dangling between his knees, and yet still exuding vitality and virility. Those big hands had held her as he waltzed her round the floor. His palm had been warm against her back, his clasp strong around her fingers.
The memory quivered in the pit of her stomach, and Miranda made herself look away. Not that it did much good. Not looking at his hands meant looking at the masculine, exciting lines of his face instead, at his jaw, his cheek, his chin. At the cool, humorous mouth with the heart-tugging curl at the corner, and her mouth promptly dried.
Feeling her gaze on him, Rafe turned his head to meet her gaze, and she was snared helplessly in the gleaming dark blue depths of his eyes, unable to look away as the oxygen was sucked from the air. Unable to breathe, Miranda was left dizzy, trembling, and yet exhilarated at the same time.
She had never felt like this before, never been so overwhelmed by the intensity of her senses. She could feel the roughness of the wooden step beneath her with a preternatural clarity, hear the sound of the sea on the shingle as she had never heard it before. The sun was warm like a caress on her arms, and the salt tang of the air mingled with the scent of fresh grass and bleached wood.
And of the lethally attractive man next to her, sitting there with those wickedly glinting eyes and that mouth… oh, that mouth! Rafe Knighton was way out of her league, Miranda knew that, and yet right now it seemed utterly right that he should be there, inexplicably bound up in the perfection of the moment, and without warning she was seized by a wild happiness, so sharp and intense it was almost painful.
This moment was hers, and she would never forget it.
‘I know,’ she said again, not quite steadily. Tearing her eyes from his at last, she laughed, still giddy with it. ‘It’s madness.’
‘Complete madness,’ Rafe agreed, but then he was laughing too, and with a mixture of relief and regret Miranda felt the terrible, wonderful intensity dissolve. ‘I like the idea that you’re not always sensible and careful.’
‘I am except when I’m here.’
‘Then this is where you should be.’
Grateful to him for understanding, Miranda smiled at him as she got to her feet. ‘I’ll show you the beach.’
They followed the coastal path a little way until it dipped down to a stream, where they could clamber over the stones to reach the empty beach that stretched back under the cliff towards Whitestones. Gentle waves broke onto the shingle with a whoosh and a rustle before they were sucked relentlessly back into the sea.
A light breeze lifted their hair, teasing tendrils out of Miranda’s tight band. They blew around her face, tickling her cheek, so that she had to keep lifting a hand to smooth them away. Their feet crunched over the stones, but it was hard walking in heels.
Miranda muttered an exclamation of frustration at last. ‘These shoes are hopeless for the beach,’ she said, bending to take them off. ‘Turn your back a moment.’
‘Why?’
‘I want to take my tights off.’
‘I’m certainly seeing a new side to you today,’ he said, but he turned obediently away to pull off his own shoes and socks while Miranda wriggled awkwardly out of her tights.
Rolling up his trousers, Rafe followed her down to the narrow band of rough sand by the water, where it was easier to walk than on the uneven shingle.
‘You’ll get wet,’ Miranda warned as the waves broke over their feet, and swirled around their ankles.
‘You can’t come to the seaside and not paddle.’
Rafe was enjoying the sight of the prim and proper Miranda Fairchild wandering barefoot along a beach, sensible shoes dangling from one hand, hair escaping at last from that horrible severe style she insisted on wearing, but when she turned to smile at him she looked so happy that his heart stumbled for a moment.
Just a moment, though. Rafe recovered so quickly that he almost managed to convince himself that it had never happened.
Almost.
‘Won’t you be lonely here on your own?’ he asked her. ‘And pets don’t count!’
‘I’d rather be lonely than with the wrong person,’ said Miranda after a moment. ‘I’ve seen what that’s like.’
‘Your parents?’
She nodded. ‘I suppose they must have loved each other once, but I think the attraction they had for each other can only ever have been physical. Once that had worn off, they were just two strangers who didn’t like each other very much, living in the same house. They used to fight all the time and throw recriminations at each other.’
Miranda hugged her arms together, the shoes still hooked over the fingers of one hand. ‘My father would claim my mother had only married him for his money, which was partly true, and then she’d shout that he’d only wanted her for her title, which was also partly true. I think they must have liked fighting, actually. They were both very emotional and dramatic, so perhaps it satisfied some craving for attention, but it was exhausting for the rest of us. It was actually a relief when Mummy finally left.’
Rafe was surprised at how vividly he could picture Miranda as a small, too-restrained child, hating the constant drama and scenes her parents created around her. ‘How old were you?’
‘I was twelve, but Octavia was only eight. She was only a little girl. It was awful for her.’
Twelve wasn’t very old to cope with losing your mother either, Rafe thought.
‘It was hard for Belinda too,’ Miranda added fairly, unaware of his mental interruption. ‘Even though she was fourteen, she was closest to our mother, and she looks exactly like her. My father was terribly humiliated, but he put a good face on it and we soon got used to an ever-changing succession of girlfriends who all looked remarkably like our mother.’
Poor little kid, thought Rafe. He’d bet that, even at twelve, Miranda had been the one to look after her sisters. ‘So you lived with him rather than your mother?’
‘In theory. We’d go and stay with our mother sometimes, but it was never a great success. I think we made her feel old.’ She smiled, but without much humour. ‘Daddy did his best, but his idea of parenting was to send us to expensive schools, but not so that we could go on and get good jobs. It was to make sure we met all the best people and were invited to all the best parties, so that eventually we could marry just as he and our mother did and make all the same mistakes!’
Miranda shook her head, releasing more little tendrils from her ponytail. ‘He was absolutely delighted when Belinda married Charles, mainly because Charles has a minor title. They had the society wedding of the year. You’d probably have been invited if you’d been around,’ she said with a sideways glance at Rafe, walking barefoot beside her and managing to look perfectly groomed with his trousers rolled up to his ankles.
‘It cost an absolute fortune, but it was all worth it apparently,’ she went on, unable to disguise the thread of bitterness in her voice. ‘The wedding was featured in all the glossy magazines. Everyone said it was a great success, so I suppose it must have been. Never mind that it was the final straw that broke Fairchild’s.’
She broke off a little guiltily. ‘I’m sorry, that sounds like sour grapes, doesn’t it? I ought to be happy for Belinda. She’s happy, and that’s what matters. She’s got the perfect yummy-mummy lifestyle she always wanted, even if she does have to put up with Charles braying like a donkey whenever he laughs-
‘There I go again,’ she caught herself up once more. ‘I was always being told how I would never get married unless I learnt to sweeten my tongue a bit, as if that was the worst thing that could ever happen to me! I ought to be nicer, but it was so frustrating to see my father spending money hand over fist when the company was in such trouble.’
‘The company didn’t pay for your sister’s wedding, did it?’
‘My father treated Fairchild’s like a private bank account,’ said Miranda bitterly. ‘He thought it was there to provide him with the lifestyle he felt entitled to. He never thought about the people whose jobs depended on the company. Actually, I don’t think he ever realised that everything he liked to do-eating out in the most expensive restaurants, buying the best wines, getting his shirts made in Jermyn Street, skiing in Gstaad, all that stuff-
Frustration churned in her still whenever she thought about it. ‘I tried so hard to turn things round. Daddy couldn’t be bothered with the business side of things, so he was happy to turn most of the day-to-day running of the company over to me, but as soon as Belinda announced her engagement it was hopeless. He was determined that she should have the best of everything.
