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.
Chapter Five
Coppice opened the doors and warily informed the company that dinner was served. As the senior and most socially distinguished woman present, Lady Clarissa went in on Lord Carnwood’s arm. Miranda told herself she was well pleased to be next to Mr Poulson and opposite the new vicar. Lady Clarissa took the foot of the table and had to content herself with insisting Celia took precedence over the vicar’s wife and had the other seat by the new Earl.
‘Surely we don’t need to stand on ceremony?’ Miranda asked rashly, used to informality presiding over state at her godmother’s table.
‘Indeed not,’ Lord Carnwood agreed. ‘Coppice? See that a round dining table is installed in the Blue Parlour by tomorrow night,’ he ordered with the air of easy command that Miranda had already noted the servants obeyed without a second thought. ‘We shall take our meals there whenever there are less than a dozen of us to dinner in future, and meet beforehand in the Countess’s Sitting Room, not the State Drawing Room.’
‘Very good, my lord,’ Coppice replied, a faint smile lifting his thin lips.
‘I do not approve of such shabby-genteel arrangements!’ Lady Clarissa announced regally.
‘Very well. Coppice, will you see that Lady Clarissa is served in here every evening? I doubt the rest of us will disturb her at such a distance.’
Coppice wisely said nothing, but Miranda thought she caught a twinkle in his eye as he waited impassively on events.
‘Well, I shall enjoy the novelty,’ Celia said, with a hard look for her bridling parent.
Ambition for her daughter narrowly beat Lady Clarissa’s pride. ‘Very well, let it be so,’ she said grandly and nobody bothered to point out that it would be so, whether she liked it or not.
After that Miranda was not the only one to concentrate on her excellent dinner and her thoughts. Deciding that her aunt would always be a mystery to her, she turned to her dinner companion in the hope of setting an innocuous hum of conversation going.
‘How did your journey really go, Mr Poulson?’
‘In truth, I would rather not travel at this time of year, Mrs Braxton. The roads are naught but a sea of mud and the beds at the inn I stayed in last night were decidedly damp,’ the little lawyer told her indignantly.
‘How very distressing for you,’ she said soothingly, thinking ruefully of her desperate journey to Lady Rhys’s remote home five years ago, when she and Leah slept fitfully on top of a swaying accommodation coach to stretch their small store of money.
‘Still, we must all suffer in the line of duty now and again,’ the little lawyer said piously, ‘but how was your own journey, ma’am?’
‘Uneventful,’ she said cheerfully, ‘and worth it to experience the benefits of Cook’s skills again. Have you tried her baked trout, sir?’
‘It almost blots out the memory of those sheets,’ he replied with a self-deprecating smile.
While he set to with a will, Miranda surreptitiously watched their dining companions. Mr Draycott was being condescended to by her aunt while she regally ignored his wife, presumably because Mrs Draycott was very pretty and must not interfere with Celia’s fascination of the Earl. She saw Mrs Draycott meet her husband’s gaze with rueful amusement and wondered how it felt to love like that after years of marriage. Her own delusions of love had barely outlasted the ceremony over the anvil, and how she wished she had possessed a little more patience and discernment.
Ironic, was it not, that a woman supposedly experienced in the arts of love knew virtually nothing about that tender passion? Luckily Celia’s polite titter distracted her just then and reminded her of another conundrum. Considering her cousin rarely did anything on impulse, her hasty wedding to a mere lieutenant of Foot Guards was a puzzle in itself. Surely Celia hadn’t married for true love?
Miranda frowned and wondered why she thought her cousin incapable of such untidy emotions. She had never met the gallant lieutenant, of course, and the poor man had been dead within weeks of their hasty London wedding. There had been no seven-month pregnancy to tell of illicit passion, unlikely as such weakness seemed on the part of her icily lovely cousin. Yet Grandfather must have disapproved, or Celia would have been married from Wychwood with as much splendour as Lady Clarissa could contrive.
‘This beef is as good as any I ever tasted, Mrs Braxton,’ Mr Poulson said with a hint of reproach as he eyed her untasted portion.
‘My appetite seems to have deserted me,’ she admitted.
‘Indeed, this must be an ordeal,’ he said with quiet sympathy.
Touched by such understanding, she sought to reassure him. ‘I have grown a very thick skin of late years,’ she assured him with a mischievous smile. ‘And my old friends below stairs seem pleased to see me.’
At last it was time for the ladies to retire to the barn-like State Drawing Room while the gentlemen enjoyed their port in peace. It wouldn’t be a riotous interlude, Miranda decided, considering the company. Yet she would rather have endured the earl’s jibes than join her aunt, Celia and a vicar’s wife who must disapprove of her on principle. She bore it stoically for a while, then excused herself, fearing that if she stayed she might say something scandalous just to live down to their expectations.
Opening the door of the library cautiously, in case his lordship had sneaked back into it when her back was turned, she sniffed the familiar scents of books and lavender polish. Closing her eyes, she could almost fool herself that Grandfather would be sitting in his favourite chair by the fire, absorbed in his beloved Homer and a glass of fine cognac. Of course the chair was empty when she opened them and she allowed herself a sigh of regret at not seeing him so one last time.
‘Don’t tell me you’re looking for a book, Mrs Braxton?’ the new Earl asked disbelievingly and Miranda cursed herself for leaving the door open—although she supposed she could hardly shut him out of his own library.
‘Then I won’t, my lord,’ she told him equably and tried to move round him; the dull