Any Duchess Will Do (17 page)

The shopkeeper scribbled greedily in the margins. Pauline could tell he was already tallying up the outrageous profits he’d turn on this one order alone.

“May I view the list?” the duke said.

“But of course, your grace.” Snidling turned the ledger so the duke might view the page.

Griff ran his finger down the list, nodding with approval.

Then he grasped the page and ripped it from the ledger. “Thank you,” he said, folding the paper in two and creasing it smartly. “This will prove helpful when we place the order with your competitor.”

The shopkeeper flashed a nervous smile. “Your grace, I don’t understand.”

“Really? Don’t you? Then permit me to make it clear.” He approached the man until the difference between their heights was evident. “Perhaps Miss Simms accepts your measly, insulting apologies. I do not.”

“B-But, your grace—”

“I would offer you a farewell, but I don’t bother with insincerity. I hope you fare very ill indeed.”

Pauline wanted to cheer and applaud. Kiss him, in full view of everyone. Or at least stand there and gloat a few moments longer.

But Griff was eager to leave.

He ushered her out the door. “Don’t worry. We’ll find another shop.”

“We don’t have to do that right now.”

“Yes, we do,” he replied. “I sent the coach around the corner to wait. Do you mind walking?”

“Not at all.”

He barely paused to gain her agreement before storming down the sidewalk at a terror of a pace. His boots hit the pavement with crisp reports, and his gloves flapped comically in his grip. Pauline had to dash to keep up with him.

“Sorry.” When he noted her struggles, he slowed his pace. “I’m angry at the moment.”

“Thank you for being angry. And for what you just did. The way you handled him was marvelous.”

He stared into the distance and snapped his gloves against his thigh.

“Griff, I’m going to work so hard for you the rest of this week,” she promised. “Starting with Vauxhall tonight. I’ll be the best, most comprehensive failure you could imagine.”

He made a dismissive wave, brushing off her vows.

“No, I mean it. Truly. That was . . .” There was no other way to say it. “It was the best thing anyone ever did for me.”

He stopped, then turned to her. “And that, Simms, makes me angriest of all.”

The fiery look in his eyes . . . it undid her. She knew that look. It mirrored the fast-blooming vine of devotion and rage that grew inside her whenever Daniela was harmed. She knew it well—the pure, unreasoned fury at a world that would allow such things to happen, coupled with the frustration that she was powerless to prevent it from occurring again.

Griff felt that same frustration right now. On
her
behalf. And he wasn’t even bothering to hide it.

If she’d harbored any hope of not falling in love with the man, it vanished that instant. It was only a matter of time. She would love him before the week was out, and it would be gloriously terrible, wonderfully hopeless.

Her heart was now a coin with two sides—dread and joy—and it seemed to flip back and forth with every racing beat.

“Miss Simms?”

At the sudden address, Pauline startled.

“Why, it is you.” Lady Haughfell appeared on the pavement before them. “And your grace. What a pleasant surprise. We’ve just come from your house.”

“Is that so?” Griff replied.

“Yes, we came hoping to make a social call and further our acquaintance with dear Miss Simms. We do so long to hear more about her and her people. Our copy of
Debrett’s
was curiously of little help.”

Pauline didn’t miss the implication in Lady Haughfell’s words.
You’re not one of us. I know it, and I mean to learn the truth.

“We were out,” Griff said.

“Obviously,” the lady replied.

“My apologies for the inconvenience,” he said coolly. “Perhaps you will be so good as to call another day.”

“Yes, yes. And allow me to express my deepest concern for the duchess’s health and my best wishes for her speedy recovery.”

“What?” His voice changed instantly.

Lady Haughfell arched a brow. “Were you unaware? The butler informed us. Your mother has taken gravely ill.”

Chapter Fifteen

G
riff couldn’t get home fast enough.

The carriage was too far away, the traffic too congested. Time dallied in a most impertinent way.

Pauline tried to mollify him. “She’s fine, I’m sure. Perhaps she merely said she was ill so she wouldn’t have to entertain the Awfuls.”

He nodded, hoping she was correct. Still, he could not rest easy until he’d confirmed it with his own eyes.

When they reached Halford House, he took the stairs two at a time and stormed down the corridor to the duchess’s suite. He flung open the door and saw her lying in the center of her bed, eyes closed and hands clasped atop the bedcovering.

Motionless.

His veins became ice floes. This couldn’t happen. Not yet. He knew she was getting older and that inevitably her health would fail. But she was still so strong-willed, so alive. She couldn’t do this to him now.

He wasn’t ready to be alone.

“Mother?” When she gave no answer, a knot stuck in his throat.
“Mother.”

At last her eyes opened, with an innocent flutter of lashes. Her voice was weak. “Griffin? Is that you, my dear boy?”

Devil take it.

He knew in that moment that this was all a ruse. In all his life, his mother had never once referred to him as her “dear boy.” He would have remembered.

The duchess was alive, well, and cunning as ever. He was going to throttle her.

“Come closer.” Her pale hand groped the air. “I want to look on your face one last time.”

Really, her acting skills were most impressive. She should take to the stage.

She mustered a pathetic cough. “My only regret . . . the fete at Vauxhall tonight.”

“Never mind it. We won’t go.”

“No.” The volume of her protest seemed to revive her a bit. “No, you must attend. Everyone’s expecting you.”

“Then why are you playing ill?”

“I’m not playing.” She smoothed the bedcoverings with one hand. “I’m simply too weak for Vauxhall this evening. The drafts, the fog by the river, all those stairs. I feel a chill coming on, just to think of it. The two of you must go without me. I don’t want to ruin your evening.”

“I find that hard to believe. You were all too eager to ruin our afternoon.”

Diabolical woman. Did she truly not understand the panic she’d just put him through? It was a thousand times worse than any matchmaking, or even drugging and kidnapping. He couldn’t forgive her that.

“You are not ill,” he said. “I command you to rise from that bed and be well.”

She fixed him with a droll gaze. “Griffin, you are a duke. You are not St. James curing the lepers.”

“Tell me, which saint is the patron of beleaguered sons?” He glared at a mysterious lump beneath the counterpane. “What is it you have under there?”

Her hands covered the lump. “Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. I can plainly see you have something under that blanket. What is it?” He reached for the counterpane and bed linens, planning to draw them back.

She tugged them close. “Leave me be.”

“I will know what you’re hiding.”

They tussled back and forth for several seconds. Until something sharp stabbed him in the wrist.

“Ouch.”

He pulled back his hand. Incredulous, he rubbed at a small round wound. She was stabbing him with pins now? Good Lord. She’d be a terror with a saber.

“I revise my previous statement,” he said. “You
are
ill. Seriously ill. And when this week is over, we’re going to discuss living arrangements for your decline. I hear there are lovely sanitariums in Ireland.”

Pauline waved him to the side of the room. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “It’s for the best. If I’m to be a social disaster, it will go much easier without her there.”

Griff wasn’t so sure. He knew exactly what his mother had in mind. She wanted to force the two of them alone. So they’d spend the whole evening together in a hopelessly romantic setting, and then . . .

“It’s not a good idea,” he said.

Her green eyes pleaded with him. “I’m only in London this one week. Chances are, I’ll never return. I was looking forward to seeing Vauxhall. And to earning my keep, at last.”

He sighed and leveled a single finger at her nose. “Your comportment had better be dreadful.”

She lifted a hand in mock salute. But her fetching smile gave him grave misgivings. Soon, there’d be nothing he could deny her.

On his way out of the bedchamber he addressed the vigilant butler. “Higgs,” he said, “see that my mother does not move from that bed. And summon the doctor. Not the gentle-mannered one, either. The one with the leeches.”

O
nce the duke had left the room, Pauline approached the duchess’s bed. “Really, your grace. That wasn’t kind of you. He was terribly concerned.”

He’d been more than concerned. She’d watched his face go pale as ash, and he’d clenched his hands until his knuckles bleached to bone. Didn’t they realize how fortunate they were to have each other? She’d never known two people who so clearly loved each other yet spent so much time and effort denying it.

There was phlegm, and then there was sheer obstinacy.

“I should think this sort of ploy is beneath a duchess.”

She clucked her tongue. “Very well, I admit it. I’m not truly ill. I’m desperate. Look.”

The duchess threw back the counterpane, revealing a misshapen baby blanket large enough to swaddle a calf. Not even just a bovine calf, but possibly an elephant calf. The yarn had been changed twice, partway through. So one-third of it was peach and another third was lavender. Now she was working her way through a ball of pink.

Skeins of white, green, and blue lurked ominously nearby.

Pauline whistled at it. “That
is
dire.”

“I know it. And it’s growing worse by the hour. This evening is the chance we’ve been waiting for. You’ll see.”

“No, your grace. I’m going to be a disaster. I have to be. Elegance, comportment, accomplishment, elocution . . . all of it. I don’t possess any of the qualities a duchess needs.”

The older woman waved a hand. “Forget all that. There is exactly one quality, and one quality only, that makes a woman a duchess.”

“What’s that?”

“She marries a duke.”

Pauline shook her head. “It’s not going to happen.”

“I know my son, girl. He’s half in love with you already. It started that very first day, and then this morning . . . ?” She hmphed. “One strong push in the right direction and he’ll fall hard. Don’t try to tell me you’re not feeling something for him.”

She sighed, not knowing how to argue. He’d declined to take her to his bed. But after the bookstore today, she believed that Griff did care about her. At least a little. And she knew herself to be dangerously close to falling in love with him.

But what did it matter? That didn’t mean he’d want to
marry
her. Or that she could ever marry him.

She rose from the bedside. “I’ll leave you to your rest.”

“One last thing,” the duchess said just as Pauline had reached the door. “You’re to have the amethysts tonight. I’ll tell Fleur.”

The amethysts?

Pauline was stunned. “But, your grace, I couldn’t possibly wear—”

“You’re ready for them. And what’s more, he’s ready to see you in them.” As she left the room, the duchess called after her, “I’m counting on you, girl.”

Too many people were counting on her, it seemed. Her loyalties were growing more and more divided. The duke had hired her to save him from matchmaking. The duchess wanted to be rescued from a creeping tangle of yarn. Pauline was coming to care for them both—and she knew they each needed something more.

But somewhere, much too far away, there was poor Daniela, faithfully gathering eggs and counting the days until Saturday. Her sister needed her most of all.

Pauline drew to a halt in the corridor and cast a look at the porcelain shepherdess she’d nearly demolished a few days back.

What am I doing here?

To these people, country life made for decorative figurines. She knew it to be backbreaking, ceaseless work. No matter what delusions the duchess suffered under, she could never belong in this aristocratic world.

All she wanted was a little shop in Spindle Cove and a circulating library of naughty books. Not to
mean
well, but to
do
well—for her and her sister both. She couldn’t start dreaming of the wrong fairy tale.

She was a hardworking girl, and she’d been hired for a reason. To be a comprehensive catastrophe.

“C
olin.
Colin
, something terrible has happened.”

Colin Sandhurst, Lord Payne, looked up from the letter he was writing. His wife stood in the doorway of his study—as always, an enticing vision of dark hair and plump, kissable lips.

But her lovely eyes had gone grim behind her spectacles.

He rose from his desk at once. “Good God, Min. What is it?”

“We must do something,” she said.

“Of course we will, darling.” He crossed the room to her. “Of course we will. I could crash through the window this instant, if you asked. Or pen a strongly worded letter to
The Times
. But the actions we take will be more effective if you explain to me first what’s going on.”

He took her by the shoulders and guided her to the divan.

“It’s that horrid, debauched friend of yours,” she said. “From before we married.”

He chuckled. “That description fits a shocking number of people, I’m afraid. You’ll have to narrow it down.”

“The duke. That grabby, disgusting duke from Winterset Grange.”

“Halford?”

“Yes, that’s the one. He’s got Pauline Simms. Our Pauline, from the Bull and Blossom. And he’s holding her hostage here in Town.” She shuddered. “God knows what he’s done to the poor thing. Probably made her his sordid love puppet.”

Colin struggled not to laugh. “Minerva, I’m trying to follow you, but you’re making it quite difficult. Perhaps you can start again and tell me what actually happened today.”

“I saw them together. I was going to the bookshop to . . .” She blushed a little. “To see if any more copies of my book had been sold. I can’t help it.”

“And had they?”

“Yes,” she said proudly. “Three.”

“Excellent, Min. That’s brilliant.” Colin had only purchased two of them himself.

He knew she’d throttle him for buying them up, but he couldn’t help it. The market for geological treatises wasn’t especially robust. But she was so damned adorable when she was pleased with herself—and especially creative in bed. His motives were entirely selfish.

“Anyhow, as I was approaching the bookshop, I saw the two of them leaving it. The Disgusting Duke of Halford and Pauline Simms. Clear as day.”

Colin sighed. He hated to prod at a sore spot, but this was too much to be believed. “Were you wearing your spectacles?”

She gave him an offended look. “Of course I was.”

“Still. I think you must have been mistaken.”

“I’m not. I know I’m not, Colin. Don’t you believe me?”

“I believe, without a doubt, that
you
believe you saw them.” He clasped one of her sweet little hands in his and stroked it soothingly. “But I still think it a great improbability.”

“It’s true that two more different people never existed,” Minerva agreed. “That duke is vile and debauched. And Pauline is so well-meaning.”

“Well. Opposites do occasionally attract. And Spindle Cove women ‘abducted’ by rakes are not always so unwilling as the observer might suspect.”

She smiled. “I suppose that’s true.”

“Before we go haring off on a rescue mission, let’s consider a few bits of information. From all evidence, Pauline had no means of traveling to London. Secondly, I know Halford. The man would never be near a bookshop. And last”—he placed a light, affectionate touch to her nose—“you
have
been complaining that your spectacles need new lenses. A mistake seems the most likely explanation.”

“Colin—”

“However,” he added, “I will do all I can to set your mind at ease. Today, I’ll ask around at the clubs. See what gossip there is of Halford.”

“That’s a good idea. I’ll pay a call on Susanna and Lord Rycliff. If anything were amiss in Spindle Cove, they would have heard.”

“Excellent. And if our little fact-finding investigations turn up nothing, we’ll perform an experiment. We’ll call at Halford House tomorrow.”

She nodded. Her eyes misted with tears.

“Darling Min.” He stroked her cheek. “Are you truly that concerned?”

“No,” she said. “Oh, Colin. I’m just so proud.” She squeezed his hand. “You’re using the scientific method.”