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She stopped chewing

"Ginny, you don’t just call her that," another girl said "It’s not flattering"

The girl called Ginny had the grace to look mortified

Sophie sed and pointed to the cask of ale at the end of the table "May I?"

A gentle and slid it toward her, golden liquid sloshing over the edge when she caught it She drank And brazened it through "Some do refer to me as a Soiled S"

"For your father," said Ginny "In coal"

"How do you know that?" a young man across from her asked

Ginny blushed "I read the papers"

"The scandal sheets are not the papers," Agnes said

The table laughed and Ginny dipped her head in e another bite of pasty "They’re h?" She sest of the five"

"The young ladies Talbot," the girl explained to the table "Daughters of Jack Talbot, who grew up ’ere, in Cumbria Like us!"

"Except she’s a lady, so not at all like us," the e world this here in one moment she could be too cheap for a duke, and in the next, too expensive for anyone else

Without hoht "Actually," Sophie said, "I am not very different My father knows his way around a coal randfather"

"My brother works in the mines," someone piped up

Sophie nodded "Just like your brother, then The only difference is that ht a plot of land that eventually became the mouth to one of the richest mines in Britain" Eyes widened around the table, as her carefully bred London accent gave way to her North Country brogue, and she relaxed into the tale, having heard it a thousand ti and struck for days before he hit on so nobs in London could use"

"See? She ain’t a nob!" crowed the maid from earlier that day

Sophie shook her head "I’m not I spent my childhood in Mossband"

"Except ye are," the man at the end of the table said "Because we’re callin’ you milady and yer to marry the duke’s son"

Not really She pushed the disappoint down the table at hiood at cards, too"

"They say Prinny lost a round of faro and gained hih for the whole castle to hear

Sophie winked, feeling more the Soiled S than ever before here, at this table Enjoying it Just as her sisters would "That is, indeed, what they say"