Miranda (4 page)

“Marriage is the institution of a corrupt society, designed to enslave women,” she stated.

Ian could barely think. Was she naive or simply bold, touching him like this? He had been caressed more intimately by more brazen women, to be sure, but there was a compelling quality to the way Miranda slid her long-fingered hands over him.

“Who told you that?” he asked. “Did you learn it by reading Mary Wollstonecraft?”

“I suppose so. Dr. Beckworth urged me to remember things. It is odd. I can recite whole passages by heart, yet I can't even recall my name—” She backed away as a violent shudder racked her. “You can't know how frustrating it is.”

An outraged female yell drifted in from the common room.

He saw something flicker in her eyes—fear. Settling his hands on her shoulders, he asked, “What is it?”

“This is a place of corruption. I—I wasn't prepared for that.”

A chill prickled down his neck. “What do you mean?”

She folded her arms in front of her. “There is a warden called Larkin. He wanted—that is, he would have—” She looked away, pressing her lips together as if loath to speak further.

“Miranda, did he hurt you?”

She shook her head. “No, and it's silly of me to dwell on it. I convinced him that it might be dangerous to harm me.” A fond smile curved her lips. “I said I was undoubtedly a great lady, with a vast fortune and a title, and that as soon as my memory was restored, I would reward those who befriended me.”

Ian gave silent thanks for her quick thinking.

“But lately,” she said, “he's been eyeing me. I think he's starting to suspect it's a lie.”

Ian trapped her hands in his. “I want you to come away with me. Now that I've found you, you need not stay here a moment longer.”

“I know you claim me, but you're a stranger. I'm sorry—”

“You'll be safe with me,” he said.

“I want to believe you, but I do not know you. I cannot go with you.” She shivered. “It's awful here, but it's familiar. It's all that I know.”

“Believe me,” he whispered, lowering his mouth toward hers, wanting just a taste of her. “Do, Miranda. Believe me.”

His mouth hovered closer. She gasped and parted her lips slightly. At the last second, he changed his mind. He must not kiss her. He knew better than to kiss a woman when he wanted her this badly. He brushed his lips across her brow. “I'll keep you safe,” he heard himself whisper, not knowing whether or not he was lying. “I'll keep you safe.”

She glided her hands up his chest, pressing closer, skimming his shoulders.

He hissed and broke away, barking a curse. His shoulder was on fire, and for a moment he saw nothing but a red haze of pain.

“Mr. MacVane!” Miranda cried. “What happened?”

“My shoulder, lass. I was burned in the fire.”

“You were in the fire?” she asked. “
My
fire?”

“Aye, lass, if you're claiming it.”

“Lass,” she whispered, wonder dawning on her face. “It was you, wasn't it?”

“That depends on what you're accusing me of.”

“You're the man in the flames. You called me lass. You pulled me to safety. Gave me your coat.”

“Aye,” he said again, wishing his shoulder would stop throbbing.

“You ran off to help a small child, and that was the last I saw of you.” She shuddered. “The watchman said you had both perished.”

“The watchman turned out to be quite unreliable.”

“You would have come back for me, but you were unable?” she asked, unwittingly making it easy for him to deceive her.

“Injured,” he admitted. “Not mortally, as you can see.”

“Thank God. How is the child?”

“Robbie is fine. Some bumps and bruises, a burned hand that's healing nicely.”

She subjected him to a wide-eyed, wondering look that made him feel as if he had grown a foot taller. “How grateful his mother must be.”

“Robbie's an orphan. He had been staying at a flash house, where they were training him as a cutpurse.” Ian decided not to tell her the worst of it, the other things they were forcing Robbie to do. “He ran away from there and was living alone in an abandoned building.”

“How sad. What will become of him?”

“After my assistant, McDuff, tutors him, Robbie'll be bound for public school, perhaps university.” An old dream flickered in Ian's mind. A lad like Robbie should live free, racing through Highland dales and shouting with laughter, just as Ian had so many years ago.

Miranda clasped her hands to her chest. “You kept the child.”

“He had nowhere to go.”

She crossed to the door.

“Miranda?” he asked. “Where are you going?”

“With you.”

“But you just said you wouldn't.”

“I changed my mind.”

“What made you change your mind?”

She gave an incredulous laugh. “I have two choices. I can stay locked in this asylum. Or I can leave with a man who not only saved me from a fire, but rescued an orphaned child and is raising him to be a gentleman.”

“So you changed your mind because of my sterling character?”

“No.” An unexpected glint of humor winked in her smile. “It was your devastating blue eyes.”

Her wry statement caught him off guard. He stared at her for a moment, then started to laugh. To his amazement, she joined him. “And of course,” she said, “you'd never lie about something that can be so easily disproved.”

Dr. Beckworth appeared at the door. “Are you quite well, Miranda?”

She bathed him in a radiant smile that made the poor man all but squirm with delight. “Oh, indeed I am, Doctor. Surely your patience and care prepared me for a full recovery of my lost memory.”

It was all Ian could do to keep panic at bay. What was this? She remembered? If so, that meant she realized Ian MacVane was no part of her past.

“God be thanked.” The doctor raised his eyes heavenward.

Miranda rested her fingers on Ian's sleeve and sent him an adoring look. “My dear fiancé will, of course, send a large endowment to the hospital.” She glanced at the women's ward. “Enough for some sweeping improvements,” she added, and the subtlest note of warning hardened her voice. “Of course, I shall check on the progress of the reforms.”

With a decided spring in her step, she walked toward the main foyer. She stopped at the common room. “Things will get better here,” she said to the women.

Some of them looked up, waved and blew kisses. “We'll take care, ducks,” Gwen assured her. “See if we don't.”

“We still think you should kiss her,” said the old lady who thought he was Bonny Prince Charlie.

I still want to
, Ian realized. He followed Miranda out, joining her amid the foot traffic on the street. He stared at her, filled with bafflement and delight that quickly froze into icy suspicion.

Just how much
did
she recall?

“You say you
remember
?” he demanded.

“Lies,” she said breezily, turning a giddy circle on the cobbled walk. “All lies.”

“But you did it so well,” he said, impressed. “I know of no one who lies quite so well, except perhaps—” He broke off, taking her elbow to steer her out of the path of a pieman's cart.

“Except whom?” She had an engaging way of tilting her head and regarding him sidewise. The look was both charmingly naive and artlessly seductive.

He thought better of elaborating. “Never mind. You were quite magnificent.”

She sobered for a moment. “To survive in a place like Bedlam, one must develop certain skills.”

It was not what she said, but what she did not say that told Ian she had lived a nightmare. He grimaced, imagining her bedding down in filth amid lunatics. Without volition, he slipped his arm around her shoulders. In a matter of moments they had violated a dozen rules of propriety and decorum. Either she had forgotten those rules or, like him, took pleasure in disregarding them. Or perhaps she had never known the rules in the first place.

She peered up at him with that slanted look. “So now you have rescued me. Again. If you persist in being this kind to me, our future is very bright indeed.”

Though his customary long strides never faltered, Ian felt his stomach knot. He couldn't even reply. In a very short time, he would have to deliver her to an address in Great Stanhope Street. Only God knew what would happen to her then.

Four

There is no greater sorrow than to recall,
in misery, the time when we were happy.

—Dante

T
he authorities would try to extract information from her. Ian would not allow himself to think about the methods they might use. He worked for the English, aye, but only because they were the highest bidder for his services. He had no false ideas about their compassion for a woman they perceived as a traitor.

He brought Miranda south through London, along the crumbling river walks. When they reached the west side of London Bridge, they would take a barge and then a hansom cab to the rendezvous in Great Stanhope.

“So we will leave the city today?” she asked, standing at the edge of the river and watching the traffic of boats and barges with rapt fascination. Before he could reply with an appropriate falsehood, she said, “I know that I lived in London before the...” She hesitated, looking so vulnerable for a moment that he had to glance away. His heart was pure steel—he had made it so. Yet he sensed that this woman could turn steel to ash if he let her.

“Before what?” he asked.

“Just...before. But I don't remember it being so vital. So alive and exciting. Look at all the people. I wonder if I should know any of them.” She sobered. “It is the oddest feeling, Mr. Mac... Ian. It's happened a few times. I feel as if I'm on the brink of something—some discovery or revelation—and then everything disappears into a fog. Dr. Beckworth said my memory would return.” She raised bewildered brown eyes to him. “The question is, what made me forget this in the first place?”

Ian's heart gave a lurch. “It was the accident,” he said quietly. “'Twas a miracle you survived.”

“But what was I doing there?”

His gut twisted. “I don't know, love,” he said. “I'm only glad I was there to get you out in time.”

“I wanted to die in there,” she whispered.

He hoped he had heard her wrong. “No, Miranda—”

“It's true. A calmness came over me, an acceptance. I wanted it, Ian, I did.”

“You were overcome by smoke.” The idea that she had craved death disturbed him deeply.
In God's name, Miranda
, he wanted to say.
What happened to you?

But he couldn't ask that. She expected him to know.

She frowned and rubbed her temple, swaying a little.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“A headache. They come and go.” She walked a few steps along the quay, then turned and walked back. Ian watched her, trying to analyze the effect she had on him.

What was it about the lass? She was almost waiflike in the faded dress, yet the worn fabric failed to conceal the body of a temptress. And in her eyes he could see ancient, veiled secrets. A wealth of memories lived inside her. His task was to unlock them, even if he had to batter down the door.

She rubbed her temples again, wincing at the pain and closing her eyes.

“Are you certain you're all right?” he asked again.

She nodded, eyes still closed. “Can you take me to the house where I live?”

He thought swiftly of the ramshackle rooms in Blackfriars, the overturned furniture, the dried blood. “You should rest.”

She opened her eyes. A shroud of shadows crept over her face. Without moving, she distanced herself from him, receding to a place he could not imagine. For a moment it was as if she lived somewhere else, in a world of her own fancy. Or was it the past?

“Miranda?” he prompted. The syllables of her name tasted sweet, spoken with his Scottish burr. He was a sick man indeed. He took a perverse pleasure in simply saying her name.

She blinked, and the distant look passed. “I try, truly I do. I try to remember.” She clasped both her hands around his. Her fingers were chilly; he could feel it through his gloves. He rubbed his thumbs over them, to warm her. Or himself, he was not sure which. But in that moment he felt something—they both did; he could see it in her eyes. The startlement. The recognition. The deep inner twist of captivation that defied all logic.

“You must tell me, Ian,” she said. “You are my betrothed. Surely you know my home.” She hesitated. “My family. For the love of God, what was my way of life?”

Falsehoods came to him swiftly. “Ours was a whirlwind courtship, so I confess there is much about you I do not know.”

“Then tell me something you do know.”

“You lived,” he said, hating himself for lying but lying anyway, “to love and be loved by me.”

She caught her breath, a dreamy softness suffusing her face. “Ah, Ian. That is what I want to remember most of all. Loving you, and you loving me.”

He stroked her cheek, and when her eyes opened, he let a devilish smile curve his mouth. “Does this mean I must teach you all over again?”

She laughed throatily. “Perhaps. Do I have family?”

“Alas, no.” He didn't look at her, didn't want to see her reaction. “You're a scholar, Miranda. A teacher. A...private tutor.”

“Then I lived with a family. With children.”

“The family recently repaired to Ireland.”

“Then we must write to them.”

“Aye, we must.” He knew such a letter would never go farther than his waistcoat pocket. “You're tired, my darling.” He did not know whether it was part of his ruse or an untapped softness in his heart that made him slip an arm around her shoulders. She nestled against his chest as if seeking shelter from a tempest. And perhaps she was, from the storm of confusion inside her.

Her hair smelled of harsh soap, yet he also detected a hint of her own unique essence, something earthy and faintly herbal, evocative as a whisper in the dark.

“Ah, Miranda, forgive me. I know so little of your former life.”

“Please,” she whispered. “Tell me anything.”

“'Tis melancholy.” The lie spun itself with quick assuredness, like a silken web produced by a spider. He borrowed from the truth but seasoned it liberally with fiction.

He explained that her mother had died in childbirth, even though Frances had found out Helena Stonecypher had run off with a lover years earlier. Miranda's father, an impoverished scholar of indifferent reputation, had raised her in haphazard fashion and had passed on more recently. Miranda had been employed as a tutor, but she had scarcely taken over the duties when the family had gone to Ireland.

“When I met you, Miranda,” he finished, “you were alone, in leased rooms near Blackfriars Bridge.”

She extracted herself from his arms and walked to the edge of the river. She stared at the rippling surface for so long that he wondered if her mind had wandered again.

“Did you hear me, lass?” he prodded, standing beside her.

She raised her face to him. Her cheeks were chalk pale, her eyes wide. “I was quite the pathetic soul, then,” she said in a low voice.

She was as fragile as spun glass. So easy to break. He had no doubt he could crush her with words alone. Rather than softening him, the notion made him angry. She was a gift he did not want, a responsibility he could not shirk.

Determined to stir her out of her sadness, he cupped her chin in his palm and glared down at her. “Did you expect to hear that you're some long-lost princess, and I a blue-blooded nobleman? That I'll conduct you to a vast and loving family who have been waiting for your return?”

She flinched and tried to pull away, but he held her firmly, forcing himself to regard her with fierce steadiness. She would need a stiff spine for the trials ahead. If she broke now, dissolved into tears, he would take her directly to Frances and wash his hands of the entire affair.

She swallowed, and he felt the delicate movement of her throat beneath his fingers. “Touché, Mr. MacVane,” she said, surprising him with a calm regard. “Though actually I had hoped I was a lady of great learning. There are things I know, things I have read, that Dr. Beckworth considered quite extraordinary.” She squared her shoulders. “But that is a common hope even for people who remember the past, is it not? To wish to be something better than we are?”

“Touché yourself,” he said. He let his hand trail down to her shoulder and gave her a squeeze. “Forgive me. I'm not angry at you, but at myself. I want so much more for you.”

Her smile trembled, then steadied, and she looked amazingly winsome. And also weary. “There now,” he said. “You must rest, and later we'll speak of the past.”

“And of the future.”

“That, too,” he admitted, as foul a liar as had ever crossed the border from Scotland into England. Her future was a short trip up the Thames to Biddle House, where she would endure an interview with Lady Frances.

Yet when a barge arrived and the ferryman asked where they were bound, Ian rapped out his own address. He told himself it was because information obtained under torture was notoriously unreliable. Aye, that was why he didn't want her tortured. He'd find out her secrets in his own way. In his own time.

* * *

Miranda turned in a slow circle in the foyer of Ian's opulent residence, her head angled up so she could take in the spiraling sweep of a marble staircase, the tall windows of beveled glass, the painted cherubs and clouds on the ceiling and wainscoting.

“Have I been here before?” she asked. She nearly reeled with weariness, her hair escaping from its single frayed string, yet a sense of exhilaration buoyed her up.

“Nay, lass. It's not proper for an unchaperoned lady to call on a gentleman.”

The word
lady
rolled elegantly off his tongue. His Scottish burr turned mere words to poetry. She felt a ripple of delight course through her. “Have I always loved the way you talk...Ian?” It felt delicious and right to call him by his Christian name.

He looked at her with his gentian blue eyes, and the shiver up her back turned to a warm river of sensation. “You never told me so,” he said.

“I should have.”

He gave her the oddest sensation, a sort of breath-held anticipation that lodged behind her heart. Had he always had this effect on her? How in heaven's name could she have forgotten?

Miranda saw a movement from the corner of her eye. Turning, she noticed a window in the wall. A woman stood in the window, watching her. And then it hit her—this was no window, but a mirror. The first mirror she had encountered since her terrifying journey into madness had begun. Her heart pounded as she looked into the glass. A complete stranger looked back at her. Miranda lifted one hand to her cheek, skimming it along a cheekbone and across a straight dark brow. The stranger did the same.

A feeling of utter panic swept over her. What sort of oddity of nature was she, a woman so addled in the brain that she did not know her own face? Brown eyes—what had they seen that was so horrible she had hidden from the memory? Dark curls falling across a high, clear brow—had her unremembered father ever kissed her there? An ordinary nose and a wide mouth—had she opened it to scream the night of the fire?

Who are you? she asked the image silently. What have you done with your life?

The stranger stared silently back at her. There were no answers in the unfamiliar brown eyes. Only questions. Only an endless string of questions, and the answers were locked up inside the creature in the mirror.

She looked back at Ian, feeling more lost and helpless than ever, and wanting more than ever to be swept into his world, where she knew she would be safe.

For long moments they simply stared at each other like two figures in a painting. His face was inscrutable, while Miranda felt certain every inch of her yearning for him surely showed on her features. She wanted to tumble right into the middle of his life, and she had never been so aware of her own desire. Had she?

Then Ian looked past her and broke the spell. He said something in a rolling, guttural tongue that she recognized as Gaelic but did not understand.

“My assistant,” Ian said, taking her by the shoulders and steering her around. “Angus McDuff.”

She turned to see a cherubic man of middle years, dapper in black breeches and a tartan waistcoat, his gray beard forming a bristly U from ear to ear.

Angus McDuff spoke with Ian in Gaelic, then swept low in a courtly bow. “How good it is to see you safe and sound, Miss Miranda.”

She inched her head. He seemed to know her, or at least to know of her. “It is good to
be
safe,” she said. “But sound?” She looked helplessly at Ian. “I cannot remember my life before the moment of the explosion.”

“So he was just explaining. Some things are for the best, my dear. 'Tis a thing I have always believed.”

“Thank you, Mr. McDuff.”

“Call him Duffie!” piped a loud, childish voice. “He'll insist on it.”

With a squeal of skin on wood, a little boy slid down the banister. He landed with a flourish, wobbled, then fell on his backside.

“And I insist,” Ian said with exaggerated severity, pulling the child to his feet, “that you greet the lady properly, scamp.”