Susan Wiggs - Miranda

His grin looked strained. “Lovely.”

“In Greek.”

“There has never been any question of your cleverness,” he said. “You trouble yourself too much, lass. The memories will come when they come.”

“What if that never happens?”

“Then 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 time. How magnificent he was, tall and lean and rugged, his black hair and sharp eyes creating a magnetism that ran deeper than his appearance. She felt drawn to him in a hundred little ways—the brush of his gloved hand on hers, the way one corner of his mouth lifted in wry amusement, or the warmth in her chest when he gazed at her.

“Is this what love is, then?” she asked impulsively.

He frowned, clearly startled. “What?”

“The way I feel when I look up at you. Is it love?”

For a rare moment, his composure seemed to slip. He appeared raw and unguarded, unnerved and vulnerable. In the blink of an eye, his customary regard of lazy amusement returned. “This is not a conversation we’ve ever had before.”

“It’s important to me, Ian. It is.” She could not take her eyes off him. “I shall describe it, then, and you can tell me if it is love or not.” She kept one hand on the rail to steady herself. “You make me feel something quite jolting inside. I find myself wanting to touch you rather boldly, to hang on to you and discover your smell and your taste and— Why on earth are you laughing?”

He made no attempt to stifle himself. “That isna love you describe, delicious as it sounds, Miranda. It’s lust.”

Miffed, she poked her nose in the air. There was more to it than that. There had to be, for he was the only man she regarded in this way, and she had made it a point to study the sailors and officers of the Serendipity. She had been on the verge of baring her heart to him, and he was laughing at her.

“Not that I am averse to lust,” he said quickly.

In spite of herself, she felt mirth tugging at her. “But I truly want to know,” she said, sobering. “What did it feel like to love you? And will I ever feel that way again?”

He turned away, but not before she detected a glimmer of torment in his craggy face. “Not if you know what’s good for you.”

“What?”

Still he did not look at her. “There are things about me—” He broke off. His hands clenched around the ship’s rail. “Ah, listen to me.” When he turned to her again, he was smiling. “I dinna want you to have any doubts, sweet.”

“Then teach me,” she said, desperate to fill the emptiness inside her. “Show me how we used to love. I want to remember, Ian. Truly I do.”

He said something gruff and Gaelic. “Lass, you don’t know what you’re asking.”

She watched a gull dive for a fish in the distance, then studied the horizon, the gray edges of sea and sky, as if the answers were written there. After a while, she glanced back at him. “Help me, Ian. Help me remember.”

“I don’t know how,” he said. “I canna simply give you your memories back, all wrapped up in a tidy parcel.”

“Then tell me something, anything. A tidbit to spark my remembrance.”

His blue eyes narrowed. “What sort of tidbit?”

“Conversations we’ve had. Experiences we’ve shared.” She could not explain how fearsome it was, this yawning black gulf inside her. It was like missing a leg or an eye. She was not whole, and she did not know how much longer she could go on. “Please,” she said. “I need to know.”

He watched her for a moment, the wind mussing his glossy black hair. “I taught you to dance the waltz,” he said, speaking reluctantly, as if the words were pulled from him against his will.

She cocked her head. “The waltz. It’s a dance, then?”

“Aye. All the rage in London this Season. The tsar and his sister, the grand duchess of Oldenburg, have made it the sport of choice.” He winked, then gripped her lightly by the waist, with one hand around hers. “The rhythm is like a heartbeat. One, two, three, one, two, three... Do you feel it?” He began to hum a soft melody in her ear.

“You have a beautiful voice,” she said.

He kept humming and drew her along the forecastle deck, neatly avoiding coils of rope, lashed-down barrels and the envious stares of the sailors. She followed his lead, letting his graceful maneuvering make up for her inexperience. Round and round they spun, the rich melody lilting in her ear until the rhythm finally penetrated her very bones. They moved as one, and she reveled in the way they seemed to fit together, in the light scrape of their feet on the wooden deck and the hiss of the ocean speeding past the hull.

“There is,” she murmured, “something magical about dancing. Why is that?”

His hand moved in a circle on her back. “Well,” he said, stretching out his Scottish burr, “dancing involves two people, holding each other, moving in a rhythm both understand, their goal to stay together, for no reason other than sheer physical pleasure.” He smiled wickedly, and a shiver shot down her spine. “There is only one other circumstance in which all that is true.”

She snatched her hand out of his. Hot color surged to her cheeks. “Ian!”

He leaned against a tall spool of rope and watched her, clearly amused. “Aye, love?”

“Have we...did we...”

He threw back his head and laughed. “My dear, if you had forgotten that, I’d say there’s not much hope for us.” Seeing her unamused expression, he took both her hands in his. “Believe me, Miranda. To my eternal frustration, and through no choice of my own, we have never made love.”

“We were waiting, then.”

“Aye.”

“For marriage.”

He hesitated. “Aye.”

“Mary Wollstonecraft didn’t believe in marriage on principle.”

“She may have a point.”

Miranda found herself laughing again, feeling giddy.

“You’re an incredibly desirable creature, Miss Stonecypher,” Ian said.

She wondered if he had any idea how entrancing he was. “Tell me more,” she said. “I feel that if I could remember even one moment, if I could just look back and know, then everything would come right.”

“I dinna think it’s that easy.”

“Indulge me,” she said. “Please.”

“The Orangery in Hyde Park,” he said.

“Should that be significant to me?”

“Oh, aye.” He paused. “Your first kiss.”

She felt her color deepen. “Surely a significant event if there ever was one.”

“And you dinna remember it.”

“No.” She stared at his mouth. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He took her hand and led her toward the bow of the ship, where they stood in the cool evening shadows. Sails luffed in the wind, and the cry of a cormorant droned mournfully across the swells. “Actually, it’s rather an advantage.”

She began to tingle inside. “An advantage?”

“Oh, aye. You can have your first kiss...all over again.”

With a discreet movement he took off his gloves, dropping them on the deck at their feet.

She felt faint, yet dizzily aware all at once. Nervously she licked her lips. “I’m afraid I don’t know what to do.”

“What you’re doing now is just fine. For the moment.”

“What am I doing?” she asked.

“Standing there. Looking bonnier than heather in bloom.”

He took a step closer. His hands drifted down the length of her arms, heating her skin. The pads of his thumbs found her racing pulse.

“Was it like this...before?” she asked.