Robbie snuffled and massaged his foot, which was aching unbearably.

"It's the bleedin' monkey I blame," a voice muttered from a far corner. "Should 'ave wrung its neck when the girl first picked it up."

Gertrude laughed, a massive booming sound in the small space, and her huge flopping bosom quivered like an unset jelly. "I'd like to 'ave seen you take it away from Miranda, Jebediah! You didn't see what she did to the organ grinder what was mistreatin' it. Railed at him like a regular fishwife, she did, then tipped up his barrel organ and threw a bucket of slops all over 'im when he come after 'er."

"Oh, aye, quite a sight that was," Bert reminisced. "You don't want to get on the wrong side of our Miranda when 'er pity's raised."

"Well, I'll be glad to see the fight o' day, and no mistake," Jebediah muttered. "An' if it means givin' up the monkey to the law, then you'll not 'ear a peep outta me."

The turnkey's heavy footfall brought an end to the conversation as their heads turned as one toward the massive wooden door with its small barred insert.

The nag looked even sorrier in the bright morning light than he had the previous evening and Gareth had serious doubts how far he'd get with his double load as well as the luggage before he was winded. Certainly not the seventy-odd miles to London.

The pillion cloth was moth-eaten but Miranda had refused the horsehair pad, complaining that the bristles sticking through the canvas were like porcupine's spikes. She now balanced easily behind Gareth on the animal's withers as they rode out of the stable yard, but there was something ominous about her present preoccupation.

"I do hate being cheated," she said eventually, as he turned the horse away from the town up the steep path leading to the castle and the clifftop.

Gareth sighed. He'd been wondering if that was behind her silence. The owner of the livery stable, a one-eyed ex-mariner with a head as bald as an egg, had blatantly overcharged his noble customer for the nag and the pillion cloth. Gareth had heard Miranda's sharply indrawn breath but he had had no interest in arguing pennies with an unsavory cheat. The man would expect the wealthy gentleman to bear the cost without demur. It was one of the unspoken social rules of their world.

"It was a relatively small sum," Gareth pointed out.

"Not to everyone," Miranda said, so softly that it could almost have been to herself.

Gareth felt an absurd flash of discomfiture. Wryly he acknowledged that Miranda's point of view would be vastly different from his own.

The nag stumbled over a loose stone on the steep path leading up to the sprawl of Dover castle on the clifftop. Instinctively, Gareth put one hand behind him to steady Miranda.

"I'm in no danger of falling, milord," she said. "Perhaps I should dismount and walk up." The nag's breathing was growing more labored and without waiting for his response Miranda suited action to words. She jumped down and sprang ahead of them up the path, kilting her skirt to free her leather-clad legs. She neither walked nor ran, Gareth thought. It was more of a dancing progress. Chip had jumped from her arms and was pursuing his own erratic path upward, leaping from stone to stone, pausing frequently to examine some object that had caught his eye.

Watching Miranda's quicksilver movements, the glow of her hair as the wind swept it back from her face, the grace and agility of her slender frame, Gareth began to question whether this deception would work.

Anyone who had seen and known Maude would never be taken in.

If Miranda was to take Maude's place with Henry, then Henry must never lay eyes upon Maude during his courtship visit. It was fortunate that Maude had never been to court. Miranda must make Maude's debut before Henry arrived. Those close to the family who knew Maude to be a wan, reclusive invalid would somehow have to be persuaded of the transformation. That would be Imogen's task. One she would undoubtedly be up to.

Henry had said to expect him before Michaelmas, a mere five weeks away. Could Miranda be prepared in such a short time? But of course she could. She was born a d'Albard and such birth and lineage would come easily to the fore. She seemed adaptable and had a sharp wit; she would take to the new life like a duck to water, he was certain of it.

He watched her stride ahead up the path. They were in the shadow of the castle walls now and he knew they would be under observation from the square towers of the inner bailey. Not that a man on a winded nag would pose much of a threat. The lord of Dover castle was an old acquaintance, and if he hadn't had Miranda in tow Gareth would have claimed hospitality in the form of 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 down from 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 corner, blowing horns, drumming on copper kettles.

"Hell and the devil! We don't want to get into the middle of that!" Gareth pulled the nag sharply to the side of the lane until they were pressed up against the hedgerow.

"What? What is it?" The banging and shrieking was now coming from just around the corner on the heels of the group of music makers, prancing and bellowing as they approached the crossroads.

"The ride to rough music, if I'm not mistaken," Gareth said with a grim smile.

Miranda stared openmouthed as a procession emerged from the corner. An old man wearing only a pair of ragged drawers and a stained leather jerkin led the way on a donkey. On his head he wore a pair of paper horns and he blew on a tin whistle. Behind him pranced an old crone, kicking up her heels in a parody of a dance as she drummed with a wooden clog on a copper kettle slung around her neck. Behind her, brandishing a horsewhip and waving a scarlet petticoat, rode a man on a packhorse. He was blowing on a ram's horn, great bellows that sounded as pained as a gelded bull's.

Behind them came an ass with two riders tied back to back. A woman rode facing front, her large moon-round face scarlet, her eyes curiously blank. Behind her facing the animal's rump was a small man, very pale, his eyes frightened. The woman carried a wooden ladle with which she was beating the man around the head over her shoulders as he desperately plied the spindle and distaff he carried.

A group of men and women armed with clubs and staves marched beside the ass, encouraging the riders to keep at their appointed tasks with yells and insults and threatening gestures of their sticks.

The entire countryside seemed to be following in the wake of this strange procession, all making some kind of noise with whatever household object or musical instrument they'd managed to grab when they'd answered the call to the ride to rough music.

"What does it mean?" Miranda asked again, when the tail end of the procession had turned onto the road ahead of them.

Gareth's smile was still grim. "It's a country practice, otherwise known as a skimmington. When a man allows his wife the mastery, his neighbors are inclined to take exception. A man who is henpecked sets a bad example in the countryside and his neighbors have their own way of expressing their disapproval. As you just saw."

"But perhaps that man and his wife manage best if she holds the household reins," Miranda pointed out with a frown. "Perhaps she has the stronger character and is better at running things than he is."

"Such heresy, Miranda!" Gareth declared in mock horror. "You know your Scripture? The man is God's representative around his own hearth. You'll receive a rough hearing in this country if you hold to any other ideas."

"But perhaps he's a bad provider," she persisted.

"Perhaps he drinks and she has to take charge for the children's sake. Not that he looked as if he drank overmuch," she added consideringly. "He was very pale and I've noticed that most drunkards are red and have swollen noses."

"A woman's lot is to pay due obeisance to her lord and master and put up with whatever hand he deals her," Gareth said solemnly. "It's the law of the land, dear girl, just as much as it's the law of the church."

Miranda wasn't entirely sure whether he was serious or not. "You said your brother-in-law is henpecked. Would you have him and your sister take the ride to rough music?"

Gareth chuckled. "Many's the time I've wished Miles had a strong arm and wasn't afraid to use it. And there are many times when I'd dearly love to see my sister pay the price for a shrew's tongue."

"Truly?"

Gareth shook his head. "No, not truly. There's something utterly disgusting about a skimmington. But I would truly wish to see my brother-in-law stand up for himself once in a while."

The procession was far enough ahead now to enable them to follow without seeming to be a part of it, and he kicked the nag into reluctant motion again. But when they reached the next village, he was forced to draw rein again.