Miranda (23 page)

“Lucas wants to love you,” Miranda said, remembering the way he looked at Frances when he thought no one was watching. “He refused to let himself because his family tried to force you two together. And I think, deep down, he had a horror of taking your fortune for his own when he himself was on the brink of poverty.”

“Instead he turned to that slimewort Silas Addingham,” Frances said. “What could he be thinking?”

“When male pride is involved, there seems to be very little thinking.” Miranda's thoughts returned to Ian. The last time she'd seen him, he had been frozen with rage.

That was the only way to describe it. He was standing there, still breathing, still looking the same, yet one by one, each cell of his body and soul had seemed to freeze, to grow rock hard with cold, resolute fury.

“Do you suppose Lucas will stay loyal to Addingham?” she asked Frances.

Frances's eyes were overly bright. “If he does, he's not the man I've been pining my life away for. And that will mean he's sold his soul to a murderer.”

“Then what do you suppose he'll do when he catches up with Ian?”

“I'm afraid he doesn't mean to catch up with him. Think of how simple things will be if Ian simply murders Addingham out of pure revenge. Then there will be no one to point the finger of accusation at Lucas.”

Miranda looked down at her hands. She remembered Lucas gripping them tight that last night before the accident. He had covered her hands with kisses and begged her to—to what?

“Are you all right?” Frances asked.

“No.”

“What is it, Miranda? You must tell me.”

“There's something more to this plot. I can't recall what it was. Lucas wanted something from me. Even more than the gunpowder.”

“The information about your rockets.”

“That, yes. For Silas Addingham. But there was something more.” She scowled, racking her brain. “Addingham planned something so atrocious that I actually felt sick. I recall the feeling, if not the details. I was physically ill.”

“Lord in heaven. What is it? A bombardment of Carlton House?”

Her head pounded with frustration. “I don't know. Let me think awhile, and perhaps it will come to me.” She pushed aside the flapping curtain. In a few more hours they would be in London. Maybe by then she would remember.

At first she paid little attention to the faint dark thread that rose in a wispy column above the hills in the distance. She merely saw it as part of the landscape, the rippling hills with their neat hedgerows and stone terraces, the flocks of sheep pale clumps grazing in the sun.

Then the coach crested a rise in the road, and Miranda realized what she was looking at. “Oh, dear God,” she said.

Frances joined her at the window. “Oh, no. Miranda, it can't be.”

“It is. Tell the coach to stop. That semaphore tower is on fire.”

Eighteen

I have something more to do than feel.

—Charles Lamb

I
an heard the thunder of hooves and the creak of coach wheels, but he didn't turn to see who had arrived. It was too late in any case.

In the blaze of the afternoon sun, he raised a hand to shade his brow, looking up. Smoke and ash stung his eyes and seared his nostrils. The flames had consumed the tower, and now it resembled a gaunt black scaffold with great clouds of smoke billowing from the signalman's platform. Miles to the north, Ian had sent a message. But clearly the transmission had been interrupted.

“Ian!” Miranda's voice came from the road.

He had been quite certain he would never see her again. Frances, ever efficient, would see to the dissolution of the handfast marriage and to setting up Miranda and Gideon in comfortable circumstances. Perhaps Miranda would fall in love with the Viscount Lisle again. At any rate, none of it was Ian's affair.

So why, when he turned to greet her, did his heart turn over in his chest? Why, when he looked at her shining face and sparkling eyes, did he feel a leap of joy inside himself? Why did the very sight of her, the sound of her voice, remind him of the deepest bliss he had ever known?

Lucas rode up on his horse, glared at Ian for a moment, then turned to Miranda. “Looks like there's danger hereabouts. You'd best wait in the coach with your father.”

“She'll do nothing of the sort,” Frances said, walking briskly across the field. “She and I are perfectly capable of investigating this problem.”

Lucas looked baffled, no doubt because he had never seen Frances take charge.

She turned to Ian. “You sent a message by semaphore.”

“Yes. This morning.”

“Do you think it got through before this tower burned?”

“It's doubtful.” He strode toward the tower, feeling the hot breath of the fire on his face. From the tall grass at the base of the wooden structure came the sound of a faint groan.

“Sweet Jesus.” Ignoring the heat, Ian ran to the fallen man and scooped him into his arms. The smells of burned fabric and blood seared Ian's nostrils. The man's mouth worked in silence, then fell still. His slitted eyes were already glazing over.

The moment propelled Ian back to the days of war, to battlefields littered with bodies. When men knew they were going to die, they wanted it over quickly. He saw that same plea for mercy frozen in the signalman's unseeing eyes; he felt that same sense of hopelessness, of futility, of rage.

As he bore the flagman to the edge of the field, he knew that he was carrying a corpse. He laid him down in the tall summer grasses and knelt on the ground. Ian set his jaw. He felt responsible, since the message had originated with him at dawn, in the north.

Lucas was the first to speak. “Was it an accident, do you suppose?”

“Even you couldna be that daft, Lisle,” Ian said, opening his eyes. “This was a deliberate act of murder in order to interrupt the transmission.”

“How can you be sure?” Lucas persisted. “It hasn't rained in weeks, and—”

“Oh, Lord, Lucas, spare us,” Frances snapped. “You'll say anything to try to protect your benefactor, even when the facts are staring you in the face. I simply can't believe that you would align yourself with a murderer rather than marry me for money.”

Ian was stunned to see tears running down her face. Poor Fanny. She had everything money could buy— except the one thing she truly wanted.

Lucas was quiet for long moments. Unexpectedly Ian felt a wave of compassion for the English viscount. Faced by pressure from his family, from society, from his own sense of honor, Lucas had done a foolish thing. He wouldn't be the first.

“When I first met Silas,” he said, “I knew nothing about his past. I simply thought he was a cit with plenty of money and plenty of ambition. I had no idea he was a murderer.”

“Not even,” Ian said with cold fury, “when you learned that his former name was Adder?”

“Not even then.” Genuine shame flooded Lucas's face. He looked utterly miserable, a man whose honor had not been able to withstand an onslaught of greed.

Under different circumstances, Ian realized, they could have been friends.

“There is too much evidence to ignore,” Lucas admitted, his conviction sounding harder with each word he spoke. “Nothing is worth selling my soul to a murderer.” He lifted his gaze to Ian. “I'll help you. I'll join forces with you to stop this assassination, if indeed you think that is what Addingham plans.”

Ian considered for a moment, wishing Lisle were not so transparent. Even now he thought not of atonement, but of saving face. Ian saw straight through Lucas's plan. To keep from being implicated in the plot, he meant to kill Adder.

Which made him no different from Ian.

A pair of local men arrived, farmers by the look of them, wearing leather jackets and tall hobnail boots. “Jesus,” one of them cried, sinking to the ground beside the signalman. “'Tis Tomkin Blackwell.”

“He were a local lad,” the other man explained, leaning on a cane and shaking his head. “A fine one, too. Read and spoke like a scholar. Loved the tall tower messages, he did.”

“Did you notice anyone suspicious about?” Ian asked.

“Oh, aye. There was that bloke with his arm in splints. We thought he were a tinker or Gypsy.”

“Pierpont Duchesne,” Miranda whispered.

“So where is he now?” asked Ian.

“Long gone, make no mistake,” the man said mournfully.

“He is surely Silas Addingham's minion,” Frances said, tugging Miranda's hand and leading her toward the coach.

“Where do you think you're going?” Lucas asked.

“To London,” Miranda answered over her shoulder. “Ian's message didn't get there, so we'd best make haste.”

Ian walked back toward the coach with her. “Do you understand now, Miranda? There are lives at stake. Recovering your memory might have saved them. Might save more still. I had to be with you, be...close to you. To get you to remember.”

She regarded him coldly. “But did you have to break my heart to do it?” She turned on her heel and went back to the coach.

* * *

“I'm feeling ever so much better, dear,” Gideon Stonecypher said to Frances the next morning. They had returned late to Biddle House. To no one's surprise, Yvette had gone, probably fleeing like a thief for the wharves.

Gideon smiled across the table at Miranda, who was swirling a spoon uninterestedly in a dish of hot chocolate. “Indeed, I could conquer the world.”

“Save your good efforts, sir,” Frances said. She was seated in front of a silver tray heaped with invitations that had arrived during her absence. “Napoleon Bonaparte has already tried that.” Idly she opened an invitation, scanned it and set it aside. “Thank heaven he's in exile where he can do no more harm.”

Miranda froze. The spoon in her cup stilled completely. Do no harm. Do no harm.

Surely, darling, it can do no harm.
Lucas's voice, charming and sunny as a summer morn.
I should think you'd be flattered by Mr. Addingham's interest.

Interest in what? What, what, what?

Miranda pushed back from the table and went to the window, where the morning sun blazed over the gardens. It was yet another perfect day.

What an extraordinary time to be in England, she reflected, and it was a thought she had had
before
.

She reached down to run her fingers idly through Macbeth's coarse fur. She heard Ian and Lucas come into the dining room.

“Silas is nowhere to be found,” Lucas was saying.

“You inquired at all his usual haunts?” Ian asked.

“The usual haunts are empty. The prince regent ordered the bishop of Chichester to hold a mass of thanksgiving to celebrate Bonaparte's defeat. All of London's on holiday.”

Frances took up a broadsheet and read from it: “‘The little Corsican is gone. He shall be forgotten as quickly as a summer rose after its petals fade and disperse on the autumn winds.'”

Il reviendra au printemps.
He will come back in the spring.

Miranda turned swiftly from the window. “Lucas, I must know. What was it Silas Addingham wanted on the day before the explosion?”

“He was curious about your work with wind power and navigation. Something nautical, I assumed.”

Wind power. Navigation.

She and her father stared at each other. More pieces of the puzzle clicked into place.

Gideon looked around the table at the others. “Balloon flight. Miranda had been doing navigational experiments. We'd hoped to learn to use the winds that flowed like currents in the sky.”

“We tried it only twice,” Miranda said, memories and feelings filling her mind. “Both times it was a success.”

Gideon frowned. “Not...exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

He waved his hand. “It's not important now.”

With growing agitation, she recalled her reams of copious notes. Where were they?

Frances was still busy opening her invitations. She found a large cream enveloped sealed with ruby wax and opened it. The scent of violets wafted through the room.

It was a light, floral odor, yet Miranda felt nauseated, ready to retch then and there.

“Good Lord.” Frances shot to her feet.

“What is it?” Ian asked.

“An invitation.”

“Oh?”

“To a balloon ascension.”

* * *

The estate was half a day's travel south of London. In the almost frantic scramble to provide the most original, most enthralling entertainments for visiting dignitaries, Addingham had clearly scored a coup.

Everyone was present, prepared to be dazzled by the sight of the silk balloon sailing through the summer sky.

Sailing was the key. Miranda had predicted that the sea winds could govern the path of the balloon.

“Papa,” she asked as the coach rolled to a stop in the graveled drive, “how do you suppose Addingham found out about the balloon?”

Gideon ran a hand through his hair. “Ah, Mindy sweet. My impatience. It'll be the end of me yet. I'm afraid I published the results of the experiments. Sent them in to the Royal Aeronautical Society.”

“So anyone could have read of your endeavor,” Frances said.

“And did indeed,” Gideon admitted. “How could I have known a madman would find an evil use for something as harmless as a balloon?”

“It's not the balloon,” Miranda said, half to herself. The last memory embedded like an arrow in her brain. She winced with the agony of it. “Or at least, the balloon is only part of our worries.” She scanned the grand stone-and-wrought-iron gateway. The black iron fence seemed to march on forever, disappearing into thick woodlands, the sharp-spiked tips of the poles thrusting skyward.

“What do you mean?” Frances asked.

Miranda spared no time to explain. Even before the coach creaked to a halt, she had opened the door and scrambled out, hitching up her skirts. She ran in search of Ian.

* * *

He was pleading before the prince of Wales and not having much luck.

“So let me be certain I understand, MacVane,” said Prinny, waddling along a verandah of the grand mansion. “You want me to cancel this event. Send each and every guest packing. Insult our host with a wild accusation. All on the strength of information from a madwoman with no memory?”

Exactly, you ignorant toad
, Ian wanted to reply. But he did not. The prince of Wales was a misguided and desperate man. His popularity was at a low ebb. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was bring to light a threat to people's lives, making the British look careless or, worse, conspiratorial.

“On the strength, Your Highness,” Ian said, trying to keep his impatience and contempt at bay, “of my word. The same word that saved a regiment at Busaco.”

“I don't question your competence in battle. All that proves is that you're damned fortunate, and a busybody to boot,” said Prinny, fingering his pocket watch. “All summer long, I have put up with your worrying like a mother hen over a clutch of eggs. Excuse me. I have an event to preside over.”

You great ignorant prick
, Ian thought, glowering after him. Then he looked out at the broad lawn and saw a couple hurrying across the garden, a small child in blue silk breeches between them, holding their hands and swinging his feet. The moment hung suspended in Ian's mind, a tableau of streaming sunshine and laughing people in beautiful clothes.

Prinny's life wasn't the only one in jeopardy.

Behind the house, in the middle of a broad greensward, in a billow of smoke, a blue-and-yellow silk balloon was nearly inflated but still anchored to the ground. The dignitaries and their friends and families and children were all maneuvering into place, crowded into a great reviewing stand, eagerly awaiting the launch.