Miranda's Big Mistake - Jill Mansell [131]
`I came to apologise,' said Danny. `And the flowers are for you.'
`Pink roses?' Caught off-guard by this, Miranda instinctively went on the attack. `You saw pale pink roses and thought of me?'
`Yes, well, they'd sold right out of cactus plants.' Striding past her, plonking the flowers down on the hall table, Danny said, `Just humour me for a minute, will you? This is about Miles. I didn't believe you before, but I do now. And I'm sorry.'
`Sorry you didn't believe me, or sorry he's dead?' Miranda shoved her hands into the pockets of her dark-blue fleecy top. The weather had worsened dramatically over the last few days and since watching the funeral on the six o'clock news she hadn't been able to stop shivering.
`Both. I would have come over sooner but I thought you might not want to see me.' He paused. `I suppose I felt I'd done enough damage.'
Imagine that, Miranda marvelled. Danny Delancey has a conscience.
`How did you find out?'
`I saw the pre-race interview. He was wearing your copper pig… talking about you… I realised it was all true.'
`Oh well, not to worry,' said Miranda. `It would never have worked anyway. As you so kindly pointed out. Another couple of weeks and he'd have been off, chasing after the next conquest.'
`Look, where's Chloe?'
`Antenatal class. Learning how to breathe.'
`And Florence?'
`Love's young dream? Still up in Scotland with Tom.' Miranda smiled, recalling the look of shock on the postman's face when he had glanced at Florence's last postcard. `They're visiting old friends from their army days.'
`Did you go to the funeral this afternoon?'
`No.'
`Why not?'
`Take a wild guess.' Miranda paused. `She came into the salon this morning, to have her hair done for it.'
`Daisy Schofield,' said Danny
`Who else? And get this, she brought a photographer along with her, from Hi! magazine.' Miranda assumed a Hi!-type voice. `To take pictures of the grieving fiancйe as she prepares to say goodbye to the one true love of her life.'
`You're not serious.' Danny looked appalled. `And Fenn did her hair?'
`No. He told her we were fully booked and packed her off to try her luck with Nicky Clarke.'
`Are you hungry?' said Danny. `Let me take you to dinner.'
It was Friday evening. Exactly this time one week ago, Miranda remembered, they had gone out together for a let's-be-friends-again drink. And hadn't that gone well.
`I don't know.' It seemed a bit pointless. She wasn't even hungry.
`Hey, I'm trying to say sorry here.' Danny held out his hands, palms upwards. `Humour me, okay? Anywhere you'd like to go.'
`Anywhere? Oh well,' said Miranda, `if you put it like that…'
The bridge over the Ml was banked high on both sides with flowers, their cellophane wrappings crackling in the stiff breeze. Candles flickered in glass jars amongst the multicoloured bouquets. Mourning members of the public walked the length of the bridge, peered silently down on to the southbound carriageway of the motorway where the accident had happened, and wept on each other's shoulders.
Miranda didn't weep. She dug her hands deeper into the pockets of her fleecy jacket and gazed without speaking at the moving spectacle stretched out before her. How could the loss of someone she had known for only a few days affect her so much?
Her fingers closed around the copper pig in her pocket. As she stroked its soothingly familiar curves, Danny came up behind her. Having discreetly hung back for a few minutes, he now rested a hand on Miranda's shoulder.
`Okay?'
`Okay.'
`I've got a handkerchief if you want one.'
`No.' She shook her head. `I'm not going to cry any more. I've done enough of that.'
`Right.'
`I told you a lie last week, by the way.' Miranda twisted round to face him, her dark eyes bright. `When you asked me if I'd slept with him, I said I had.' She paused. `Well, that wasn't true. I never did.'
Relieved to hear it, Danny gave her shoulder a squeeze. `Doesn't matter.'
`It does matter,' said Miranda. `I wish I had.'
Chapter 52
Summer ended and autumn swept in with a vengeance. By the second week