Miranda. Susan Wiggs

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      He narrowed his eyes at her, giving her the full force of an icy glare. “When have I ever gotten passionately entangled?”

      She rubbed her hands up and down her arms as if the room had grown chilly. “God, MacVane. You’re as cold as a Highland winter. I’ve always wondered why.”

      There was a reason, but Frances was the last person he would tell. She knew far too much already.

      She went to a cherrywood butler’s table and poured sherry from a crystal decanter. Ian studied each dainty, deceptive movement. Her costume was a confection of pink silk and frills, with little pink topboots showing beneath the scalloped hem of her skirt. To anyone but the most astute observer, she was an empty-headed miss with no more on her mind than a plumed cap. The one concession to her true vocation was a tiny black lily stamped on the heel of her left boot.

      She tasted the sherry and regarded Ian with a half smile. “We had been watching Miranda Stonecypher for some time—along with her father, Gideon. She is presumed to know very little.” Frances’s sweet, kiss-me-you-fool mouth twisted into an ironic smile. “Even less now.”

      “Bitch.” Ian blew out a sigh and flung his forearm over his brow, scowling out the window again. The scrap of silk had caught in the branch of an elm tree, fluttering red and royal blue on the summer breeze.

      He squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to see the wounded with their bleeding faces and wide, wondering eyes, the eyes of innocents caught in the maelstrom of the explosion, eyes that asked the one unanswerable question: Why?

      Ian himself had wondered that, all those years ago, back when he had been innocent, when he had been a victim.

      “Everyone who is anyone is coming to London this summer,” Frances continued, ignoring his insult. “There will be an assassination attempt, an elaborate one. So far, that is all we know. Our task is to find out the rest, and then keep it from happening.”

      “Go on,” he said through gritted teeth.

      “There’s nothing more to report.” She took a dainty sip of sherry. “Traitors are a dangerous lot, MacVane. They often turn upon their own.” She paused dramatically. He caught her meaning.

      “So it wasna you nor any of your agents who set off the explosion?”

      Her nostrils flared. “I’ll pretend you never asked me that, MacVane. Innocent people could have died last night, damn your eyes. As it happened, the only casualty was the traitor.”

      “You just said the woman knew very little,” Ian pointed out.

      She glanced at herself in the mirror over the washstand and primped. “As we know, looks can be deceiving.” She cleared her throat. “The demise of a woman is a regrettable thing. But in this case, it is serendipitous and will—at least for a time—disrupt the plans of Bonaparte’s conspirators.”

      Ian thought for a long time. His bed was unspeakably comfortable, his home luxurious and a delicious luncheon was set out on a tray. No one would blame him for spending the day in idleness, nursing his wounds and resting.

      Damn. The notion tempted him.

      And so it was all the more excruciating for him to brace his arms on the mattress and lever himself up. He swung his legs to the floor.

      Lady Frances squealed and clapped her hands over her eyes. “MacVane! My virtue!”

      He had to laugh at that. “Virtue is surely the least of your worries, Fanny. Don’t fret, I won’t tell your precious Lucas you were here.”

      “He is not my Lucas,” she retorted. “Yet.”

      He stuffed his legs into buckskin breeches and swore with the pain as he drew on his freshly polished Hessians.

      She peeked through her splayed fingers. A tiny gasp slipped from her.

      “You’re cheating, love,” he said with a wink, but he couldn’t resist flexing his chest muscles.

      Her fingers snapped shut. “You’re insolent. And what the devil do you think you’re doing?”

      He swore louder now, in English and Gaelic both. “Putting on my shirt. Which is not a comfortable operation given the condition of my shoulder.”

      “You shouldn’t have gone into that tenement, MacVane. But I’m not surprised you’d insist on playing the hero.”

      “Saving a child from certain death is not heroic,” he told her. “Merely human.”

      “Then you should have let some other human risk it. I need you. Whatever became of the child, anyway?”

      A loud crash sounded from somewhere belowstairs, followed by the patter of running feet and a childish giggle. Ian bit back a grin. “Does that answer your question, my lady?”

      “God, MacVane! We’ve got enough troubles without becoming an orphan asylum.”

      “Then adopt the little mite, and he’ll be an orphan no more. You’d make such a charming maman.”

      She borrowed one of his choice oaths, and the word sounded incongruous coming out of her cupid’s-bow mouth. Then she said, “Are you decent yet?”

      He let out a bark of a laugh. “Fanny, my dear, I have never been decent. That’s what you like about me.”

      She dropped her hands to plant them on her dainty waist. “So?”

      “She didna die, Fanny.”

      Her sweet red mouth formed an O. “What?”

      “The girl. She survived the explosion. I had no idea she was the one or I would not have misplaced her.”

      “But that’s imposs—”

      “How would you know?” he snapped. “Unless you ordered her killed.” He watched her closely. “Och, I didna mean that, Fanny. For all that you are, you’ve never resorted to murder.”

      “Yet,” she reminded him, fixing him with a lethal glare. “So where are you going?”

      “I’m surprised you haven’t guessed yet.” He selected a waistcoat from the clothes press. It was made of tweedy Lowlander stuff, but he had no time to be selective. He donned the waistcoat and said, “I’m going after Miranda.”

       Two

      Leave me alone. I am looking into hell.

      —King George III,

      during an episode of madness

      Miranda stood beneath an imposing gray stone lintel. A pair of statues with mouths agape and staring eyes glared down at her, and she recognized them—Cibber’s statues of Madness and Melancholy. She СКАЧАТЬ