Read Online Miranda by Susan Wiggs - Free Book Online Page B

knees. A foot pressed into his back, shoving his chest hard against the floor. “Who took your message to the Times ?”
    By now, Beckworth understood the peril. He must not lead them to Gwen. “P-posted it myself. Just this morning.”
    The visitors exchanged words in French. Beckworth tried to fight, but he wasn’t trained for brawling. His arms flailed, and he managed to choke out one word: “Why?”
    The hand holding his hair jerked his head up and pulled back, baring his throat. An expert hand wielded the sharp, cold blade quickly, neatly. As he bled to death swiftly on the floor of his office, Dr. Brian Beckworth answered his own question. He was dying because of Miranda.
    * * *
    â€œI’m certain I’ve never done this before.” Miranda gripped the forecastle rail of the sleek, swift frigate Serendipity and gazed out at the churning North Sea. She inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with the fresh, salty air, and threw back her head, wishing she could unbind her hair and let the wind ripple through it. She knew the winds. Somewhere in her forgotten past she had studied wind and weather, though she had no idea why.
    â€œDone what?” Ian stood beside her. With a swath of plaid draped diagonally across his chest, he looked as regal as a Highland chieftain. She shivered with admiration at the very sight of him. How plain and mousy she felt next to her betrothed, yet at the same time, his appearance empowered her. To have the devotion of such a man was heady indeed.
    â€œGone on a sea voyage,” she said, watching the endless rush of the waves below the bow. “I feel quite sure I’ve not experienced this before.”
    Sailors in the mizzentop raced along wooden booms, working the sails as the wind made the ship yaw back and forth. Miranda hugged herself and smiled at the sky burnished like copper by the setting sun. “It all feels brand-new. And so exciting... Ian—” She broke off when she saw the way he was looking at her.
    As if he wanted to eat her alive.
    She sometimes caught him at it, eyeing her in a manner that was both fierce and tender. Was that the way he had always loved her, with that mixture of intensity and gentleness?
    â€œWhat is it?” he asked, laying one gloved finger on her wind-stung cheek.
    She wondered if he had ever told her why he always wore gloves, but it felt too awkward to ask. Besides, there was something mysterious and romantic about it.
    â€œNothing,” she said. “Just that I know you’re frustrated because I can’t remember anything.” His touch made her tingle in secret places. Were these places he had touched...before?
    She could not quite bring herself to ask him that, either. “I do want to, Ian. Truly I do.” She felt a stirring inside her, a sharp but unfocused yearning that ached in her heart. A sense of loss and longing and emptiness came over her.
    â€œI did recall one thing,” she said.
    Clear as ice shards, his gaze focused on her. His hands gripped her upper arms. “Yes?”
    She so hated to disappoint him. She wanted to please him, to bring a flicker of cheer to his brooding eyes, to feel his smile like the sun on her face. “I’m afraid it’s not terribly important,” she confessed. “When I woke up this morning, I realized that I know Homer’s Iliad by heart.”
    His grin looked strained. “Lovely.”
    â€œIn Greek.”
    â€œThere has never been any question of your cleverness,” he said. “You trouble yourself too much, lass. The memories will come when they come.”
    â€œWhat if that never happens?”
    â€œThen we’ll start over,” he said.
    She moistened her lips, tasted the faint bitter tinge of spindrift on her mouth. The maintop men called to one another, gathering in sail from their lofty perches, and their shouts were like a sea chantey, rhythmic and pleasant.
    She studied Ian for a long