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"Oh, she wouldn’t do that," Sébastien said "She’s rather brusque, but she has a good heart"

That was Sébastien He always saw the best in people

"Actually, she doesn’t have a very good heart, if by that you mean a capacity for human syiven her utter lack of char child without a flicker of an eyelash"

"A screa child?" Linnet shuddered

So she did have a soft spot

"Gavan screa," Piers said "But look at hiain The boy will be going ho allowed to see his mother?"

Sébastien frowned "I’ll look into it, Miss Thrynne" He threw her a hopelessly addled look "What a kind spirit you have Piers and I have been in and out of that roo the question"

"Well, you have the patients, not to esturing across the roos?" Sébastien inquired

But Piers was already chuckling "Those foolish boys," he said, nodding at Penders, Kibbles, and Bitts They were hovering around Lady Bernaise, likely absorbed by his mother’s exuberant display of bosom

"Oh, I see," Sébastien said "I suppose they follow Piers as if he were a mother duck A sweet, lovable reed

"I like that smile better," Piers told her

It vanished

"That was a mean, sarcastic little smile," he continued "It showed the real you"

Her eyes narrowed, and for a ne in the face But Prufrock rang the gong for supper, and she simply turned her shoulder to hi a point of clinging to his ar, sweeping s her for rooe for some small entertainment"

One look at her face and he knew that his Ma!" he saidthe floor cleared and Prufrock at the piano, acco footman with a violin "How very kind of you, Ma for"

His , the world does not revolve around you, and I’ave you the i Sébastien will dance withdown, because when one’s e a coht-backed chair at the other end of the sofa and watched He didn’t even make a pretense not to, just sat, his eyes fixed on his for up at her nephew

"She’s as light on her feet as she ever was," Piers said, after a ti It wasdown at Linnet, for one thing He liked to think of Bitts as a doctor, however incoallant

"Your mother?" His father nodded "You should have seen her when she was seventeen She was as slender as a ith a sparkle in her eyes that made all theto ask her to dance?"

His father glanced over at him, a little twist on his lips that Piers realized, with a shock, he’d felt on his own face, tied the entertainment, and it would be unchivalrous for me not to allow her to refuse me We didn’t waltz back then, of course"

"Back then?" Piers repeated, rather dim-wittedly

"I broke all the rules of society," his father said "I didn’t wait to be introduced, to request her hand in the dance I sio then," Piers said "Pull her onto the floor"