitable that moved him. He couldn't abandon her to the mob, even though reality told him that she was more than accustomed to dodging such street hazards.

"In here." He urged her through the narrow doorway into the dark interior of the inn with a hand in the small of her back. Her skin was warm beneath the thin fabric of her dress, and looking down at her small head, he saw how white her skin was in the parting of her dark auburn-tinted hair. Almost absently, he brushed the parting with a fingertip. She jumped, looking up at him startled, and he cleared his throat, saying briskly, "Keep a tight hold on that monkey. I'm sure there are bright objects in this place."

Miranda wondered if perhaps she'd imagined that fleeting touch. She looked around critically. "I doubt there's much to catch Chip's eye here. There's too much dust. Even the pewter's tarnished."

“That may be so, but keep hold of him anyway."

"My lord Harcourt." The innkeeper popped out of a doorway at the rear of the narrow passageway. His little eyes gleamed. " The livery stable has a good horse for you as you ordered. Eh, what's that? Get that filthy thing out o' here, you young whore!" He pointed a finger trembling with outrage at Chip, who had begun to recover his equanimity and was now perched on Miranda's shoulder, looking around with bright-eyed curiosity.

"Be easy, Molton. The girl's with me and the monkey will do no harm." Gareth turned into the taproom. "Bring me a pipe and a tankard of ale. Oh, and ale for the girl, too."

"I wish I knew why people are afraid of a monkey." Miranda went to the tiny window set low in the lime-washed plaster wall overlooking the lane. She rubbed at the smeared glass with her sleeve until she had achieved a relatively clear patch.

Gareth took the long clay pipe from the landlord, who had filled the bowl with tobacco and now held a lighted taper. Fragrant blue smoke wreathed to the blackened rafters as Lord Harcourt drew pleasurably on the pipe. Miranda watched him, her small, well-shaped nose wrinkling.

"I've never seen anyone do that before. It's not popular in France."

"Then they don't know what they're missing," he said, taking up his tankard and gesturing to the girl that she should take up her own. Miranda drank with him.

"I don't think I like the smell," she observed judiciously. "It makes it difficult to breathe. Chip doesn't appear to like it, either." She gestured to the monkey, who had retreated to the farthest corner of the taproom, one skinny hand over his nose.

"You'll forgive me if I don't find it necessary to take into account the likes and dislikes of a monkey," the earl observed, drawing again on his pipe.