Miranda (12 page)

She stared down at their joined hands. Before she could stop herself, she asked, “Just how close were we, Lucas?”

His cheeks flamed with color. “My dear, you're a proper lady and should not discuss such things.”

She had asked the same of Ian—and had gotten a far different response. In her heart, she suspected that she had never been a proper lady. “If you knew me well,” she said to Lucas, “you'd know I embrace the philosophies of the radicals. The ones who are so shocking to the
haut ton.
”

“No, my love. You've never been anything but demure and compliant.”

That elicited a humorless laugh from her. “I fear the rebellious aspect of my character has come through intact, Lucas.”

He closed his eyes. “How good it is to hear you speak my name. You've done it twice, you know.” He opened his eyes again and grasped her by the shoulders. His face loomed close, and she smelled his spicy scent of ambergris and brandy. “Damn it, Miranda, you were mine. Mine, before you even knew the name Ian MacVane!”

A sense of helplessness swirled through her, dizzying her. “I can't remember. Lucas, what if I never remember? I'm not the same person as I was before. Will I ever come to love you as you claim I used to?”

“You must.” He feathered enticing kisses along her brow. “Ah, we were close, Miranda. So close. If I must, I'll prove it.” He traced the curve of her throat, and then his fingers moved downward, alluring and dangerous, flirting with the low neckline of her gown.

She could not decide how his touch made her feel. Aunt Dorcas inhaled with a snore, exhaled with a whistle. The protective haze that had enveloped Miranda thickened.

“Shall I describe your birthmark?” he whispered.

“What?”

“Your birthmark. You claimed no one but I ever saw it.” His hand trailed lower, gently cupping her breast. “It's just here. A small mark the color of a rose. Shaped like a map of the Isle of Man.”

The fog cleared from her mind. His words clanged like an alarm in her head, making her temples ache. She jerked away, seared by the intrusion of his caress. He was right.
He was right.

“I must go,” she said, hastening toward the door. “I cannot take your word for everything. I have to find out for myself.”

“Miranda, wait! Where are you going?”

“Back to the lodgings where you say I used to live. Back to the warehouse. I have to unravel this mess—
on my own.
”

“But what about us? Our plans? Our marriage?”

She turned to face him. Even now, thoughts of another man consumed her. She could not relinquish her memories of the husband she had lost, the answers he had taken with him to the grave. “
Your
plans, Lucas, not mine. I have to find out what I want. At the moment, it most definitely is not marriage.”

His fist hit the window frame with a thud. Aunt Dorcas flinched in her sleep. “Damn it, Miranda, I want you—”

“I believe,” said a silken voice from the doorway, “that the lady does not want you, my lord.”

Miranda turned to see a most remarkable woman. Petite and blond, she wore a frothy bonnet and a pink gown with a scalloped hem. In her dainty, gloved hand she carried a matching parasol at half-mast. Her cupid's-bow lips were set in a pout, and her china-blue eyes were wide and guileless.

“Isn't that right, my dear?” she asked, walking into the room with mincing steps. “Ah, how unforgivably
méchante
of me.
Tiens
, you must think me as gauche as a scholar's daughter. You, most surely, are Miranda Stonecypher.”

Intrigued, though not at all oblivious to the insult, Miranda took the tiny gloved hand in hers. “And you?”

Laughter trilled from the woman. “I am Lady Frances Higgenbottom.”

“Dear Fanny,” Lucas said, venom dripping from his voice. “What a surprise.”

She giggled. “Oh, you don't know the half of it, Lisle.” She turned back toward the door. “Here she is,
mon cher connard
. Safe and sound, just as you'd hoped.”

From the drafty corridor outside the room came the sound of a closing door and a heavy tread. Aunt Dorcas blinked herself awake. “It's about time, dear Alfonso,” she called, fixing a vague smile on her face.

Miranda felt a sudden twinge of awareness, subtle yet electric, skittering through her like a flicker of close lightning. She caught hold of the back of a chair to steady herself and stared at the doorway.

Dark and brooding as a thundercloud, Ian MacVane walked into the room. He had his arm in a sling, a fierce smile on his face and his hand on the hilt of a razor-thin rapier. “My little wife,” he said in his rich brogue. “I've found you again.”

* * *

His dress sword slapping at his thigh and his kilt snapping in a brisk breeze around his knees, Ian paced up and down in front of Carlton House. The imposing edifice, residence of the prince regent, was lit by dozens of torches. The air hummed with the sounds of music, laughter, clinking glasses and the cacophony of a dozen foreign tongues.

“So get your Scottish hide in here, laddie, and see if the rumors are true,” Duffie urged him. The older man lounged against a marble post and drank from a silver flask. “See if your fine Lady Fanny has brought a butterfly out of the chrysalis. I thought it was right nice of her to take young Miranda under her wing.”

“Fanny never does anything just to be nice,” Ian grumbled.

A week had passed since he had found Miranda again—found her in the faintly shabby drawing room of the Viscount Lisle. Even now, the memory hung about his mind like an uninvited guest. Miranda, looking thinner, wearier, even than she had in Bedlam. Lucas at her side, glaring in resentment at a smirking Lady Frances.

Fanny had made no secret of wanting Lisle. What a hideous jest it had been for her to discover that his reason for spurning her was Miranda—the very woman suspected of treason. Fanny had managed to keep her mouth shut when Ian had explained how he'd survived.

It was the puking that saved him. Still greensick from his alcoholic frenzy, he had leaned over the side of the dory. The musket ball had merely grazed his upper arm. They had come looking for him, of course, but he was too much the Highlander to be found by a party of Sassenachs in the fog.

“She's done no harm, man,” Duffie was saying, still speaking of Fanny.

“Not yet, she hasn't.” But Ian had to acknowledge that in the week since he had returned to London to find Miranda, Fanny had been thoroughly solicitous. She had taken Miranda to Biddle House to be her personal guest. She'd introduced her to the grand duchess of Oldenburg. As the sister of Tsar Alexander of Russia, Catherine Pavlovna was the ranking noblewoman in London, second only to Princess Caroline and her rebellious daughter Charlotte.

Anyone basking in the favor of Her Grace was accepted at every party, every soirée, every tête-à-tête. The new friendship between the grand duchess and Miranda was an example of Fanny's cleverness. No one would dare question Miranda's place in society now.

“I hear Prince Frederick of Prussia is thoroughly smitten with her,” Duffie said.

“With whom?”

“As if you didn't know. With Miranda. I hear he had a gondola full of daylilies delivered to her this morning. Of course, he's not the only one. They're all after her. All smitten,” Duffie repeated, making a fist and striking himself on the brow. “Right between the eyes.”

Ian's patience snapped. “And I'm supposed to care?”

Duffie laughed. “You're not supposed to. But you do. You're consumed with the lassie.”

“I'm married to her.”

“You call that sorry folk custom a marriage? Ha! You're no more married to her than you are to Fanny.” Duffie winked. “Of course, you can take solace in the fact that she's barred the pretty viscount from her presence, as well.”

“Miranda's a distraction,” Ian said between his teeth, half to himself. “I've got a job to do, and she distracts me.”

“My heart bleeds for you.”

Irritated, Ian scanned the bank of brightly lit windows along the loggia of the building. “That's not the only thing that might bleed before the night is out.” Scowling, he recognized a round dozen dignitaries as they waltzed past the windows. He spied Field Marshal von Blucher, hero of the Battle of Leipzig, resplendent with his silver hair and grand thirst for wine.

The duke of Wellington, just back from France, was quieter but no less impressive as he accepted curtsies from grateful ladies. Tsar Alexander of Russia, imperial in tight green livery with gold epaulets, conversed with William of Orange, the Austrian chancellor Prince Metternich, and the Prussian chancellor Prince Hardenberg. A moment later, the tsar's lively sister, broad faced and laughing, waltzed past on the arm of King Frederick William of Prussia. The prince regent himself paraded through the crowd with the duke of Gloucester and the lord chancellor trailing in his wake. A host of lesser nobility orbited their more celebrated peers.

It was an assassin's dream. Unsuspecting and silly with drink, the crowned heads of Europe had amassed themselves in one well-lit room. Ian almost wished he had thrown in his lot with Bonaparte. Lord knew it was easy enough.

A movement in the corner of the loggia beneath an ivy trellis caught his eye. Instantly he came alert, sensing danger. Duffie had seen the movement, too, and they slipped through the shadows until they were close enough to hear the whispered conversation.

“...should fatten your purse considerably, and none will be the wiser.” The speaker was a tall, imposing man, merely a silhouette. Yet something about him—his posture or perhaps a tic in his manner—grated on Ian, flooded his mouth with the rusty taste of suspicion. Odd, for he was certain he did not recognize the stranger.

“Just don't commit an unforgivable faux pas tonight, Mr. Addingham. Do not make me regret our little arrangement.” With a twist of cynical distaste, Ian did recognize the second speaker. Lucas Chesney of the square jaw and knight-in-shining-armor demeanor.

Duffie jabbed Ian in the ribs. “Guess the viscount found a way out of beggary,” he whispered. “Interesting.”

“Aye.”

“...don't let them know you're in trade. Confine yourself to mild gossip and fox hunting, and you'll be fine,” Chesney was saying to Addingham. Coins clinked; then the two slipped back inside.

“I agree,” Ian said. “It's interesting. But probably not all that unusual. Addingham wouldn't be the first Englishman to buy his way into society.”

“Blasted waste of money,” Duffie said. “To think a man would actually pay to be part of that.” He jerked a thumb toward the broad windows where the elite of society postured and preened.

“It's all a game,” Ian said. “Just a game. Tomorrow, see what you can find out about Mr. Addingham. Who is he? Where did he get his money? And just what is it that he's buying from Lucas Chesney?”

“Verra good,” Duffie said, taking another swig from his flask.

“If you'll excuse me...” Ian strolled slowly across the long porch, trying to decide on the most advantageous moment to make his entrance.

Then he spotted her—Miranda, in a peach-colored gown, her sable curls bobbing, her sparkling gaze lifted to Lucas Chesney.

“That's it,” Ian said through gritted teeth. “I've had enough.” Duffie called something after him, but he didn't hear. He took the steps two at a time, strode brusquely past a bank of servants and retainers, and plowed a path onto the dance floor.

Feminine gasps and a flutter of fans greeted him. Hungry eyes devoured his kilt. It was remarkable what effect a bit of Highland regalia had on these English game hens. Ian sometimes found it amusing to dally with the ladies, to shove them into barely concealed corners and turn them into whores with his rough caresses; but not tonight.

Tonight he wanted Miranda. Only Miranda.

His sense of danger, a sixth sense that never quite rested, remained alert to the dynamics of the room. Even as he jostled his way through the dancing couples, trying not to disturb the bandage on his wounded arm, he was aware of the Cossacks who stood vigil on the fringes of the dance floor. Of all of them, the tsar was the only one with the sense to take a bodyguard wherever he went.

Lucas and Miranda were caught up in a waltz. Ian had taught her well, he thought cynically, there on the deck of the ship. She danced like a flower in a gentle breeze, bending and swaying and swirling while her delicate skirts belled out, brushing the polished boots of her escort.

Christ, he wanted her. He was going crazy with it. This woman would be the death of him yet.

Ian tapped Lucas on the shoulder, none too gently. “It's time I danced with my wife,” he stated.

Lucas froze. He held Miranda against him. The sight enraged Ian, though he was careful not to let it show.

“Hello, Ian,” Miranda said, her voice sounding slightly breathless.

Was she glad to see him? Ian wondered. Did her blood heat as his did? “You'll excuse us,” he said coldly to Lucas.

“Over my dead body,” Lucas said just as coldly.

“If you insist, I'd be pleased to oblige.”

Lucas stepped away from Miranda. “Is that a challenge, sir?”

Ian laughed. “That depends.”

“On what?” Lucas demanded.

“On whether or not you're willing to die for her tonight.”

Miranda planted herself between them. “What in heaven's name are the two of you blathering about?”

With long white feathers nodding over the brim of a ridiculous hat, Frances sailed into their midst. “Ah, my dear, it's so exciting! They've just challenged each other to a duel!”

Ten

The heart is very treacherous, and if we do not guard its first emotions, we shall not afterward be able to prevent its sighing for impossibilities.

—Dr. Fordyce's
Sermons for Young Women

“I
hope you're jesting,” Miranda said. She willed herself not to look at Ian, not to weaken. When he had walked into Lucas's house a week ago, she had wanted to fling her arms around him, to cover his face with kisses and thank God he had not been killed by the musketeers.

Instead she'd reminded herself of all the unanswered questions Lucas had raised, and she had managed to greet Ian coolly. That alone seemed to win the esteem of Lady Frances, who had taken Miranda under her wing.

Like so many of the people Miranda had met in the past week, Frances was an enigma. Her dress and manner were those of the most artful and superficial of
merveilleuses
, yet Miranda suspected that it was all an act designed to conceal a shrewd and very active mind.

Now her gaze clung to her hostess as she asked again, “They are having us on about fighting a duel, aren't they?”

“Certainly not.”

“Isn't dueling illegal?” Miranda scanned the gathering crowd for the prince regent. Resplendent in a military-style frock coat and red-heeled buckle shoes, His portly Highness had stopped along with the other guests and was looking on with avid interest.

“I'm afraid that doesn't matter,” Lucas snapped, his voice harsh, as it had been that night in Scotland when he had torn her from the arms of the man she had just married.

Miranda confronted them both, Lucas's chiseled, angry face and Ian's roughly handsome one. “Correct me if I'm wrong,” she said, hiding abject terror behind sarcasm, “but isn't a duel a fight with pistols until one of you dies?”

“That rather sums it up,” Ian said, his lips thinning in an almost smile.

“It's the most idiotic thing I've ever heard of.”

“Isn't it, though?” Ian turned to Lucas. “Shall we go?”

“Now?” Lucas asked.

“Are you turning yellow on me, Your Lordship?”

“It's pitch-dark outside!”

“That should make it more interesting. Besides, isn't shooting blind your specialty?” Ian glanced meaningfully at his wounded arm.

She grabbed Frances's hand. “Can't you do something?”

Frances smiled. “Ah, yes. Seconds. They shall need seconds, and someone to officiate.”

Miranda felt ill. “That is not what I meant.” She spied Wellington, who stood tall and straight, his perfect military bearing inspiring faith. “My lord, if you please.” She dipped a curtsy. “You've watched men shed their blood for the sake of England. Surely you'll not allow it to be spilled in the name of foolish male pride.”

He studied her a moment, looking down over his long, aquiline nose. “A matter of honor is a sacred thing, and—” Wellington broke off and bent low, suddenly studying Miranda so intently that a chill blew through her. “Miss, have we met before?”

Her knees wobbled. She had to struggle to remain standing.

“Tell!” commanded Prinny. “She is our famous mystery lady. Lost her memory in a terrible accident.” He rubbed his palms together. “It's too delicious.”

“Can't remember a thing, can you?” asked Silas Addingham. Of all the people she had met in this whirlwind, he was the most enigmatic. Unfailingly correct, he seemed to live in horror of committing a faux pas. Lucas had begged her to be gracious to his benefactor. She simply did not care for him, the way his gaze followed her when he thought she didn't notice.

Disgusted, she moved away from them. These people were more concerned about their own amusement than the fact that two men were about to kill each other.

Buoyed on a wave of excitement, the company moved en masse into the gardens to observe the duel. Large torches, their flaming heads reflecting in a man-made pond, bathed the area in bright light.

Everything happened so swiftly that Miranda hardly had time to take it all in. Pistols appeared, lying on their sides in a polished walnut case. Duffie stepped forward as Ian's second. Seemingly beloved of all the nobility present, Lucas had at least six volunteers to choose from.

She appealed to General von Blucher next. “You must stop this. It's insane.”

“All violence is insane,” von Blucher declared in his rich, rumbling, accented English. The scent of wine hung thick in the air around him. “That is why men love it so.”

Lady Frances took Miranda's arm and drew her out of the way. “Save your breath. They won't listen.”

“Don't you even care?” Miranda demanded, wrenching away.

“Hysterics won't solve a thing.”

“Nor will standing here like a pair of birdwits!”

The tsar's lifeguards held the crowd at bay, lining the edges of the lawn. As she watched Ian and Lucas pace off the distance between them, Miranda felt a wash of fear so powerful that her chest ached. Strong featured and looking as if he were the subject of a classical painting, Lucas embodied honor and ancient tradition. Dark and fascinating, as rugged as the Highlands of his birth, Ian was the sort of man one heard warnings about in Sunday sermons.

Lover or liar? Which man was which? Lucas made her feel safe, cherished, protected. Ian made her feel wild, womanly, free. The only fact she knew for certain was that she did not want either of them to die.

“...eight...nine...ten!” the field marshal barked. “Fire!”

At the same moment, Lucas and Ian turned to face each other. Miranda lurched forward unthinkingly, but Frances grabbed her hand and pulled her back. With a flash of burning powder, Lucas discharged his pistol. The sharp report pierced Miranda like a blow to the head. She let out an involuntary sob and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. Gasps rose from the crowd.

“God,” Miranda whispered. “Oh, God.” She forced her eyes open.

“Ian's still standing,” Frances said. “He wasn't hit. But...” She blinked her wide, pretty eyes at the clearing smoke around Lucas. To Miranda's amazement, tears began to stream down Lady Frances's cheeks. “But he hasn't fired yet, and now he has a clear shot. Ah, Lucas, my dearest,” she said in the faintest of whispers. “You poor fool.”

Miranda clasped her hand, suddenly understanding. Lady Frances was in love with Lucas Chesney. When had that happened? she wondered. “Perhaps Ian will miss.”

“Ian MacVane
never
misses,” Frances hissed.

“Stop!” Miranda shouted as Ian extended his good arm. “For the love of God, stop! If this is about me, then I should be the one to resolve it.”

Lucas stood unmoving, staring blankly at his opponent. His broad chest rose and fell with weary resignation. He lifted his chin and gazed calmly across the green, his sense of fatalism both tragic and infuriating.

With a broad, insolent grin, but without lowering the pistol, Ian turned to Miranda. “Very well, lass,” he said, “resolve it.”

“Resolve
what
?” Like a festooned river barge, the grand duchess of Oldenburg crossed the garden. She spoke in French, for her English was poor. Her bodyguards swarmed in a panic around her.

Speaking in Russian, the tsar said something urgent and irritated to his sister.

“Why haven't you fired, MacVane?” demanded the prince of Wales, slurring his words. “I say, isn't it unsportsmanlike to be so long taking aim? And what in blue heaven
is
this quarrel about?”

Ian bowed from the waist. “It's quite simple, Your Highness. Miss Stonecypher married me, yet Lord Lisle claims a prior betrothal to him.” He waited for the excited chatter to die down, then turned to Miranda.

He was no longer smiling, but fierce and deadly serious. “Whom are you going to believe—your wedded husband and his clan, who accepted you as one of their own, or this liar who cannot produce a shred of evidence that he ever knew you?”

Then, lowering his hand and letting the pistol dangle from his fingers, he glared across the broad yard at Lucas. “What I ask is simple enough, my lord. You need only point out
one
person who can corroborate your story. Or tell me
one
irrefutable fact that proves your prior claim on her.”

Duffie huffed out his cheeks and said something in Gaelic, but Ian kept his gaze on Lucas.

Miranda held her breath. Now was the perfect time for Lucas to mention her birthmark. She braced herself for the shame of having her private affairs revealed to all.

Lucas hesitated, but only for a moment. “I have no evidence,” he said in a taut, strained voice, “save my own word of honor.”

Miranda let out the breath she had been holding. She realized that part of her wished one man would prove himself a scoundrel without question and make the truth apparent.

“Then why,” Ian asked pointedly, “would a woman care for a man who, until tonight, has refused to declare himself publicly?”

More chatter erupted from the crowd.

“Sir,” Lucas called in a voice like striking lightning, “take your shot!”

Ian laughed and handed his pistol to Duffie. The older man took it with a gusty sigh of relief. “That would be unsporting at this point, wouldn't you say? I'm not going to shoot you, Lisle.” He made a grand show of holding out his sling and placing his arm back in it. “I'm sure to regret it one day, but no, I'm not going to shoot you.”

* * *

The incident established, once and for all, Miranda's reputation as an Original. That, Lady Frances explained, was a splendid coup. When one was an Original, no one dared question her background or bloodlines. They simply accepted and adored her because she was especially entertaining or fascinating or amusing or attractive.

“In your case,” Lady Frances said, tightening her mouth into a wry pout, “all four.”

They were seated in one of the many parlors at Biddle House, and Frances was teaching Miranda the rules of piquet and of society, flitting back and forth from the game to life as if they were one and the same.

“Never show by your face what you hold in your hand,” she advised. “Or, for that matter, in your heart.”

“Why not?”

“Because it causes nothing but embarrassment.”

“So you were embarrassed last night, when you wept for fear of losing Lucas?” Miranda lifted one eyebrow.

“I did no such thing,” Frances shot back. Her yellow curls bobbed as if in stubborn agreement.

“As you wish.” Miranda sighed, bored with the game. She seemed to have an abnormal understanding of numbers and ratios. Using the pattern of the four suits with thirteen cards in each, she was able to calculate the odds with lightning swiftness. Such knowledge seemed to take the sport out of the game.

She wondered if, in her former life, she had been a cardsharp. For a moment, the thought tantalized her. Perhaps she was even a cheater; that was easy enough to do, at least with Frances. Maybe the incident at the wharves was the revenge of someone she had cheated.

Her restive gaze shifted to the window. The bough of a huge chestnut tree bobbed above the avenue, where coaches and pedestrians passed in a steady stream. The emptiness inside her yawned into a great, aching void. How lonely it was to have no past, no memories to cling to. The occasional, frightening glimpses of violence and terror that plagued her were hardly a comfort.

“When will you decide?” Lady Frances asked in a crisp, no-nonsense voice.

“Decide what?”

“Which man you want.”

Miranda stared at her. For a moment, she had the distinct feeling that Frances knew which man she had loved before she'd lost her memory. But that was silly. If Frances knew, she would have been the first to speak up. She was a gossip extraordinaire.

The door opened with a discreet swish. A butler stepped inside. “Delivery for Miss Miranda Stonecypher.”

A parade of footmen came in, each bearing an armload of fresh flowers. As Miranda's jaw dropped in astonishment, the next wave arrived, these carrying salvers of delicate chocolates and petits fours, comfits and dainty sweetmeats.

The last servant presented, with a bow and a flourish, a young woman with a sweet smile and a crisp blue serge dress. “I am Yvette Deschamps,” she said with a small curtsy. “I am to be your lady's maid.”

“But I don't need a—”

“Monsieur was most insistent.” Yvette held out a note on heavy stock. Miranda opened it and glanced at the bold handwriting:
All my love, Lucas.

Guiltily she crushed the note in her palm, but not before Frances had seen the writing. “You needn't try to spare me,” Frances said in a brittle voice. “Lovesick fool.” She moved gracefully to the window. “Bloody lovesick fool. He can't afford such grand gestures.”

The same thought had crossed Miranda's mind. If what Lucas had said was true, that his family teetered on the brink of ruin, why would he be so extravagant?