[slowsmile]

I've just tested this code which seems to successfully get rid of that unwanted space:

<p class="first"><span class="stand">T</span><span class="small">HE GLACIER WOUND AND TWISTED</span> between upthrust walls of naked stone.</p>

p{margin:0;text-align:justify;}
.first{text-indent:0;margin-top:2em;}
.stand{font-style:italic;font-weight:bold;line-height:0;font-size:2.5em;padding:0;}
.small{font-size:0.7777em;}

For some reason, the line-height:0 in the stand class seems to remove the unwanted excess lower space. Since line-height:0 is not allowed, the epub will always automatically reset that line-height:0 value back to it's default line-height setting - which is normally 1.2 or 120%. Hence the unwanted space magically disappears. That's just a guess on my part by the way. But this fix seems to do the job of successfully getting rid of that unwanted space below when tested on both Adobe Digital Editions and Kindle Previewer. See attachments below.