Sins of a Wicked Duke (The Penwich School for Virtuous Girls #1)(2)

Chafing her hands together, she watched Evie crack a thin sheet of ice from a bucket of milk. Evie grinned. “Goat’s milk.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Jean-Luc from the village leaves it up here for us once a week when he delivers coal.”

Fallon glanced up from the bucket. “Why?”

“Marguerite speaks French. He fancies her a countrywoman.”

Fallon glanced at the dark-haired girl, gasping as she revealed a large hunk of cheese from the cloth. “He leaves that, too?”

Marguerite offered a portion to her. Fallon barely stopped herself from falling upon it in a ravenous fit.

They ate in silence, taking turns at the bucket of rich milk. Falling back on the soft hay, Fallon sighed, replete. Evie rose and opened a shutter in the loft. Dropping in the hay beside Fallon, she tucked an arm behind her head and stared out at the wintry night.



Fallon felt a moment’s peace. Perhaps the first since Da’s death. She frowned. It would not last. Best she not become too at ease. “Why did you bring me here? With you?”

Evie replied, “You look like you needed a friend.”

Fallon nodded, her throat tight at the unexpected kindness. Friends were lost to her. And family. She scarcely recalled her mother, lost to fever before she could truly know her. Da had been everything. And now he was gone. She could use a friend or two.

Marguerite spoke, her voice a feather’s stroke on the air. “Girls at Penwich come and go—”

“They most oftengo in a coffin,” Evie muttered savagely, her blue eyes glinting.

Marguerite continued, “You’re not like the other girls. We saw that when you shared your bread with Helen.”

Fallon shook her head. “Helen?”

“Little Helen. About five years old.”

“Oh.” Fallon nodded, remembering. Some older girls had filched the child’s food, and pinched her arm viciously when she started to protest.

Marguerite drew her knees to her chest. “You reminded us of…well,us .”

Fallon digested this, unable to respond for the thick lump in her throat, simply pleased to have found affinity with two other souls. To no longer feel so terribly alone.

“There!” Evie shot up off the hay, pointing to the ink-dark sky as a single flash of light arced across the night. “Did you see that? A shooting star! See it?”

Fallon nodded, staring.

“Quickly, make a wish.” Evie jammed her eyes tightly shut, her lips moving in a rush as she proclaimed, “I wish for adventure! To visit places far, far from this vile place.” Opening her eyes, she fixed her gaze on Marguerite, nudging the smaller girl. “Come, what do you wish for?”

Wetting full lips, Marguerite stared thoughtfully out at the night. “I wish…I wish tomatter .”

Evie nodded slowly, then turned her attention to Fallon, who had been holding her breath, knowing her turn would come. Her heart was greedy. She wished for so much. For the impossible.For Da .

She settled on the important, and, hopefully, attainable. “I wish for a home.”

The streak of light left from the falling star vanished after the words left her lips, but Fallon could still see it in her mind against the night sky.



Their hastily formed requests lingered on the air, the words floating as reverently as prayers uttered aloud in a chapel.

I wish for adventure.

I wish to matter.

I wish for a home.





Chapter 1


Fallon’s steps slowed along the cobbled walk as she approached the modest brick townhouse, home to Widow Jamison. Her toes pinched inside her boots and she longed for her other pair—the men’s boots tucked under her bed that Mrs. Jamison deemed unacceptable.A female on my staff shall look as a female ought to and not wear articles intended for men. Fallon sighed and shook her head. Her vanity had long ago accepted she would never be feminine or dainty. Why could not the rest of the world?

The hour was late. She had lost track of time during her visit with Evie and Marguerite. They had a great deal to catch up on—more than their correspondence had ever been able to convey in the two years since they parted ways.

Her gently swishing skirts cut through the night’s low-rising fog. Burrowing deep into her cloak, she stopped and gazed ahead at the looming townhouse, lingering in its shadow for a reason she could not pinpoint. Wariness skittered through her as she studied the shadows dancing along the pale brick facade. Dark sensation zinged through her, prickling her nape. An awareness she could not easily dismiss…an instinct that had been bred into her ever since her father’s murderer dropped her on Penwich’s steps.

Her fingers curled around the cold steel gate surrounding the residence. Shivering in the frigid night, she commanded herself to move out of the chill and into the warmth of the house. And yet she could not move.

Then it came to her with the suddenness of a hare bolting from the brush. Lights blazed from the front parlor window. A low hum of conversation floated on the air, gentle as wind.

Usually, the house sat silent this time of night, Widow Jamison and her three pugs long since tucked into bed following her evening “tonic.” What marked the situation as even more unusual was the fact that the widow had departed yesterday to visit relations in Cornwall. Most of the staff had made free with the night to follow their own leisure pursuits, but certainly none had decided to make merry in their mistress’s absence. In the parlor, no less. The stern housekeeper would never permit such an occurrence. So the question remained: Who was in the parlor?