Eleanor, Duchess of Winshire had known Mia Redepenning since she was a child — a small girl with big eyes much overlooked by her only relative, her absent-minded father. Back when Eleanor was Duchess of Haverford, the man spent six months at Haverford Castle cataloguing the library while his little daughter did her lessons at a library table or crept mouse-like around the castle or its grounds.

Who would have thought, back in the days that Mia first became acquainted with the duchess’s goddaughter during a visit, that she would one day be a connection of Kitty’s and of Eleanor herself, by marriage? Or that, more than twenty years after the first time Mia and Kitty had joined Eleanor for tea in the garden, they met for tea whenever they were both in London?

Not that Mia and her husband Jules spent much time in London. He owned a coastal shipping business in Devon, and they lived not far from Plymouth, but Eleanor suspected that the main reason for their dislike of London Society lay in their three oldest children. And those children, if Eleanor was not mistaken, were the reason for Mia’s call today, and her distraction.

“Yes, I will help,” she said.

Mia, startled, opened her eyes wide.

“You want a powerful sponsor to introduce your Marsha to Society, and I am more than happy to bring her and Frances out together, my dear. Marsha is a very prettily behaved girl, and will be a credit to you and to me.”

Mia laughed. “I was wondering how to work around to the subject, Aunt Eleanor. I should have known you would see right through me.”

“It won’t be entirely straightforward, my dear,” Eleanor warned. “Thanks to that horrid man that kidnapped Dan all those years ago, everyone who was out in Society when you brought the children back from South Africa know what their mother was to your husband. Most people won’t be rude to Marsha’s face, not when she is sponsored by your family and mine. But they will talk behind our backs, I cannot deny it.”

“Talk behind our backs, I can handle,” Mia commented, “and the children all know the truth, so they cannot be hurt by having it disclosed.” She frowned. “But will they really invite her to their homes? Will she have suitors?”

“The highest sticklers will ignore her,” the duchess said. “She might not receive tickets for Almacks. But for the most part, Society will pay lip service to story you tell them, since what you tell them is supported by the Redepennings, the Winshires, the Haverfords and all our connections.” She returned Mia’s tentative smile.

“I have done this before, my dear, and am about to do it again. All the world knows my wards are more closely related to the previous duke than we admit, but as long as I insist that they are distant connections, born within wedlock to parents who died and begged me to take them in, they all pretend to believe it. As to suitors, Matilda married well, and my poor Jessica’s problems had nothing to do with her bloodlines — the match seemed a good one at the time. I expect Frances to also make an excellent marriage.”

Mia shook her head slowly. “They are wards to a duchess. Jules and I are very ordinary by comparison. We can dower our girls, though, and as long as we can protect them from direct insult, we do not wish to deny them the same debut as their cousins and their younger sisters.”

“No need to deny them. The Polite World will accept that Marsha is, as the public story has it, the daughter of a deceased couple that Jules knew while he was posted overseas with the navy. We shall watch them closely to keep the riff raff at bay, and they will have a marvelous time, as shall you and I, Mia.” She held out her hand, for all the world as if they were men sealing a business deal, and after a moment, Mia took her hand and shook it.

Mia and Jules have their story in Unkept Promises, where you can meet Marsha, Dan, and their little sister. Matilda’s love story is coming soon, in Melting Matilda, a novella in Fire & Frost. Jessica is also introduced in that story. Her tragedy will be a sub plot of her brother’s story, the third book of The Children of the Mountain King series. As to Eleanor’s story, it spans that series, and concludes in the sixth novel.