Free Miranda's Big Mistake by Jill Mansell Page A

In her rush to reach the sanctuary of the kitchen, Elizabeth knocked into Miranda, jolting her arm. A sesame prawn canapé flew out of Miranda’s hand and landed with a plop in a bowl of floating candles.
    â€˜Oh God, oh God.’ Elizabeth pulled a handkerchief out of her sleeve and mopped her perspiring forehead.
    â€˜Are you all right?’ Miranda peered at her. ‘You look a bit, um…’
    Hysterical was the word that sprang to mind.
    â€˜â€¦hot and bothered.’
    â€˜Troublemakers.’ Elizabeth inclined her head stiffly in the direction of the door. ‘Those two, just arrived. Kicking up a fuss because Daisy Schofield isn’t here.’ Shuddering because her whole reputation was at stake, she wailed, ‘Why can’t people simply relax and enjoy themselves? I’m not Tommy Cooper, I can’t click my fingers and produce a hatful of celebrities out of thin air.’
    â€˜Neither could Tommy Cooper,’ said Miranda. ‘He’d have clicked his fingers and produced a hatful of sausages.’
    â€˜It’s not my fault.’ Elizabeth was by this time close to tears. ‘One of them threatened to sue me for breach of promise.’
    â€˜Which one?’ Miranda demanded, indignant on her behalf.
    â€˜Blue shirt. Oh Lord, look at the state of me. And I’m supposed to be g-getting them another d-drink.’
    Dyed-in-the-wool battleaxes weren’t supposed to cry.
    Swiveling around to glare at the offending pair, Miranda discovered they were already gazing at her.
    The one in the blue shirt smirked and murmured something to his friend.
    Prat, thought Miranda.
    â€˜Come on, put your shoulders back,’ she instructed Bev, ‘and stick your chest out.’
    â€˜Are we going to talk to Wayne Peterson?’ Bev looked worried. She wasn’t at all sure she wanted to marry an alcoholic shaven-headed footballer. Then again—the thought flashed unstoppably through her one-track mind—maybe she could be the one to tame him. They could live together happily ever after in a mock-Tudor mansion in Middlesbrough, buy each other matching diamond-encrusted identity bracelets and have lots of boisterous, shaven-headed mini-footballers—
    â€˜Wayne Peterson? No way.’ Briskly interrupting this fantasy, Miranda seized the two glasses Elizabeth had returned with from the kitchen. ‘Right, just pay attention,’ she told Bev, ‘and follow me.’

Chapter 10
    Having eased herself into bed and arranged the duvet to her satisfaction, Florence shook out last night’s Evening Standard and began to read.
    Politics, politics, boring, boring. Impatiently she skipped over the first couple of pages.
    BUNGEE-JUMPING GREAT-GRANNY, trumpeted the headline on page four, above a photograph of a wizened old woman in a crash helmet. Game-for-anything Alma Trotter, Florence read, jumped for joy when she found out what her family had planned as a surprise for her eighty-seventh birthday.
    Ha, thought Florence, with family like that, who needs enemies? Bumping her off, that was what they’d been planning. Except it hadn’t worked, had it? No wonder the old bird was looking so smug.
    But it was ten minutes later that an article on page twenty-three really made Florence sit up and take notice.
    THAI BRIDE ODDS-ON FAVORITE FOR COLONEL TOM.
    â€˜You old devil,’ Florence exclaimed, peering at the photograph below of a grinning man in his seventies sitting with one arm around the slender waist of a pretty Oriental girl. ‘Tom Barrett, what are you up to now?’
    Florence and Ray had first met Tom Barrett and his wife Louisa back in the early seventies, and following Ray’s death Florence had remained friendly with them. The last time she had seen Tom was at Louisa’s funeral three years ago, following which he had disappeared to Spain in order to spend some time with his daughter and her family and come to terms with