A Less Than Perfect Lady. Elizabeth Beacon

with a social smile, for Grandfather had been rebuffed in the harshest of terms when he tried to send his cousin Bevis Alstone’s son and daughters to school instead of settling Bevis’s vintner’s bill as demanded.

      ‘Are we to celebrate our newly established kinship, or mourn it, do you think?’ she asked lightly.

      ‘I shall withhold judgement.’

      ‘Shall you indeed, cousin? How very refreshing to meet a gentleman who refuses to rely on the prejudices of others to form his opinions.’

      ‘You can be certain of one thing, Cousin Miranda, I long ago made it a rule to trust my own prejudices ahead of any others.’

      There was no mistaking the heat in his dark gaze as he let it dwell on her discreetly displayed curves for a little too long, but she chose to pretend ignorance and gave him a sweetly insincere smile. ‘How unenlightened of you,’ she said lightly, ‘so pray excuse me while I look up prejudice in my grandfather’s copy of Dr Johnson’s famous dictionary, Cousin. Does it come before or after proof, I wonder?’

      ‘Oh, dear, that tutor of yours really wasn’t very good, was he? Before, of course.’

      ‘Then should I not appeal to Mr Poulson? I believe it is customary to present all the evidence before the court forms a judgement?’

      ‘Or so we are told,’ he replied sardonically.

      ‘Then I rest my case, my lord,’ she told him.

      ‘Cousin,’ he corrected abruptly.

      ‘Very well, but Cousin what, pray?

      ‘I suspect you know very well my name is Christopher,’ he said and silently dared her to remark on the fact that it was a very common Alstone forename, and probably given to him in defiance of his father’s family rather than to please them.

      She felt a sneaking compassion for the little boy he must once have been, forced to live with the consequences of Bevis Alstone’s drinking, gambling and whoring. Cut off by his family, Bevis must have been an appalling parent. Miranda forced herself not to look for the vulnerable boy in the hard man his son had become. It was far simpler to think of him as just another man of the world, not the complex creature he really was.