Miranda. Susan Wiggs
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.”
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 looked at the words engraved in the stained granite: Bethlehem Hospital.
Her heart drummed against her breastbone. Reeling with dread, she turned to her escort, the watchman who had been with her at the fire. “This is Bedlam.”
“Aye, miss.”
“It’s a hospital for people who are mad.”
He moved closer to her, put his hand on her arm. She supposed it was meant to comfort, but instead she felt nervous, trapped.
“Miss,” he said, “at least you’ll have a roof over your head, a meal—”
“I’m not mad.”
His hand tightened on her arm. “You say you don’t know who you are, where you live, who your family are.”
The black gulf of emptiness invaded her again, as it had each time she’d tried to remember before. Before the night, before the fire, before the terror and the insanity.
She stared at the ground, studying the cobbled street and the sparrows and rock doves poking at crumbs. London Wall. It wasn’t a wall, but a roadway at the edge of Moorfields. How was it that she knew the name of this street if she could not even name herself?
The heavy door of the entranceway creaked open on iron hinges. She found herself looking at a beefy man with a mustache that swept from ear to ear.
She shouldered back her weariness, lifted her chin. “I don’t belong here.” Despite the show of resolve, she staggered, on the brink of exhaustion, and her vision swam. “I belong in...in...” Her chest squeezed with dread. “In hell,” she said before she could stop herself. “Just not here,” she finished weakly.
The warden exchanged a fleeting look with the watchman behind her, and she felt their unspoken exchange: Mad as a March hare.
“That’s what they all say,” the warden remarked in a bland voice. “Does she need restraints?”
Restraints. They would chain her like an animal.
She took a step back. Bumped into the watchman. Strong hands grabbed her shoulders.
“Sir!” she choked out. “Unhand me! I do not belong here, and I certainly don’t need re—”
“You did well this time, Northrup. Got here before Dr. Beckworth makes his rounds.”
“He oughtn’t to complain, the stupid cit. The gate fees pay his wages,” Northrup said. His hand snaked into her hair. He pulled, forcing her head up. “Such a pretty piece will be a nice addition to the menagerie.”
“I’ll be able to charge the gawkers double. They like the pretty ones.”
Miranda gasped. “You mean, I am to be sold like a monkey to a zoo?”
The warden lifted a bushy eyebrow. “A show of spirit is always welcome. She’ll be an interesting specimen.”
“This is criminal!” she shouted. “Kidnapping!”
The warden captured her wrists in one hand and brought them up high behind her. A wrenching pain seared her elbows and shoulders. She could smell his sweaty body, could feel the heat of his breath on the back of his neck. Could hear the clink of coins in the small cloth purse he gave the watchman.
Outrage gripped her in a choke hold. The man who was supposed to be helping her—a man she had trusted—had sold her to a madhouse.
The watchman slipped away, ambling down the fog-shrouded lane.