LITMIR.BIZ

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left her room on wobbly legs, then sank against the door.

       Please be fertile, or you’ll be the death of me.

Chapter Twelve

      Walking through the streets that night was a novel experience.

      Forget stalking and prowling down the darkened alleyways. Tonight, Ash was all but skipping. Gamboling.

      He didn’t encounter any enraging specimens of human refuse.

      He was no longer sexually frustrated to the point of irascibility.

      He felt almost . . . human again.

      He even strolled across an open square.

      “Say!” someone called. “You’re the Monster of Mayfair!”

      And with that, Ash’s lightened mood popped like a balloon. So much for feeling human.

      A gangly figure jogged across the green to him. Ash pushed back the brim of his hat, revealing his face, and scowled. That always worked on the children.

      For it was, in fact, a school-aged boy who’d approached him. One who’d clearly learned to curse this past Michaelmas term at school.

      “I’ll be damned.” The boy whistled low. “You truly are as fearsome and ugly as the papers said.”

      “Oh, really. And do they say anything about this?” Ash brandished his walking stick. “Now go home. Your nursemaid will be missing you.”

      He turned and kept walking. The lad followed.

      “I saw you over by Marylebone Mews,” the boy called out. As if they were two old chums holding a conversation at the club. “You thrashed that gin-soused cur. The one who was beating his wife, remember?”

      Yes, of course Ash remembered. It was only two days past.

      “That was bloody brilliant.” By now the youth was scampering alongside him. “Just capital. And I heard about the footpads in St. James’s, too. All of London has.”

      Ash released a long, slow breath. He refused to be baited. The more thoroughly you ignore him, the faster he’ll go away, he told himself. Like a canker sore.

      “So where are we off to tonight?” the boy asked.

       We?

      Now that was too much.

      Ash halted in the center of the empty square. “Just what is it you want?”

      The boy scratched his ear and shrugged. “To see you thrash someone new. Give some fellow what’s coming to him.”

      “Well, then.” Ash lifted his walking stick and gave the lad a shove with the blunt end, sending him arse-first into the shrubbery. “There you have it.”

      Several days later, Emma stood before a terraced house faced with white stone and corniced windows, having made the journey across Bloom Square. As short a distance as it was, she seemed to have dropped her bravery somewhere along the way.

      She knew she must not indulge her nerves. She needed to start moving in society, and asking the duke to squire her about Town would be a waste of breath. If Davina wanted permission to visit her at Swanlea, Emma must form acquaintances with ladies of impeccable breeding and genteel accomplishment—not as their seamstress, but as their equal. Today was an important first step.

      She looked down at the invitation and read it again.

      To the new Duchess of Ashbury—

      Warmest welcome to Bloom Square! Every Thursday my friends come around for tea. We’d be most delighted if you would join us.

      Lady Penelope Campion

      P.S. I should warn you: We’re different from other ladies.

      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.”

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