Miranda. Susan Wiggs

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.”

      Full to bursting with mischief and merriment, the boy bowed from the waist. He had a clean bandage wrapped around one hand, and she realized he was the child Ian had saved from the fire.

      “Robbie MacVane, at your service, mum,” he said in a clear soprano voice.

      “MacVane?” Ian asked, lifting a dark eyebrow.

      “Aye, if it’s all the same to you,” Robbie said.

      Ian did not smile, but looked solemn as he nodded. “You do honor to the name, lad.”

      “Besides,” Robbie said, “It’s the only name I know how to spell.”

      Miranda stifled a laugh. She found the boy enchanting, from the top of his tousled head to the tips of his scuffed leather shoes. Ian hooked a thumb into the band of his breeches. Robbie did the same, perfectly copying Ian’s stance. Miranda looked from the boy to the man. It was extraordinary to think that in an age when some parents abandoned their children or sold them into apprenticeships, Ian had taken in this enchanting little stranger. He was a special man indeed.

      When did I fall in love with you? she wanted to ask him. What did it feel like?

      And was it happening again?

      Thinking hard, she absently brushed a deep brown lock of hair out of her face.

      “Cor, mum, I know you!” Robbie was staring at her with wide, unblinking eyes.

      All the hairs on the back of her neck seemed to stand on end. “Do you, Robbie?” she asked in a low, shaken voice.

      Duffie took the boy by the hand. “Come along now, my wee skelper. We’ll leave the master and—”

      “No,” Ian said hurriedly. “What do you mean, you know Miss Miranda?”

      Robbie lifted his shoulders to his ears in a shrug. “Not by name, mind you. But she gave me tuppence when she passed me in the road. I knows it were her because she’s got a face like the mort in that painting in St. Mary-le-Bow, the one what looks all holy even though she ain’t hardly got a stitch on.”

      Duffie made a choking sound and put his hand up to his mouth. Robbie scurried away from him.

      “Gave you tuppence?” Miranda asked. “When?”

      “Just before you went in there,” Robbie said, puffing up to find himself the object of such rapt attention.

      “In where, lad?” Ian asked.

      “Well, you know.” Like a monkey, he hung in the knobby banister rails at the bottom of the staircase. “In that building what blew to smithereens.”

      Miranda felt nauseated. Her head started to throb. She had been there. Inside the warehouse. Sickening guilt crept up her throat, gagging her. She thought of the twist of stiff, sulfur-smelling rope she had found in her apron pocket, along with tinder and flint. She had almost caused her own death and that of this innocent child.

      She remembered the victims of that night, the bleeding faces slashed by flying glass, the burned flesh, the screams and moans of the wounded. Why would she hurt them? Why? She swayed, and the question she dared not ask screamed through her mind. Am I a murderer?

      “There, see?” Duffie said with comforting brusqueness. “The lady’s well nigh exhausted. I’ll just have the housekeeper show her to—”

      “Not so fast.” Ian spoke in his customary low voice, but his words rang with authority. “Robbie, was Miss Miranda alone?”

      “Oh, aye, sir, and she were in a great hurry—but she took the time to toss me a copper and bid me to get myself home.” His round cheeks flushed. “She didn’t know about me having no home.”

      Ian contemplated the boy with a look that was fierce, but protective rather than frightening. “Run along, then,” he said. “See if Cook’s made more of those gooseberry tarts.”

      Robbie scampered off, and Duffie followed him out of the foyer.

      Miranda faced Ian with trepidation. He knew something. But what? Was it more than she herself knew about that night? Or less?

      The icy speculation in his eyes was unmistakable. She swallowed past the dryness in her throat. “I don’t suppose,” she said, “you could explain why I was down at the wharves, unchaperoned.”

      His large and powerful hand, still sheathed in its black glove, came to rest on her arm. A shiver coursed through her.

      “I’m certain you had your reasons, love,” he said, leading her into an opulent parlor furnished with dark wood and deep green hangings. “Come and sit down, and we’ll—”

      “Excuse me, sir.” A cheerful-looking man with a peg leg came into the room. On his hand he balanced a salver, and he approached them with an ease that belied his infirmity. “This just arrived for you.”

      Ian took the letter from the tray. “Thank you, Carmichael.”

      “You’re welcome, sir.” Carmichael sent a pleasant smile to Miranda. “And welcome to you, too, miss. We’ve heard so much about you—”

      “Thank you, Carmichael,” Ian said, louder this time. “That will be all.” He helped Miranda to a settee as the servant withdrew.

      “How did he lose his leg?” she asked.

      “The Battle of Busaco. We were in the Thirty-second Highlanders together.”

      Ian MacVane, she decided, was a man who took in strays. As Miranda watched him open his letter, she wondered what sort of stray she had been when they’d first met.

      “Damn it,” he said.

      She jumped. “Damn what?”

      He crumpled the letter in his hand. “Cossacks in Hyde Park.”

      She felt no surprise; her knowledge of local events had remained intact. Arriving with fanfare and entourages that often occupied entire flotillas, an extraordinary group was convening in London this summer. All the crowned heads from Tsar Alexander of Russia to the prince of Saxe-Coburg had come to celebrate Bonaparte’s defeat. The Cossacks, under their hetman Count Platov, were serving as life guards to the tsar.

      “Have they done something wrong?” she asked.

      “It seems they’ve challenged the Gentlemen Pensioners to a horse race. A few of them had too much to drink and are terrorizing people.” Ian went to the door. “I’d best go and see that order is restored.”

      “Why you?” She was suddenly aware that she had no notion of Ian’s role in all of this.

      He grinned. “It is my métier. I’ll tell you more when I get back. Duffie will see to your needs.”

      “Ian, wait!” A flush suffused her cheeks. “Is it true—what you said earlier? About...going to Scotland?”

      “Upon my oath,” he said, then was gone.

      * * *