Miranda by SUSAN WIGGS

Author:SUSAN WIGGS
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 1996-09-04T04:00:00+00:00

Eleven

Such things we know are neither rich nor rare

But wonder how the Devil they got there.

—George Gordon, Lord Byron

Ian kept his face carefully blank, though a murderous rage was burning a hole in his heart. Someone had forced her to watch her father beaten nearly to death. Just as Ian had watched his own father and brother die. No wonder she had fled from the memories.

He felt her trembling beneath his hands and knew the force of the images coming back to her now could easily shatter her. Very gently he gathered her to his chest and held tight, tucking her head against him and stroking her hair.

Meanwhile his mind raced. She was remembering the past in bits and pieces. She was remembering. But the memories were not what he had expected.

“Can you tell me more?” he asked, bracing himself. Any moment now, she might remember that she had never known a man called Ian MacVane, had never loved him or shared her dreams with him or promised to marry him. Any moment now she might realize he was a liar.

It shouldn’t bother him. He had lied to kings and ambassadors and battle commanders, to ladies who had given more of themselves to him than Miranda ever had.

Yet the thought that she might soon realize the extent of his deception jabbed unpleasantly at his conscience. He pictured her wounded expression and decided that hurting Miranda was his own private version of hell.

“They took me... I’m not sure where,” she said, her voice muffled against his chest. “It was a small room with a single candle burning. One window, and outside I could see ships’ masts, so I knew we were not far from the river. I was seated in a chair, and then...then the questions began.”

“Questions.”

“About our work. Manned balloon flight. Missiles. Navigation and the wind. We did...our most advanced work in those fields.”

“I don’t understand,” Ian said. “Why would they have abandoned your father and questioned you?”

She drew back from him and stepped away, looking small and infinitely fragile. Yet he knew better. He knew she had endured agonies beyond bearing, had been subjected to horrors so stark that her mind had recoiled, wrapped itself in a cocoon of forgetting.

“That,” she said, “is my fault. Entirely my fault.” Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “I thought admitting the truth would protect my father. I thought they would set him free and concentrate on extracting the information from me.”

“Why you and not your father?”

A bitter smile twisted her mouth. “Because he didn’t know anything. The information they wanted was here.” She pointed to her temple. “It was always that way. Scholars, like the rest of society, could not accept erudition from a woman. So my father always pretended my inventions were his, and that I was merely his assistant.” A single tear escaped and rolled down her cheek. “My father could not save himself by surrendering information under torture because he had nothing to confess.”

Ian felt shocked. This was important information to be so lightly admitted.

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