Miranda
WHO WAS SHE?In Regency London, a woman escapes from a burning warehouse only to realize she doesn't know her own identity. Although the locket around her neck bears the name Miranda, she has no recollection of her past. Nor does she know why two very different men want her—the devilishly handsome Scotsman Ian MacVane, and Lord Lucas Chesney, the nobleman who claims to be her betrothed.In a race against time to discover who she is and which man she can trust, Miranda embarks on a soul-stirring journey that takes her from the dazzling salons of London to the craggy Highlands of Scotland. All of her beliefs—about herself, her world and the nature of love—are tested to their limits as she seeks the truth about her past and finds an unexpected passion that ignites the hidden fires within….
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WHO WAS SHE?
In Regency London, a woman escapes from a burning warehouse only to realize she doesn’t know her own identity. Although the locket around her neck bears the name Miranda, she has no recollection of her past. Nor does she know why two very different men want her—the devilishly handsome Scotsman Ian MacVane, and Lord Lucas Chesney, the nobleman who claims to be her betrothed.
In a race against time to discover who she is and which man she can trust, Miranda embarks on a soul-stirring journey that takes her from the dazzling salons of London to the craggy Highlands of Scotland. All of her beliefs—about herself, her world and the nature of love—are tested to their limits as she seeks the truth about her past and finds an unexpected passion that ignites the hidden fires within….
Praise for #1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs
“Wiggs’s storytelling is heartwarming…clutter free…[for] romance and women’s fiction readers of any age.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Susan Wiggs writes with bright assurance, humor and compassion.”
—Luanne Rice
“Wiggs’s talent is reflected in her thoroughly believable characters as well as the way she recognizes the importance of family by blood or other ties.”
—Library Journal
“Susan Wiggs paints the details of human relationships with the finesse of a master.”
—Jodi Picoult
Contents
London
June 1814
The writing paper held the scent of violets, and that was the first clue.
The difficult cipher, based on a momentous day in the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, became clear after study. The key was not his birthday, after all, but an event far more significant: the date the defeated emperor went into exile on the Isle of Elba—4 May 1814. And that was the second clue.
The Allies believed the wars were finally over. At last a Bourbon king again sat upon the throne of France. Bonaparte would never return to seize power.
But the sender of the message disagreed.
M——
The hour of glory approaches. The crowned despots of Europe and their butchering battle commanders will all arrive in England before the end of summer.
They believe they have come to celebrate a lasting peace. Only you and I know their true destiny.
The final solution lies within our grasp, thanks to Miranda Stonecypher. Once we learn her secret, she must die. Else half the men of England will be after Miranda.
La Couleuvre
The hand holding the message clenched into a fist, crumpled the perfumed paper and hurled it into the hearth fire.
How weak and powerless I am in this
whirlwind of plotting and treachery.
—Empress Marie-Louise,
second wife of Napoleon Bonaparte
London
June 1814
In the beginning, there was a single point of light. It narrowed to the tiniest tip of a needle, piercing in its intensity, cold and white as the brightest star. She went toward it, a dreamer compelled by a quest of the soul. Closer, closer she drew, the light her only guide along the inexorable journey. Closer, closer. She was almost there; soon she would be able to reach forward, to tumble into the light...
The pinprick grew and exploded into searing, shattering pain. A cry started in her chest and rose through her, emerging ragged and desperate from her mouth.
A fog of noxious sulfur corrupted the air. She could see the yellow-tinged cloud in the deadly flashes erupting all around her. The menacing whine of flying rockets screamed in her ears. A bomb soared and careened against the roof beams of the warehouse.
She stood amid hellfire and brimstone, confused yet feeling oddly unafraid. She had bruises on her body, and her wrists were burned by the rope that had bound her. Perhaps knowing she was doomed, knowing the matter of her own death was now out of her hands, banished the fear. Gripped by a peculiar, numb tranquillity, she watched a wooden crate catch fire.
Eerily beautiful flames flared with a dreamlike slowness, licking along the edges of the crate and then climbing to the boxes stacked above it.
A single word was stamped on the face of each box: Explosives.
Even as a sense of peril registered, she knew with a strange feeling of detachment that it was too late to run. A second later, the crates and boxes exploded, bursting outward from a force within.
She felt pain, but from a distance. The force of the explosion hurled her backward. She waited for the impact of the wall, something to stop her, but the wall had disappeared. Just for a moment she was flying, flying into the black night.
She landed against a mound of baled cotton piled in an alleyway adjacent to the warehouse. The breath left her in a whoosh. She lay still, with the pain dancing madly, like a dervish, in her head.
The fireworks soared, turning night to day, angry lightning bolts in the sky. She began to realize, with dawning wonder, that she had done the impossible. She had survived. Perhaps, after all, she might live.
