The man had a bright and engaging face and Ben couldn’t help but smile softly to herself as a consummate ministry professional being so recently harangued by a horse. They were oddly incongruous facts to sit side by side in one person. When he introduced himself as the head of the Aurors office, her smile faltered a little. This was no bookish clark, not a gentleman who spent his days bowed over papers and books, he was well used to action and was assuredly kow towed by very little in life. It also meant that he was a gentleman of small importance. It only took a second for Ben to master her facial expressions and readjust the polite poker face that most young woman of her age and station were well used to adopting when faced with a gentleman they didn’t know well.

’My my sir’ she said with a suitably impressed smile, ’I shall have to watch what I say lest I land myself in all sorts of trouble.’ She echoed his greeting with a demure curtsey of her own, ’Miss Benevolence Montague’ she greeted. The business which bore her family name would not be the only reason he potentially recognised the name if not the woman who bore it. Like herself, he would recognise the surname of another pureblood family – there were few enough and every pureblood child knew by wrote the names of the others, if only to make sure no alliance or romance forged bonds that were too close for comfort. That behaviour was left to the likes of the Gaunts.

Benevolence did not care to spend much time in the Debutante circles were the upper middle classes and the wealthy rubbed shoulders, she did only what duty and social expectation required, but she had been in the company of the elder Mrs Prewett on a few occasions, the sort of polite teas where mercenary mothers assessed the prospects of young ladies – on the behaviour of the mothers of England the writings of the late Miss Austen were well and truly accurate. ’I believe sir that I have had the pleasure of your mothers acquaintance at the ball at Mrs Averforths some weeks ago.’ she added.