Miranda (26 page)

Epilogue

We live by admiration, hope, and love;
And even as these are well and wisely fixed,
In dignity of being we ascend.

—Wordsworth

Crough na Muir,
Scotland
April 1815

“Y
ou look,” Miranda said, “like the very essence of Scotland.” Her bright-eyed gaze swept unabashedly over her husband's tall form as he entered the morning room of Innes Manor, the newly renovated house on the hill.

The butter-yellow sunshine of early morning streamed in through brand-new casements, and the view outside was of abundant gardens splashed with color. Against a perfect sky, the mountain called Ben Innes brooded over the midnight blue sea.

“How does it feel to be the laird?” she asked in a teasing voice. “You certainly wear the position well. What did you do this morning? Collect rents? Settle disputes? Dispense justice?”

He laughed, the color high in his cheeks. His hair had grown longer, thick and curling over the collar of his blousy shirt. In a kilt made of the MacVane tartan, he seemed to come from another time, a simpler time, when a man was measured by the deeds he did, not by the company he kept or the wealth he accumulated.

With long strides, he crossed the room and snatched her up off the chaise where she was reclining. “I spent the morning getting Callum's pig out of the Scobies' potato patch.”

She recoiled, but he caught her, chuckling as he bent to nuzzle her neck. “I washed before I came in, love, and parked my mucky boots at the stable door.”

She skimmed her arms up over his shoulders, glorying in the feel of him, his nearness, the sense of safety she felt with him. Nearly a year had passed since he had walked out of a burning forest and declared his love for her. A blessed, amazing year.

In recognition of his heroism, Ian MacVane had been designated a knight of the realm and granted full possession in perpetuity of the estate overlooking Crough na Muir. But more than that, he had been given a second chance to live. That was exactly what he had said that day, and even now, just remembering his words made her eyes fill with tears.

He shook his head, sympathy pulling at the tender edges of his smile. “Ah, Miranda. Weepy again?”

“You make me so, Ian MacVane,” she said, trying to conquer the quaver in her voice. “You and no other have that power.”

His hand drifted down, shaped itself around the gentle, prominent curve of her belly. “I alone, sweetheart? That I canna believe. Someone else is tugging at your heart—Jesus!” He snatched his hand away as if it had been burned and stared goggle-eyed at her belly. “The bairn! He—he—”

Her tears evaporated on gales of laughter. “Aye, my love, the bairn. He moves constantly these days. Agnes says it's a good sign.”

A loud popping noise, followed by a shriek, came from the gardens. Ian and Miranda hurried out through the tall double doors to see what had happened.

Gideon Stonecypher stood glaring at a smoldering black circle on the lawn. Robbie was nearby, hugging himself across the stomach and screaming with laughter. Mary MacVane, looking frail but self-possessed in a tidy linsey-woolsey gown, had her hand over her mouth. Her blue eyes, so like her son's, danced. She still had her melancholy days, but having Ian near and Robbie to visit her were a tonic. And she took a certain delight in teasing Gideon about his numerous experiments.

“Now what?” Ian asked with mock severity.

Gideon put a hand to his abundant white hair, staring in puzzlement at the ground. “The savages of America send signals with puffs of smoke. If we could perfect that, we'd no longer have to build towers for the semaphore flags.”

Miranda cleared her throat. “I thought we were going to turn our attention to practical matters, Papa. A spring-powered cradle that keeps rocking. A treadmill for the sheep shearing.”

She still had her thirst for invention, but after last summer she'd had her fill of weapons of war. She far preferred Crough na Muir. It was a little world unto itself, a place where they had no need to concern themselves with the destruction and mayhem that used to consume Ian and had nearly killed him.

A moment later, as if to contradict her thoughts, Duffie rode up, bearing a sack of mail. “The post arrived by packet,” he declared, doffing his cap to the ladies. He held out a parcel bound in twine. “From Lady Frances. And you—” he winked at Robbie “—have a job to do in the stable.”

Duffie offered Mary his arm and started toward the stableyard. Robbie led the horse off, with Macbeth, the deerhound, trotting behind them.

Miranda felt a fluttering of abject fear in her chest. Her happiness was too perfect to last. She knew it. Frances was summoning him back to London, or hatching some counterplot, since Napoleon had escaped from Elba in the spring and was marching northward through France, conquering as he went.

“No,” she whispered, and Ian seemed not to hear her as he used a penknife to slit open the twine that bound the parcel.

The first item was a letter written on thick cream stock. The seal was that of the Viscount Lisle. Frances had married Lucas after all. It was either that, she had said, only half teasing, or bring him up on charges and deport him to Australia along with Yvette.

The pair proved to be amazingly compatible. “‘My dear MacVane,'” Ian read aloud, cocking a grin at Frances's form of address, “‘I know you are bound to tease me about this, but I have been stricken with an irresistible urge to grow flowers and have babies. Such happy pursuits must wait, however. It looks as though Bonaparte is entrenched at Les Invalides. Troops are deserting King Louis by the score. There are so many that Bonaparte is telling them, “Thanks, truly, but I have enough now.” So annoying. Lucas has promised to join the effort to dislodge the little Corsican.'”

Miranda watched her husband closely. What was he thinking? Did he wish to be back in London, in the middle of things?

He read on. “‘I enclose an etching which is a copy of the portrait done by Thomas Lawrence last summer. I don't believe we'll ever see the like of such extraordinary company in one place again. You'll note the artist added a Very Fashionable Pair to the picture.'” Ian unfurled an engraving printed on heavy paper. It was a facsimile of the portrait begun the day Miranda had remembered her father.

The famous crowned heads and military heroes of the age graced the picture. As Frances had promised, Lord and Lady Lisle were present, hands clasped, two halves of a very happy whole.

“So there you are,” Ian said brusquely. He looked thoughtful for a moment and walked to the edge of the garden above a steep hill that plunged down toward the glen.

Miranda went to join her husband, wondering what was going through his mind. Something stopped her from asking.

She was afraid to hear the answer.

Gideon, it seemed, had no such compunction. “Do you miss it, then?” he demanded, striding to Ian's side and glaring out at the hurling sea. “The intrigue? The subterfuge? The danger? Does rusticating up here bore you when you hear about all the excitement in London?”

Miranda felt a chill. “Papa, leave it alone.”

“I'll answer,” Ian said, his eyes wintry. “'Tis a fair question.” He lifted his face to the wind and sun. “I feel as if I've been on a journey all of my life.” He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them and stared at his hand, braced upon the stone wall of the garden. He never wore a glove anymore, never sought to mask the stump of his finger. “It was like being on a voyage with no end in sight. And I hated it. God, I hated it.”

He drew a deep breath between his teeth, and Miranda realized that this was hard for him, describing the life he had lived. It was like putting words to a melody that kept changing. “Finally, I was able to release the past and embrace the future, Gideon. And I knew where my journey had to end.”

His blue-eyed gaze swept the vast expanse of Crough na Muir. She wondered if he could still picture the little croft, hear the voices of his long-dead family.

“Here,” Miranda said with sudden understanding. “Right here, where it began.”

“When did you know, Ian?” Gideon's voice broke. His meddling had almost brought about the demise of innocents, and the idea still haunted him. He was still on his own quest for peace. “When did you discover you could come home, start a new life and put the past behind you?” he persisted. “Was it after you learned who Addingham was and sent him to his death?”

“No,” Ian replied, turning swiftly and gathering his wife close to his chest. A wave of gratitude and tenderness washed through her. He looked down, his eyes brimming with all the fullness of his love. “It was after Miranda.”

* * * * *

Read on for an extract from STARLIGHT ON WILLOW LAKE by Susan Wiggs

Starlight on Willow Lake

by Susan Wiggs

 

Mason Bellamy stared up at the face of the mountain that had killed his father. The mountain's name was innocent enough—Cloud Piercer. The rich afternoon light of the New Zealand winter cast a spell over the moment. Snow-clad slopes glowed with the impossible pink and amethyst of a rare jewel. The stunning backdrop of the Southern Alps created a panorama of craggy peaks, veined with granite and glacial ice, against a sky so clear it caused the eyes to smart.

The bony, white structure of a cell phone tower, its discs grabbing signals from outer space, rose from a nearby peak. The only other intrusions into the natural beauty were located at the top of the slope—a black-and-yellow gate marked Experts Only and a round dial designating Avalanche Danger: Moderate.

He wondered if someone came all the way up here each day to move the needle on the dial. Maybe his father had wondered the same thing last year. Maybe it had been the last thought to go through his head before he was buried by two hundred thousand cubic meters of snow.

According to witnesses in the town near the base of the mountain, it had been a dry snow avalanche with a powder cloud that had been visible to any resident of Hillside Township who happened to look up. The incident report stated that there had been a delay before the noise came. Then everyone for miles around had heard the sonic boom.

The Maori in the region had legends about this mountain. The natives respected its threatening beauty as well as its lethal nature, their myths filled with cautionary tales of humans being swallowed to appease the gods. For generations, the lofty crag, with its year-round cloak of snow, had challenged the world's most adventurous skiers, and its gleaming north face had been Trevor Bellamy's favorite run. It had also been his final run.

Trevor's final wish, spelled out in his last will and testament, had brought Mason halfway around the world, and down into the Southern Hemisphere's winter. At the moment he felt anything but cold. He unzipped his parka, having worked up a major sweat climbing to the peak. This run was accessible only to those willing to be helicoptered to a landing pad at three thousand meters, and then to climb another few hundred meters on all-terrain skis outfitted with nonslip skins. He removed his skis and peeled the Velcro-like skins from the underside, carefully stowing the gear in his backpack. Then he studied the mountain's face again and felt a sweet rush of adrenaline.

When it came to skiing in dangerous places, he was his father's son.

A rhythmic sliding sound drew Mason's attention to the trail he'd just climbed. He glanced over and lifted his ski pole in a wave. “Over here, bro.”

Adam Bellamy came over the crest of the trail, shading his eyes against the afternoon light. “You said you'd kick my ass, and you did,” he called. His voice echoed across the empty, frozen terrain.

Mason grinned at his younger brother. “I'm a man of my word. But look at you. You haven't even broken a sweat.”

“Mets. We get tested for metabolic conditioning every three months for work.” Adam was a firefighter, built to haul eighty pounds of gear up multiple flights of stairs.

“Cool. My only conditioning program involves running to catch the subway.”

“The tough life of an international financier,” said Adam. “Hold everything while I get out my tiny violin.”

“Who says I'm complaining?” Mason took off his goggles to apply some defogger. “Is Ivy close? Or did our little sister stop to hire a team of mountain guides to carry her up the hill so she doesn't have to climb it on her skis?”

“She's close enough to hear you,” said Ivy, appearing at the top of the ridge. “And aren't the guides on strike?” She wore a dazzling turquoise parka and white ski pants, Gucci sunglasses and white leather gloves. Her blond hair was wild and wind-tossed, streaming from beneath her helmet.

Mason flashed on an image of their mother. Ivy looked so much like her. He felt a lurch of guilt when he thought about Alice Bellamy. Her last ski run had been right here on this mountain face, too. But unlike Trevor, she had survived. Although some would say that what had happened to her was worse than dying.

Ivy slogged over to her brothers on her AT skis. “Listen, you two. I want to go on record to say that when I leave these earthly bonds, I will not require my adult children to risk their lives in order to scatter my remains. Just leave my ashes on the jewelry counter at Neiman Marcus. I'd be fine with that.”

“Make sure you put your request in writing,” Mason said.

“How do you know I haven't already?” She gestured at Adam. “Help me get these skins off, will you?” She lifted each ski in turn, planting them upright in the snow.

Adam expertly peeled the fabric skins from the bottoms of her skis, then removed his own, stuffing them into his backpack. “It's crazy steep, just the way Dad used to describe it.”

“Chicken?” asked Ivy, fastening the chin strap of her crash helmet.

“Have you ever known me to shy away from a ski run?” Adam asked. “I'm going to take it easy, though. No crazy tricks.”

The three of them stood gazing at the beautiful slope, now a perfect picture of serenity in the late-afternoon glow. It was the first time any of them had come to this particular spot. As a family, they had skied together in many places, but not here. This particular mountain had been the special domain of their father and mother alone.

They were lined up in birth order—Mason, the firstborn, the one who knew their father best. Adam, three years younger, had been closest to Trevor. Ivy, still in her twenties, was the quintessential baby of the family—adored, entitled, seemingly fragile, yet with the heart of a lioness. She had owned their father's affections as surely as the sun owns the dawn, in the way only a daughter can.

Mason wondered if his siblings would ever learn the things about their father that he knew. And if they did, would it change the way they felt about him?

They stood together, their collective silence as powerful as any conversation they might have had.

“It's incredible,” Ivy said after a long pause. “The pictures didn't do it justice. Maybe Dad's last request wasn't so nutty, after all. This might be the prettiest mountain ever, and I get to see it with my two best guys.” Then she sighed. “I wish Mom could be here.”

“I'll get the whole thing on camera,” Adam said. “We can all watch it together when we get back to Avalon next week.”

A year after the accident, their mother was adjusting to a new life in a new place—a small Catskills town on the shores of Willow Lake. Mason was pretty sure it wasn't the life Alice Bellamy had imagined for herself.

“Do you have him?” Adam asked.

Mason slapped his forehead. “Damn, I forgot. Why don't the two of you wait right here while I ski to the bottom, grab the ashes, helicopter back up to the rendezvous and make the final climb again?”

“Very funny,” said Adam.

“Of course I have him.” Mason shrugged out of his backpack and dug inside. He pulled out an object bundled in a navy blue bandanna. He unwrapped it and handed the bandanna to Adam.

“A beer stein?” asked Ivy.

“It was all I could find,” said Mason. The stein was classic kitsch, acquired at a frat party during Mason's college days. There was a scene with a laughing Falstaff painted on the sides, and the mug had a hinged lid made of pewter. “The damned urn they delivered him in was huge. No way would it fit in my luggage.”

He didn't explain to his sister and brother that a good half of the ashes had ended up on the living room floor of his Manhattan apartment. Getting Trevor Bellamy from the urn to the beer stein had been trickier than Mason had thought. Slightly freaked out by the idea of his father embedded in his carpet fibers, he had vacuumed up the spilled ashes, wincing at the sound of the larger bits being sucked into the bag.

Then he'd felt bad about emptying the vacuum bag down the garbage chute, so he'd gone out on the balcony and sprinkled the remains over Avenue of the Americas. There had been a breeze that day, and his fussiest neighbor in the high-rise co-op had stuck her head out, shaking her fist and threatening to call the super to report the transgression. Most of the ashes blew back onto the balcony, and Mason ended up waiting until the wind died down; then he'd swept the area with a broom.

So only half of Trevor Bellamy had made it into the beer stein. That was appropriate, Mason decided. Their father had been only half there while he was alive, too.

“This is cool with me,” said Adam. “Dad always did like his beer.”

Mason held the mug high, its silhouette stark against the deepening light of the afternoon sky.

“Ein prosit,”
said Adam.

“Salut,”
Mason said, in the French their father had spoken like a native.

“Cin cin.”
Ivy, the artist in the family, favored Italian.

“Take your protein pills and put your helmet on,” Mason said, riffing on the David Bowie song. “Let's do this thing.”

Ivy lowered her sunglasses over her eyes. “Mom loves skiing so much. It's so sad that she'll never ski again.”

“I'll film it so she can watch.” Adam took off one glove with his teeth and reached up to switch on the Go Pro camera affixed to the top of his helmet.

“Should we say a few words?” asked Ivy.

“If I say no, will that stop you?” Mason removed the duct tape from the lid of the beer stein.

Ivy stuck out her tongue at him, shifting into bratty-sister mode. Then she looked up at Adam and spoke to the camera. “Hey, Mom. We were just wishing you could be here with us to say goodbye to Daddy. We all made it to the summit of Cloud Piercer, just like he wanted. It's kind of surreal, finding winter here when the summer is just beginning where you are, at Willow Lake. It feels somehow like…I don't know…like we're unstuck in time.”

Ivy's voice wavered with emotion. “Anyway, so here I am with my two big brothers. Daddy always loved it when the three of us were together, skiing and having fun.”

Adam moved his head to let the camera record the majestic scenery all around them. The sculpted crags of the Southern Alps, which ran the entire length of New Zealand's south island, were sharply silhouetted against the sky. Mason wondered what the day had been like when his parents had skied this mountain, their last run together. Was the sky so blue that it hurt the eyes? Did the sharp cold air stab their lungs? Was the silence this deep? Had there been any inkling that the entire face of the mountain was about to bury them?

“Are we ready?” he asked.

Adam and Ivy nodded. He studied his little sister's face, now soft with the sadness of missing her father. She'd had a special closeness with him, and she'd taken his death hard—maybe even harder than their mother had.

“Who's going first?” asked Adam.

“It can't be me,” said Mason. “You, um, don't want to get caught in the blowback, if you know what I mean.” He gestured with the beer stein.

“Oh, right,” said Ivy. “You go last, then.”

Adam twisted the camera so it faced uphill. “Let's take it one at a time, okay? So we don't cause another avalanche.”

It was a known safety procedure that in an avalanche zone, only one person at a time should go down the mountain. Mason wondered if his father had been aware of the precaution. He wondered if his father had violated the rule. He doubted he would ever ask his mother for a detail like that. Whatever had happened on this mountain a year ago couldn't be changed now.

Ivy took off her shades, leaned over and kissed the beer stein. “Bye, Daddy. Fly into eternity, okay? But don't forget how much you were loved here on earth. I'll keep you safe in my heart.” She started to cry. “I thought I'd used up all my tears, but I guess not. I'll always shed a tear for you, Daddy.”

Adam waggled his gloved fingers in front of the camera. “Yo, Dad. You were the best. I couldn't have asked for anything more. Except for more time with you. Later, dude.”

Each one of them had known a different Trevor Bellamy. Mason could only wish the father he'd known was the one who had inspired Ivy's tenderness and loyalty or Adam's hero worship. Mason knew another side to their father, but he would never be the one to shatter his siblings' memories.

Adam pushed through the warning gate and started down the mountain, the camera on his helmet rolling.

Ivy waited, then followed at a safe distance behind. Thanks to Adam, the cautious one of the three, each of them wore gear equipped with beacons and avalanche airbags, designed to detonate automatically in the event of a slide.

Their mother had been wearing one the day of the incident. Their father had not.

Adam skied with competence and control, navigating the steep slope with ease and carving a sinuous curve in the untouched powder. Ivy followed gracefully, turning his S-curves into a double-helix pattern.