Miranda (21 page)

“And I still don't understand you. Finish what you were saying...before.”

He curled a big hand around her breast. “I forgot where I was.”

She grew solemn and moved his hand. “After...Gordie. How did you survive alone, then, without even your brother?”

“I ran away to sea. Stowed away, to be precise. It proved to be a better education than you'd suspect. The first vessel, a merchantman, had a vast library. Out of boredom on a voyage around the horn of Africa, I read the noted philosophers.”

She smiled, picturing a young Ian studiously bent over a book. “I never thought of a ship as a place of learning.”

“Oh, aye, it was that. But the books were only part of my education. To stay alive, I had to learn a steady hand with a sword and a dead-on aim with a pistol.”

She shivered. “It is a wonder that you survived, Ian. And became such a fine man.”

“Dinna make more of me than I am. It's the human will to live, plain and simple. We all have it.”

She turned so that she was on her side, looking at him, watching shadows flicker across his rugged face. “I suspect you have it in greater measure than most. But I worry, Ian.”

He propped himself on one elbow. For a moment, his heated gaze flared over her bare breasts. “Worry? About what?”

“You take joy in danger. I've seen that in you. It's as if you're amused or distracted by it, as one is in a sporting game. You take refuge in danger and risk.”

“Ah. And why would I do that, lass?”

“You'll get angry if I tell you.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“Well...” She forced herself to ignore what his hand was doing, circling and caressing her breasts. “I think there is one problem you will not admit even to yourself. I believe you hunger for peace. For an abatement of the grief you carry with you through every moment of every day.”

He stopped touching her. She studied his face. “See? I've made you angry.”

“Nay, lass.”

She held her breath. He claimed he loved her, but could she trust what he said? “Do you know how to love, Ian?”

Candle glow and silence bathed the room for a long time. She could hear the gentle thud of his pulse and her own, could hear them both breathing. The tangled bed linens, smelling of strong soap and sex, were warm beneath them.

“Ian?”

“I know the limits of passion,” he said. And before she could demand an explanation, he turned her on her back and showed her what he meant.

* * *

In the morning, Gideon declared himself well enough to travel by hired coach to the country estate of Lady Frances Higgenbottom. Miranda was somewhat relieved to ride with him while Ian and Lucas went on horseback. She felt intensely private about what she had shared by dark of night with Ian. Not because she was ashamed, but because the searing intimacy was almost hurtful in its poignancy.

She thought of Lucas, too, who had stood in the dark last night and listened to her with a look of numb incredulity on his face. This morning he was angry; she could see that in his cold eyes and abrupt movements, the way he snapped the bit to and fro in his horse's mouth. He had little to say to her, virtually nothing to say to Ian.

Ian, for his part, had inquired politely after Gideon's health. Gideon had appeared reluctant to speak of his suffering.

Miranda was in a half-dreaming state while her father slumbered comfortably across from her. She leaned her head against the side of the coach and moved the leather curtain aside to look out the window. The day was overcast, the hills rolling past in long, undulating waves that seemed to go on forever.

Remember, she told herself.
Remember.

But she couldn't. Still she couldn't. Even having her father with her did not bring back the forgotten past. She knew he was her father. She could look at him and experience the sense of love and exasperation she had always felt for him, but she had no specific recollection of their relationship.

He had told her, somewhat sheepishly, of her peripatetic childhood. He had dragged her from shabby salon to shabby salon, letting her run wild in between visits for scholarly debate. He had loved many women, but none of them well enough. Her education was both unconventional and incomplete, of that she was already aware. She was probably the only young lady in England who could converse in Greek and apply Newtonian principles, yet remain ignorant of which fork to use for fish.

In the late afternoon, they went directly to greet their hostess. With her usual unflappable hospitality, Lady Frances welcomed Gideon to the vast country house, built by her father as a hunting retreat. Within minutes she had him situated in a bedroom, a blanket wrapped around his legs and a cup of tea warming his hands.

“Now,” she said pleasantly, patting her bouncy yellow curls. “I understand you've had quite an adventure, Mr. Stonecypher.”

He sipped his tea. Miranda was pleased to see a bit of color returning to his cheeks. “Indeed I have, my lady.”

“Then why don't you just take a few moments and tell us all about it? Exactly who attacked you, and what did they want?”

* * *

After three hours of listening to the old man's ramblings, Lucas Chesney was ready for a drink. Gideon Stonecypher, it turned out, could tell them no more than they already knew. Miranda had found out something she shouldn't, and because of that, half of England seemed to be after her.

Lucas withdrew to his quarters with a decanter of brandy and a crystal glass, sat down at the desk, and began to drink with the quiet, steady determination of a condemned man.

There was a horrible sort of justice in all of this. He had insisted that he and Miranda must live a lie. Now that he was ready to tell the truth, she didn't believe him.

It had taken all his self-control to keep from groveling at her feet the night before. How confident she had sounded, coming to his room to tell him baldly that she could not possibly have loved him in the past.

There was one tiny glimmer of hope, he told himself. Miranda was a natural philosopher and a scholar. She believed in that which could be seen and touched. Concrete proof. It wasn't enough that he knew about her birthmark, and God help him if she ever did remember the occasion on which he had seen it.

She needed something she could hold in her hand, see with her eyes.

Adder. Addingham. Silas had let something slip one night at Watier's, when he'd been in his cups. Adder. Addingham.

Lucas drank some more and took out a sheaf of papers from his valise. The writing on the papers stacked on the desk blurred. He didn't have to see them to know what they were. Bills. Duns for payment. Entreaties from his family for more funds.

Lucas smiled crookedly and lifted his glass. “You are all as good as paid,” he declared. “Here's to you, Mr. Addingham, and to our lasting friendship.” He drained his glass and covered his face with hands that suddenly shook. “Thank God,” he muttered brokenly. “Thank God you came along, Silas.”

If not for Silas, it would have been disgrace and debtor's prison for Lucas Chesney. All those who loved him, who copied his manner of dress and admired his wit and his golden good looks, would know him for a fraud.

Silas understood him. When Lucas had despaired of regaining Miranda's affection, it had been Silas's idea to shower her with gifts. Silas had even procured Yvette, the lady's maid. That was an elegant touch.

There was one thing Silas's riches could not buy for Lucas. Miranda's love. All Lucas wanted, all he had ever wanted, was for society to approve of the woman he loved. Instead he had walked into murder and mayhem and a pair of doe-soft eyes that gazed at him without recognition.

Lucas refilled his glass and drank again, neatly, not letting a single drop of the brandy touch his snowy cravat. It was a trick he had learned in his unlamented secret pauper days. Keep the clothes clean. Save on laundering costs.

A door closed softly behind him. He knew who it was. He felt her stare boring through him. She stood silent for a moment; then, in her most cutting voice, she said, “Oh, please. This is too pathetic.”

He looked at her reflection in the mirror above the desk. “That is what I love about you, Frances. Your endearing sense of compassion.”

Her gown whispered as she crossed the room. “You don't need pity, Lisle, but a cuff on the ear.”

“You're too much of a lady to strike me.” He held out his glass. “Brandy?”

She tossed it back in one gulp, a gesture that would have scandalized half of society. The other half would have wanted to applaud. Lucas himself wanted to, but he didn't.

“Did the old addlepate say anything of use?” Lucas asked.

“Heavens,” Frances said. “How would I have any idea?”

He laughed at her. “You had me believing for years that you were nothing but a vacant blond head. In the past few days, I've realized it was all an act. So you don't have to pretend anymore. You are in the secret service of the Foreign Office. It's amazing.” When she opened her mouth to protest, he waved a hand to silence her. “Your secret's safe with me, Frances. On my honor, it is.”

She held out the glass for more brandy. “Oh. Are you terribly disgusted with me?”

“No. Fascinated.” He watched her drink again. She really was a pretty little piece, and knowing now what he did about her gave her unexpected depth and an air of mystery that intrigued him.

“So fascinated,” she said, “that you had to withdraw to your rooms to get quietly drunk?”

To his horror, hot tears burned his eyes. He didn't look away from her in time. She saw, and her slim arms went around him, and she drew him against her bosom, her fingers curling into his hair. “Ah, Lucas. If only I could take your pain away.”

“You can,” he said brokenly, then swallowed hard, trying to regain control. There was something particularly comforting about the softness and the scent of her. Odd that before today, he had always seen her as a bit of fluffy female ambition. Now he knew better, knew the keen mind beneath the golden ringlets, the steely strength beneath the frothy dress.

“You can, Frances. All you have to do is prove to Miranda that MacVane has been lying to her. That he never knew her. That he is only using her to learn what she knows.”

She stiffened, and the arm around his back held him tighter. “I've never been Ian MacVane's keeper. How do I know he wasn't swiving Miranda on the sly?”

The suggestion knifed through him. He wrenched away from her. “God. When did you become such a bitch, Frances?”

“I just can't bear to see you make a fool of yourself because of her.”

He grasped her hands. “Then help me. Help me convince Miranda that Ian MacVane is no part of her past.”

“And you think by doing that, you'll win her love?” Her eyes rounded in incredulity. “Are all men as simple as you, or are you just special?”

“I won't deceive myself. But at least with MacVane exposed as a liar, I'd have a chance.”

“And that's all you want,” she said. “A chance.”

“Yes.”

“Why in heaven's name would you expect me to give it to you?”

He brought her hands to his mouth and kissed them both. Fleeting pain twisted her face, but just for a moment; then she became her usual smiling self once again.

“Because you care about me, Frances,” he said starkly. “And because if I fail, you'll get to be the first to say I told you so.”

She stripped her hands out of his and pivoted on her heel. At first he thought she was walking out on him, but instead she stopped at the door and turned. “Well? Are you coming?”

He shot up from the desk, swaying only slightly. “Where are we going?”

“To get—” Her voice broke. She cleared her throat, squared her shoulders and faced him with rock-solid conviction. “To get the evidence you need.”

Seventeen

Psychology cannot experiment with men,
and there is no apparatus for this purpose.
So much the more carefully must we make
use of mathematics.

—Johann Friedrich Herbart, 1816

S
upper was served late that night, and Gideon sought his bed almost immediately after. Miranda bade him a fond good-night and bent to kiss his silky white hair.

“I'm so glad I found you again, Papa,” she said.

For a moment, he seemed completely stunned by the gesture of affection. Was it unusual? she wondered. Had the old Miranda never kissed her father good-night? The suspicion made her feel small and cold inside.

He patted her hand. “All will be well, Mindy my girl. One day, all will be well.” He drew a long breath, then exhaled slowly. “I could wish...”

She frowned. “Wish what?”

“That you would simply remember what you overheard and tell them.”

She sat heavily on the edge of the bed. “I cannot remember.”

“Somehow I managed—or your own terror managed—to employ Mesmer's techniques and convince you to forget everything.” He squeezed her hand; sweetness and melancholy tinged his smile. “It's quite odd.”

“What, Papa?”

“I know I'm a stranger to you because of the amnesia, but from my perspective, we've not been this close in a very long time.”

She blinked rapidly, and her throat felt full. “Was I that awful, Papa?”

“Just...busy. Distracted. Absorbed by your work. Sometimes I think you did that on purpose. To escape.”

“Escape what?” she asked, frustrated.

He regarded her with placid wisdom. “Feeling anything deeply. Fully. I blame myself. You had a shallow existence with me, a haphazard upbringing. I never taught you the meaning of commitment, of family. But now...” His voice trailed off, and he looked about the room.

“Now what?”

“You've learned it, somehow. I see the way you care for the people around you, and I realize that in one brief summer you've learned things I couldn't teach you in a lifetime.”

“You taught them, Papa.” She sensed that he was getting tired, and she kissed his brow again. “Apparently I just didn't catch on until recently. I've been meaning to ask you—”

“Aye?” He stifled another yawn.

“I had a fleeting memory of you warning me not to trust him. Have you any idea who that was?”

Gideon's brow knit above his sleepy eyes. “Never saw him. When we were captured, he promised you our lives if only you would agree to help him.”

“Help him what?”

He flinched as if the memory hurt. “I think I was unconscious by then.”

“Oh, Papa. They hurt you so.”

He patted her hand. “I'm fine, now, Mindy. Just fine.”

Feeling wistful, she returned to the withdrawing room, where Frances was halfheartedly trying to amuse the gentlemen with a game of cards. Desperate to lighten her spirits, Miranda smiled and entered the room.

“Ian's cheating,” she remarked. “I saw him nick a card from his lap.” She met his smoldering look with a teasing smile, but a thrill went through her body. She prayed her father was right—no matter what she had been in the past, now she knew how to care, how to love. Ian was the key that had unlocked her passion. In just a short time they would be in one another's arms, the taste of him flowing through her, the forgetfulness of desire lifting away her cares. What a blessed thing it was, to be in love with a man like Ian.

His mysteries were as deep as the night itself. His slightest touch, even a look sent across the room, had the power to set off a heated yearning inside her. Had it always been this way with them? Or was their love growing, invading every aspect of her life? It was almost frightening the way he seemed to enter her every pore, her mind, her soul. Frightening and wonderful.

“MacVane is a born cheater,” Lucas said, throwing his cards down in the middle of the table.

His fury drew a taut, thick band of tension across the moment. Frances trilled with laughter, an earnest effort to ease the strain. “Cheaters are made by hard work and necessity, Lisle,” she declared. “You of all people should know that.” She moved to the pianoforte and began to play a merry waltz.

Wordlessly, showing no sign of anger at Lucas's words, Ian crossed the room and dipped a formal bow. “May I have this dance?”

Dazzled by his smile, his courtliness, Miranda held out her hand. Ian took her into his arms and they danced, light as air, swirling across the carpet, past a glowering Lucas and out through the tall open glass doors.

They waltzed across a flagstone terrace bordered by a carved stone fence with marble benches and ivy flowing down the walls. With the stars wheeling overhead and the full moon bathing them in a blue glow, she fancied it was the most romantic spot on earth.

And she was in the arms of the man she adored with a fervor that made her memory loss seem less a tragedy and more an opportunity to rediscover him. Whether he knew it or not, he possessed a power that called across her damaged mind and promised to heal it.

“Ian, I love you so much,” she whispered.

He stopped dancing. “Miranda—”

“You're uncomfortable hearing it. I don't know why. Perhaps it's something I'll understand when I regain my memory. But I thought that here, in the dark, I could say it.” She gazed up at the sky, frosted by a cool bluish glow. “Maybe in moonlight I can say anything.”

He shook his head, regarding her with exasperation and undisguised affection. “God, you are... I want—” He stopped himself and cursed, then kissed her swiftly, his mouth warm and searching. She arched her back, welcoming the painful ecstasy of loving him.

“Part of me wants never to remember,” she admitted.

“Why not?” he whispered.

“Because no memory could be this sweet.”

“Then don't,” he said in a low, rough voice. “Don't remember. Ever.”

She thought it an odd thing to say, but before she could ask him what he meant, she heard footfalls ringing on the flagstones.

They broke apart to see Lucas stalking toward them. Looking alarmed and helpless, Lady Frances hurried along behind him. The viscount, Miranda observed, wore a look of haughty disdain that was so perfect, she wondered if he had practiced in front of a mirror. Perhaps it was something he had learned at Eton.

Eton. She frowned. Why was she so certain that Lucas had attended Eton?

Darling, if the masters at Eton had one-tenth of your learning, England would indeed rule the world.

Lucas had said that to her once, long ago.

She swayed, encountering Ian's solid length behind her. His hands came up and cupped her shoulders. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“I'd hoped you wouldn't let things go this far,” Lucas said. His voice was abnormally calm, as if he had struggled for control and was hanging on by a thread. “I'd hoped you wouldn't make me hurt Miranda by showing her proof of the truth about you.”

Ian's hands tightened. Miranda held her breath. She felt disoriented, confused. A moment ago she had been dancing in the arms of the man she loved. Now she was almost drowning in a flood of disjointed memories and staring like an idiot at a piece of paper Lucas held in his hand.

Take my hand, sweet Miranda, there's my girl. Before you know it, you'll learn to greet a roomful of people like the most dainty of ladies.

But Lucas, why would I want to be dainty? Or even a lady, for that matter?

Ah, my exasperating sweet. Because when the time comes for us to declare our love to the world, they'll all expect it of us.

A part of Miranda held herself detached, as if the moment were happening to someone else. Lucas and Ian might have been a pair of actors on a stage. Ian reached for the paper and Lucas snatched it away, thrusting it instead into Miranda's hands.

“Let her read it, MacVane. Let her read it, and she'll be the judge of how badly you treated her.”

She pulled away from Ian. She felt an inner recoiling, as if she knew she was going to be hurt and would not be able to stop it. She lowered herself to the stone ledge that bordered the patio and angled the paper so that the moonlight illuminated it.

At first the words made no sense, as if they were in another language. But then she recognized, with a jolt, that the message was written in her father's own cipher—though not his handwriting. Creating cipher codes was the one thing Gideon did perfectly.

The message was penned by Frances; Miranda recognized the dainty script and glanced quizzically at her friend. How did she know Gideon's cipher?

Miranda's mind did the swift calculations necessary to break the code. Her fierce gaze riveted on the last bit: “...sleep with the girl. It is the best way to—dare I be so tasteless?—get her to reveal herself to you...”

At the bottom, the scribbled reply was in Ian's bold hand: “When I bed a woman, my dear, it's for my own reasons, not because anyone orders me to...”

She made herself read the message over and over again. Each time her mind searched frantically for some explanation other than the truth.

There was none. She finally held the real story right here in her hands. Ian had never known her. His goal had been to find her and to learn what she knew. To dispose of her once the truth was known. She had no idea where she found the strength to look up, to stare Ian square in the eye.

“You never knew me,” she said slowly. “You never saw me before the night of the explosion, and yet you had me convinced we were in love.” She prayed he would interrupt, but he stood silent. “You wed me,” she went on, dying inside, “in order to control me. To learn my secrets.”

Please deny it
, her heart pleaded.
Please tell me I'm wrong.

Instead he watched her without expression. That, perhaps, was the cruelest blow of all. That he could face her accusations without so much as a flicker of guilt or regret.

It was Lucas who went to her, who held out his arms. “Come, my love. I'm sorry you've had such a shock. I simply didn't know any other way to prove to you that MacVane is a fraud.”

She clutched at the stone railing. “We did know each other, you and I,” she said.

“Darling!” Joy lit his face. “You remember?”

She could feel no answering joy inside her. How could she, when her heart was breaking?

“We quarreled that night, didn't we?”

Lucas's smile disappeared. Behind him, Ian moved like a shadow, dark and vaguely threatening. Miranda wanted to scream at him to go away, but for some reason she did not.

“A lovers' tiff,” Lucas declared. “Hardly worth remembering. In fact, I've forgotten the entire af—”

“You tore my dress.” Her hands came up and covered her bosom as if he had bared her right there in the moonlight. “That is how you saw my—the birthmark.”

Both men were liars. Her judgment was pitiful. Why couldn't she find some stable clerk to fall in love with, or better yet, why couldn't she stop herself from falling in love at all?

“That was an accident,” Lucas said. “Really, darling, it was nothing. You and I were so deeply in l—”

“Let her finish.” Ian's voice, thick with his brogue, interrupted Lucas. “It's what you wanted, isn't it? You wanted her to remember. So let her.”

She couldn't have stopped herself if she had tried. Wave after wave of memory washed over her. The strength of them was almost physical, staggering in intensity. Yet the memories made no sense. In her mind's eye she simply saw herself and Lucas, nose to nose, furious with each other, flinging angry words.

“We were quarreling about an acquaintance of yours,” she said, trying to fit the fragments of memory together like pieces in an intricate puzzle. “I demanded to know who he was to you, and all you would tell me was that he had promised to save you from losing everything and landing in debtors' prison.”

His face scarlet, Lucas glanced over his shoulder at Ian as if horrified that the secret was out. “That is a private arrangement, and you were angry because you didn't understand the nature of—”

“Good God,” she snapped. “I don't know where the truth ends and the lies begin.” She walked up and down, feeling the coolness of the summer night rippling over her skin. If she stopped walking, stopped talking, she was certain she would start to weep and never cease.

My love, all I ask is this one small thing. One small thing, and Silas will take care of the rest.

Lucas, I would hardly call seventeen kegs of gunpowder one small thing.

Silas. The charming Mr. Addingham. She clutched at a vine pergola growing up the side of the house and swung around to face him. “It was Silas Addingham all along, wasn't it? He was hiding something at the warehouse. That's why I set off the explosions.” Horror blossomed like noxious smoke in her mind.