Miranda by Susan Wiggs Page A

McDuff.”
    â€œCall him Duffie!” piped a loud, childish voice. “He’ll insist on it.”
    With a squeal of skin on wood, a little boy slid down the banister. He landed with a flourish, wobbled, then fell on his backside.
    â€œAnd I insist,” Ian said with exaggerated severity, pulling the child to his feet, “that you greet the lady properly, scamp.”
    Full to bursting with mischief and merriment, the boy bowed from the waist. He had a clean bandage wrapped around one hand, and she realized he was the child Ian had saved from the fire.
    â€œRobbie MacVane, at your service, mum,” he said in a clear soprano voice.
    â€œMacVane?” Ian asked, lifting a dark eyebrow.
    â€œAye, if it’s all the same to you,” Robbie said.
    Ian did not smile, but looked solemn as he nodded. “You do honor to the name, lad.”
    â€œBesides,” Robbie said, “It’s the only name I know how to spell.”
    Miranda stifled a laugh. She found the boy enchanting, from the top of his tousled head to the tips of his scuffed leather shoes. Ian hooked a thumb into the band of his breeches. Robbie did the same, perfectly copying Ian’s stance. Miranda looked from the boy to the man. It was extraordinary to think that in an age when some parents abandoned their children or sold them into apprenticeships, Ian had taken in this enchanting little stranger. He was a special man indeed.
    When did I fall in love with you? she wanted to ask him. What did it feel like?
    And was it happening again?
    Thinking hard, she absently brushed a deep brown lock of hair out of her face.
    â€œCor, mum, I know you!” Robbie was staring at her with wide, unblinking eyes.
    All the hairs on the back of her neck seemed to stand on end. “Do you, Robbie?” she asked in a low, shaken voice.
    Duffie took the boy by the hand. “Come along now, my wee skelper. We’ll leave the master and—”
    â€œNo,” Ian said hurriedly. “What do you mean, you know Miss Miranda?”
    Robbie lifted his shoulders to his ears in a shrug. “Not by name, mind you. But she gave me tuppence when she passed me in the road. I knows it were her because she’s got a face like the mort in that painting in St. Mary-le-Bow, the one what looks all holy even though she ain’t hardly got a stitch on.”
    Duffie made a choking sound and put his hand up to his mouth. Robbie scurried away from him.
    â€œGave you tuppence?” Miranda asked. “When?”
    â€œJust before you went in there,” Robbie said, puffing up to find himself the object of such rapt attention.
    â€œIn where, lad?” Ian asked.
    â€œWell, you know.” Like a monkey, he hung in the knobby banister rails at the bottom of the staircase. “In that building what blew to smithereens.”
    Miranda felt nauseated. Her head started to throb. She had been there. Inside the warehouse. Sickening guilt crept up her throat, gagging her. She thought of the twist of stiff, sulfur-smelling rope she had found in her apron pocket, along with tinder and flint. She had almost caused her own death and that of this innocent child.
    She remembered the victims of that night, the bleeding faces slashed by flying glass, the burned flesh, the screams and moans of the wounded. Why would she hurt them? Why? She swayed, and the question she dared not ask screamed through her mind. Am I a murderer?
    â€œThere, see?” Duffie said with comforting brusqueness. “The lady’s well nigh exhausted. I’ll just have the housekeeper show her to—”
    â€œNot so fast.” Ian spoke in his customary low voice, but his words rang with authority. “Robbie, was Miss Miranda alone?”
    â€œOh, aye, sir, and she were in a great hurry—but she took the time to toss me a copper and bid me to get myself home.” His round cheeks flushed. “She didn’t know about me having no