Their baby sister, the only one of them born to their mum, was the result of an unscrupulous landlord taking payment in sexual favors when Ettie Trewlove had been short of funds for her weekly rent. Aiden and his brothers had been fourteen when Fancy came into the world and they’d discovered the price their mum was paying to keep a roof over their head. They might have been lads, but they’d been big and strong—and there had been four of them. When they’d finished giving the landlord a taste of their fists, breaking his jaw, he’d never again darkened their mum’s door—or taken anything other than coins from another woman. They’d kept a close watch on him until he’d finally sold his properties to Mick.

“We’re all gathering together this coming Thursday to help her get her shop ready for business,” Beast continued. “We hoped you might make time in your schedule to join us.”

Fancy would soon turn eighteen, and they all spoiled her rotten, Mick worst of all. She wanted to open a bookshop, so Mick had given her one of his recently built buildings for that purpose. “She could have asked me herself.”

“I’m not sure Mum is keen on her coming to your house of sin.”

“Better here where I can keep a watch over her than elsewhere. She’s of an age where she’s going to be curious. Mum can’t possibly think she’s not going to engage in a bit of naughtiness somewhere.”

“Her shop will keep her too busy for that. Then next year, if Mick has his way, she’ll have her Season and marry some lord.”

“We all strive to keep Fancy innocent”—he thought of his duchess—“but eventually she’ll rebel. God help us when she does. It’s the quiet ones you’ve got to watch.”

The quiet ones, the shy ones, the ones who hid beneath masks.

Chapter 5

By half past six in the morning, dressed in black bombazine up to her chin and down to her wrists, Selena made her way down the stairs and into the front parlor where additional chairs had been brought in to fill out the various sitting areas because the wake for Arthur James Sheffield, Duke of Lushing, would be held here throughout the day and into the evening. He’d passed away shortly after midnight on Friday at the estate. It wasn’t until yesterday, Sunday, that they’d accompanied the casket to the train station for Lushing’s final journey to London. Servants had lined the drive at the manor house to pay their final respects. Villagers had gathered along the edge of the road leading to the depot. The Duke of Lushing had been loved by many.