Miranda. Susan Wiggs

rear door of the office.

      A moment later, the other door banged open and two people pushed inside.

      “How do you do?” he asked, recognizing both of his visitors. They had come before to gawk at the inmates, but he noticed they’d paid particular attention to Miranda. “I just composed a message to the Times. I do hope—”

      “Where is she?” asked the one with the French accent.

      Dr. Beckworth was taken aback by the abruptness of the voice. “She left with the Scotsman, Ian MacVane.”

      “When?”

      “Thursday. That is why the notice in the paper surprised me. You see—”

      A strong hand plunged into his hair. Dr. Beckworth found himself forced to his knees. A foot pressed into his back, shoving his chest hard against the floor. “Who took your message to the Times?”

      By now, Beckworth understood the peril. He must not lead them to Gwen. “P-posted it myself. Just this morning.”

      The visitors exchanged words in French. Beckworth tried to fight, but he wasn’t trained for brawling. His arms flailed, and he managed to choke out one word: “Why?”

      The hand holding his hair jerked his head up and pulled back, baring his throat. An expert hand wielded the sharp, cold blade quickly, neatly. As he bled to death swiftly on the floor of his office, Dr. Brian Beckworth answered his own question. He was dying because of Miranda.

      * * *

      “I’m certain I’ve never done this before.” Miranda gripped the forecastle rail of the sleek, swift frigate Serendipity and gazed out at the churning North Sea. She inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with the fresh, salty air, and threw back her head, wishing she could unbind her hair and let the wind ripple through it. She knew the winds. Somewhere in her forgotten past she had studied wind and weather, though she had no idea why.

      “Done what?” Ian stood beside her. With a swath of plaid draped diagonally across his chest, he looked as regal as a Highland chieftain. She shivered with admiration at the very sight of him. How plain and mousy she felt next to her betrothed, yet at the same time, his appearance empowered her. To have the devotion of such a man was heady indeed.

      “Gone on a sea voyage,” she said, watching the endless rush of the waves below the bow. “I feel quite sure I’ve not experienced this before.”

      Sailors in the mizzentop raced along wooden booms, working the sails as the wind made the ship yaw back and forth. Miranda hugged herself and smiled at the sky burnished like copper by the setting sun. “It all feels brand-new. And so exciting... Ian—” She broke off when she saw the way he was looking at her.

      As if he wanted to eat her alive.

      She sometimes caught him at it, eyeing her in a manner that was both fierce and tender. Was that the way he had always loved her, with that mixture of intensity and gentleness?

      “What is it?” he asked, laying one gloved finger on her wind-stung cheek.

      She wondered if he had ever told her why he always wore gloves, but it felt too awkward to ask. Besides, there was something mysterious and romantic about it.

      “Nothing,” she said. “Just that I know you’re frustrated because I can’t remember anything.” His touch made her tingle in secret places. Were these places he had touched...before?

      She could not quite bring herself to ask him that, either. “I do want to, Ian. Truly I do.” She felt a stirring inside her, a sharp but unfocused yearning that ached in her heart. A sense of loss and longing and emptiness came over her.

      “I did recall one thing,” she said.

      Clear as ice shards, his gaze focused on her. His hands gripped her upper arms. “Yes?”

      She so hated to disappoint him. She wanted to please him, to bring a flicker of cheer to his brooding eyes, to feel his smile like the sun on her face. “I’m afraid it’s not terribly important,” she confessed. “When I woke up this morning, I realized that I know Homer’s Iliad by heart.”

      His grin looked strained. “Lovely.”

      “In Greek.”

      “There has never been any question of your cleverness,” he said. “You trouble yourself too much, lass. The memories will come when they come.”

      “What if that never happens?”

      “Then we’ll start over,” he said.

      She moistened her lips, tasted the faint bitter tinge of spindrift on her mouth. The maintop men called to one another, gathering in sail from their lofty perches, and their shouts were like a sea chantey, rhythmic and pleasant.

      She studied Ian for a long time. How magnificent he was, tall and lean and rugged, his black hair and sharp eyes creating a magnetism that ran deeper than his appearance. She felt drawn to him in a hundred little ways—the brush of his gloved hand on hers, the way one corner of his mouth lifted in wry amusement, or the warmth in her chest when he gazed at her.

      “Is this what love is, then?” she asked impulsively.

      He frowned, clearly startled. “What?”

      “The way I feel when I look up at you. Is it love?”

      For a rare moment, his composure seemed to slip. He appeared raw and unguarded, unnerved and vulnerable. In the blink of an eye, his customary regard of lazy amusement returned. “This is not a conversation we’ve ever had before.”

      “It’s important to me, Ian. It is.” She could not take her eyes off him. “I shall describe it, then, and you can tell me if it is love or not.” She kept one hand on the rail to steady herself. “You make me feel something quite jolting inside. I find myself wanting to touch you rather boldly, to hang on to you and discover your smell and your taste and— Why on earth are you laughing?”

      He made no attempt to stifle himself. “That isna love you describe, delicious as it sounds, Miranda. It’s lust.”

      Miffed, she poked her nose in the air. There was more to it than that. There had to be, for he was the only man she regarded in this way, and she had made it a point to study the sailors and officers of the Serendipity. She had been on the verge of baring her heart to him, and he was laughing at her.

      “Not that I am averse to lust,” he said quickly.

      In spite of herself, she felt mirth tugging at her. “But I truly want to know,” she said, sobering. “What did it feel like to love you? And will I ever feel that way again?”

      He turned away, but not before she detected a glimmer of torment in his craggy face. “Not if you know what’s good for you.”

      “What?”

      Still he did not look at her. “There are things about me—” He broke off. His hands clenched around the ship’s rail. “Ah, listen to me.” When he turned to her again, he was smiling. “I dinna want you to have any doubts, sweet.”

      “Then teach me,” she said, desperate to fill the emptiness inside her. “Show me how we used to love. I want to remember, Ian. Truly I do.”

      He said something gruff and Gaelic. “Lass, you don’t know what you’re asking.”

      She watched a gull dive for a fish in the distance, then studied the horizon, the gray edges of sea and sky, as if the answers were written there. After a while, she glanced back at him. “Help me, Ian. Help me remember.”

      “I don’t know how,” he said. “I canna simply give you your memories back, all wrapped up in a tidy parcel.”

      “Then tell me something, anything. A tidbit to spark my remembrance.”

      His blue eyes narrowed. “What sort of tidbit?”

      “Conversations we’ve had.