1 March 1811. Today I fell in love. At the age of ten, Miss Miranda Cheever showed no signs of ever becoming a Great Beauty. Her hair was lamentably brown, her eyes the same muddy colour, and her legs, which were uncommonly long, refused to learn anything which might remotely be called grace. Only, in 1811, the nineteen-year-old Viscount Turner - eldest brother of Miranda's closest friend - had kissed the hand of an awkward ten-year-old girl and promised her that one day she'd be as beautiful as she was smart. Now, eight years later, Miranda is a woman grown, and Turner an embittered widower. But she has never forgotten his kindness. Indeed it is only in her diary that she confides the truth: she has never stopped loving Turner, and she has never stopped hoping that one day he will see her as more than a nave girl.