Miranda. Susan Wiggs
people strolled along with handkerchiefs pressed to their noses and they stopped to gape at the inmates. It was a common diversion to buy a ticket to view the insane. Ian, who had looked madness in the face, found the practice more disgusting than anything he could see behind bars.
“Oh, look at that one,” a lady exclaimed, giggling and pointing. “What is he doing with his—”
“Surely he is thinking of you,” Ian whispered in her ear as he passed behind the woman.
She gave a little shriek. She and her gentleman friend hurried out.
A cleric clutching a prayer book nodded mournfully as he passed. Several inmates reached through the bars, grasping at the air as if it represented freedom itself. Ian fought the urge to run, far and swiftly, away from this place that evoked such uncanny reminders of his past.
This was different, he told himself. Perhaps this woman could be saved. He despised the idea that the girl with the large brown eyes had been trapped in this place for four days. If she wasn’t insane before, she surely was now.
When Beckworth brought him to a large, barred common room for female inmates, Ian spied her immediately. She sat on a wooden stool in a flood of sunlight that streamed through a high window. On a bench in front of her, a chess board was scratched into the wooden surface, small light and dark stones serving as chessmen.
She wore an unbleached muslin gown, plain and much mended, and her abundant brown hair was tied back with a bit of string. Her face looked clean but weary, her complexion smoother and richer than the heart of a rose.
In her lap, propped on her knees, she held a broken piece of slate. She was reciting aloud to a group of uncannily attentive women. “It is time to affect a revolution in female manners—a time to restore to them their lost dignity—and make them, as part of the human species, labour by reforming themselves, to reform the world.”
Ian was familiar with the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft. He had discovered a set of treatises by the female zealot while waiting out a long calm during a sea voyage. But hearing Miranda recite the words aloud, with such conviction, and to such rapt women, was stirring indeed. “You said she had no memory,” he whispered to Beckworth.
“She has perfect recall of general knowledge. It’s really quite astonishing. Yet she has no recollection of personal matters.” Beckworth motioned him into the common room.
“Och, ’tis Bonny Prince Charlie!” An elderly woman, her hair a dirty gray mop, scuttled over and dipped a curtsy to Ian. “I’d know ye anywhere, laddie,” she said in a thick Highland brogue. “Ah, the midnight hair, the eyes of blue. Been waiting for you to return since me granny’s time, we have.” She gave him a toothless smile and remained there, one knee on the floor, quivering slightly, clearly unable to move.
Ian flushed and glanced back at Beckworth, who stood just inside the door. The doctor stared straight ahead. Ian had no choice but to hold out his hand and help the old woman up.
“And a fine gentleman you are, sire, and always have been,” she declared. She turned to address the ladies. “Well, what are ye waiting for? ’Tis our own rightful prince come back to us, just like I told ye he would. And he’s a ghostie, he is. ’Tis why he stays so young and bonny.”
A few of the women, their faces blank, inclined their heads. Ian’s ears heated. He cleared his throat. “It is a high honor to meet you, but I am not Bonny Prince Charlie. Regrettably, he died some years ag—”
“Weesht!” The old woman held a finger to her lips. “We ken. You’re in disguise, eh?” She tugged at his waistcoat. “I thought there was a purpose to that MacLean tartan.”
He nodded in exasperation. “I am here to see Miranda.”
Some of the women began to hiss and whisper among themselves. Ian cleared his throat again. “You are...dismissed.”
The old woman backed away, bowing as she retreated to another part of the room. Most of the others—those who were not chained or bound—went with her. Miranda looked up anxiously.
There was one thing Ian had not remembered from the night of the fire. And that was how stunningly beautiful she was.
Even like this, in a plain shapeless gown, her hair and face unadorned, she was like the moon. Pale skin, sable hair, a study in light and dark. He felt something unexpected and ecstatic in the center of himself as he looked at her. She had a sort of heart-catching innocence that sat ill with his sense of who she was, what she was capable of.
“Hello, Dr. Beckworth,” she said in a soft, cultured voice. Then she looked at Ian, the huge brown eyes showing—not surprisingly—no recognition at all. “Good day to you, sir.” Then she frowned.
“Is something wrong?” Beckworth asked.
“No. For a moment I thought...” She waved her hand distractedly. “It was nothing.”
“My dear,” Beckworth said, his meddlesome manner irritating, at least to Ian. “Do you recognize this man?”
“Hello, Miranda,” Ian said softly. He lowered himself so their gazes were level and sent her his kindest smile. “It’s a high relief to find you at last.” Another of his well-honed skills was the intimate whisper. Women succumbed to it almost too easily, tumbling into his arms in fits of ecstasy. He waited for Miranda to melt.
Instead she cocked her head to one side and asked, “Do you play chess?”
He blinked. “Chess.”
She frowned in concentration at the chess board. “It seems that I do. Perhaps too well. Each time I play myself, it ends in stalemate.”
“This gentleman claims he knows you,” Beckworth said. “He says you were betrothed.”
She caught her breath. “To be married?” She stared at Ian with new, keen interest.
“That’s right, love,” Ian said, amazed that he felt guilty deceiving her. According to Fanny, this woman was a deadly traitor and the key to a hideous plot to assassinate the crowned princes of Europe. Yet suddenly he felt as if he had stepped on a kitten. “You canna remember?”
“No.” She bit her lip. It was a full lower lip, the very sort that begged for a kiss. This could prove to be dangerous indeed, Ian thought. In ways he had not yet considered.
“Darling.” He took both her hands in his and drew her to her feet. The top of her head just reached his chin. “Surely you remember me. I am your one true love, your Ian.”
At this the other women clustered round, jabbering and clucking like hens.
“Kiss her!” one of them urged.
“Yes, kiss her, kiss her!” The others took up the chant.
It was odd, Ian thought, looking at these hopeless, disheveled creatures. After all they’d been through, they still wanted to believe in a happy ending.
“Kiss her!” they continued to chant. A buxom woman with black hair and laughing eyes made a smooching sound with her mouth.
“Ian,” Miranda repeated. Her breathing quickened, and she made a sound of distress. “Dr. Beckworth, may we please have some privacy?”
Ian was more stunned than the doctor by her request. He felt a jolt in his chest. God. She was falling for the ruse. He ought to feel pleased by his own cleverness. Instead he sensed a faint edge of panic. He might very well find himself with a fiancée before this day was out.
“Miranda, I shouldn’t allow it,” Beckworth said. “It would not be prop—”
“The lady made a simple request,” Ian broke in.
“You may go to the empty cell across the hall.” The doctor held the door for them. “I shall be outside.” He aimed a meaningful stare at Miranda. “You need only call out and I’ll come.”
“She’ll