Miranda by Susan Wiggs Page A

and meager diets made them overly delicate. Miranda, by contrast, had thrived on the sea voyage and would grow stronger still on Agnes’s robust meals and the bright, clear air of the Highlands.
    The meadows lay in green velvet folds between the vales. Wildflowers rioted underfoot and clung stubbornly to the steep, rock-strewn slopes. He brought Miranda to Ben Ocelfa, the highest peak of the range. They found a level spot of ground so smooth that it resembled a table covered by a green baize cloth.
    He loosened his collar and lifted his face to the endless summer sky. “I used to think this was the top of the world.”
    She turned in a slow circle, arms outspread. “It is the top of the world. Surely it is.” When she turned back to him, her eyes shone. For a moment, he forgot the mysteries and memories that hid inside her, forgot that his sole purpose was to unlock them. She was simply a woman whose face lit up when she looked at him.
    â€œIt’s beautiful, Ian,” she said. “Thank you.”
    â€œIt’s the bonniest place I know,” he said, half to himself. And so it was, the blue sky melting into the soft green of the distant hills, the black striated veins of rock peeking through flower-studded meadows. Below and to the east lay the immeasurable sea, midnight blue and shifting at the base of a sheared-off cliff. To the south, the town huddled in a meander of the river. Round the bend, the stream poured itself into Loch Fingan.
    Before he could stop them, memories rushed like the tide into the sucking sea caves on the coast. Once again he was looking through that unblinking glass, seeing and hearing a past he tried each day to forget.
    Someone shouted at him to run. Gordon seized his hand and the two brothers raced blindly toward the mountain. The screams of their mother pierced the air, halted them as surely as an iron manacle. Black smoke plumed skyward from the burning thatch, stinging Ian’s eyes and nose with a sharp reek.
    â€œWhat shall we do with the pair of them, Mr. Adder?” a soldier asked, dragging the boys before a man with thick lips and hard eyes. How tall and gaunt Adder looked, high on his horse. He wore coarse clothes and had a thick ginger beard. His manner was so cold, he didn’t even flinch at the sound of a woman begging for her baby’s life.
    â€œSend them to my factor in Glasgow.” Adder raised his voice above the hoarse shrieks of Mary MacVane. His speech was coarse and ugly. “They’ll make a fine pair of climbing boys.”
    Miranda touched Ian, and he came back into the sunlit day, with the peaceful hills all around him. “There you were again, drifting off,” she scolded gently. “What is it that troubles you on such a fine summer day? Look at this scenery. Am I allowed to say it’s quaint?”
    Ian laughed briefly, quietly. “If you must.”
    â€œBut actually, it’s not. It’s majestic. Magnificent. How blessed you are to have known such a place.”
    The irony of the words seared him, but she was an enchanting distraction. He wanted her to distract him, if only for a moment. Surrounded by the splendor of the Highlands, she looked lovelier than ever, her cheeks blooming, her hair gleaming in the sunlight, her expression open, almost enraptured.
    â€œCan we stay long?” she asked. “Must we hurry back to London?”
    â€œWe must,” he said, though he, too, felt reluctant. How remote and absurd it seemed from here, the idea that Bonaparte’s spies were planning to assassinate all the leaders of Europe. “After we’re—” he hesitated “—after the handfast, we’ll be off.”
    â€œHandfast,” she said. “I do know of this custom, so I must have read of it somewhere.” She regarded him soberly. “And did I agree to it?”
    â€œSweetheart, you couldna wait.” He grinned affably.
    â€œBut why a handfast, and