Miranda froze, then moved slowly, as if completing the most odious of chores. She held up the book.

"Aeschylus. How depressing."

"It fits my mood."

"Oh dear, was that a barb?"

"Don't be condescending, Turner. Under the circumstances, it's hardly appropriate."

He raised his brows. "And what, precisely, might that mean?"

"It means that after all that has, er, occurred between us, your superior attitude is no longer justified."

"My, but that was a long sentence."

Miranda let her glare be her reply. This time, when she picked up the book again, it covered her face entirely.

Turner chuckled and leaned back, surprised by how much he was enjoying himself. The quiet ones were always the most interesting. Miranda might not ever choose to place herself at the center of attention, but she could hold her own in a conversation with wit and style. Baiting her was great fun. And he didn't feel the least bit guilty for it. For all her disgruntled behavior, he had no doubt that she enjoyed the verbal sparring every bit as much as he did.

This trip might not be quite so hellish. He just had to make sure he kept her engaged in this sort of amusing conversation and didn't stare too long at her mouth.

He really liked her mouth.

But he wasn't going to think about that. He was going to resume their conversation and try to enjoy himself the way he had before they had become embroiled in this mess. He rather missed his old friendship with Miranda, and he supposed that as long as they were trapped together in this carriage for two hours, he might as well see what he could do to patch things up.

"What are you reading?" he asked.

She looked up irritably. "Aeschylus. Didn't you already ask me that?"

"I meant which Aeschylus," he improvised.

To his great amusement, she had to look down at the book before replying, "The Eumenides."

He winced.

"You don't like it?"

"All those furious women? I think not. Give me a nice adventure story any day."

"I like furious women."

"You feel a great empathy? Oh dear, no, don't grind your teeth, Miranda, you'd not enjoy a visit to the dentist, I promise you."

Her expression was such that he could do nothing but laugh. "Oh, don't be so sensitive, Miranda."

Still glaring at him, she muttered, "So sorry, my lord," and then somehow managed to drop an obsequious curtsy right there in the middle of the carriage.

Turner's chuckles exploded into rollicking laughter. "Oh, Miranda," he said, wiping his eyes. "You are a gem."

When he finally recovered, she was staring at him like he was a lunatic. He thought briefly about holding up his hands like claws and letting out some sort of strange, animalistic sound, just to confirm her suspicions. But in the end he just sat back and grinned.

She shook her head. "I don't understand you."

He didn't respond, not wishing to let the conversation slip back into serious waters. She picked up her book again, and this time he busied himself by timing how many minutes passed before she turned a page. When the score was five and zero, he quirked a smile. "Difficult reading?"

Miranda slowly lowered the book and leveled a deadly gaze in his direction. "Excuse me?"

"A lot of big words?"

She just stared at him.

"You haven't turned a page since you started."

She let out a vocal growl and with great determination flipped a page over.

"Is that English or Greek?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"If it's the Greek, it might explain your speed."

Her lips parted.

"Or lack thereof," he said with a shrug.

"I can read Greek," she bit off.

"Yes, and it's a noteworthy achievement."

She looked down at her hands. They were gripping the book so tightly, her knuckles were turning white. "Thank you," she ground out.

But he wasn't done. "Uncommon for a female, wouldn't you say?"

This time, she decided to ignore him.

"Olivia can't read in the Greek," he said conversationally.

"Olivia doesn't have a father who does nothing but read in the Greek," she said without looking up. She tried to concentrate on the words at the top of the new page, but they didn't make much sense, as she hadn't finished reading the previous one. She hadn't even started.

She tapped a gloved finger against the book as she pretended to read. She didn't suppose there was any way she could flip back to the previous page without his noticing. It didn't matter much anyway, for she doubted she'd manage to get any reading done while he was staring at her in that heavy-lidded way of his. It was deadly, she decided. It made her hot and shivery, and it did this simultaneously and while she was thoroughly irritated with the man.

She was fairly certain he had no interest in seducing her, but he was doing a rather good job of it, regardless.

"A peculiar talent, that."

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."

"Touché, 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.