Any Duchess Will Do (13 page)

She gripped the stickpin in her fingertips and began to twist it loose.

“Careful there,” he said. “Go slowly.”

The way this week was going, it would be just his luck that she’d rip the pin free, pitch forward on the bench, and bury the sharp end in one of his vital arteries.

“Almost have it,” she said.

He adored the way her delicate eyebrows knit in concentration, the way her bottom lip folded under her teeth. Oh, this was bad.

At last the golden pin popped free.

“Aha.” She held it up between them, eyes shining with triumph—as though it were the sword in the stone she’d loosed, or the key to Aladdin’s cave. Her smile could have lit the night sky. “We did it.”

Wasn’t that just his luck. She’d missed his vital arteries—and plunged the cursed thing straight into his heart.

“There,” she said, teasing his button loose. “Our bargain is rescued. We’re free of each other.”

“I don’t know about that.”

He drew her close and took her mouth in a kiss. He sank into her, reassuring himself that the taste of her remained the same despite this new, elegant attire. That though the curves of her body might be squeezed and shaped for public display, he knew how they
felt
. Supple, warm, strong and alive. He kissed her hungrily, relentlessly, savoring her natural ripe-berry taste and the intoxicating whisper of brandy on her lips. Pressing her further and faster than any decent man would—because he expected at any moment she’d push him away.

But she didn’t. She just kissed him back, drawing him closer with a tilt of her head and a soft, dreamy sigh. So generous, so achingly tender.

As he bent to kiss her neck, her fingers sifted through his hair, sending jolts of pleasure down his spine. Encouraged, he slid one hand to claim her breast. He needed to feel her, fill his grasp with her soft heat.

Instead, he got a handful of cotton batting.

“Deuced corset,” he growled.

“I thought you liked the corset.”

“I like this.” He slid his thumb under her neckline. “I like you.”

She sighed as he skimmed his touch lower, dipping to trace the curve of her slight, round breast. He found the tight knot of her nipple and rolled it back and forth.

When he claimed her mouth again, the shy sweep of her tongue . . . it rocked him in his boots. Again and again she caressed him. As though she were painting him with sweetness in languid strokes.

A low, feral growl of yearning rose in his chest. He wanted to thrust his hands under all this bothersome fabric, explore the precious silk of her skin. Feel her bared body pressed to his. Coax sounds of pleasure she’d never made.

He wanted . . .
more
. Hours and days and nights of this, and not a moment of feeling alone.

But he knew that didn’t work. Some of the loneliest moments in his life had been spent bodily tangled with somebody else. Perhaps she wasn’t entirely innocent, but that didn’t matter. He refused to drag this sweet, determined soul into depravity.

He pulled away from the kiss.

“Griff . . .”

“I shouldn’t have done this.” He withdrew his touch from her bodice and skimmed his lips over hers in a fleeting kiss. “I know we agreed that this . . .” He tilted his head and kissed her again, lingering. “ . . . shouldn’t happen again. Because it’s a very bad idea, this.”

He gave her one last, firm peck.

She kept her eyes resolutely closed. Those long eyelashes lay like fans on her cheeks. “What was it again, this thing we’re not doing? Perhaps you could demonstrate
one
more time.”

Sweet heaven. He wanted to demonstrate for hours, all over her body. That was the problem.

He kissed the tip of her nose, once. “There.”

She opened her eyes, and their brilliant green savaged him. “You are a ruthless tease.”

“You are an impertinent minx.”

“Well.” She smiled and shrugged, unrepentant. “That
is
what you wanted.”

Yes. Damn it, it was. Apparently, after years of seducing every worldly, sophisticated woman in London, an impertinent minx of a serving girl was exactly what he wanted.

But Griff vowed to himself then and there . . .

This was one woman he would never have.

Chapter Eleven

“L
ast night was perfection.”

The duchess drizzled a precise spiral of honey atop her buttered toast. Pauline briefly wondered if the older woman had chosen the citrine pendant at her throat to match her breakfast.

But she pushed the query aside, thinking it best to work one puzzle at a time.

“Perfection?” she echoed. “Last night? But it was terrible.
I
was terrible.”

“My girl, we cannot argue with results.” She waved a hand over a gilt-edged salver heaped with sealed envelopes. “So many invitations already.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It makes perfect sense. Think of gemstones. Some jewels are prized for their exquisite cut and polish. Others are coveted by collectors, even when riddled with flaws, simply because they are so very rare.”

“But I’m not rare in any way,” Pauline objected. “I’m exactly the opposite. I’m
common
.”

The duchess made a contrary snort over her bite of toast. “He
danced
with you.”

“For all of ten seconds. Perhaps fifteen.”

“That was more than enough. You don’t understand. My son never dances. It’s been years since he’s danced with any unmarried lady, for the exact purpose of avoiding this speculation.”

Pauline sighed. “But . . . but he only danced with me to escape his bothersome friend.”

“The two of you disappeared into the gardens, and when you returned his cravat was mussed.”

“We
had
to remove his stickpin. The duke’s button was caught on my seam, and he couldn’t get loose.”

“Oh, I know he couldn’t get loose.” The duchess teased a folded newspaper out from beneath the heap of envelopes. “Precisely as it’s printed in the
Prattler
. ‘The Duke of Halford, Snared at Last.’ ”

Oh, no.

Pauline cringed as she scanned the newspaper gossip column. Just as the duchess had said, it was filled with speculation about the duke and “the mysterious Miss Simms.”

Any thrill of overnight fame was lost on her. She was consumed by the common girl’s worst daily fear: that of losing her post.

If the duchess was this happy with the results of last night, Pauline knew one thing.

The duke would not be.

He couldn’t blame her for this scandal sheet, could he? If the evening had ended in anything other than humiliation, it was all his fault.
He
was the one who’d caught her when she slipped, tangling their clothing.
He
was the one who’d danced her out into the garden.

He
was the one who’d kissed her. Touched her, so sweetly.

The duchess whisked the newspaper aside. “We’ve made excellent progress, but there remains a fair bit of road ahead. And you have your elbows on the table.”

Pauline removed them grudgingly.

“This morning, our task is accomplishment.”

“Accomplishment?”

“The next time you attend a social event, you’ll stay longer than an hour. As is the case with all young gentlewomen in attendance, you may be called on to exhibit.”

“Exhibit?” Pauline laughed.

Oh, this would be a joke. Her worries about accidentally succeeding in this duchess-training endeavor all melted that instant—like so much butter scraped across her warm, evenly browned point of toast. No scorched bread in this house.

“You mean to make me an accomplished lady in one morning? That’s impossible.”

“I mean to find the natural talent you already possess. There must be
one
.”

Pauline paused, toast halfway to her mouth. “Your grace . . .”

She set the toast aside, suddenly uneasy. The duchess thought she had a hidden talent. Her, Pauline Simms. It was so strange—and rather wonderful—to have someone who believed in her, even this small bit.

Though Spindle Cove was stocked with unconventional ladies, none of them had ever taken much time to know Pauline. Her own mother was a sad, defeated shadow of a woman. She’d never had anyone like the duchess in her life—a guiding feminine presence who not only
believed
she could be something better than a farm wife or serving girl, but demanded she
try
.

But the more she came to treasure the duchess’s confidence in her, the more Pauline worried about how this week would end. She hated the idea of watching the older woman’s dreams unravel.

She said, “Please believe me when I tell you, nothing remotely matrimonial is ever going to transpire between me and the duke. It just . . . won’t happen. Nevertheless, your grace, I’m starting to like
you
. You’ve been kind to me in moments, and I know you have a good heart under all that phlegm. I don’t want you to form lofty expectations, only to have your plans spoiled.”

In response, the duchess only gave a slight smile. She lifted a spoon and tapped at her egg sitting in its enameled cup. A delicate lattice of cracks bloomed over the egg’s smooth shell.

Tap, tap, tap.

Pauline reached out with her own spoon and gave the egg a good, hard
crack
. She didn’t know how else to make the older woman listen.

“Your grace, you must take me seriously. I’m trying to tell you to give up your hopes of grandchildren—at least, any mothered by me—and you’re calmly eating a boiled egg. Are you losing your hearing?”

“Not at all. I heard you perfectly.”

“You’re smiling.”

“I’m smiling because you said ‘spoiled plans’ and ‘boiled egg.’ Not ‘spiled’ or ‘biled.’ ”

Pauline clapped her hand over her mouth, aghast. Drat. The duchess was right. She
had
said the words correctly. What was happening to her?

She knew the answer to that question.

Griff
was happening to her. When the duke kissed her, her head spun, her knees melted . . . and her elocution improved. Limber tongues and all that.

“Bloody hell,” she mumbled into her palm.

The duchess gave a weak sigh and motioned to the servant for more tea. “Your H’s still need work.”

G
riff woke up at the crack of . . . half-nine. Hours earlier than usual.

He’d always been the sort of person who felt most himself at night, and in this last year he’d become a veritable vampire. More often than not he went to bed as the sun came up and remained there until well past noon. But yesterday’s debacle had made it clear to him he couldn’t afford to doze though another day of his mother’s scheming.

How had yesterday gone so wrong?

It had started with the frock. That damnable sweet, sheer, innocent white frock. She’d turned his head, and the rest of the day had been one mistake piling atop the next.

If he hadn’t lost his concentration with Del, he wouldn’t have been wounded. If he hadn’t been wounded, he would have never agreed to attend that ball. If they hadn’t attended the ball, he wouldn’t have ended with her in that dark, fragrant garden, sliding his fingers over her tempting curves and contemplating acts of romantic lunacy.

The answer to this situation was plain.

No new frocks.

No attractive ones, anyhow.

No more kisses, either. That was obvious.

And most important of all, no more surprises.

As he walked through the house in search of them, Griff passed an unusual amount of clutter. Strange debris littered every room—all sorts of activities hastily abandoned. As though the house’s occupants had recently fled an erupting volcano.

In the salon, he found various instruments of needlework strewn on the settee and table. In the morning room, an abandoned easel displayed a drippy mess of a watercolor. Nearby a few drawing pencils lay cruelly snapped in half.

He heard a faint melody, so he walked toward the music room. When he arrived, he found it empty of people—but every instrument in the place, from harp to harpsichord, had been stripped of its Holland cloth, dusted, and attempted.

Where were the servants? Why weren’t they putting these rooms back to rights?

And he still heard that strange, slow melody. Like a drunken music box winding into a death spiral.

The tune ended. It was followed by an enthusiastic smattering of applause.

“Brava, Miss Simms,” he heard.

And then, from someone else, “Give us another?”

The melody began again.

With slow, quiet footfalls, Griff traced the sounds to the dining room. He eased open the door a fraction.

At the far end of the room, he spied Pauline Simms. She stood before about fifteen water goblets lined up on the table, each one filled with a different amount of water, and she was pinging them with two forks. He couldn’t tell if they were pickle forks or oyster forks. And then he decided this absurd preoccupation with forks was why he didn’t do mornings.

Anyhow, she was doling out a cheerful melody with these forks, as if each note were a bite of music.

No wonder the house was a shambles. All around her the assembled servants of Halford House stood looking on, rapt. Anticipating each musical morsel that fell from those precious little tines. None of them noticed Griff standing in the door.

The music was only part of the entertainment. As she worked, she pulled the most amusing faces. Delicate frowns of concentration, punctuated by disarming cringes when she struck a wrong note. When a lock of hair worked loose to dangle over her brow, she huffed a breath, blowing it away without skipping a beat.

She was working so very, very hard—so very, very earnestly—to create this display. It was absurd. Ridiculous. And utterly adorable.

Everyone in the room was enchanted, and Griff couldn’t claim he was immune to her spell. She was enchanting.

When the last note faded, all the servants clapped.

“That was Handel, my girl,” his mother said, beaming with pleasure. “How did you learn that piece?”

Pauline shrugged. “Just by listening to the village music tutor. She taught piano lessons in the Bull and Blossom.”

“That’s natural musicality,” the duchess said. “You could translate that ability to any of several proper instruments, with practice.”

“Truly? But, your grace, there’s no time for prac . . .” Her voice trailed off as she looked up—and saw Griff, standing in the doorway.

Their gazes tangled.

Without breaking eye contact, he could feel all the others in the room turning his way.

Griff knew he had a split-second decision to make. He was either going to be caught staring at Miss Simms, exposed for the enraptured, lusting fool he was, in front of his mother
and
all his servants—or he could do what he did best: hide his every emotion behind the mask of an indifferent, entitled jackass.

Really, there was no choice.

Jackass it would be.

He began to applaud in slow, smug claps—and continued long after the room had gone silent.

Long after the shy, endearing smile had fled her face.

He let one last, ringing clap echo through the sobered room. He brought out his most bored, condescending tone. “That . . . was . . . capital, Simms. You will certainly stand out from the debutante crowd.”

She ducked her head, looking flustered. “Just an old trick I learnt at the tavern. Some nights are slow. The duchess asked after my musical talent, and this is the sum of it.”

“Do you juggle tankards, too? Fold table napkins into jousting cranes?”

“I . . . No.” She set aside the forks.

“Pity.”

“Excuse me,” she muttered, rushing out the dining room’s other door.

Griff stared at the empty space she’d left. He hadn’t expected her to take it quite that hard. She wanted to be a successful failure, didn’t she?

Once she was gone, every footman and housemaid in the room turned in his direction. Their eyes shot beams of pure resentment.

“What?” he asked.

Higgs cleared his throat in subtle rebuke.

Good God. He’d lost them, their loyalty. Just like that.

“Really,” Griff said. He ceased leaning on the doorjamb and drew to full ducal height. “
Really
. I’ve been your employer for years. In some cases, decades. Annual rises in pay, Christmas boxes, days off. Simms pings a fork on some goblets, and now you all side with her?”

Silence.

“You’re servants. Stop standing about, and go . . . serve.”

A dour parade of footmen and maids filed past him on their way out of the room, leaving Griff alone with his mother.

She opened her mouth to speak, but he held up a palm.

“I will do the talking,” he said. He was the duke. He was solely responsible for six estates, a vast family fortune, and this very house—and he meant to assert that authority.

“I don’t know what else you have planned for Simms this morning, but I intend to be a part of it. No more of this scheming and shopping in secret, only to ambush me with new frocks and water goblet sonatas. Am I understood?”

She lifted her chin. “Yes.”

“Good.” He clapped his hands together. “So what’s on today’s agenda, now that music is finished? Whatever it is, I’m joining you. More shopping? Etiquette lessons? Some stab at exposing the girl to art or culture?”