LITMIR.BIZ

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steadily with any of them. She had seen too much of the struggle her mother had had bringing her up to want to put herself into the same position, and she gained the reputation of being frigid and mercenary, which wasn’t strictly true. It was simply that she wanted more out of life than a mortgaged semi, and a parcel of children she couldn’t afford.

      Then, when she was eighteen, she was invited to the Hunt Ball.

      She had been going out with a young farmer, Dennis Morgan, whose father owned some land on the outskirts of the village, and because his land was used by the Hunt, he had been invited.

      At first she had demurred, realising that Lady Sanders would attend the Ball, but surprisingly her mother took a stand.

      ‘Why shouldn’t you go?’ she demanded, her work-worn hands kneading together. ‘You’ve been invited. I don’t see what it has to do with her ladyship.’

      But Miranda noticed she didn’t tell her employer that her daughter was attending the ball, and no one could have been more surprised than Lady Sanders when she saw her housekeeper’s daughter dancing with the son of one of the local landowners.

      Miranda was enjoying herself. Her gown was new, and she was aware that it suited her. The years between that disastrous party and now had wrought a great change in her. Her hair was no longer so red, but had toned to a deep chestnut streaked with golden lights, and its straightness was used to advantage by careful cutting. Shoulder-length, it swung in a silken curtain from a centre parting, accentuating the wide depths of eyes that were translucently green. She was tall, too, but not thin, and her breasts swelled provocatively above the deep décolletage of her gown. The gown itself was green, almost exactly matching the colour of her eyes, layers of chiffon over a clinging chemise-like underskirt. What she was unaware of was that another pair of eyes, very similar to those of Lady Sanders’, were watching her with more than casual interest.

      The evening was well advanced before a slender, pale-faced young man chose Dennis’s temporary absence to ask her to dance. Miranda knew who he was, of course. She had seen him frequently about the Hall in the past couple of years, just as he knew her; although he doubted he would have believed how beautiful she could be, dressed as she invariably was in denim jeans and shirts, or plain uniform dresses for work. But tonight she was sparkling, and Mark Sanders recognised that she was easily the most interesting girl in the room.

      Miranda, prepared to dislike him, found her sympathies aroused by his diffidence, and his barbed humour had nothing coarse about it. He knew everyone there, of course, and his wry comments and dry wit made her see them all in a different light. Old Squire Matthews, who used to terrify her when she was a child by cracking his riding crop against his boot, was just a foolish old man who couldn’t face a kill sober; the Falconers of High Garth, much respected in the village, couldn’t stand the sight of one another outside of public occasions like this; and Canon Bridgenorth and his wife, who lived far beyond their means, would likely retire on social security.

      That his comments were vaguely malicious did not really disturb her. Gossip was rife in a village like King’s Norton, and he was only relating what her mother had suspected for years. Besides, she thought, he was only trying to put her at her ease, and she was flattered that out of all the girls there, he should have chosen to dance with her.

      Dennis was waiting for her when the dance was over, and he was not best pleased by what had happened. ‘You’re not interested in that pansy boy, are you?’ he demanded, unable to ignore her flushed cheeks and the unaccustomed light in her eyes, and Miranda turned on him angrily.

      ‘He’s not a pansy boy!’ she declared hotly. ‘He’s very nice actually. A gentleman—something you might not know a lot about.’

      Dennis looked affronted, and immediately she was contrite. ‘I’m sorry, Dennis,’ she exclaimed at once, realising she had been rude. After all, without Dennis’s invitation she would not be here. ‘It’s just that—well, I liked him.’

      Dennis allowed himself to be placated. He didn’t want to fall out with Miranda. He was half in love with her, and he had been beginning to hope that she might care for him. He knew her reputation. He knew she had never had a steady boy-friend, but he was hoping to change all that.

      However, Dennis was to be disappointed. Within a week, Mark had started dating Miranda, much to his own and her mother’s disapproval.

      ‘You’re a fool!’ Mrs Gresham told her daughter, never one to mince words. ‘He’s not for the likes of you. Lady Sanders would never let her son marry the housekeeper’s daughter!’

      ‘Why not?’ Miranda was still riding on cloud seven. All the girls in the library had seen Mark’s super sports car when he came to pick her up after work, and all her friends envied her her good fortune. All except Judith, that was. The schoolmaster’s daughter sided with Miranda’s mother in disapproving of the affair, and had jeopardised their friendship by accusing Miranda of dating Mark because he had money. Miranda had denied it emphatically, but deep inside her she wondered if she would find him half so attractive without his sports car and the Hall behind him.

      Now Mrs Gresham sank into her comfortable rocking chair by the fire and folded her hands. ‘You’re not thinking seriously enough,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Oh, I suppose I can’t blame you. You and I have always had to work for every penny we earned. But that young man—he’s too like his father for my liking. And I don’t want him smashing up that flashy car of his while you’re inside it.’

      Miranada shifted restlessly. ‘Mark wouldn’t do that. He drives fast, I know, but he’s always careful.’

      ‘When he’s sober,’ remarked her mother dryly. ‘I doubt you’ve seen him drunk yet. But it has been known. And that’s without—well, you know what I mean.’

      ‘Sex?’ Miranda paced impatiently about the kitchen. ‘Is that what you mean? We don’t have sex. I—I wouldn’t, even if he asked me.’

      Her mother looked sceptical. ‘What do you know about it? What do you know what you’d do faced with such a situation? Miranda, it’s no use talking. You’d never understand in a million years. But believe me when I say that there comes a time in every woman’s life when a situation gets completely out of her control …’

      ‘Oh, Mum!’ Miranda sighed. ‘I do know the facts of life, you know. I know about—body chemistry.’

      ‘Is that what you call it? They called it something else in my young day. But never mind. So long as you always remember that so far as Lady Sanders is concerned, you’re just one of the long line of girls her son will date before he settles down and marries someone suitable.’

      Miranda flounced out of the room. There was more than a grain of truth in what her mother had said, she knew that, at least so far as Lady Sanders was concerned. But she couldn’t honestly believe that Mark was like his mother. He was too kind, too attentive, too much fun.

      Then, two days later, she had an experience of how much fun he could be. They had been to a nightclub in the nearby town and were driving home in the early hours. Miranda, who had taken driving lessons as soon as she was seventeen and bought herself an old Mini to get to and from work, had realised Mark was drinking too much and offered to drive them home, but he had scorned her caution.

      ‘I’m not drunk!’ he had protested mockingly. ‘What’s the matter? Chicken?’

      Miranda had shaken her head and climbed into her seat obediently. Perhaps she was being over-cautious, she thought. Perhaps she was thinking too much about what her mother had said. Whatever her private feelings, she had maintained a composed façade, and this seemed to infuriate Mark. Instead of driving with extra care, he seemed to delight in taking unnecessary risks, and Miranda’s palms were moist with sweat when they breasted a hill on the wrong side of the road and saw the headlights of an approaching car directly ahead of them.

      She scarcely remembered the details of what happened afterwards. She knew Mark screamed and took his hands off the wheel, and somehow she threw herself across him and wrenched the wheel towards her. The sports car

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