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Miranda was trembling violently when she brought the car to a halt, but Mark was shattered. Shaking, he had buried his head in his hands, and not until the irate driver of the other car came to ask what the hell was going on did he lift his face to reveal he had been crying. It was left to Miranda to explain how the steering had apparently gone out of control and she let the man assume that Mark had saved them. As it happened, he did know who Mark was, and in consequence was prepared to accept her explanation.
After he had left them and they were alone, Mark pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her hair. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he said, over and over again, and although she was still shocked, Miranda had comforted him like a child.
It was only when his lips strayed across her face to her mouth and his hands fumbled grotesquely at her clothes that she drew back from him, feeling curiously repelled. Suddenly their positions were reversed, and she was no longer in awe of him. It was another turning point in Miranda’s relationship with the Sanders family.
Several days passed before she saw Mark again. She knew the girls at the library imagined that the young earl had walked out on her, but somehow she didn’t really mind. To find that your idol had feet of clay was always a chastening experience, and Miranda was glad of the breathing space to gather her thoughts.
Then, just when she had come to the conclusion that it was all over between them, she found him waiting for her one evening, outside the library. Ignoring the raised eyebrows that greeted his appearance, she got into the car and gave him a long speculative look.
‘I know,’ he said, without turning on the ignition. ‘I needed time to think. I guess you did, too.’
Miranda bent her head. ‘What was there to think about?’
‘You. Me. Us!’ He regarded her intently. ‘Miranda—will you marry me?’
Miranda was staggered. She had expected anything but this! ‘Me?’ she whispered. ‘Marry you? Are you serious?’
‘Never more so in my life,’ he replied gravely. ‘I care about you, Miranda. Enough to want to look after you for the rest of your life.’
‘But—your mother—’ she stammered helplessly.
‘Leave my mother to me,’ he said, and strangely enough she thought she could.
But was this really what she wanted? she wondered dazedly, as Mark set the car in motion. For days now she had been battling with the realisation that she did not really love him at all, that his wealth and social position had blinded her to the weaknesses in the man himself. Now, suddenly he was asking her to marry him, giving her the chance to get out of the rat-race once and for all, and she was hesitating. His mother would be furious, she knew, and her own … How could she go on being housekeeper to her own daughter’s mother-in-law?
But she needn’t. Miranda could see to it that she never had to work again. She could do that; if she married Mark.
It was a tempting proposition, made the more so by the thought of what everyone in the village would say. Miranda Gresham, the new Lady Sanders! Mistress of the Hall!
Her breathing quickened. What was happening to her? she thought disgustedly. How could she consider Mark’s proposal seriously when only hours before she had felt almost a sense of relief to know herself free of him? What had changed? He was still the same man, and she was still the same woman. Except that now she had something concrete to contend with …
Yet it was what came after the wedding that she would have to live with. Could she do that? Did she care for him enough to contemplate the intimacies of marriage without any qualms? There was no one else, and there were times when she believed there never would be. She had never been madly attracted to any man, and she had come to the conclusion that she simply did not have it in her to feel deeply about anyone, except her mother. How could she be sure she would ever feel any differently than she did today? And how could she throw this opportunity away on the fleeting chance she might? She was not mercenary, she consoled herself, just practical; but how practical might she have to be?
As expected, Lady Sanders disapproved of their engagement, although perhaps disapproval was too mild a term to use to describe the words she said to her son when he apprised her of the situation. The row they had could be heard in the kitchen, and Miranda had tightened her lips and closed the doors, and tried to ignore that she was the cause of the quarrel.
Her own mother had taken the news rather differently. She had said little beyond repeating that Miranda was a fool and that a man like Mark Sanders didn’t have it in him to make her happy.
The wedding was arranged for a week before Christmas, and the young couple were to fly out to Barbados afterwards for two weeks in the sun. Miranda got used to the other girls envying her her good fortune, and to having her picture in the paper alongside Mark’s, and to parrying the reporters’ questions about her rags-to-riches story. She found it harder to quieten her own conscience when it came to justifying her reasons for accepting his proposal.
Defeated, Lady Sanders gave in gracefully, outwardly at least. She was seen to accompany Miranda to her own dressmaker in London, pictures were taken of them shopping together, and just occasionally all three of them appeared together at some official function or other. Miranda was an apt pupil, and while she didn’t like Lady Sanders, she could respect her, and they adopted a kind of armed truce with one another. Lady Sanders recognised that Miranda was not some impressionable debutante she could mould to her own design, but a girl with definite ideas of her own. Nevertheless, she was experienced enough at dealing with people to know exactly how to approach her future daughter-in-law to get the required result. She never gave up hoping that Mark might come to his senses, but in the event that he didn’t, she was determined to hold on to her position in the household.
Surprisingly Miranda grew less apprehensive as the wedding neared. Mark was behaving particularly well, never demanding too much of her, never drinking excessively, never driving too fast; reassuring her that her first opinion of him had not been misplaced. Until the Rotary Club Ball in December …
The Ball was an annual event, and as Lady Sanders was a prominent member, naturally she was expected to attend. Her son and his fiancée were invited, too, and Miranda spent hours in her room beforehand, preparing for the last official gathering before their wedding. The wedding itself was only two weeks away, and a sumptuous function it was going to be. Lady Sanders had taken over all the organisation because, as she explained, no one could expect Mrs Gresham to pay for the kind of reception their friends would expect.
But before that, there was this evening, and Miranda was determined that Mark should feel proud of her. Her gown was made of velvet, rich cream velvet, that brushed against her skin with a kiss of silk. Her hair was about her shoulders as usual, but she had threaded it with seed pearls, which matched the pearl necklace and ear-rings Mark had given her as an engagement present. Excitement had heightened the colour in her cheeks, and her lips were parted in anticipation. She had never looked more attractive, and she knew it.
Her mother viewed her appearance without enthusiasm. These past weeks Mrs Gresham seemed to have aged considerably, and Miranda wondered if she was unhappy at leaving the Hall to retire into the comfortable cottage on the green that Mark had acquired for her. She was fifty-three, after all. Surely she couldn’t want to work all her life.
But Mark and his mother were waiting for her, and picking up her evening cloak, Miranda said a reluctant goodbye and walked along the passage which separated the housekeeper’s and kitchen quarters from the rest of the Hall.
Another door, set beneath the curve of the stairs, brought her into the main hall of the building. Here, panelled walls stretched up two floors to a magnificent carved ceiling, and a massive fireplace was flanked by portraits of earlier members of the Sanders family. The floor was polished, and briefly Miranda could remember her mother working on her hands and knees to keep it so, although now she had an electric polisher. There were skin rugs, and long damson-coloured curtains, and two huge armchairs which almost blocked the heat from the glowing log fire. The hall had an almost mediaeval charm, and Miranda had always responded to its austere beauty.
She thought the hall was deserted, and with a glance up the wide carved staircase, she made her way towards the library where Mark and his mother usually enjoyed a drink before dinner. But before she reached the leather-studded door, a man rose from the depths of one of the armchairs by the fire and said: ‘Good evening, Miranda.’
His sudden appearance startled her, and because he was not Mark or his mother she thought for a moment he must be the ghost of one of their ancestors. But no Sanders was ever so dark or so big, and her hands clenched tightly as she realised who he was.
‘It—it’s Mr Knevett, isn’t it?’ she asked, unwilling to speak to him at all but equally unable to ignore him. It was five or six years since she had seen the brutal violator of her childhood tea-party, and then only from a distance. She couldn’t recall that he had ever spoken to her, not even to apologise for what he had done. And now he spoke to her as if he knew her! How dared he? And what was he doing here anyway?
CHAPTER TWO (#ubbe1187c-2316-594b-a37d-9b9af4026619)
AS IF IN answer to her unspoken question, Jaime Knevett flexed his shoulder muscles, and said: ‘I seem to have arrived just in time for the wedding, don’t I?’
He spoke English without a trace of an accent, as well he might, she thought broodingly. He had attended school in England, after all, and his father was English. But he didn’t look English. He looked Brazilian, or Portuguese, with that straight uncompromising nose and those fine lips. And yet there was something about his eyes which was wholly alien to either of those nationalities.
‘You’re—staying?’ she asked now, not quite knowing what to do, and he inclined his head gravely. Belatedly, she saw he was wearing a fine mohair dinner jacket, and his shirt front was an intricate mass of pleated lace which contrasted wildly with his hard, wholly masculine features. Was he to attend the ball with them? And why hadn’t Mark told her he was coming?
‘I gather you don’t approve,’ he observed dryly. ‘Haven’t you forgiven me yet?’
Miranda felt the wave of colour sweeping up her neck to her face. ‘I really don’t know what you mean,’ she protested, but patently he didn’t believe her.
‘I think you do,’ he told her insistently, his hands sliding into the pockets of his jacket to leave his thumbs hooked outside. ‘But never mind. You’re almost a member of the family now.’
‘Not your family, Mr Knevett,’ she retorted, and saw the faint smile that lifted the corners of his mouth.
‘You may call me Jaime,’ he said, refusing to argue with her, but she determined he should never have that satisfaction.
Lady Sanders’ appearance curtailed any further conversation between them. Black lace became the older woman very well, although her eyes flicked almost enviously over Miranda in her cream velvet. Mark was evidently well pleased with his fiancée’s appearance, and his hand curved possessively about her waist as he asked Jaime whether he didn’t envy him his good fortune.
Jaime’s response was as enthusiastic as he could have wished, but Miranda was aware of the cynicism in the older man’s gaze, and hated him for it.
The ball was a glittering occasion in the county, and because the Sanders were there, the press were out in force. Miranda was forced to face so many flashbulbs that her head began to feel as if it was exploding, and she hardly noticed who took advantage of Mark’s diverted attention to draw her away to dance. It was such a relief to escape from the pressures of being Lord Sanders’ fiancée that she didn’t particularly care who engineered it.
But once on the dance floor, with Jaime’s arms linked about her waist in the manner of the young people present, she had to press her palms against the soft material of his jacket to keep some breathing space between them.
‘What’s the matter?’ he inquired softly. ‘We’re only dancing.’ But Miranda could not relax.
Her breathing was unaccountably quicker, and she looked round determinedly at the other dancers, endeavouring to dismiss the hardness of Jaime’s thighs close against her own. There were lots of young people present, all dancing in the way they were dancing, the girls often with their arms looped about their partners’ necks, so why she should feel so uncomfortable she had no idea. But she did. It was not as if he was attracted to her, and certainly she despised him. But he possessed a certain animal magnetism which drew the eyes of many women in the room, and she told herself it was this physical manifestation which was causing her intense awareness of his man’s body against hers. She had never felt like this with Mark, but then Mark was so much thinner, less muscular somehow, and he had never held her so closely when they were dancing.
‘Do you—do you intend to stay in England long, Mr Knevett?’ she asked, attempting a casual conversation, and he looked down at her with slightly raised eyebrows.
‘I didn’t think you cared,’ he drawled, and she pressed vainly against the iron bands that encircled her. ‘As a matter of fact,’ he continued, ‘I intended to return home next week, but Mark’s persuaded me to stay until after the wedding.’
Of course. Mark would. Mark had always admired his older cousin, however remote their relationship might be. But Miranda wished that he hadn’t with a strength that far outweighed the importance of that distant childhood humiliation.
‘My aunt tells me you’ve been working in the local library,’ he said, and realising she could not cause a scene here, on the dance floor, Miranda forced herself to look up at him. He was taller than Mark, and her gaze crossed his face, noting the firm line of his jaw and the lean flesh stretched across his cheekbones before reaching his eyes. But those dark brown depths derided her and she wished she dared say something to wipe that mocking amusement from his face. Apparently he agreed with his aunt and could see no reason why Mark should choose to marry someone socially inferior and so obviously unsuitable.
‘What do you do, Mr Knevett?’ she responded coldly. ‘When you’re not making sport of the working classes? Or is honest toil abhorrent to you?’
His expression scarcely registered her taunt. ‘As it is to Mark, you mean?’ he countered provokingly, and she realised she had fallen into a trap of her own making.
‘Mark works,’ she defended her fiancé hotly. ‘The estate—’
‘—is run by a very efficient bailiff,’ he interrupted her mildly. ‘You see, I do know about such things, but I doubt you do.’
Miranda wished the band would get to the end of this particular waltz so she could return to the safety of Mark’s protection. Every minute she spent with Jaime Knevett seemed to deepen the antagonism between them. She didn’t like him, it was true, but he was her fiancé’s cousin, and she suspected Lady Sanders would still use any method within her power to prevent her son from taking such an irrevocable step.
‘As a matter of fact, I’m a doctor, or I shall be when I’ve completed my training.’
Miranda realised Jaime was speaking again and gathered her thoughts. ‘I beg your pardon …’
‘I said—I’m a doctor,’ Jaime repeated, lowering his head so that she could hear him more clearly and in so doing bringing his lips within touching distance of her hair.
The faintly alcohol-scented fumes of his breath fanned her forehead; a not unpleasant sensation, it made her aware of the other scents about him—the soap he used, the spicy tang of his after-shave lotion, the clean male smell of his body. His hair, as straight as her own, needed no artificial preparation, and lay thick and smooth against his head.
All this her senses told her, sensitising her fingertips against his chest, her breasts swelling against his hardness. A wave of heat began in the pit of her stomach and spread to the outermost extremities of her body, firing her blood and quickening the tell-tale beat of her heart. Dear God, she thought weakly, what was the matter with her? She felt quite faint. Surely she was allowing her imagination to run out of all control.
He had noticed her sudden lack of colour, however, and he said sharply: ‘Are you feeling all right?’
Miranda managed to nod. ‘Yes. No. That is—it’s very hot in here, isn’t it?’
‘Is it?’ His eyes compelled hers. ‘Shall I take you back to your fiancé? Or would you rather step out into the corridor for a few minutes?’
Either seemed wholly unsuitable. How could she step outside with Jaime and run the risk of being spotted by scandal-hungry reporters? But equally, how could she go back to Mark like this, her legs unwilling to support her, and trembling like a leaf?
‘There’s an ante-room behind the dais,’ Jaime observed quietly. ‘The band use it in the interval. You could go in there for a few moments, if you’d rather not run the gauntlet of the press.’
The ball was being held at the Fleece, the largest hotel in the town, and the ballroom was used for conferences on other occasions and there were several ante-rooms adjoining.
The size of the hall and the press of people made it possible to slip unnoticed into the ante-room. Miranda stood there in the semi-darkness, unwilling to put on the light, and took several restoring gulps of air. She had expected Jaime would leave her, but he leaned against the wall just inside the doorway, watching her with dark inscrutable eyes.
‘Better now?’ he inquired, after she had expelled her breath on a shuddering sigh, and she looked at him uncertainly.
‘I suppose you’ll tell Mark,’ she said.
‘Tell Mark? Tell him what?’
‘About me. About this.’
‘What about this?’ He straightened away from the wall. ‘Why should you think he would be interested?’
Miranda shook her head. ‘I—don’t know.’
‘Don’t you?’
He didn’t sound wholly convinced, and she flinched when he put out a hand and touched the creamy pallor of her cheek, his thumb probing the quivering contours of her mouth. When her lips parted, the pad of his thumb rubbed against the vulnerable barrier of her teeth, and then withdrew with an abruptness that left her with an aching pang of regret.
‘Come!’ he said. ‘We will be missed. The band has stopped playing.’
Humiliation such as she had never experienced before washed over her. With trembling fingers she smoothed her hair, checked the neckline of her dress and then swept past him out of the ante-room. But she didn’t get far before cruel fingers caught her wrist, and she was jerked round to face—her fiancé!
‘Mark—’ she began in surprise, and then checked at the thunderous expression contorting the normally pleasant features of his face. ‘Mark, what is it?’
‘Little tramp!’ he muttered against her ear. ‘What the hell have you been doing?’
If Miranda had been pale before, she was bright scarlet now. She looked round desperately for Jaime, for once needing him, requiring him to explain.
‘I—we—Jaime—’
‘Jaime, is it?’ Mark sneered. ‘That didn’t take long, did it? My God, I should have listened to my mother when she warned me—’
‘Warned you!’ Miranda stared at him aghast, praying that no one could hear what they were saying above the sound of the beat number the band had started to play. ‘Mark, I don’t know what you mean!’
‘You bloody little fool! Don’t you understand? Haven’t you guessed? Mother asked Jaime to come, not me! She invited him to the Hall, she asked him to stay for the wedding. And not because she dotes on him, because she doesn’t. But because she knows what a sexy swine he is, and how a little tart like you wouldn’t be able to resist his flattery!’
‘No!’ Miranda put a shocked hand to her mouth. ‘No, that’s not true! Mark, I swear to you—’
‘What do you swear?’ he taunted, swaying a little as he spoke, and she realised to her dismay that already he had drunk more than was good for him. ‘That you weren’t attracted to him? That you didn’t spend the whole of the last dance gazing up at him, moon-faced? That you haven’t been missing for a quarter of an hour since the dance ended?’
‘I felt faint—’ she began desperately, and Mark nodded vigorously.
‘I bet you did,’ he muttered. ‘And to think I thought you were saving yourself for me!’
Miranda looked about them despairingly. Reason told her that Mark didn’t mean all the things he was saying, but that didn’t make them any the less painful. Painful too was the realisation that he might be right about his cousin, and that hurt most of all. If she could only get him out of here, away from all these people, she might to able to convince him he was wrong.
‘Mark, we have to talk,’ she said, in a low forceful tone. ‘Now—do you want it to be here, where everyone can see us? Hear us?’
Mark looked at her suspiciously. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, Mark!’ She stared at him appealingly. ‘Can’t you see? You’re reacting exactly how they want you to react! I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of. Don’t you believe me?’
Even as she said the words, she wondered if she was being strictly honest. But this was a dirty game she was involved in, and she had to use the cards as they were played to her. Her own reactions to Jaime Knevett she would take out and examine at some other time, but right now she had to make Mark understand how he was being manipulated.
Mark was breathing heavily, the amount of alcohol he had consumed befuddling his brain, making it difficult for him to think clearly. He wanted to believe her. He had never cared for any girl the way he cared for her. In fact, girls had never figured too prominently in his life until she came along. He had much preferred fast cars and horse racing, and the company of his friends. But he was tired of those pursuits, and it had been a novelty taking out someone of whom he knew his mother disapproved. She had always chosen his friends for him, but he was sick and tired of that arrangement. Miranda had been a heaven-sent opportunity, a chance to escape from his mother’s cloying possessiveness.
‘All right,’ he said heavily. ‘Let’s go to the car. We can talk there.’
Miranda would have chosen anywhere but there, but she had no choice in the matter. So long as Mark was prepared to talk, there was a chance she could persuade him he was wrong. And unless she wanted the break-up of their engagement, and the subsequent gossip that would arouse, she had to go along with him.
It was cold outside. Avoiding the main corridors of the hotel meant leaving her cloak behind, and Miranda was shivering when they climbed into the sports car. She had seen Mark’s mother watching them as they left the ballroom, and the look on her face had confirmed Miranda’s worst fears. Lady Sanders would not give up while there was still a chance she might be able to split them up.
Mark put his keys in the ignition and started the car, and Miranda looked at him in consternation. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Car’s cold,’ he said. ‘We’ll warm up the engine, then we’ll talk.’
‘But Mark …’
She bit into her lower lip anxiously, and he gave her a derisive stare. ‘What’s the matter? Think I’m too drunk to drive or something?’
