The Historical Collection 2018: The Duchess Deal / From Duke Till Dawn / His Sinful Touch / His Wicked Charm. Candace Camp
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“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.
Besides, she was having too much fun with the others.
She needed to draw him out. Gain his respect. If luck was with her, a pregnancy would take root, but could it be assured in time to help Davina? Doubtful. She must convince him to change his mind, if it didn’t.
In the days since their first night together—their first successful night together, at any rate—he’d made every effort to assure her pleasure. A man who cared for her satisfaction in bed could be convinced to honor her wishes outside it, couldn’t he? She had begun to care about him, however unwillingly.
“If it’s pet names you want, you’ve certainly come to the right place,” Penny said.
Nicola took a tiny pencil from the notebook hanging about her neck on a silver chain. “I’ll keep a list.”
“It must be something affectionate,” Emma said. “For the cat. He’s rather untrusting and prickly, and I can’t seem to draw him out.”
“Well, if it’s a sweet little name you want, there are all the delightful words for new creatures,” Penny said. “Puppy, kitten, piglet, foal, fawn, calf, polliwog . . .”
Alexandra reached for her teacup. “Oh, dear. She’ll go on forever now.”
“That’s just the beginning,” Penny went on. “There are the birds. Duckling, eaglet, gosling, cygnet, poult . . .”
Nicola looked up from her scribbling. “Poult?”
“A turkey hatchling, fresh from the egg.”
Emma laughed. “As tempting as calling him a turkey might be, I think it’s polliwog, duckling, and piglet that are my favorites thus far.”
“I can contribute a few astronomical ones, I suppose,” Alexandra said. “Bright star, twinkles, moonbeam, sunshine . . .”
“Oh, Lord.” Emma could just imagine the duke’s reaction to “Twinkles.” “Those are perfection. What do you think, Nicola?”
“I don’t know. I’m surrounded by gears and levers, for the most part. Pet names aren’t my forte.” Her eye fell on the biscuits. “I suppose there are the sweet things. Sugar, honeycomb, tartlet.”
“I’m afraid I’ve tried most of those already.”
“Sweetmeat?” she suggested in perfect innocence.
After a moment’s pause, the rest of them dissolved into laughter.
“Oh, dear heavens.” Alexandra dashed a tear from her eye.
Nicola looked at the three of them. “What?”
“Nothing,” Emma said. “You truly do have a brilliant mind.” She nodded at the notebook. “You must most definitely add sweetmeat to the list.”
A half hour later, she left Lady Penelope Campion’s house with a packet of leftover biscuits and a quiver full of verbal arrows. Hopefully one or two of them would pierce the reserve of laughter in his chest. She knew better than