Dangerous Interloper. Penny Jordan

have been satisfied with her simple plain black dress and her mother’s pearls, she reflected, not seeing as others did, that the slender elegance of her body somehow made the simple understatement of her plain dress all the more appealing and eye-catching in a way that would never have occurred to her. If anyone had told her that the silky swing of her hair, the soft sheen of her skin and the plain simplicity of her clothes all added up to a sensuality all the more effective because it was so obviously unstudied, she wouldn’t have believed them, but it was true none the less.

      Tartly reminding herself that, since the object of her ridiculous daydreams had not appeared the least bit interested in her, it was pointless wasting her time fretting about the clothes she didn’t have to wear if he asked her out, she clipped on her pearl earrings and picked up her bag.

      All through her schooldays her teachers had bemoaned her tendency to daydream. She had thought in the last few years that she had finally outgrown it. Now it seemed she had been over-optimistic.

      It took her just over half an hour to drive to her father’s house on the other side of town. Helen’s car was already parked in the drive, and when Miranda went up to the front door it was Helen who opened it to her.

      At her father’s insistence she still had a key for her old home, but she only used it when he was away on holiday, just to check that the house and its contents were safe.

      Helen kissed her and greeted her warmly. She wasn’t as tall as Miranda, a still-pretty fair-haired woman of fifty, whom Miranda doubted anyone could ever have disliked. She had a natural warmth, a genuine compassion for humanity that Miranda could only describe as a very special kind of motherliness, and that made her wish sometimes that her father had met her earlier and that she could have had the benefit of her compassion and love during her own difficult teenage years, although she was honest enough to admit that, had her father met her then, she would probably not have responded well to her and would have been inclined to be jealous and possessive of her father.

      ‘Dad not ready yet?’ Miranda queried as she closed the door behind her.

      ‘You know your father,’ Helen said humourously. ‘He says he can’t find his cufflinks.’

      Miranda laughed. ‘It’s just as well you’re organising everything for the wedding. How’s it going by the way? Have you found the outfit yet?’

      Helen had complained to her only the week before that she had still not found an outfit she liked enough to wear for the supposedly quiet church wedding organised for the end of the month.

      ‘No, I haven’t. I’ve decided that I’m going to have to have a day in Bath or maybe even in London.’ Helen pulled a face. ‘I’m dreading it. I loathe city shopping.’

      They chatted easily together for a few minutes while they waited for Miranda’s father to come downstairs.

      Just as he did so, they heard a car coming up the drive.

      ‘This will be Ben Frobisher!’ her father exclaimed, hurrying towards the door and opening it.

      As she heard the sound of male footsteps crunching over the gravel, Miranda slipped discreetly into the shadows at the rear of the hall so that she would have a good view of her partner for the evening, without his being similarly able to observe her.

      She watched as he mounted the steps and came forward into the light, and then her heart turned over with shock, and she stared with open disbelief, closing her eyes and then opening them again; but no, she wasn’t daydreaming; it was the stranger, the man she had bumped into earlier on. He was standing there, calmly returning her father’s handshake, turning to smile warmly at Helen, his dark hair shining cleanly and healthily beneath the light, his tall broad-shouldered body moving easily within the elegant confines of his dinner suit, his eyes as familiarly and perceptively grey as she had remembered as they swept the shadows.

      ‘Miranda, come and meet Ben,’ her father called out to her, forcing her to move forward, to extend her hand and to force her lips into what she hoped was a sophisticated and cool smile.

      ‘Actually Mr Frobisher and I have already met.’ His handshake was firm, if brief.

      ‘Ben, please,’ he corrected her.

      ‘You two know each other?’ Miranda heard her father saying curiously. ‘But, Miranda, you never—’

      ‘We met by chance earlier on today. At the time your daughter was escaping from the depressing sight of my desecration of what she informed me had once been a fine old Georgian building.’ His eyebrows lifted humorously as he smiled at Miranda. ‘She was a little—er—angry, and I didn’t think it wise to introduce myself.’

      ‘Oh, Miranda is one of the leading lights of our newly formed Committee for the Preservation of Local Buildings,’ Miranda heard her father saying while to her own fury she could feel her face flushing.

      ‘It isn’t quite as bad as you seem to think, you know,’ Ben Frobisher told her, still smiling at her, adding, ‘In fact, why don’t you give me an opportunity to prove it to you? Let me show you the plans I’ve had drawn up.’

      ‘By Ralph Charlesworth?’ Miranda demanded scornfully, letting her temper and her embarrassment get the better of her.

      The whole evening was going to be a complete disaster. She could tell that already … Of all the humiliating things to have happened … had he known who she was when …? But no, he couldn’t have.

      ‘No, not by Charlesworth, as it happens.’

      That made her focus on him and then immediately wish she had not done so, as she was subjected to the fully dizzying effect of meeting that level grey gaze head on.

      It was like running full tilt into an immovable object, she reflected, the effect just as instant and even more of a shock to the system. Her heart was beating too fast; she was fighting not to breathe too quickly and shallowly. She felt slightly dizzy and thoroughly bemused. It was totally unfair that he should affect her like this.

      ‘I’m sure Miranda would be delighted to see them,’ she could hear her father saying heartily at her side. ‘Wouldn’t you, Mirry?’

      Wouldn’t she what? she wondered muzzily, somehow or other managing to force herself to respond with a brief inclination of her head and a rather wobbly smile.

      ‘I’m delighted that you were able to join us tonight, Ben!’ Miranda heard her father exclaiming. ‘They’re a good crowd at the club.’

      Behind her father’s back, Miranda grimaced slightly to herself and then flushed wildly as something made her look up and she saw that Ben Frobisher was watching her.

      ‘And you, Miranda,’ he enquired politely, ‘do you play golf?’

      Her father answered for her, chuckling.

      ‘Not Mirry. She doesn’t have the patience. She plays tennis, though …’

      ‘Tennis. It’s becoming very fashionable at the moment.’

      For some reason the musing comment delivered in Ben Frobisher’s very male voice made her stiffen and look defensively at him. She had the feeling that his comment had been slightly barbed … slightly derogatory.

      ‘I’ve been playing ever since I left school,’ she told him challengingly, adding pointedly just in case he hadn’t got the message, ‘long before it became fashionable.’

      As they walked out to the car, Miranda tried to quell her mixed feelings of irritation and embarrassment and then reflected how very different reality was from her daydreams. In them she had perceived Ben Frobisher as a highly desirable stranger, who also desired her; in reality … In reality he quite plainly did nothing of the kind, and there was an abrasion between them, a covert hostility that was making her feel both uncomfortable and defensive.

      It was all because she had made that stupid unguarded comment about the house, of course. And the only reason she had said that had been that she didn’t want to admit to