Miranda (22 page)

Lucas plunged to his knees before her. “I beg you, Miranda. Forgive me. I had no idea what Silas's plans were. He said he was going to create an evening of fireworks for the visiting dignitaries. It's not unusual. He's a wealthy man. He wanted to impress people. I saw no harm in that. All I knew is that I was about to break under the pressure of my family, my ambitions, my own weakness.” He hung his head. “Silas exploited that weakness. But that is all I'm guilty of.”

Ian stalked toward the house, his strides long with deadly purpose. Seeming to forget all about Miranda, Lucas shot up and blocked his way.

“Where the hell are you going, MacVane?” he demanded.

“I think you know, my lord. You've solved quite a puzzle for us. It's time we brought Silas Addingham to justice.”

“No!” Lucas planted his feet.

“I don't blame you for being afraid, Lisle. Because Addingham is certain to drag you down with him. Treason is a dirty business, and this is a little dirtier than treason.”

“Treason! I saw service in the wars, was cited for bravery!”

“I dinna question your bravery, only your judgment. Did you ever wonder about the source of the money pouring into your bank account?”

“The source was Silas, and it was supposed to remain a private matter between us.”

“Silas is flat broke,” Frances said quietly. “I've investigated his affairs.”

“The money came through him,” Ian went on, “but it originated in Corsica.”

Bonaparte's homeland, Miranda thought, reeling.

Ian started to turn away.

“Wait.” Lucas was breathing heavily, as if he had run a great distance.

Miranda stared at them both in horrified fascination. How beautiful they were, tall and strong, one fair, one dark, both as corrupt as fallen angels.

“There's something more about Addingham that I think you'd like to know.”

“Lucas, no—” Frances broke in, but they ignored her.

“I'm listening.”

“Addingham is not his real name. He took it because it sounded less bourgeois. I found out the truth when I happened to see some of his personal papers, and later he had a bit too much to drink and explained it all to me. As it happens, he was willing to part with a tidy sum to keep it quiet. His real name is Adder.”

Adder.

Miranda watched the realization slam into Ian. It was like seeing a man at an execution the moment he was shot. At first he showed no sign of pain, only shock. Utter, numb shock. Then came the anguish, a fleeting shadow across his face. Finally, his face hardened into a mask of anger. A mask like a corpse.

“No,” she whispered, then forced herself to speak up. “Ian, no. What Lucas said might or might not be true, but surely you see what he's doing. He's forcing you to act in reckless haste. He wants you to murder Silas Addingham so he'll take all his secrets to the grave.”

“I can't imagine that you would care in the least,” Ian said. His coldness clung like a frost around her heart. It was hard to believe that only a few minutes had passed since they'd been dancing. A few minutes had changed the course of her life.

Ian reached the door to the drawing room. Miranda caught up with him, touched his sleeve. He turned and stared at her hand until, feeling awkward, she let go. “There is no reason I should care at all about you,” she said. “But I have to say this.” She looked up into his dark, rugged face, and fresh agony ripped through her.

“You could do so much more than hate,” she said brokenly. “You could be so much more than a bloody mercenary—if only you'd let yourself.”

One side of his mouth slashed upward in a parody of a smile. “I canna think why you would believe that now, lass,” he said. Though his voice was heavy with self-mockery, she detected a deep sadness, too. He glanced at the crumpled letter in her hand. “I wouldna think you cared if I went to the devil.”

* * *

Knowing the identity of Adder filled Ian with new resolve, but the taste of it was bitter. As he rode westward to the tower on the hill, he felt no satisfaction at having made a breakthrough into the plot.

He didn't care.

At the base of the semaphore tower, he hesitated. His chest tightened, and his hands became clammy. The ground beneath his feet blurred and seemed full of motion, as if it would rise up to meet him. Acrid as the taste of blood, fear flooded his mouth. The platform rose to a dizzying height above the rolling hills. His stomach churned, and he felt sick simply contemplating the climb. He should wait until full noon, when the regular signalman would come to receive any message that might be arriving from the south.

Too long to wait, he told himself, still shuddering but determined. He had to send a warning to London. He placed one hand on a wooden rung of the jointed ladder that clung to the side of the tower. Then a foot. The other hand. The other foot.

Don't think, he told himself. Don't feel. Don't look down. Don't watch the ground disappear below, don't remember Gordie falling and falling, spiraling fast, his mouth a black O of horror... Ian was bathed in sweat by the time he reached the platform of the tower. Panting, he sat down to await the dawn. As soon as it was light, he would start his transmission.

His every instinct told him to race to London, to confront the murdering bastard face-to-face, to kill him in cold blood.

He forced himself to choose a more reasoned approach. He took out his silver whiskey flask and drank it dry. A semaphore transmission to Duffie in London would take a few hours or less.

It was too risky to wait. Adder might act any moment; perhaps he already had. Ian's plan was to transmit the warning, ordering Angus McDuff to detain Mr. Silas Addingham by whatever means necessary.

A taut, humorless smile tugged at Ian's mouth. To most people, Duffie appeared to be a harmless old retainer. But Ian knew that deep down Angus McDuff was a wild Celt, with the warlike wiles of an ancient champion wielding a claymore.

Addingham, with all his wealth and dearly bought airs of gentility, didn't have a prayer against Duffie.

Ian wondered why he had not recognized the man who had butchered his family. He had been young, that was the answer, and in those days Adder was crude and gaunt and hungry for gold. Apparently his yearning for respectability had come later, after Ian had escaped Glasgow. The years had added girth to Adder; a gifted tailor gave him the silhouette of a man of fashion.

But no amount of money could cleanse the soul of a murderer. Ian wondered what Adder thought about each night as he lay in his bed and went to sleep. Did he remember the shock and fury on Fergus MacVane's face when the soldiers shot the crofter down like a dog? Did he still hear the unearthly shrieks of Mary MacVane as man after man took his turn plunging into her? Did the wails of a baby girl, left to die in her cradle, still haunt the Englishman? Did he have any recollection at all of a pair of small boys, marched away like slaves to Glasgow? Did he even know that the forced servitude had caused the death of one boy and had destroyed the soul of the other?

As he watched the night fade, Ian tried to piece together the rest of the puzzle. Adder, in his guise of Addingham, was paying a high price for respectability. So why would he jeopardize his newfound status by embroiling himself in an assassination plot?

Frances had found the answer to that. Men like Adder had no master save greed. Having lost his fortune, he had sold his soul to the fanatics who supported Bonaparte.

Adder had been after Miranda. Why? Just what was the plan he had in mind? Why did he need her knowledge and expertise?

Ian told himself he'd find out soon enough. The task at hand was to transmit the message. The sun crept up on the eastern horizon; then a blaze of summer light leaped like fire into the sky. A perfect day. Not a wisp of fog to mask his signal.

He stood and grasped the levers of the flags, opening the dialogue of signals. When the next signalman indicated that he was on alert, Ian sent the message. If the semaphore system worked as planned, the message would be relayed from one tower to another, all the way to London.

Addingham was as good as caught.

The knowledge should have brought Ian some measure of satisfaction. Of comfort. A sense that an old wrong was about to be righted. Instead the ghostly echo of a feminine voice came back to haunt him.

You could do so much more than hate... You could be so much more than a bloody mercenary—if only you'd let yourself.

Ian felt a sense of dizziness, of disorientation, that was even worse than his fear of heights. He had already allowed himself to do too much, feel too much, where Miranda was concerned. His business here was nearly at an end.

The sooner the better, he told himself, wishing he could believe it.

* * *

“Brace yourself,” Frances warned Miranda as the coach lumbered past the outskirts of the village. “We're on the open road now.”

Almost as soon as she spoke, the coachman whistled to the team, and the whip cracked through the early morning air. The coach bolted forward at a speed that took Miranda's breath away. Gideon, who was dozing, muttered in his sleep. His chin bobbed down to his chest.

“I have no idea if we'll catch up with Ian,” Frances said, “but it would be better for all involved if we did.”

She looked paler than usual, and her customary sauciness was missing this morning. She had not met Miranda's eyes except by accident.

“You provided the note for Lucas, didn't you?” Miranda said, her words not so much a question as a statement. “Why? I thought you loved him.”

A bitter smile thinned Frances's lips. “Why else would I unveil my true self? I love Lucas. He loves you. If my love is as constant and selfless as I like to believe it is, then I want to see him happy. Even if it means losing him.”

“After last night, I can't see how any of us will be happy again.”

Frances gave a snort of disgust. “Would you prefer to keep living a lie?”

“No. Of course not.” Miranda sank back against the cushions. She had not slept at all the previous night. It had seemed impossible to close her eyes against the revelations that had barreled at her from out of the dark. Her father's muddled statements. Ian's betrayal. Lucas's greed. Her own part as an arsonist. Where did it end? Where in God's name did it end?

And more, where had it begun?

She held a leather strap attached to the roof of the coach, leaning her cheek against her fist. “Where do you fit in, Frances? What's your part in all this?”

Frances let out a long, pretty sigh. “It started with my father, God rest his soul. He was the greatest spymaster in England before his death. But he had a secret weapon.”

“He did?”

“He had me.” Frances fluttered an imaginary fan against her lacy pink bosom. “I've always looked like this. Like a confection from a candy shop. As lacking in substance as spun sugar. When I was very young, it was a curse. People were always fussing over me, treating me like a poppet doll who had no thought in her head. Then one day I heard two men gossiping, and they were spelling out secrets because they thought I was too s-t-u-p-i-d to understand. You can't imagine how convenient I found it. I was able to report the entire plot—it had to do with Admiral Nelson's battle plans—to my father, and no one was the wiser. Since his death, I've taken on the role myself.”

Miranda stared at her. “So you are involved in the business of spying.”

“I am. And if we don't stop Ian from charging down to London, leaping upon Addingham and making fools of us all, I'll be forced to retire in disgrace.” Frances leaned back against the cushion. “I wish I could retire anyway. Some days all I want to do is grow flowers and have babies. Do you find that odd?”

Miranda swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. “No.” Her thoughts flitted to a moment she remembered from the past. Her father was in the yard, standing over the charred remains of yet another experiment gone awry. When she had run to him and flung her arms around his waist, he had picked her up, twirled her around and laughed.

He had laughed in the midst of his greatest failure. She remembered thinking what a gift that was.

“It's all in knowing the importance of things,” Gideon had declared. “My experiment failed. But that means I get to spend the rest of this glorious summer day with my daughter. So where's the failure in that?”

“You're not at all odd, Frances,” Miranda said. “In fact, I think you should retire.”

“What's the use now? I've lost Lucas—not that I ever had him in the first place.”

“How can you say that? Whatever it is that Lucas and I shared is gone now. My memory is incomplete, but I do know that much. We had a terrible row the night of the fire. It was over between us.”

“He still pines for you.” Frances looked at her with anger but, surprisingly, no resentment. “And who can blame him? You're everything I'm not. You're beautiful—”

“And you're not?” Miranda stared at her incredulously.

“Pretty. In a few years I shall be plump and matronly, while you'll only grow more alluring and elegant. But it's not simply looks, Miranda. You're brilliant. Fascinating. No wonder half of the
ton
and most of the visiting princes and generals are in love with you.”

“And the other half with you,” Miranda reminded her. “If ever I've met a brilliant, fascinating woman, it's got to be Lady Frances Higgenbottom.”

“That's the trap I've set for myself. I've gotten so accustomed to playing the role of brainless beauty that everyone believes that's all I am.”

“Then show them otherwise,” Miranda said. “Take the credit that's yours. For heaven's sake, you've stopped conspiracies that could have brought about the ruin of England. In your own way, you're as vital as the duke of Wellington.”

Frances shook her head. “The moment I reveal my role in these things, I make myself a pariah. No one will ever trust me again.”