Читать книгу Scorpion's Dance - Anne Mather, Anne Mather - Страница 8

IT RAINED on the day of the funeral, exactly a week before Miranda had expected to become the new Lady Sanders. The guests who had been invited for the wedding all arrived for the funeral, as if not to be done out of a celebration of one kind or another, Miranda thought ghoulishly, numb with more than the realisation that her future which she had thought so secure was suddenly so uncertain again. Her mother was in hospital, unable to speak, paralysed by the stroke which had stricken her almost in the same moment that Mark’s car had crashed through the tollbridge into the river. The dual tragedy had shaken them all in different ways, and Miranda was guiltily aware that her mother’s illness had relieved her of the necessity to display a grief she could not feel. The mourners saw a pale shadow of the girl she had been on the night of the Rotary Club Ball, and made their own assessment of her feelings. They could not know that all her sorrow was for her mother, alone and lonely on her hour of need. Only Jaime, who thought he knew her so much better than anyone else, looked beneath the façade she was presenting and drew his own conclusions.

Lady Sanders had taken it badly, so badly that Miranda could not help but feel sorry for her. After all, she had lost her husband so early in her life, and now her only son. No one could fail to pity her. Strangely, during the past few days, Miranda had felt closer to her than at any other time in her life.

Miranda rode back to the hall in the black Rolls that had followed the hearse to its final resting place. Lady Sanders was with her as, too, was Jaime, the somberness of his clothes accentuating the darkness of his skin. Miranda had worn black as well, unaware of how becoming the dark colours were to her, or of how the burnished glory of her hair stood out against the stark austerity of the graveyard.

A cold buffet had been laid in the dining room, and the guests who had accompanied them back to the house helped themselves to canapés and vol-au-vents and slices of homecured ham. Miranda endeavoured to accept everyone’s condolences with composure, but she was well aware that to most of these people present she had become somewhat of an embarrassment. She did not fit in here, and now she never would.

Sipping a glass of sherry, she tried to assimilate her situation. What was she going to do now? Her mother’s illness had curtailed her working life, and no doubt once she had recovered herself, Lady Sanders would require a new housekeeper. So where did that leave Miranda, or her mother? They had no home, nothing, and the salary she was paid by the council authorities would not stretch to buying a house. She thought of the cottage in the village. Perhaps Lady Sanders would allow them to rent that. It was of no use to her.

Miranda moved towards the buffet tables. Lady Sanders was there, talking to Canon Bridgenorth. Dared she take this opportunity to speak to her? If she didn’t, when might she get the chance again?

A solid object stepped into her path, and about to apologise and step aside, she looked up into Jaime’s hard features. They had said little to one another since the night of the accident, but now he put out a hand to detain her when she would have passed by.

‘I want to talk to you,’ he said, in a low voice.

Miranda glanced apprehensively about her. ‘Oh?’

‘Yes.’ He tucked his thumbs into the waistcoat pockets of his dark grey suede suit. ‘Now we can do it here, or we can go into the library. As you wish.’

Miranda’s cool eyes challenged him. ‘I don’t think we should leave the room again, do you?’

He returned her stare narrowly. ‘I see. Perhaps you consider I was to blame for what happened with Mark.’

She gasped. ‘I didn’t say that!’

‘You didn’t have to.’ He paused. ‘But as a matter of fact, you’re wrong. In one of her—how shall I put it?—more emotional moods, my aunt confessed to—er—encouraging Mark to think the worst, you understand?’

Miranda took an unsteady breath. ‘I have only your word for that.’

‘And I’m afraid that’s all you’re likely to get,’ he remarked brusquely. ‘I do not anticipate my aunt ever repeating such an allegation.’

Miranda looked away from the almost hypnotic brilliance of those dark eyes. ‘So! I can’t think what we have to say to one another.’

‘No?’ Dark brows quirked. ‘You have made arrangements for your future?’

Miranda’s eyes widened. ‘What has that to do with you?’

‘Come into the library, and I’ll tell you.’

Miranda sighed. ‘I have to—circulate. Besides, I want to speak to Lady Sanders.’

‘Oh? Why?’

She gasped. ‘Mind your own business!’

‘Perhaps it is my business.’

She was amazed at his audacity. ‘It couldn’t possibly be,’ she declared shortly. ‘Now, please—you must excuse me.’

‘One thing more …’ he added.

‘What is it?’

‘Whatever happens, will you promise to let me know what your plans are?’

Miranda made an exasperated sound. ‘I can’t see why it matters.’ She pressed her lips together. ‘I should have thought you’d be cheering that everything’s gone so sour on me.’

His lashes shaded his eyes. ‘Did you think I wasn’t?’ he parried mockingly, and her cheeks flamed with colour.

‘You—you beast!’

‘Your vocabulary’s sadly lacking,’ he remarked dryly. ‘There are far more suitable epithets than that.’

‘And you know them all, I suppose?’

‘A fair number,’ he agreed, and with a tightening of her facial muscles she left him.

Canon Bridgenorth attempted a sympathetic smile when Miranda appeared. She wondered if she was being uncharitable in supposing that of all of them there, he had had the most experience at hiding his feelings, and perhaps that was why he could look at her without either satisfaction or envy.

‘Dear Miss Gresham,’ he said, patting her sleeve with his plump white hand. ‘So sad, so sad! I’ve just been telling Lady Sanders you must both summon all your strength for the week ahead. The week which should have been such a happy one for both of you.’

Miranda’s gaze flickered over the older woman’s lined face. ‘I expect we’ll find plenty to do,’ she said quietly.

‘Ah, yes.’ Canon Bridgenorth shook his head. ‘All the presents to return.’ He sighed. ‘I’ll do whatever I can, of course.’

He moved away to speak to his wife, and for a moment Miranda was alone with the woman who was to have been her mother-in-law. It was the moment she had been waiting for, and she could not let it pass.

‘I saw the specialist at the hospital yesterday, Lady Sanders,’ she said, and pale eyes were turned in her direction.

‘Indeed? And what did he say?’

There was a chilling lack of feeling behind the question, and Miranda guessed that it was a perfunctory inquiry and no more. A tragic state of affairs considering her mother had worked at the Hall for over twelve years. But she had to go on, for her mother’s sake.

‘He said—it’s doubtful that she will ever walk again.’

Lady Sanders’ lips twitched. ‘I see.’

Miranda licked her own lips that were suddenly dry. ‘You understand what I’m trying to say?’

‘Perfectly.’ Lady Sanders was in complete control of herself. ‘Your mother will not be able to continue here as housekeeper.’

‘No.’ Miranda inclined her head. ‘Of course, she wasn’t going to anyway, after—after—’

‘After the wedding, you mean?’ Lady Sanders said it without emotion. ‘No. But now there is to be no wedding.’

Miranda wished she would make it easier for her. ‘As a matter of fact,’ she murmured, ‘that was what I wanted to talk to you about.’

Lady Sanders frowned. ‘Indeed? Why, pray?’

‘The cottage …’ Miranda hated having to beg. ‘The cottage at Blind Lane: I wondered whether we might—rent it from you.’

‘From me?’ Lady Sanders’ mouth tightened. ‘From me!’ She gave a mirthless little laugh. ‘My dear girl, you’re wasting your time speaking to me. I don’t own the cottage at Blind Lane. The estate is entailed, didn’t you know? To the eldest male heir.’

Miranda stared at her aghast. ‘No! No, I didn’t know.’

Lady Sanders sniffed, taking out her handkerchief and blowing her nose. ‘Why should you? I never thought—no one ever expected—’ She broke off as emotion threatened once more. ‘The home farm is mine, except that it’s tenanted, of course. But this house—and its contents—the estate, the land, everything, belongs to my husband’s family.’

‘But what will you do?’ For a moment, Miranda forgot about her own troubles.

Lady Sanders shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I expect I’ll be given time—to decide.’

The appearance of Elias Bell, the Sanders’ solicitor, curtailed their conversation, and Miranda moved politely away, aware that in estate matters and death duties she had no part.

So, she thought bleakly, she and her mother were not the only ones to lose their home. The old order changeth, with a vengeance.

She wandered out into the hall, looking up the carved staircase to the balustered gallery that curved round the well of the hall. To think she had been within an inch of being mistress here! She might have occupied the master suite, and descended those stairs every evening for dinner. She might have had servants to fetch and carry for her, and been invited to all the county functions. Countess Sanders—the housekeeper’s daughter. Of course, she would have had to accept other responsibilities, too, not least the commitment to let Mark into her bedroom every night. That was not so easy to contemplate, and she determinedly thrust away the memory of the last time she had seen him …

‘Reflecting on what might have been?’ a lazy voice drawled behind her, and she spun round resentfully to face her tormentor.

‘Would it do any good to deny it?’ she demanded.

‘It might. But I’d find it very hard to believe. The old place has a lot to commend it.’

Miranda folded her hands round her handbag. ‘I’m surprised you think so. It must be much different from what you’re used to.’

His smile was mocking. ‘Now how am I supposed to take that? Am I to assume you think we live in squalor back home? Or have I simply not the taste to appreciate it?’

Miranda expelled her breath on a sigh. ‘I was merely stating that rural England must be vastly different from—where is it you live? South America? Brazil?’

‘South America will do,’ he returned, his voice noticeably cooler. ‘And yes, of course, it is—vastly different. Geographically at least.’

Miranda wanted to walk away from him, but something held her where she was. She didn’t like the way he could disconcert her without any apparent effort on his part, and although she knew he was only six or seven years her senior, he seemed much older than that. Perhaps it was due to the differences in their ways of life. She guessed that conditions in South American countries were much less civilised than in her own, and the heat and the insects held no appeal for her.

Trying to take the conversation on to a lighter plane, she said: ‘Will you be leaving now? Or will you stay with your aunt until after Christmas?’

‘That rather depends.’ Jaime folded his arms, standing feet apart facing her, his expression impossible to read.

‘Depends?’ Miranda was aware of the quiver in her own tones. ‘On what?’

He pushed his lower lip forward. ‘To quote an earlier conversation—what has that to do with you?’

She coloured deeply, half turning away. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.’

Her voice was stiff with embarrassment, but when she would have left him, he stepped forward and caught her arm. ‘Have you spoken to Lady Sanders?’ he asked.

Miranda looked up at him. ‘You know I have.’

‘What did she tell you?’

Miranda pressed her lips together to suppress her indignation. Then she said tautly: ‘She told me the estate is entailed, and that she, like my mother and me, is losing her home.’

‘Is that what she said?’ Jaime’s lips twisted. ‘Those were her very words?’

Miranda tried to pull her arm free, but it was a useless exercise. ‘She might not have said that exactly, but that was what she meant. Why? What has any of this to do with you?’

He let her go then, and she rubbed her sleeve to stimulate the blood circulating through her numbed flesh. ‘Perhaps I feel sorry for you,’ he said provokingly. ‘Or then again, perhaps I don’t.’

Miranda uttered a word under her breath that she would never have voiced, but from his expression she suspected he had heard her. ‘I think you’re despicable! It may have slipped your notice, but I cared for Mark, and now he’s dead! That’s all that matters to me.’

‘Really?’ The scepticism in his voice was denigrating. ‘How touching! Forgive me if I don’t shed a tear!’

‘You don’t care about any of us, do you?’ Miranda said accusingly. ‘You just enjoy making fun of us.’

He ran a probing hand over the fine silk of his tie, and regarded her intently for a moment. Then he said, ‘Would you think I was making fun of you if I asked you to marry me?’

Miranda groped weakly for the newel post at the foot of the staircase. Her fingers curved round the polished ball on its pedestal, and its coolness was like a lifeline in a broiling sea.

‘I see the prospect had not occurred to you,’ he said mildly. ‘And there are certain advantages in the element of surprise.’

Miranda gathered herself and stared at him resentfully, half suspecting that this was yet another attempt to humiliate her. ‘You’re not serious, of course!’

‘Why not?’ His mouth thinned. ‘Is it such a distasteful proposition?’

Now was her chance, and Miranda seized it with both hands. ‘Frankly, yes,’ she declared coldly. ‘I think you must be quite mad to consider it!’

She had not really thought that she could arouse him, but she was wrong. Before her half fearful gaze, she saw the sudden tautening of the skin across his cheekbones, the aggressive tightening of his jaw, and the diamond-hard congealing of his eyes. The temperature in the hall lowered a terrifying number of degrees, and she knew she had been right to be apprehensive of this man.

‘Very well,’ he said now, and she was almost shocked at the lack of emotion in his voice. ‘But you’ll remember what I said.’ And he walked away.

Miranda stood for several minutes in the hall after he had gone, desperately trying to regain her former composure. But composure would not come, only a devastating conviction that for all her small victory, the war was not yet over.

The guests began to drift away in the late afternoon, and by five o’clock only Miranda, Jaime and Lady Sanders, and the caterers she had hired for the occasion, were left in the echoing mansion. Avoiding Jaime’s eyes was becoming increasingly more difficult, and Miranda excused herself on the pretext of checking that the hired staff knew where to put everything. The kitchen was her domain, she told herself bitterly, refusing to contemplate what her lot might have been had she accepted Jaime Knevett’s offer. She had no idea why he should have made such an outrageous suggestion, but in any case, marrying him was out of the question. Apart from anything else, she could not consider leaving the country with her mother a helpless invalid in some National Health establishment. Besides, she had no desire to marry him, or anyone else for that matter. It was all rather unreal and insubstantial, part and parcel of the unreality of these last days.