Miranda. Susan Wiggs

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

      The 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