The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever

Miranda sucked in her lips and looked up at him. 'Yes?'

'Reading without moving your eyes.'

She counted to three before responding. 'Some of us don't have to mouth out the words when we read, Turner.'

'Touche, Miranda. I knew there was still some spark left in you.'

Her nails bit into the cushioned seat. One, two, three. Keep counting. Four, five, six. At this rate she was going to have to go to fifty if she wanted to control her temper.

Turner saw her moving her head slightly along some unknown rhythm and grew curious. 'What are you doing?'

Eighteen, nineteen- 'What?'

'What are you doing?'

Twenty. 'You're growing extremely annoying, Turner.'

'I'm persistent.' He grinned. 'I thought you of all people would appreciate the trait. Now, what were you doing? Your head was bobbing along in a most curious fashion.'

'If you must know,' she said cuttingly, 'I was counting in my head so that I might control my temper.'

He regarded her for a moment, then said, 'One shudders to think what you might have said to me if you hadn't stopped to count first.'

'I'm losing my patience.'

'No!' he said with mock disbelief.

She picked the book up again, trying to dismiss him.

'Stop torturing that poor book, Miranda. We both know you aren't reading it.'

'Will you just leave me alone!' she finally exploded.

'What number are you up to?'

'What?'

'What number? You said you were counting so as not to offend my tender sensibilities.'

'I don't know. Twenty. Thirty. I don't know. I stopped counting about four insults ago.'

'You made it all the way up to thirty? You've been lying to me, Miranda. I don't think you've lost your patience with me at all.'

'Yes…I…have,' she ground out.

'I don't think so.'

'Aaaargh!' She threw the book at him. It clipped him neatly on the side of his head.

'Ouch!'

'Don't be a baby.'

'Don't be a tyrant.'

'Stop goading me!'

'I wasn't goading you.'

'Oh, please, Turner.'

'Oh, all right,' he said petulantly, rubbing the side of his head. 'I was goading you. But I wouldn't have done it if you weren't ignoring me.'

'Excuse me, but I rather thought you wanted me to ignore you.'

'Where the devil did you get that idea?'

Miranda's mouth fell open. 'Are you mad? You have avoided me like the plague for at least the last fortnight. You've even avoided your mother just to avoid me.'

'Now that's not true.'

'Tell that to your mother.'

He winced. 'Miranda, I would like for us to be friends.'

She shook her head. Were there any crueler words in the English language? 'It's not possible.'

'Why not?'

'You can't have it both ways,' Miranda continued, using every ounce of her energy to keep her voice from shaking. 'You can't kiss me and then say you wish to be friends. You can't humiliate me the way you did at the Worthingtons' and then claim that you like me.'

'We must forget what happened,' he said softly. 'We must put it behind us, if not for the sake of our friendship, then for my family.'

'Can you do that?' Miranda demanded. 'Can you truly forget? Because I cannot.'

'Of course you can,' he said, a little too easily.

'I lack your sophistication, Turner,' she said, and then added bitterly, 'Or perhaps I lack your shallowness.'

'I'm not shallow, Miranda,' he shot back. 'I'm sensible. Lord knows, one of us has to be.'

She wished she had something to say. She wished she had some scathing retort that would cut him off at the knees, render him speechless, leaving him quivering in a gelatinous, messy heap of pathetic rot.

But instead she just had herself, and the horrible, angry tears burning behind her eyes. And she wasn't even certain she could manage a proper glare, so she looked away, counting the buildings as they passed by her window and wishing that she were anywhere else.

Anyone else.

And that was the worst, because in all her life, even with a best friend who was prettier, richer, and better- connected than she was, Miranda had never wished to be anyone other than who she was.

* * *

Turner had, in his life, done things of which he was not proud. He had drunk too much and vomited on a priceless rug. He had gambled with money he did not have. He had once even ridden his horse too hard and with too little care and left the horse lame for a week.

But never had he felt quite so low as he did when he looked at Miranda's profile, aimed so determinedly toward the window.

So determinedly away from him.

He did not speak for a long while. They passed out of London, through the outskirts where the buildings grew fewer and farther between, and then finally into open, rolling fields.

She didn't look at him once. He knew. He was watching.

And so finally, since he could not tolerate another hour of this silence, nor could he bring himself to ponder what, exactly, this silence meant, he spoke.

'I do not mean to insult, Miranda,' he said quietly, 'but I know when something is a bad idea. And dallying with you is an extremely bad idea.'

She didn't turn, but he heard her say, 'Why?'

He stared at her in disbelief. 'What are you thinking, Miranda? Don't you give a damn for your reputation? If word gets out about us, you'll be ruined.'

'Or you'll have to marry me,' she said in a low, mocking voice.

'Which I have no intention of doing. You know that.' He swore under his breath. Dear God, that had come out wrong. 'I don't want to marry anyone,' he explained. 'You know that, as well.'

'What I know,' she shot back, her eyes flashing with un-concealed fury, 'is that- ' And then she stopped, clamping her mouth shut and crossing her arms.

'What?' he demanded.

She turned back to the window. 'You wouldn't understand.' And then: 'Nor would you listen.'

Her contemptuous tone was like nails under his skin. 'Oh, please. Petulance does not suit you.'

She whirled around. 'And how should I act? Tell me, what am I supposed to feel?'

His lip curled. 'Grateful?'

'Grateful?'

He sat back, his entire body a study of insolence. 'I could have seduced you, you know. Easily. But I didn't.'