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?’
She sighed. ‘Frankly, yes.’
Mark shook his head. ‘You worry too much. I know exactly what I’m doing.’
Miranda wished she could be sure. Staring out of the frosted window, she wondered where Lady Sanders thought they had gone. Perhaps she would send Jaime to look for them. Jaime! Miranda’s lips tightened. How she would like to see him humiliated just once in his life!
Mark had stopped at the traffic lights and was looking at her in the light cast by the street lamps. ‘You’re beautiful,’ he said, as if he had just realised the fact, and she forced a faint smile although her lips felt stiff and unresponsive.
Then the lights changed and they were moving again, faster now as the outskirts of the town were left behind them, and the open road invited greater speed. Miranda fastened the safety belt and gripped the seat tightly with her fingers. She would not ask him to slow down, she told herself fiercely. If he killed them both now, she would at least have the satisfaction of knowing that Lady Sanders had not won. She felt curiously fatalistic, and it was almost a shock to see the lights of the village ahead of them and to know that they had arrived safely.
‘Wh-where are we going?’ she ventured, speaking for the first time when he drove past the turning to the Hall, and he heaved a half regretful sigh.
‘You’ll see,’ he said, and slowed to a standstill before the cottage he had bought for her mother.
Miranda caught her breath. ‘Here?’
‘Why not? It’s mine, isn’t it?’
‘Well, yes, but—’
‘The decorators have been here all day. The place is bound to be warm. It’s as good a place as any to talk, isn’t it?’
Miranda made no reply, and he thrust open his door and climbed out. As she joined him, she wondered how many pairs of curtains twitched as their owners espied the visitors to the cottage, and she cringed at the thought of her mother being regaled with the information.
Inside, as he had said, it was warm, and there was the pungent odour of new paint. Central heating had been installed, and the radiators still retained an atom of heat. But it was the gas fire in the living room which really dispelled the draughts, and illuminated the shadowy corners of the room. Mark had not put on the light as there were no curtains as yet at the windows, but the firelight was enough.
Two planks were fixed horizontally between two pairs of steps and the painters had spread the planks with an old piece of carpeting they had found to make a seat. Mark sat down on the planks and beckoned to Miranda to join him. She looked doubtfully at her cream gown and then at the grubby carpeting. Obviously it would stain, but if Mark was prepared to risk it, so must she.
‘So,’ he said, turning sideways to look at her. ‘Here we are.’
‘Yes.’ She sought about desperately for some way to begin this. ‘Mark, I want you to know—’
She broke off suddenly when he leaned towards her and pressed his lips to the side of her neck. It was a totally unexpected caress, and her tension melted.
‘You—believe me?’ she breathed.
‘Let’s say I’m prepared to be persuaded,’ he responded, his voice thickening somewhat. ‘You can tell me first what you were doing with that half-breed cousin of mine!’
Miranda caught her breath. ‘Mark! Don’t say things like that.’
‘Why
