The Historical Collection 2018: The Duchess Deal / From Duke Till Dawn / His Sinful Touch / His Wicked Charm

That last line gave Emma hope—and the courage to knock.

“You came!” A young woman with fair hair and rosy cheeks pulled her into the entrance hall. She’d scarcely closed the door before kissing Emma on the cheek in greeting. “I’m Penny.”

“Penny?”

“Oh, yes. I should have said. I’m properly called Penelope, but the name is rather a mouthful, don’t you think?”

Emma was amazed. This was Lady Penelope Campion? She opened her own door and greeted perfect strangers with kisses on the cheek? Apparently her note of invitation hadn’t been an exaggeration: She truly wasn’t like other ladies.

Emma curtsied, probably more deeply than a duchess would—but the habit was ingrained in her. “Delighted to make your acquaintance.”

“Likewise. The others are dying to meet you.”

Lady Penelope took Emma by the wrist and drew her into a parlor. The room was a jumble of unquestionably fine furnishings that seemed to have seen better days.

“This is Miss Teague,” she said, swiveling Emma toward a ginger-haired young woman dusted with freckles . . . and a fine white powder that looked like flour. “Nicola lives on the southern side of the square.”

“The unfashionable side,” Nicola said.

“The exciting side,” Lady Penny corrected. “The one with all the scandalous artists and mad scientists.”

“My father was one of the latter, Your Grace.”

“Don’t listen to her. She’s one of the latter, too.”

“Thank you, Penny,” Nicola said. “I think.”

“And this is Miss Alexandra Mountbatten.” Emma’s hostess turned her to the third occupant of the salon.

Miss Mountbatten was small of stature and dressed in unremarkable gray serge, but her appearance was made stunning by virtue of her hair—an upswept knot of true black, glossy as obsidian.

“Alex sells the time,” Lady Penelope stated.

Emma could not have heard that correctly. “Sells the time?”

“I earn my living setting clocks to Greenwich time,” she explained, curtsying deeply. “It’s an honor to make your acquaintance, Your Grace.”

“Do sit down,” Penny urged.

Emma obeyed, taking the offered seat—a carved chair that must have been rescued from some French chateau, if not the royal palace. The upholstery, however, had been worn to threads—even slashed in places, with tufts of batting peeking through.

A bleating sound came from somewhere toward the rear of the house.

“Oh, that’s Marigold.” Penny lifted the teapot. “Never mind her.”

“Marigold?”

“The goat,” Nicola explained.

“She’s sick in love with Angus, and she’s most displeased about being quarantined. She has the sniffles, you see.”

“You have two goats, then?”

“Oh, no. Angus is a Highland calf. I shouldn’t encourage them, but they’re herd creatures. They each need a companion. Do you take milk and sugar?”

“Both, please,” Emma said, a bit dazed.

Nicola took pity on her. “Penny has a soft spot for wounded animals. She takes them in, ostensibly to heal them, and then never lets them go.”

“I do let them go,” Penny objected. “Sometimes.”

“Once,” Alexandra put in. “You let one go, once. But do let’s try to hold a normal conversation, just for a few minutes. Otherwise we’ll frighten Her Grace away.”

“Not at all,” Emma assured her. “I’m happy to be here.” The elegant, imposing ladies would wait for another day. “How did you know to invite me?”

“Oh, it’s a small square. Everyone knows everything. The cook tells the costermonger, who tells the maid down the street . . . so on and so forth.” She handed Emma a cup of tea. “They’re saying you were a seamstress until only last week.”

Oh, dear. Emma deflated. She supposed it was unrealistic to hope she could hide it.

Penny clasped her hands together in her lap. “Tell us everything. How did you meet? Was your courtship terribly romantic?”

“I don’t know that one could call it romantic.” In fact, one could call it just about anything else.

“Well, for a duke to marry a seamstress is an extraordinary thing. It’s like a fairy tale, isn’t it? He must have fallen desperately in love with you.”

That wasn’t the truth at all, of course. But how could Emma tell them that he’d married her chiefly because hers was the first convenient womb to appear in his library?

She was saved from answering when a pincushion nestled in a nearby darning basket unfurled itself and toddled away. “Was that a hedgehog?”

Penny’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Yes, but the poor dear’s terribly shy. On account of her traumatic youth, you see. Do have a biscuit. Nicola made them. They’re heavenly.”

Emma reached for one and took a bite. She’d given up on trying to understand anything in this house. She was a barnacle on the hull of the HMS Penelope—she’d no idea of their destination, but she was along for the ride.

Goodness. The biscuit was heavenly. Buttery sweetness melted on her tongue.

“Please don’t think we’re mining you for gossip,” Miss Mountbatten—Alexandra, was it?—said. “Penny’s only curious. We wouldn’t tell anyone else.”

“We scarcely talk to anyone else,” Nicola said. “We’ve a tight little club, the three of us.”

Penny smiled and reached for Emma’s hand. “With room for a fourth, of course.”

“In that case . . .” Emma thoughtfully chewed her last bite of biscuit, washing it down with a swallow of tea. “May I be so bold as to ask for some advice?”

In a unanimous, unspoken yes, Penny, Alexandra, and Nicola leaned forward in their chairs.

“It’s about . . .” She lost her nerve for honesty. “It’s about my cat. I took him in from the streets, and he hasn’t a proper name. Will you help me make a list of possibilities?”

Ash. That’s what his friends called him, he’d said. It felt like progress to be admitted to that inner circle, but Emma wasn’t certain she liked that name, either. For man who’d survived severe burns, Ash sounded ironic at best. At worst, it felt cruel.