The Rich Man's Mistress

‘Or else what…?’

‘You don’t want to find out,’ he said silkily. ‘Now, stand up and try that foot of yours.’

When she remained on the bed, he leaned over her and said in a low, razor-sharp voice, ‘Shall I just remind you that you’re an unwanted and unwelcome intrusion into my house…’

‘Your house?’

‘While I’m looking after it, it’s my house. And if you think you’re going to play the grand princess and laze around for the next few days, or weeks if this weather doesn’t sort itself out, then you’re in for a shock. I’m not a man who puts up with the wiles and tantrums of a spoiled little rich girl!’

‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ Her imperious voice, which reflected more than anything else her bemusement at finding herself in the situation she was in and dealing with the man in front of her, failed to strike a chord. Or rather it did. Luke burst out laughing.

‘Oh, dear,’ he said, sobering up but not sufficiently to stop the occasional cynical chuckle from slipping through. ‘Oh, dear, dear, dear. And you wonder why I call you m’lady? Now, up!’

Miranda reluctantly swung her legs over the side of the bed, noting with relief that the tee shirt modestly reached down to just above her knees, and grasped his proffered hand.

‘Try and put a little weight on it.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Just try, and stop acting like a baby.’

Which did it. She tentatively touched the ground with her foot and discovered as she applied a bit more pressure that the immediate searing pain she had felt the previous day had become more of a persistent, dull discomfort.

‘I’ll remove the bandage before you get dressed and soak your foot in some cold water and then I’ll truss you up again.’

‘There’s no need. I can do that myself.’

‘Should I allow you to do that, I would live for ever in fear of Daddy’s avenging wrath.’

Miranda stopped her halting walk and stared up at him. ‘I hate that. Why are you so…horrible and scathing about me? You don’t even know who I am or what sort of person I am! Yet you feel it’s all right to make nasty, derogatory comments about me and my father. Daddy always said that the worst snobs are the inverted snobs. He always said that they’re the worst because they never give you a chance to prove yourself one way or another. They just assume that because someone has money, then they can’t be worthwhile.’ She found herself breathing shallowly as she stared up into his blue eyes.

‘Is that what you think I am?’ he finally asked curiously. ‘An inverted snob?’

‘Why else would you be so awful? Just because you don’t have any money doesn’t make it my fault!’

‘No, I guess you’re right,’ he said in an odd voice, ‘it doesn’t, does it?’

Instead of feeling pleased at this unexpected victory, Miranda felt suddenly nervous. Nervous because she had become quickly accustomed to his hostility and the lack of it was confusing.

‘My foot feels a lot better,’ she said, to change the subject, supporting herself on his arm as they headed slowly towards the bathroom, where a further unwanted reminder of his ministrations confronted her in the shape of the blue bath towel she had used the night before, neatly hanging over the towel rail.

She sat on the closed toilet seat and watched as he filled a plastic basin with cold water.

‘It’s freezing,’ she gasped as he soaked her foot.

He said, without looking up, ‘It’ll reduce most of the rest of the swelling. Don’t worry. You’ll get used to the temperature. There.’ He held up her foot and examined it like a butcher sizing up a joint of meat. ‘Not very pretty, but it’ll do.’ Then he carefully rebandaged it, taking his time. ‘Now, there’s a change of clothes behind you on the ledge and you might want to do something with that hair of yours. Tie it up, perhaps. Not very practical having that mane swinging around, I shouldn’t think.’

‘Actually,’ Miranda informed him coolly, ‘a woman’s mane is her crowning glory.’

‘Oh, is that so? And I always thought of her crowning glory was her mind. How much I’m learning from you.’ He shot her a brief, patronising grin and then left.

Miranda gingerly stood up and for the first time took a long look at her reflection in the mirror. Her waist-length blonde hair had been damp when she had fallen asleep, but even so it had dried and now fell in its usual silky curtain around her face. Her wide blue eyes absorbed the stunning prettiness of her features then, as she stripped off the oversized tee shirt, idly scanned the exquisite, slender proportions of her body. These looks, she thought dispassionately, had turned heads and had opened countless doors to the world of beautiful people in which she moved. If she had been dowdy and unattractive, would she have been as popular? Would men have beaten a path to her door, however much money her father had? Probably not. For the first time, she realised that her looks carried a downside. The had attracted men like Freddie, but looks were disposable. None of the men in her brittle world ever seemed to take time out to search for what lay beneath the sparkling veneer.

She very quickly washed her face and changed into yet another tee shirt and a pair of jogging bottoms that had to be tied with the tan leather belt thoughtfully left along with the bundle of clothes. Then she made her way down the stairs, refusing to yell for assistance.

Luke was in the kitchen clearing up and, for a few minutes, Miranda hovered uncertainly by the door, wondering what to do next.

‘Make yourself at home,’ he said drily. ‘I don’t bite.’

She edged to the pine kitchen table and sat down.

‘How long does this caretaker job last?’ she asked, for the sake of asking something, and he turned to look at her with a momentary expression of bewilderment. Then his face cleared.

‘Oh, this caretaker job?’ he said carelessly. ‘Oh, not very long.’

‘And then you…’

‘Move on.’

‘Move on to what?’ He made a good caretaker, she thought. The kitchen was tidy, with a stack of logs neatly chopped and piled in the corner.

‘Other things,’ he said vaguely. ‘Now, normally I tend to spend the days outside, but this blizzard has put paid to that, so we might as well work out some kind of routine here so that you don’t get in my way.’

Miranda immediately began to bristle. ‘I won’t get in your way. I’m more than happy to spend my time reading.’

‘Good.’ He paused to sit down, spinning the chair back so that he sat on it with his hands loosely hanging over the back. ‘Because I have some business to attend to on my laptop and I don’t want to feel that you’re lurking around waiting to be entertained.’

‘I don’t expect to be entertained.’

‘Don’t you?’

‘I’m quite happy in my own company.’ Miranda paused to digest this and realised that she was very seldom in her own company. Even at night, when she flopped into bed, sometimes in the early hours of the morning, she was always too tried to really spend any time on her own. ‘What work do you have to do?’ she asked curiously. ‘On a computer? I wouldn’t have thought…’

‘That I was clever enough to use a computer? Or maybe you thought that I’d never even heard of one?’ He grinned wickedly at her blushing discomfort. ‘News of technological breakthroughs do sometimes drift even to we yokels, you know. In fact, I’ll take a small bet with you that you’re the one who doesn’t have a clue how to operate a computer.’

Miranda’s face went a shade deeper in colour.

‘Mmm,’ Luke said pensively. ‘Not much point having a computer on the ski slopes, is there? Or at the races? Or in Mustique for a few weeks over summer?’

‘I—I—’

‘You—you—what?’

‘I learned everything about computers when I was doing my design course,’ she said, holding her chin up to counteract the level of defensiveness in her voice.

‘Oh, yes, that interior design course of yours.’ He was virtually smirking, and Miranda glowered impotently at him. ‘Well, wait right here.’ He stood up and she watched suspiciously while he disappeared out of the kitchen, only to return minutes later with a sleek black laptop in his hand.

‘There, now.’ He flicked it open, pressed a few buttons and the screen unfolded into life. ‘Why don’t you amuse yourself with this for a little while just while I fetch some more logs from the outside shed and do a bit of chopping.’ He moved swiftly around the table so that he was bending over her, one hand resting on the table top, the other pressing various icons until an architectural drawing of a house appeared on the screen.