At the age of ten, Miss Miranda Cheever showed no signs of ever becoming a Great Beauty 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 naive girl