Miranda's Big Mistake - Jill Mansell [118]
`Just thought I'd pop in.' She gave him a playful look. `Are you okay? Not interrupting anything, am I?'
Oh great, this was all he needed, Miranda waggling her eyebrows and doing her arch-psychiatrist bit.
`No.' Better warn her, thought Fenn. `I was just cutting Chloe's hair.'
In the sitting room, Chloe had hurriedly pushed the chair away from the mirror and shoved Fenn's comb and scissors out of sight as guiltily as if they'd been about to launch into a bondage session complete with rubber masks and whips. In the few moments it took Miranda to barge into the room, she hauled out a wallpaper chart and began leafing industriously through it, an expression of deep concentration on her face.
`I used to look like that when I was supposed to be revising for my GCSEs,' Miranda observed. `As soon as you hear someone coming, kick the magazines under the bed, switch off the music, grab a textbook and look riveted.' She gave Fenn a dazzling smile. `What I want to know is why Chloe's doing it now.'
`I thought you were staying in tonight,' said Fenn.
`Danny turned up. He said it was time we were friends again.' Miranda's heels clicked on the bare, sanded-down floorboards as she strode up and down investigating the room.
`So?'
`He took me out for a let's-be-friends-again drink.' `And then what happened?' said Chloe.
`First he was a pompous, patronising git.' Miranda beganticking points off on her fingers. `Then he was totally insulting and rude, refusing to believe a single word I said.'
`It wasn't by any chance one of your excuses for being late, was it?' said Fenn. `Didn't happen to involve a stranded puppy about to be mown down by a juggernaut?'
Miranda ignored this. She ticked off the third finger. `So we ended up having another fight and not being friends again after all.' She shrugged to show she couldn't care less. `I marched out of the pub, forgetting I didn't actually have any money on me. But then I remembered you'd brought Chloe over here, so I thought I'd hitch a lift back with you.' She gave Fenn a winning smile. `I won't be any trouble, honestly. You two just carry on as if I wasn't here.'
`The thing is, Danny's great,' Chloe protested. `We all really like him. What I don't understand is how you manage to get into these arguments with him in the first place.'
`Me? Ha! Basically, he just opens his mouth and starts laying into me.' Miranda looked indignant. `All I do is defend myself.'
`So what was it he refused to believe?'
`Something that was true!'
Fenn, who had found his scissors and was repositioning the chair in front of the mirror, murmured under his breath, `Now who's being evasive?'
`Go on.' Chloe was intrigued by the fact that Miranda was prevaricating. `Tell us.'
`Okay. I told him that I was seeing someone.'
Chloe frowned.
`But you aren't.'
`I am, actually.'
Fenn gave Miranda a sharp look. He hoped this didn't
have anything to do with Miles Harper's scene-stealing appearance in the salon the other day. No, no, it couldn't possibly. Even Miranda wasn't that gullible.
It was curious, though, that she evidently hadn't mentioned the Miles Harper incident to Chloe. Never one to hug an item of gossip to her chest, Miranda had for some reason certainly managed it this time. Fenn couldn't help wondering why.
`And that's what you argued about?' Chloe persisted. `Danny didn't believe you when you told him you had a boyfriend, so you had a fight with him and stormed out of the pub?' She took the towel Fenn had given her and pulled it around her shoulders, struggling to understand.
`He said some horrible things about me,' wailed Miranda. `I'm telling you, Daniel Delancey is a complete pig.'
It went against the grain to even think it, but Fenn was reluctantly forced to admit that he was grateful to Miranda for showing up. Cutting Chloe's hair without a chaperon could have been a risky business. At least now he was able to concentrate on the task in hand.
It was, Fenn reflected, an unreal situation. Normally when he met a girl he liked the look of, they'd end up in bed