LITMIR.BIZ

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and took a moment to give him her full attention. ‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘What happened?’

      Jaime’s nostrils flared. ‘Your son did this,’ he said coldly. ‘Your son attempted to rape his own fiancée! Now why do you suppose he did that?’

      Lady Sanders gasped, one hand going automatically to her throat. ‘You can’t be serious!’

      ‘Oh, but I am,’ declared Jaime heavily, and Miranda felt Lady Sanders’ eyes going over her with almost tangible distaste.

      ‘How do you know?’ Mark’s mother countered swiftly. ‘Who told you that? You said you hadn’t seen Mark.’

      ‘Miranda told me—’

      ‘Oh, please …’ Miranda began to protest again, but they both ignored her.

      ‘So you’d take her word against the word of my son,’ Lady Sanders was saying now, and Jaime swore violently.

      ‘We don’t have any word but Miranda’s,’ he retorted. ‘But you don’t imagine she did this to herself, do you?’ and with forceful fingers he plucked his jacket from her shoulders.

      It was like a scene from some Victorian melodrama, thought Miranda, an hysterical sob rising in her throat. Behold, the villain’s perfidy! Will wicked Sir Jasper win the day? The difficulty was in deciding who was the wicked Sir Jasper. Was it Mark, the victim of his own inadequacies? Or was it Lady Sanders, whose overriding ambition for her son blinded her to his faults? Or could it possibly be Jaime Knevett, whose motives were as enigmatic as he was? Miranda was too tired to figure it out.

      Lady Sanders plucked with nervous fingers at the diamond necklace circling her throat. ‘That still doesn’t explain where Mark has gone, does it? What was this Miranda said about the cottage?’

      ‘We went to the cottage,’ said Miranda dully. ‘My mother’s cottage. There—there was a scene. Mark left. Afterwards, Mr Knevett found me walking back to the Hall.’

      ‘How convenient!’ Lady Sanders’ voice was taut with malice, but her nephew intervened.

      ‘Convenient?’ he asked. ‘Convenient for whom?’

      ‘Oh, Jaime!’ Lady Sanders waved away his questioning. ‘Don’t get involved in all this.’

      ‘But I am involved,’ he insisted harshly. ‘However, I do believe no useful purpose is being served by standing here arguing about it. I suggest we allow Miranda to go to bed. She looks—exhausted. We can talk again in the morning.’

      ‘But what about Mark?’ cried Lady Sanders, aghast. ‘Aren’t you going to look for him?’

      ‘If you want me to, of course I will,’ he replied gravely. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll escort Miranda to her part of the house.’

      ‘That’s not necessary—’ Miranda began, but he ignored her, dropping his coat about her shoulders again and urging her forward with his hand in the small of her back.

      Miranda was glad to escape from the accusation in Mark’s mother’s eyes. It had been a long evening, a strange evening, and one she never hoped to repeat. But it wasn’t over yet.

      Jaime opened the door and accompanied her along the corridor towards the kitchens. But Miranda halted so far along, and turning to him said stiffly: ‘There’s really no need to come any further. I shall be quite all right now.’

      In the dim illumination of wall-lights, his face was curiously shadowed, giving it an almost malevolent cast. His eyes seemed deeper set, heavy-lidded, the flaring hollows of his nostrils expelling the heat of his body upon her. She felt suddenly uneasy, apprehensive of the future and she could not dismiss her fears as fancies. She had the overpowering conviction that nothing was ever going to be the same again.

      ‘Will your mother be up?’ he asked now, and she shivered to dispel the chill that had wrapped itself about her.

      ‘Perhaps,’ she answered. ‘Does it matter?’

      ‘Will you explain?’

      Miranda bent her head helplessly. ‘I don’t know.’

      She heard his harsh intake of breath. ‘You should,’ he said. ‘Then perhaps your mother can bring you to your senses!’

      Her head jerked up. ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘I think you know.’ His eyes were cold, glittering black diamonds in the muted light. ‘You can’t marry Mark now. Not after what’s happened. Not considering what might be to come. I don’t think even becoming mistress of the Hall is worth that, do you, Miranda?’

      She gasped. ‘You think I’m marrying him for his money?’

      ‘Aren’t you?’

      ‘No!’

      ‘Oh, come on. You’re not telling me you love that little punk! After what’s happened?’

      Miranda’s breasts rose and fell in her agitation, and her fingers holding his jacket in place trembled. She wanted to tear it off and throw it at his feet and trample on it, but the desire to retain her dignity was stronger.

      ‘You’re his cousin!’ she declared. ‘How can you speak of him like that?’

      Jaime’s mouth curled. ‘Our relationship is remote, thank God! Do you think I want to be associated with someone who does this?’

      Miranda’s breathing was harsh. ‘He—he didn’t mean it.’ If he did, she didn’t want to admit it. ‘He was drunk—enraged! His mother saw to that.’

      ‘You’re making excuses for him,’ exclaimed Jaime contemptuously. ‘My God! You’re just like her, aren’t you? His mother! She’s made excuses for him all his life! Well, I wish you well of each other. You deserve everything you get!’

      Miranda didn’t know why, but she wanted to crumple up and die. She despised Mark, she didn’t love him. And she despised herself for defending him. But she hated Jaime for making her see herself for what she was.

      He was turning away from her in disgust when a low groan reached them. It seemed to come from the kitchen, and with a cry Miranda whirled around and sped along the remaining length of the corridor to where a light was filtering through a crack in the kitchen door. She burst into the room with Jaime right behind her, and then stopped dead at the sight that greeted her stunned eyes.

      Her mother was lying on the floor in front of the fire. Mercifully, she had not fallen into the flames, but the flags beneath the polythene tiles were hard and at first Miranda thought she had knocked herself unconscious. But then she saw how one side of her mother’s face had twisted, and spittle was dribbling out of the corner of her mouth.

      The sound Miranda made was a kind of choking gulp in her throat, and then Jaime cannoned into her, unable to prevent himself when she stopped so abruptly. The hard warmth of his body dispelled her momentary paralysis, and on shaking legs she moved across the room to kneel down beside Mrs Gresham. But Jaime was there before her, brushing past her and bending to his knees, taking her mother’s wrist between his fingers, probing the rolling sockets of her eyes for any sign of life.

      At first Miranda wanted to protest, but then she remembered that he had told her he was a doctor, and she sat back on her heels, staring at him mutely, beseeching him to tell her what was wrong.

      ‘It looks like a stroke,’ he was saying grimly, when the door behind them burst open again to admit Lady Sanders. But not the Lady Sanders they had left in the hall. This woman was wild-eyed and tearful, lips quivering, hands trembling, a shaking mass of desperation. Grief-stricken fingers tore her handkerchief to shreds, as she cried: ‘Jaime! Jaime! Where are you? Oh, God, Jaime, it’s Mark! Mark! A policeman’s just been to the door. He’s dead, Jaime, he’s dead! Oh, God, what am I going to do?’

      She held out her hands towards him, but Miranda who, like Jaime, had got to her feet as Lady Sanders

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