Read Online Miranda by Susan Wiggs - Free Book Online

of his paralyzing fear of heights, prodded him just as the bigger boys had, so many years ago, sticking pins in his bare feet to urge him to climb higher, higher through the tight, narrow passageways of the chimney pots he had been forced to clean.
    â€œI’m waiting for an answer.” Duffie snatched away the towel and gave Ian’s shoulder a casual glance. “Healing nicely,” he pronounced, “which is more than I can say for your paper skull if you don’t answer me. What are your intentions toward the girl?”
    Ian grabbed back the towel and rubbed it across his chest. Only from Angus McDuff would he tolerate this constant meddling. He heaved a sigh. “You sound like a fierce papa.”
    The salt-and-pepper brows beetled. “Lord knows she could use one. She’s helpless as a lamb, man. Dinna eat her alive.”
    Ian began dressing in traveling garb of black breeches and boots, a starched and snowy shirt, a waistcoat, and a cravat. “I’m taking her to Scotland.”
    â€œTo Scotland.”
    â€œAye.”
    â€œTo marry her.”
    â€œNay.”
    For an older man, Duffie moved with surprising speed. In one swift movement he had Ian shoved back against the wall, showing no sympathy for the wounded shoulder. His face was florid, his eyes hard. “Damn you to hell, Ian MacVane. I ought to skelp your stubborn hide for you. Have you taken a knife, then, and carved out your own heart?”
    Ian glared at him coldly. “Oh, aye. You know I have.”
    Duffie dropped his hands to his sides, but he did not retreat. “That doesna mean others are made of ice. I’ll not let you ruin the girl. Not let you whisk her away, destroy her reputation, destroy any chance she has to settle down one day and find happiness.”
    â€œShe’s happy now,” Ian said, his mouth a cruel twist, “when she knows nothing of the past.”
    â€œFine. She knows nothing. And you care nothing for her future. It’ll be no future at all if you skulk off with her, wooing her with false promises. What decent man would have her after she goes adventuring with Ian MacVane?”
    â€œNo one need know.” The back of Ian’s neck prickled. He didn’t like feeling this way—knowing he was wrong but lacking the conscience to stop himself.
    â€œ She will know,” Duffie said obstinately. “To her core, she is a sweet and decent soul.”
    â€œFrances thinks she is a traitor. Oh. Do pardon me. A sweet and decent traitor.” Ian raked a wooden comb through his close-cropped hair. “Look, would you rather I do what I should have done in the first place?”
    â€œAnd what is that?”
    â€œTake her directly to the authorities. I could make this all very simple by marching her before them and letting them be the ones to unlock her secrets.”
    Duffie’s cheeks paled beneath his beard. “She’s a wee, fragile thing. I suspect you guessed that or you wouldna have brought her this far. There is only one solution.”
    Ian set down his comb. He was tired of arguing. It had taken half the night to get the hard-drinking Cossacks to return to their residence at the Pulteney Hotel. “Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like this?”
    â€œBecause it’s the kind and proper thing, which is not what you are used to doing.” Duffie pointed a stubby finger and narrowed an eye as though taking aim at his employer. “You’ll do exactly as you promised, my fine gentleman. You’ll marry the girl. Perhaps, if you’re lucky, you’ll find out her secrets. And if you’re luckier still, I willna skelp you.”

Five

    We loved, sir—used to meet:
How sad and bad and mad it was—
But then, how it was sweet!
    â€”Robert Browning
    T he inmates at Bedlam were not nearly as entertaining since the endowments had started to arrive. Dr. Brian Beckworth, for one, did not regret the change.