Miranda by Susan Wiggs Page B

not a proper marriage?”
    He thought fast. “You’re a follower of Wollstonecraft, remember? The crusader for free love.”
    â€œSo we’re to be handfasted. A trial marriage. If I conceive in the first year, the bond endures. If not...”
    â€œYou’re free.”
    â€œFree.” Her voice caught on the word. “As I am now? Knowing nothing and no one except you?”
    He turned away, brooding down at the vale of the river. He had deemed the handfast more humane, in the end, than actual marriage. A true marriage would be a sentence of shame for her, for it would require an act of Parliament to dissolve. The handfast held out the possibility of escape.
    He had no doubt she would want to escape him one day.
    â€œI mean you no dishonor, lass,” he said, turning back, sliding his arm around her waist. “’Tis just that we had agreed. We wanted to be together right away. Agnes has been urging me to come back for years. So it seemed reasonable to marry in the Scottish fashion.”
    He expected an outburst of resentment. Instead she favored him with a smile so brilliant that it made him blink. “You are the dearest man, Ian MacVane.”
    He nearly choked on an outraged laugh. “I? Dear? Call me pleasant if you must. I would even sit still for charming. But dear? Madam, please!”
    She laughed. “I am in earnest. There is something irresistibly dear about a man who is so eager to wed that he would sail the seas and bend the very law of the land in order to be with her.”
    Ian found himself in the awkward position of having to both hide a smile and stifle a curse. Duffie again. The statement reeked of Angus McDuff. He had been putting inconvenient notions into her head for days.
    â€œThat is exactly the case,” he forced himself to admit. “I cannot wait to marry you.” The hot discomfort in his body added conviction to his statement. He was startled to realize it was not wholly a lie.
    How could this be happening to him? In general he disliked the English, despite the fact that he had found notoriety and fortune in their society. He particularly disliked the women and should hold this particular woman in high disdain. Yet he didn’t. She might be party to an assassination plot, but at the moment she looked the very flower of virtue.
    She stood with her hands at her sides, the breeze plucking curls from beneath the kerchief she wore over her head. “May I speak frankly with you, Ian?”
    â€œAye, of course.” Tell me everything, Miranda. Everything you know, and then I can set you free.
    Her slim fingers toyed with the folds of her dress. “I can believe that all is just as you’ve told me—the way we met, my circumstances, my past. You’ve described it so vividly that sometimes I think I do remember.”
    His heart seemed to lift in his chest. What a wonder, to think that he could pretend that the past was golden, that he had loved and had been worthy of her love. “Go on.”
    â€œThere is one matter that still confuses me. I want to remember loving you, but I do not.” She lifted a hand to her mouth, and he was horrified to see that she was on the verge of tears. “What sort of creature am I? Why can’t I remember that?”
    Ian took her in his arms. “I can’t explain it to you, Miranda, for I don’t understand it myself.” He smoothed a hand down her back, pressing her against him. He forced out the lie. “My own memories are vivid enough for both of us. We have set each other on fire, Miranda, mo chridh . I used to...” He bent his head and nipped at her ear, then whispered a wicked suggestion to her.
    She caught her breath with a high-pitched gasp. “You didn’t!”
    â€œAye, Miranda. I did. We did.”
    Her cheeks flamed, and her velvety brown eyes shone, but not with tears, not now. “And did I—did I let you?”
    â€œYou not only let