Free A Strange Likeness by Paula Marshall Page B

difference between you. I hear from my brother George that you have been enjoying yourself in the City.’
    â€˜Work to be done there,’ agreed Alan. ‘I like a challenge.’
    â€˜Apparently. I wish more of our young men did. We grow soft.’
    â€˜An old head on young shoulders,’ Sir Richard told his wife later.
    Introduced to his Loring relatives en masse , as it were, Alan told them collectively, ‘It’s a pleasure to meet my English cousins whom I did not know that I possessed.’
    Victor frowned. Caroline, wearing a pink gauze frock which did her no favours, smiled admiringly at him.
    Clara Loring said gently, ‘We never knew your mama. She left England with her father after Fred’s bankruptcy. I hardly knew him, either. I believe that he quarrelled with his family before he lost everything.’
    Well, they certainly quarrelled with him after he was ruined, thought Alan, but being a polite young man he bowed and smiled at her. Both Loring women appeared to be faded and cowed, and the reason was obvious: the dominant and personable Victor, who stood over them full of himself. He was a bullying Beastly Beverley grown up.
    â€˜Must say that your arrival, as well as the news of Cousin Hester’s family, was a great shock to us all,’ was his grudging contribution to the conversation.
    Alan nodded. ‘Must have been,’ he agreed: a statement which was laconic and cryptic enough to have pleased his father. ‘My mother left England when she was so young that she scarcely knew what family she had. It was a great shock to her, too.’
    This was something of a gloss on the truth, but it seemed the thing to say. Nothing ever shocked his strong-minded little mother—‘surprised’ would have been a better word.
    Victor made a great effort to be civil to the sandy-haired barbarian who had diddled him out of a fortune. Yes, the wretch had Ned Hatton’s face, but there the resemblance ended. It was as plain to him as it was to everyone else that he shared no other attribute with Ned. Side by side they were of a height, and a similar shape, but examined closely Alan’s athleticism and his hard determination shone out of him.
    A friend had told Victor earlier that day, ‘Shouldn’t be surprised if that new cousin of yours was having it off with Marguerite Bencolin. I should be wary of him if Iwere you, old boy. Anyone who can have La Bencolin under him not long after meeting her bears watching.’
    â€˜Stuff,’ Victor had said rudely. ‘I can’t see his attraction myself. Fools say anything about a new face.’
    â€˜He hasn’t got a new face,’ his friend had guffawed. ‘Only Ned Hatton’s old one.’
    Now, meeting him at last, Victor thought glumly that it was bad enough to have an unknown cousin disinherit him, but even worse to discover him to be so formidable despite his lack of years. Victor, at over thirty, felt himself to be juvenile beside him. Were all Australians so indecently mature? On the other hand, perhaps Caroline could be persuaded to charm the swine and get the money back that way. Now, there was a thought worth having!
    As the evening wore on, however, it became apparent to Victor that, La Bencolin or no La Bencolin, Alan’s attention was fixed on Eleanor, and that Eleanor sparkled when he spoke to her. This added to the dislike he already felt for his supplanter.
    He also feared that Eleanor was not so attracted to himself as she had once been.
    He was not wrong. Eleanor was beginning to feel an even stronger disgust for Victor’s unkind remarks. Alan was shrewd, but he tempered his knowledge of the world with a half self-deprecating, half-teasing humour.
    Drinking their port after dinner, the gentlemen indulged in male gossip.
    â€˜Hear you spar a little,’ said Victor, who was indulging himself with the Stantons’ good port.
    â€˜A little,’ said