Everyone would take him seriously. He would
Rafe couldn’t wait.
All he had to do was find her. Until the ball, there was no point in giving up an active social life. You never knew who you were going to meet. So Rafe went to dinner parties and cocktail parties and champagne receptions and fund raising events. He went to Wimbledon and Ascot and the Henley regatta. He went everywhere he was invited in the hope of encountering his perfect woman.
He was at a gallery opening one evening when he spotted an attractive blonde studying one of the paintings with an intense expression. Rafe’s hopes rose. She was very stylishly dressed, and looked just his type.
Her name was Rachel, he discovered when he introduced himself, and they talked about the picture for a while. Close up, she was even more attractive. Could Rachel be the one he was waiting for? She was beautiful, intelligent, sophisticated. She was perfect.
So why could he feel boredom stealing over him?
What was wrong with him? Rafe wondered in frustration, redoubling his efforts to be charming. Rachel was exactly the kind of woman he was looking for.
She blossomed visibly under his attention, and he willed himself to be captivated, concentrating hard on her face until he saw her wave somebody away with a dismissive hand. The gesture caught his attention more than what she was saying and he turned, only to find himself staring straight into Miranda’s clear green eyes.
Jolted, even jarred, by the sight of her, Rafe couldn’t tear his gaze away. Unmasked tonight, she was demurely dressed in black. Her hair was neatly tied back and her face as bare as ever, and he felt the by now familiar spurt of irritation that she made so little effort to make the most of herself.
‘Would you like a canape?’ she asked him, deadpan, but her eyes gleamed with irony.
Rachel shook her head, evidently cross at having her tetea-tete with Rafe interrupted, but he pretended to inspect the tray Miranda held.
‘What are these?’ he asked, pointing.
‘Chicken satay,’ said Miranda.
‘Are they good?’
‘Everything’s good,’ she said.
Rachel was clearly baffled by the attention Rafe was paying a mere waitress, and looked at Miranda with incomprehension.
‘No, thank you,’ she said with emphasis when Miranda offered her tray once more.
Miranda took the hint and moved off.
Rafe was unaware that he was looking after her until Rachel put her hand on his arm to reclaim his attention.
‘They will try and shove food down your throat at these events,’ she complained.
Rafe didn’t answer. He tried to concentrate on the conversation, but part of him was acutely aware of Miranda moving round the room with her tray, slender and unobtrusive in black.
It was amazing how nobody else seemed to notice her. Their eyes might pass incuriously over her, but they didn’t see her at all. Rafe marvelled that no one registered how fine her features were, how clear her gaze. They had no idea how prickly and stubborn she could be, obviously.
They had no idea how a smile lit up her face, how light she felt in his arms. They didn’t know that her hair was like silk and smelt like a summer afternoon, or how sharp and funny she could be.
It gave Rafe a strange thrill of possession to realise that he was the only person in the room to know those things about Miranda. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her circulating with her tray and remembered her dancing in the dusty ballroom, bending down to greet every passing dog in the park. He remembered her tsk of impatience as she rubbed a mark off his sleeve, the way she rolled her eyes at him, or sat primly behind her desk.
And then he remembered how she had looked in that cat suit, and promptly wished he hadn’t. It was criminal the way she kept those lovely legs hidden away. The way she kept that hair scraped back from her face.
All at once Rafe had an image of Miranda at the beach, her hair blowing gold and honey around her face, and he drew a sharp breath.
‘Rafe? Are you OK?’
‘Er, yes, fine,’ he said, realising belatedly that he hadn’t been listening to a word Rachel had been saying. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.’
This was no way to go about finding a wife.
But tonight would be different, Rafe resolved as the car crunched to a halt outside Knighton Park. He was bound to meet someone special tonight, and his search would be over at last.
Miranda would spend a few days sorting things out in the aftermath of the ball, and then she would move on to a new assignment. She wouldn’t be in the office to distract him any more. There would be no more walks in the park, no more sessions with his feet propped on her desk, no more crisp emails without even the hint of an ‘x’ at the end.
He was being ridiculous, Rafe admonished himself, shutting the car door behind him with unnecessary emphasis. They had been planning this ball for ten weeks now. Tonight he would meet an array of intelligent, successful, interesting women, and with any luck would find that special one with whom he could settle down and spend the rest of his life.
What more did he want?
Miranda walked through the ballroom, clipboard in hand. Everything was ready.
The room had been cleaned until everything gleamed, and it looked wonderful. The floor was polished, the chandeliers glittered, and the glass sparkled. There were dramatic flower arrangements strategically placed around the room and the long windows stood open onto the terrace. Even the weather had obliged with perfect, soft summer days that had left the gardens looking at their best.
A huge marquee had been set up on the lawn beneath the terrace, and even now the round tables were being laid for the dinner. Rosie had been thrilled to take on the catering, but it was a big job, and she was frantically at work in the kitchens while worrying about whether the new waiters and waitresses drafted in would turn up on time.
‘I wish you could do it,’ she grumbled to Miranda. ‘I know I can trust you.’
But Miranda had decided that she would have to be available in case of last minute crises. Any number of things might go wrong at the last minute, she thought, obsessively checking her list. She would lurk in the background and be ready to deal with any of them.
She had been at Knighton Park all week, overseeing the cleaning and the deliveries and the erection of the marquee and all the other myriad preparations that needed to be made. Although it had been hectic, it had been one of the happiest weeks she had spent since staying at Whitestones with Dulcie. She had struck up a real friendship with Elvira Knighton, whose sharp tongue and cackle reminded her often of her beloved godmother. They played Scrabble together in the evenings, and every afternoon Miranda walked Elvira’s dogs and felt herself relax away from London’s noise and crowds. She even caught herself wishing that the ball weren’t happening. She didn’t want anyone else coming to spoil her peace.
But coming they were. The ball had sold out quickly, although Miranda did wonder how many of those who were coming would have done so if they had had any inkling of Rafe’s real purpose in inviting them to take a table. But she had made sure the invitations were cleverly designed and had targeted them carefully, and she was gratified that her strategy seemed to have worked. Rafe should be pleased with the range of guests who were coming tonight, from a sprinkling of starry celebrities to the most earnest of development workers. If nothing else, it should be an interesting mix.
Once word had got out that it was by Rafe’s invitation only, the Knighton Park ball had become the hottest ticket in town, and Belinda was still sulking because Miranda and Octavia would be there and not her.
‘Charles would have bought a table,’ she had complained. ‘Why didn’t you ask us?’
Miranda didn’t want to say that Belinda and Charles hardly fell into the category of the kind of people Rafe wanted to meet, so she murmured something evasive about limited numbers.
‘Then how did Octavia get an invite?’
‘She’s been working on the ball.’
Belinda snorted. ‘Octavia? Octavia never worked in her life!’ Which was pretty good coming from Belinda.
