After she had replaced the receiver, she went out into the main office and asked Liz not to put any more calls through to her.
‘I’ve got to finish this piece for the paper,’ she told her with a groan, ‘and at the moment I’m rather struggling with it.’
‘Will do,’ Liz assured her, adding, ‘Oh, and by the way, your father said to tell you that he’s taking the afternoon off.’
‘Golfing, is he?’ Miranda asked wryly.
Liz laughed. ‘No, as a matter of fact he and Helen are going in to Bath. Helen said she was beginning to panic that she’d be walking down the aisle in the suit she wore for Linda Holmes’s wedding last year unless she finds something soon.’ They both laughed, and then Liz added, ‘I’m going out for a sandwich soon. Want me to get you something?’
‘Please. I doubt if I’m going to get much chance to get out of the office today. I’ve got reports to do on those two cottages I inspected last week.’
‘No good?’ Liz asked her sympathetically.
‘Well, they’re basically sound, but they need a lot of work doing on them, and I mean a lot of work, and the guy who’s selling them doesn’t seem to realise that at the moment we’re in a buyers’ market. The price he wants for them is far too high. Anyway, I’d better get back to my article.’
‘Good luck, and don’t worry. I’ll field all your calls for you.’
An hour later, when Liz came in with the sandwich she had ordered and a mug of coffee, Miranda was astounded to discover that it was lunchtime.
Thanking the other woman, she pushed aside her notes and picked up the copy of Country Life which had been delivered with the morning papers.
As she scrutinised the houses advertised in it and ate her lunch, she deliberately refused to allow herself to dwell on her earlier telephone call or Ben Frobisher. Let the gossips embroider the facts as much as they wished. Sooner or later the truth would become obvious. Even so… She looked up from the magazine, and frowned. It would have helped if Ben himself hadn’t played into their hands last night, and as for that kiss at the golf club being witnessed…
Don’t think about that kiss, she advised herself hastily, almost choking as she gulped at her still too hot coffee.
It was gone two o’clock before she had finished her article to her satisfaction. It was her normal practice to walk round to the offices of the local paper with it, and it seemed silly to deviate from this habit simply because her route to the paper took her right past Ben’s house in the High Street. As she pulled on her jacket, she asked herself scoffingly if she intended to spend the rest of her life avoiding using one of the town’s main thoroughfares, simply because of the remote chance that she might see Ben Frobisher.
He probably wouldn’t even be there, she told herself briskly, as she told Liz where she was going and opened the office door.
It was a blustery March day, the wind soft and warm with the promise of spring, and the clouds high and white overhead in a vividly blue sky.
She didn’t even manage to get across the town square before she was stopped. Sighing, she smiled a greeting at Lillian Forsyth, the wife of the vicar.
‘I’ve been hearing the good news about last night’s committee meeting,’ Lillian told her. ‘I’m sorry I missed it. It’s wonderful news, though, isn’t it? I mean, to have someone new coming into the town who’s obviously as keen as us to preserve its character. Bob was saying that he thought it might be a good idea to invite him on to the committee. As he pointed out, having such a successful entrepreneur among our ranks is bound to add weight to our cause. Actually I suspect he’s probably going to be in touch with you about it. I get the impression that the general feeling is that you be nominated to approach him to see how he feels about joining us officially.’
‘Me?’ Miranda questioned, her heart sinking.
‘Well, yes. In view of your… your friendship with him.’
Her heart sank even further. Lillian Forsyth was beginning to look slightly embarrassed. Miranda knew she had caught the sharp edge in her voice, and told herself that it was hardly the vicar’s wife’s fault if her relationship with Frobisher had been exaggerated into something it was most definitely not.
‘Well, I’ll certainly ask my father to approach him if that’s what the committee wants,’ Miranda told her. ‘He knows Ben—Mr Frobisher far better than I do. After all, he was the one who sold him the house and not me.’
If she had hoped by this statement to underline the fact that her acquaintance with Ben Frobisher was confined purely to business and existed only through her father, she soon realised that she had been over-optimistic, as Lillian Forsyth floundered and asked uncertainly, ‘Oh, but I thought… that is… Well, I’d better get on. There’s a WI meeting this evening.’
As she walked into the High Street, Miranda deliberately crossed over the road so that she was on the opposite side from the house Ben had bought, and as she drew level with it she deliberately increased her pace and avoided looking at it.
And yet traitorously her heart started to thump far more heavily than her brisk walking pace necessitated, and there was an unfamiliar tight sensation of apprehension-cum-excitement constricting her chest.
When she was several yards past the house she slackened her pace, crossly refusing to acknowledge that the feeling she was experiencing owed more to disappointment than relief.
To punish herself for this emotional treachery to her own best interests, once she had delivered her piece to the newspaper editor, she deliberately took a circuitous route back to the office.
‘Any calls?’ she asked Liz when she opened the door.
‘Only one… from Ben Frobisher,’ Liz told her, studiously keeping her voice blank of all expression. ‘I told him you weren’t available, so he said to tell you that he’d pick you up here at five-thirty.’
‘He’d what?’ Miranda could scarcely believe what she had just heard.
‘He said to tell you he’d pick you up at five-thirty. Something about showing you the plans for the conversion. He said you hadn’t had an opportunity to see them with the others last night. He said you’d know all about it and be expecting his call.’
‘Did he leave a number?’ Miranda asked her dangerously. She was seething with anger. What on earth did he think he was doing? Wasn’t it enough that he had already stirred up all sorts of gossip about the pair of them, without adding this? But at least only Liz had heard him on this occasion. She worried at her bottom lip, and then asked unevenly, ‘Liz, would you mind… could I ask you?’
The other girl waited, watching her a little uncertainty.
‘I… that is, my relationship with Ben Frobisher… I’d rather no one else knew about his phone call,’ she told her uncomfortably. ‘If you wouldn’t mind keeping it to yourself.’
Immediately Liz’s face fell.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Miranda,’ she apologised. ‘Obviously I wouldn’t tell a soul, but unfortunately Anne Soames was in here when he rang… and Mr Frobisher does have very good diction. You know what she’s like… I’m afraid she must have heard virtually the whole conversation.’
Miranda’s heart sank.
Anne Soames was one of the worst gossips in the area. Never maliciously so, and certain allowances had to be made for her as since she had been widowed three years earlier she had been very lonely, but, of all the people to have overheard Ben’s telephone call, she was the one Miranda would have most wanted not to have done so.
‘Look, I am sorry,’ Liz told her gently. ‘And I do understand what it’s like when you first start a new relationship. You want to keep it to yourself… especially—’
Miranda suppressed a strong desire to scream and gritted her teeth to say bitterly, ‘Oh, no, Liz, not you as well! Look, there is no relationship between Ben Frobisher and me, other than that he was a client of this firm, and as one of its partners I accompanied him to last week’s golf club do to make up the numbers. As for all this extraordinary gossip that’s flying a
round… Why on earth can’t people learn to mind their own business?’ She stopped, aware that she was probably a little unfair. ‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised, ‘but there are times when living in a small town surrounded by people who’ve known you all your life can be very…
‘Ben Frobisher is an acquaintance, nothing more. Can you imagine how I’m going to feel when all this gossip reaches his ears, as it must?’
‘Perhaps if you explained to him,’ Liz suggested.