Cinderella’s Wedding Wish

Miranda didn’t believe her, but she didn’t want to get into an argument about it. ‘It’s very clever, what you’ve done,’ she said placatingly instead.

‘Yes, well, I’m not just a pretty face, you know. Off you go now,’ Octavia added in almost exactly the same tone Elvira had used. ‘I want to get ready myself.’

Thanking her a little lamely, Miranda made her way to the ballroom. She felt very strange. She kept catching glimpses of an elegant stranger in the mirrors and realising with a belated shock that it was her. Between them, Elvira and Octavia had transformed her. Miranda just wished that they had changed her inside too, while they were at it. As it was, she felt exposed and vulnerable, and wished that her clipboard were three times the size so that she could hide all her bare flesh behind it.

Lurking as unobtrusively as she could, and keeping the clipboard clutched firmly in front of her, Miranda waited in the hall to direct guests out to the marquee as they arrived. Much to her relief, she hadn’t seen Rafe at all. He must be in the marquee.

Only when she was sure that she was in no danger of being noticed in the crowd did Miranda make her own way there. The marquee was unrecognisable from the hot, quiet space where she and Rafe had stared at each other earlier. Now it was thronging with brightly dressed guests and the noise level was deafening.

Keeping to the edges, Miranda kept an eye on the tables until the guests were all sitting down and the first course was under way. She was determined not to look for Rafe, but she knew where he was sitting, of course, and it was impossible not to notice him. He was sitting between a vivacious brunette and a coolly beautiful blonde, but it was impossible to tell which was the lawyer and which the financial consultant. Rafe was smiling, exuding his usual charm and dividing his attention between them. Miranda couldn’t tell which one he seemed more interested in-and she didn’t care, she reminded herself quickly, turning away.

Now that the dinner was under control, she should be checking the band had everything it needed to set up in the ballroom, anyway.

The music started after the main course, and gradually dancers drifted up to the ballroom from the marquee, exclaiming at how beautiful it was. Miranda observed the floor fill up from her position in a quiet doorway. The band was fantastic and the floor was soon packed. She saw Octavia dancing with Simon. She saw Rafe dancing with a succession of lovely girls and apparently enjoying himself immensely.

Good, Miranda thought.

To her embarrassment, men kept asking her to dance. ‘I’m sorry, I’m working,’ she would have to explain, lifting her clipboard to underline the point. If only she could have stayed in her black trousers nobody would be making this mistake. Her feet in Elvira’s shoes were killing her too.

The evening wore on. The meal was eaten, the champagne drunk, the dances danced. It had all gone like clockwork. Only another hour or so and it would be over.

Trying to ignore her sore feet, Miranda watched everyone enjoying themselves and willed herself to feel excited, or proud at least. She had made this happen, after all, and it was clearly a huge success. She could put it on her CV, and perhaps it would help her to find a job. She would have to go back to the agency and see if they had a new assignment for her. Rafe didn’t need her any more. If he couldn’t find a suitable wife among this lot, there was no hope for him.

Without thinking, she sought Rafe through the crowd. He was dancing with yet another girl, another blonde, who looked vaguely familiar. He might have danced with her before, so a second dance might mean that he was interested? When he smiled down into her eyes like that, was he thinking that she was the one?

Miranda turned away, suddenly overwhelmed by tiredness and melancholy, and slipped out to the terrace. There was no more she could do now, in any case. She could go off duty, surely. Her feet couldn’t stand another second in these shoes.

Her heart couldn’t stand another second pretending it didn’t hurt just as much.

The night was warm, and the music spilled out over the paving. Taking off her shoes, Miranda went down the steps and with a sigh of relief curled her bare toes into the cool grass. A little further along the path, a stone bench was hidden in the shadows, and she sank down onto it, lips pressed together in a fierce line to stop the tears that clogged the back of her throat.

She was just tired, Miranda tried to convince herself. It was just anticlimax, just sore feet. Otherwise she wouldn’t be feeling so pathetic.

Everything was fine. She had successfully completed an interesting project, and, with all the overtime and evening work, she had managed to save more than usual recently. True, she was still a long way from her target, but if she kept working it might not be too long before she could go to Whitestones and be happy.

What more did she want?

CHAPTER SEVEN

MIRANDA’S mind flickered to Rafe, but she clamped down immediately on the thought. Oh, for heaven’s sake! she told herself, exasperated. Don’t be so silly.

She sat on in the darkness, watching the stars that spangled the deep, dark blue of the sky. She could still hear the band and the sound of laughter from the ballroom but it was muted here, and, enveloped in the scents of the summer night, Miranda gradually relaxed. Everything was fine, she thought, and this time she meant it.

She was fine.

Even when a familiar figure materialised out of the shadows, she kept her calm, and if a flush crept into her cheeks, well, he wouldn’t be able to see much in the darkness. He wouldn’t see her heart pounding or the tingle of awareness beneath her skin.

Rafe stopped in front of her. ‘What are you doing sitting out here in the dark, Miranda?’

‘Resting my feet.’

Her bare shoulders were luminous in the starlight, and in that elegant dress she looked like a stranger, but the tilt of her chin and the directness of her gaze were unmistakably Miranda’s.

Rafe’s head was reeling. All evening, he had been keeping an eye out for Miranda, and getting increasingly frustrated at her absence, until quite suddenly he had spotted her, although he had had to look twice to make sure that it was really her.

He had never seen her look like that before. It was impossible not to recognise the trademark proud lift of her chin, the straight back and prim posture, and of course she had that damned clipboard held in front of her like a shield. There was no mistaking that.

But he was shaken to see her in a dress that clung lovingly to her figure and showed off her beautiful skin. The dress was old-fashioned, but it suited her somehow. It was unique, like Miranda herself. In it she looked elegant and ethereal, and quite unlike the frumpy assistant he was used to seeing.

She looked beautiful.

And once Rafe had seen her, he couldn’t help seeing her everywhere. He tried not to stare, but he was aware of her all the time, and every time he saw another man approach her he felt himself tense, hoping that she wouldn’t agree to dance. It made him furious to realise that he wasn’t the only man who had noticed her.

When Miranda had slipped out onto the terrace, Rafe had seen her go. He’d told himself not to follow her. He was supposed to be having a good time. He was supposed to be finding a suitable wife.

So he’d kept on dancing, and when that dance had ended, he’d taken his partner back to the table and asked someone else to dance. Like everyone else he had danced with, she had been witty and intelligent and attractive, but the ballroom had felt hot and airless and noisy, and once the dance was over and she had been escorted back to the table in her turn, Rafe had murmured an excuse and escaped outside, the way he had been wanting to do ever since Miranda had disappeared.

At first, he hadn’t been able to see her anywhere, and, feeling a fool, he’d been about to head back to the ballroom when he had caught a glimpse of movement in the shadows. Now he looked down at her, sitting alone in the dark, the clipboard resting in her lap, and he could feel his heart swelling at the sight of her.