The Emerald Swan by Jane Feather Page B

give over, Sadie, do.” The little man ducked the blows and began edging toward the far side of the yard. “Afore they catch us again.”
    Still railing at him, the woman took off in his wake, neither of them offering a word of thanks to their saviors.
    “What a horrid woman. Now I’m beginning to think we shouldn’t have helped them,” Miranda said.
    “Oh, I
know
we shouldn’t have,” Gareth said feelingly, glancing over his shoulder as a cry of rage went up behind them. Someone had seen the victims sloping off.
    “All right, you miserable beast, let’s see what you can do!” He struck the nag’s flank with his whip and the startled animal reared up with a whinny of shock and leaped forward. Gareth’s heels pressed into his flanks, driving the animal toward the wall at the rear of the yard.
    Miranda gasped, her stomach leaping into her throat, as the wall came up with terrifying rapidity. It looked as if the animal was going to balk until again Gareth struck with his whip, and at the very last moment, the horse rose into the air and somehow cleared the wall, landing with legs asprawl in the middle of the innkeeper’s kitchen garden.
    Behind them, the cries of the rabble grew louder as men and women clambered awkwardly over the wall in pursuit. The mob had clearly lost interest in their original victims; good humor had given way to vicious anger, well oiled by tankards of ale.
    “Hell and damnation!” Gareth glanced around the garden, which was enclosed by another wall. There wasnot sufficient room for the nag to take a run at it and in a minute they would be trapped and surrounded by a vengeful mob.
    Miranda drew her knees up so she was kneeling on the animal’s neck. “I’ll open the gate.” Before he could take a breath, she had launched herself at the wall. For a moment she seemed to hang in the air, then she had brushed the top of the wall with her toes and vaulted over. The gate swung open and the nag, now thoroughly spooked, bolted through it into a fetid alleyway between the inn and its outbuildings. Miranda had the presence of mind to slam shut the gate before she leaped aboard the horse behind Gareth.
    “Oh, where’s Chip?”
    “He’ll find us,” Gareth said grimly, concentrating on holding in the panicked horse. He was beginning to wonder if the hot summer sun had addled his brain over the last two days; he could think of no other explanation for his present position.
    “Oh, there he is!” Chip was racing on three legs along the alley behind them, chattering and waving his free paw. “Come, Chip. Quickly.” Miranda leaned down, clinging with her knees, her head perilously close to the muddy ground, holding out her hand. Chip grabbed her fingers and vaulted into her arms, gibbering excitedly.
    “How in the name of grace are we going to get out of here?” Gareth could see no clear thoroughfare out of the village without having to pass in front of the inn.
    Miranda sprang to her feet, standing easily on the nag’s back, swaying comfortably with the ungainly motion. “I can see over the outhouse roof. There’s a tiny path just to the right, behind the cesspit. Maybe that’ll take us out.”
    She dropped back with a gasp as a rock flew throughthe air from the pursuing crowd, who had finally emerged from the garden.
    Gareth wrenched the reins around and drove the now-panicked horse into the dark, narrow cut alongside the noisome cesspit. “I hope to God this comes out somewhere useful or we’ll be trapped like rats in a sewer.”
    “It opens out into a field, I think.”
    Once they were in the open field, the sounds of the mob faded. Gareth sighed with relief. “If I ever feel the slightest inclination to go along with one of your compassionate impulses again, Miranda, remind me to lock myself up.”
    “We really couldn’t have left them,” she said simply.
    “No,” he said with another sigh. “I don’t suppose
we
could have.” The earl of Harcourt could have left them very