All the people she’d met earlier and the ones she’d known from before were chatting near the table. Fancy walked toward the group, greeting an older woman who broke away from the others. Her hair was a combination of salt-and-pepper strands pulled back into a simple knot. She was small of stature, well-rounded but not in a plump sort of way. Selena decided hugging her would be very much like wrapping her arms around a soft pillow: comforting.

Which was exactly what Aiden did when the woman was close enough. He bent slightly and embraced her, and something within Selena’s chest tightened with his show of affection. She was accustomed to men holding themselves erect, perfect posture, bowing, sometimes taking a hand, pressing a kiss to knuckles—not welcoming a woman with arms coming around her in a gesture of familiarity that appeared so natural it had to have been done a thousand times. She couldn’t recall ever having seen Winslow hug their mother thus. But it was obvious Mrs. Trewlove greeted her children as though she was truly glad to see them.

She stepped out of Aiden’s embrace. With his arm resting lightly on her shoulders, he steered his mother toward Selena and her sisters, and she realized that this—not working in the bookshop—was the test he’d devised for her sisters. How they received his mother was how he would judge their character and their worth.

Tears stung her eyes with the understanding that the woman who had raised him meant so much to him. He was a man who encouraged sin, who trafficked in vice, who by all accounts was a scoundrel, but he loved his mother, loved his family. And if her sisters were the least bit insulting, all would be lost. But just as she’d had confidence when they’d played billiards, she had equal confidence in her sisters’ kindness and knew she would win here as well.

“Mum, I’d like you to meet Selena Sheffield, Duchess of Lushing.”

Proper etiquette dictated that a commoner should be introduced to the noble, but Selena had already dispensed with exhibiting well-bred manners when she’d introduced Aiden to her sisters earlier. Besides, she understood that within this room, there might be titles, but there were no ranks. No doubt at the table, she would find a muddled arrangement of the seating. No orderly procession to the dining area, no chairs assigned based on where one was positioned in the social order. With his introduction, Aiden was making a point: he didn’t give a fig about Debrett’s or Burke’s Peerage; no one rated a place above the saintly woman who had taken him in and raised him as her own. Ah, yes, this was the gauntlet her sisters must pass. Pay attention, girls.