Penny House
St. James Square, London
1805

In the experienced opinion of Eliot Fitzharding, His Grace the Duke of Guilford, there were few things better contrived to reduce a sensible woman to blithering idiocy than a wedding, and the nearer the relationship of the woman to the bride, the greater the intensity of that idiocy.

This is not to say that his grace did not enjoy watching the idiocy, much the way that other gentlemen enjoyed a good sparring match in the ring. As a confirmed and practicing bachelor, he was free to watch the spectacle surrounding a wedding as the purest of spectators: emotionally uninvolved, financially uncommitted, with no other goal than to amuse himself.

Which was why Guilford was sitting alone in the back parlor of Penny House this evening, enjoying an excellent brandy while he savored the exhausted quiet after the storm of the wedding earlier that day. He didn't mind in the least that he had the parlor to himself. Most nights, Penny House was like any other gaming club in London, vibrating with male bravado and high spirits, tempered by the despair of those who'd lost at the tables. Guilford had never seen Penny House as quiet as this, and he rather liked it. All the other guests had left long ago, and the servants seemed to have faded away for the night, too. The hothouse flowers were wilting in their vases, the fire nothing but gray ash and embers in the grate, and even the candles in the chandeliers had mostly guttered out, leaving the large, elegant room in murky shadow.

All were signs that would send most gentlemen to make their own farewells for the night and head for the door, as well. But Guilford never had been like most gentlemen, much to his late mother's constant disappointment, and instead of leaving, he stretched out his long legs before him and settled himself more comfortably in his armchair. Why should he leave when the best show of the night still lay ahead?

A yawning maidservant shuffled wearily into the room, and with the long-handled snuffer, began to douse the last of the lit candles in the chandelier until, finally, she noticed Guilford.

"Your grace!" she cried out, adding a little shriek for emphasis. "Oh, your grace, how you started me!"

"Forgive me, sweetheart," he said easily, his smile in the shadows enough to make the poor girl blush and fumble with the snuffer in her hands. Of course she'd recognized him; not only was he a peer, but he'd been a charter member of the club — as much from sheer curiosity as anything — and now served on its membership board. He'd also earned favored status because he cheerfully dropped the occasional large wager at the card tables, just to be agreeable. "It's — it's me what should be asking forgiveness, your grace!" she stammered. "Truly, your grace!"

"Not at all." He raised his glass to the girl by way of apology. "Frightening you was never my intention."

Belatedly she remembered to curtsy. "Is there anything I might fetch for you, your grace? They're banking the kitchen fires for the night, but if there's something special you want, then I'm certain Mrs. Todd could —"

"But alas, not Miss Bethany." He sighed dramatically. Bethany Penny was one of the three sisters who owned Penny House, the one who'd overseen the kitchen, the one who could rival the king's own French cooks for her delicacy with spices, her wit with pastry. Of course, cookery fell within a woman's natural sphere, a concept her older sister had always failed to understand. "However shall I survive without Miss Bethany's roast goose and oysters?"

The maid looked at him uncertainly. "Miss Bethany will return to us, your grace. She's only gone away for a bit on her wedding trip with the major."

"Oh, the major, the major," Guilford said darkly, indulging in a bit of brandy-laced melancholy. No matter what Bethany Penny had promised, she'd be like any other new bride, besotted with her husband and her belly swelling with his brat as soon as it could be managed. Then she'd be ruined — ruined! — as a cook! "I scarce know the man, but he can't possibly appreciate the cook he's gotten in his wife."

"Beggin' pardon, your grace," the girl said, "but Major Lord Callaway is an excellent gentleman, and he loves Miss Bethany to distraction. You could see it in his eyes today when they wed."

"The sweetness of her turtle soup will far outlast mere love." Guilford sighed again. He appreciated the girl's loyalty to her mistress, even if it were mired in mawkish sentiment. "But thank you, no, sweetheart. I need nothing more, and the kitchen may stay at peace. Go ahead now, finish your tasks."

"Yes, your grace. As you please, your grace." She nodded uncertainly, then bobbed another curtsy before she returned to snuffing the candles. When she was done, she backed from the room and gently closed the door, leaving him with only the dying fire for light. Somewhere off in the large house, a clock chimed twice, the sound echoing down the empty staircase.

Guilford smiled. The lights might be dimmed, but the stage was most certainly set.

And right on her cue, the leading lady of Penny House made her entrance.

The double doors swung open to reveal a woman silhouetted by the wash of light spilling from the room behind her. Even from no more than this silhouette, Guilford would have known it was her. Her height, the soft mass of hair piled high on her head and crowned with a nodding white plume, her very carriage as she stood there in the doorway: it could only be Miss Amariah Penny, and no one else.

"Your grace." Her voice was charming yet firm, and still very much in her role as the grand mistress of Penny House, even at this hour and after such a day. "Might I ask if there is something wrong? Something amiss?"

"Indeed you might ask, Miss Penny," he said, smiling though he suspected she couldn't see him, "and I shall answer. Nothing is wrong, or amiss, especially now that you're here to look after me."

As always, she ignored the compliment. "Then might I inquire, your grace, as to why you are hiding in the dark and alarming my staff?"

"I'm not hiding," he said, "I've merely been sitting here so long that the dark has swallowed me up."

She made a little harrumph of polite incredulity. "Then perhaps sitting here has made you unaware that everyone else has left this house for the evening, your grace. Shall I call for your carriage?"

His smile widened as he gently swirled the brandy in his glass. She was still wearing the same gauzy gown she'd worn earlier for the wedding, with the silver threads in the deep embroidered hem glinting faintly like stray sparks above her feet. He was certain she didn't realize that, with the light behind her, he also had a splendid view of her legs showing through her skirts.

"Everyone has left except for you, Miss Penny," he said,

"and for me. How could I be rude, and leave you alone under such circumstances?"

"Because my staff is tired, your grace," she said, "and I wish to close the house for the night."

"Then close it, and send your staff to bed." He reached out and pulled another armchair closer to his. "Surely you must be weary, too. Come and sit, and keep company with me."

She sighed, betraying the weariness she shared with her staff, but was too stubborn to admit. "You know why I cannot do that, your grace. This is a gentlemen's private club for gaming, not a house for assignations."

"But tonight I'm not here as a member of the club," he reasoned. "I'm here as a guest at your sister's wedding."

She bowed her head, clearly perplexed, and didn't answer. He couldn't blame her, either, though she'd made this thorny little problem herself. Because the sisters lived on the top floor of Penny House, they'd already blurred the lines between their home and their trade. They weren't really much different from a butcher living over his shop, except that their shop was a grand house on St. James Street, and the customers were a highly select group of gentlemen drinking and gambling away vast sums of money for their reckless amusement.

But the ever-ambitious Amariah Penny had taken matters another step by inviting those members who served on the club's governing board to attend her sister's wedding as guests, including them amongst the family's oldest friends. Guilford was certain she'd done it only to strengthen the ties with those who helped her make Penny House the exclusive club that it was. That was how her unladylike mind seemed to work, always looking for an advantage to improve Penny House and increase profits, but now she'd have to face the consequences.

"You can admit you're tired, you know," he said, patting the chair beside him. "Any other woman would."

Her head jerked up, any weariness banished. "But I'm not like any other woman, your grace. Now I'll have your carriage brought —"

"Did you know there's a wager in the book at White's that predicts you'll be the only Penny sister not to marry?" he asked, dragging his question into an lazy drawl. "Not because you're lacking in beauty or grace — for you most certainly are not, Miss Penny — but because you're far too wedded to this club for any man to wish to play second."

"When my sister tossed her wedding bouquet today, your grace, it was my choice not to try to catch it."

"I noticed," he said wryly. "Everyone did. You kept as far away as possible from the other shrieking maidens vying for the prize on the staircase, your hands locked behind your back as if in iron manacles."

"And what is so very wrong with that, your grace?" she demanded, her voice warming with a tedious missionary fervor. "Nearly all the profits my sisters and I earn from Penny House are given directly to charity. That was my late father's wish, and I mean to follow it always. Each time that you gentlemen amuse yourselves at our tables, you are helping feed and clothe and shelter the poor in ways you'd never do directly."

"No," Guilford said dryly, not in the least interested in the poor or how they dined. "I wouldn't."

"Well, then, there you are, your grace," she said, as if this were explanation enough, which it wasn't. True, she was a clergyman's daughter, but, in Guilford's opinion, her soul was as mercenary as they came. "Why should I wish to marry for the sake of one single man when I can do so much more good for so many others by being here?"

"Because you are a woman, my dear," Guilford answered, offering his own perfect explanation. "No matter how much you wish it, you can't do everything by yourself, and most especially you can't save the entire world. You can't even save the lower scraps of London. Of course, charity work is an admirable pastime for a lady, but a home, a husband and children must surely come first. It's in your blood, your very bones. Not even you can deny nature, Miss Penny."

"Is this part of the wagering at White's, too, your grace?" she asked suspiciously. "That I am somehow...unnatural?"

"Not exactly unnatural, no." With his eyes accustomed to the half-light, he'd no trouble seeing her, but he still couldn't tell if she were angry or amused — not that it would make any particular difference to him. "I do believe 'virago' was the term that was used."

She gasped, and to his satisfaction, he realized he'd finally struck home. "They dared call me a virago?" she repeated with disbelief. "A virago?"

She charged into the room and straight to him, the heels of her slippers clicking across the polished floor. He could feel her anger like a force in the darkness, her blue eyes wide and her gaze intense, her mouth set in a line of furious determination. He'd known her for nearly a year now, ever since she'd appeared in London from nowhere to open Penny House, yet this was the first time he'd seen the ever-proper, ever-capable Miss Penny lose both her composure and her temper.

It was even better than he'd dreamed. "A virago, your grace!" she said again, as if she couldn't say the hateful word enough times. "What — what ninny dared call me that?"

"How the devil should I tell?" Even though he'd given her leave to sit, she showed no intention of doing so, which made him suppose he must stand, too. With a sigh he rose, stretching his arms a bit as he now gazed down on her. "I don't know everything."