Free The Hazards Of Hunting A Duke by Julia London

your being introduced.”
    “Don’t you? I suppose it happened before Mother died,” Ava said as she quickly dressed to go out, her mind on an extremely urgent matter.
    “No, I don’t,” Phoebe insisted. “I am certain I would have recalled it. And why should he ask for a place
    on your dance card now? It’s not as if you are out in society, and even if you were, he rarely attends the balls. I don’t quite understand it.”
    “There is nothing to understand,” Ava said. “He was just being kind. And really, we have far more important things to think about than that.”
    “Perhaps you do, but I am rather curious,” Phoebe said, and looked up from her sewing.
    “It seemed as if
    he knew you.”
    “Dear lord, will you please think of something else?” Ava said. “Think of a butler. We must have a butler
    if we are to reenter society.”
    No one argued, for the three of them were perfectly aware that every fine hous e in Mayfair had a full coterie of servants, and if a house did not have them, it was a foregone conclusion that the house no longer had its fortune. And if the poor souls of a house were thought to be without fortune, they were thought to be without prosp ects.
    As it happened, they had reached the most desperate of moments several months ago, one that called for
    the most unthinkable actions, but nevertheless, Ava and Greer had begun to slowly and steadily fill the
    house with servants. They had done it by j oining the Ladies’ Beneficent Society, their only escape during their long months of mourning suffered under Lucy Pennebacker’s watchful eye. She was never far from their side, hovering about them like a vulture, taking her charge to look after them very m uch to heart—
    she was fiercely determined to see after them and their virtues.
    Their only way out was through charitable works, for even Lucy couldn’t object to that.
    The society was
    a group of women formed under the auspices of St. George’s parish church , whose function was to help those less fortunate than themselves. Each week, the ladies assembled to visit a small parish workhouse, where they took fruit and sweetmeats to the poor souls who had come from what the ladies assumed
    were wretched dens of ini quity. In exchange for the fruit and sweetmeats, the parish wards were asked to listen to the ladies’ recitation of select Bible verses, and at the conclusion of the readings, to affirm that
    they had dedicated themselves to leading proper, God -fearing lives.
    Lady Downey used to laughingly say that this practice was the least the good church ladies could ask, being so astoundingly free of sin and poverty themselves.
    The members of the Ladies’ Beneficent Society were delighted to see Ava and Greer among their number, and spoke fondly of Lady Downey and her wonderful sense of charity. It was something the girls had never really known about their mother. Honestly, Ava had believed it to be a soci al club.
    At the parish workhouse—which was, surprisingly, situated behind the public stables on Portland Street, near the fashionable Regent Street —Ava and Greer handed fruit to the residents, read aloud the Bible verses, and shrewdly studied the inhabita nts when they weren’t working to appear very pious.
    Through a series of visits to the parish poorhouse, they managed to convince a few carefully chosen
    inhabitants to come to the Downey house on Clifford Street, where they would be given food and shelter
    in exchange for their service.
    The lack of wages, however, made it a difficult proposition to even the poorest of the workhouse’s denizens. Ava and Greer had managed to coax only three into their home.
    Sally Pierce, a reformed harlot, had become their lady’s maid.
    “But what if she is not entirely reformed?” Phoebe had fretted the first night Sally was in their employ. “Best hope that she is, darling, for we shall all be completely ruined if she is not,” Ava had whispered. They had also managed to retai