Read Online Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever by Julia Quinn - Free Book Online Page B

her.”
    He did not pretend not to know what she was talking about. “She’s dead, Miranda.”
    â€œThat doesn’t mean she wasn’t an exceptionally awful person when she was alive.”
    He looked at her strangely and then burst out laughing. “Oh, Miranda, sometimes you say the damnedest things.”
    She smiled. “Now that I will definitely take as a compliment.”
    â€œRemind me never to put you up for the position of Sunday school teacher.”
    â€œI have never quite mastered Christian virtue, I’m afraid.”
    â€œOh, really?” He looked amused.
    â€œI still hold a grudge against poor little Fiona Bennet.”
    â€œAnd she is…?”
    â€œThat dreadful girl who called me ugly at Olivia and Winston’s eleventh birthday party.”
    â€œDear God, how many years ago was that? Remind me not to cross you.”
    She quirked a brow. “See that you don’t.”
    â€œYou, my dear girl, are decidedly lacking as pertains to charitable nature.”
    She shrugged, marveling at how he’d managed to make her feel so carefree and happy in such a short time. “Don’t tell your mother. She thinks me a saint.”
    â€œCompared to Olivia, I’m sure you are.”
    Miranda wagged her finger at him. “Nothing bad about Olivia, if you please. I’m quite devoted to her.”
    â€œFaithful as a hound you are, if you’ll excuse my less than attractive simile.”
    â€œI adore hounds.”
    And it was then that they arrived at Miranda’s home.
    I adore hounds . That would be her final comment. Wonderful. For the rest of his life, he would associate her with dogs.
    Turner helped her down and then glanced up at the sky, which had begun to darken. “I hope you don’t mind if I do not walk you in,” he murmured.
    â€œOf course not,” Miranda said. She was a practical girl. It was silly for him to get wet when she was perfectly able to let herself into her own home.
    â€œGood luck,” he said, hopping back up into his curricle.
    â€œWith what?”
    â€œLondon, life.” He shrugged. “Whatever you wish.”
    She smiled ruefully. If he only knew.
    19 M AY 1819
    We arrived in London today. I swear I have never seen the like of it. It is big and noisy and crowded and actually rather smelly.
    Lady Rudland says we are late. Many people are already in town, and the season began over a month ago. But there was nothing to be done—Livvy would have looked dreadfully ill-bred to be out and about when she is meant to be mourning Leticia. As it is, we cheated a bit and came early, although only for fittings and preparations. We may not attend events until the mourning is complete.
    Thank heavens only six weeks were required. Poor Turner must do a year.
    I have quite forgiven him, I’m afraid. I know I should not, but I cannot bring myself to despise him. Surely I must hold some kind of record for the longest stint of unrequited love.
    I am pathetic.
    I am a hound.
    I am a pathetic hound.
    And I waste paper quite dreadfully.

Chapter 4
    Turner had planned to spend the spring and summer in Northumberland, where he could decline to mourn his wife with some degree of privacy, but his mother had employed an astonishing number of tactics—the most lethal being guilt, of course—to force his hand and compel him to come down to London in support of Olivia.
    He had not given in when she had pointed out that he was a leader in society and thus his presence at Olivia’s ball would ensure attendance by all the best young gentlemen.
    He had not given in when she had said that he shouldn’t molder away in the country, and it would do him good to be out and about among friends.
    He had, however, given in when she had appeared on his doorstep and said, without even the benefit of a salutation, “She’s your sister .”
    And so here he was, at Rudland House in London, surrounded by