Any Duchess Will Do (2 page)

Now the wretched old bat cackled in triumph.

Confused, Daniela smiled and tried to laugh along.

Pauline’s heart broke for her sister. They were only a year apart in age, but so many more in understanding. Of all the things that came a bit more difficult for Daniela than other people—pronouncing words that ended in consonants, subtracting from numbers greater than ten—cruelty seemed the hardest concept for her to grasp. A mercy, in Amos Simms’s family.

“Not the clayed sugar,” Rufus Bright moaned.

Sally boxed him across the ear.

“I just scraped it from the cone,” he apologized, rubbing the side of his head. “Bin was almost full.”

“Well, it’s entirely useless now,” said Mrs. Whittlecombe smugly.

“I’ll pay for the sugar,” Pauline said. She felt instantly nauseous, as if she’d swallowed five pounds of the stuff raw. Fine white sugar came dear.

“You don’t have to do that,” Sally said in a low voice. “We’re practically sisters. We should be
real
sisters, if my brother Errol had any sense in his head.”

Pauline shook her head. She’d ceased pining for Errol Bright when they parted ways years ago. She certainly didn’t want to be indebted to him now.

“I’ll pay for it,” she insisted. “It was my mistake. I should have done it myself, but I was in a hurry.”

And now she would certainly be late for her post at the Bull and Blossom. This day only grew worse and worse.

Sally looked pained, caught between the need to turn a profit and the desire to help a friend.

In the corner, Daniela had finally realized the consequences of her error. “I can put it back,” she said, scooping from the sugar barrel and dumping it into the alum, muddling both quantities with her flowing tears. “I can put it right.”

“It’s all right, dear.” Pauline went to her side and gently removed the tin scoop from her sister’s hand. “Go on,” she told Sally firmly. “I think I have some credit in the ledger.”

She didn’t just
think
she had credit. She
knew
she did. Several pages beyond the Simms family account, there was a page labeled simply
PAULINE
—and it showed precisely two pounds, four shillings, and eight pence of credit accrued. For the past few years, she’d saved and scrimped every penny she could, trusting Sally’s ledger with the safekeeping. It was the closest thing to a bank account a serving girl like her could have.

Almost a year, she’d been saving. Saving for something better, for her and Daniela both. Saving for
someday
.

“Do it,” she said.

With a few strokes of Sally’s quill, the money was almost entirely gone. Eleven shillings, eight pence left.

“I didn’t charge for the alum,” Sally murmured.

“Thank you.” Small comfort, but it was something. “Rufus, would you kindly walk my sister home? I’m due at the tavern, and she’s upset.”

Rufus, apparently ashamed of his earlier behavior, offered his arm. “ ’Course I will. Come along, Danny. I’ll drive you in the cart.”

When Daniela resisted, Pauline hugged her and whispered, “You go home, and tonight I’ll bring your penny.”

The promise brightened Daniela’s face. It was her daily task to gather the eggs, count and candle them, and prepare them to sell. In return, Pauline gave her a penny a week.

Every Saturday evening she watched Daniela carefully add the coin to an old, battered tea tin. She would shake the tin and grin, satisfied with the rattling sound. It was a ritual that pleased them both. The next morning the same treasured penny went into the church offering—every Sunday, without fail.

“Go on, then.” She sent her sister off with a smile she didn’t quite feel.

Once Rufus and Daniela had left, Mrs. Whittlecombe crowed with satisfaction. “That’ll be a lesson for you, bringing a simpleton around the village.”

“Go easy, Mrs. Whittlecombe,” a bystander said. “You know they mean well.”

Pauline flinched inwardly. Not that phrase. She’d heard it countless times over the course of her life. Always in that same pitying tone, usually accompanied by a clucking tongue:
Can’t be hard on those Simms girls . . . you know they mean well.

In other words, no one expected them to
do
a cursed thing right. How could they? Two unwanted daughters in a family with no sons. One simple-minded, the other lacking in every feminine grace.

Just once, Pauline wanted to be known not for
meaning
well, but for
doing
well.

That day wouldn’t be today. Not only had everything gone wrong, but as she regarded Mrs. Whittlecombe, Pauline couldn’t muster any good intentions. Anger bloomed in her chest like a predatory vine, all sharp needles and grasping tendrils.

The old woman placed two bottles of tonic in her netted bag. They clinked together in a way that only increased Pauline’s anger. “Next time, keep the fool thing at home.”

Her hands balled into tight fists at her side. Of course she wouldn’t lash out at an old woman the way she’d once fought the teasing boys at school, but the motion was instinctive. “Daniela is not a thing. She is a person.”

“She’s a half-wit. She doesn’t belong out of the house.”

“She made a mistake. Just like all people make mistakes.” Pauline reached for the bin of ruined white sugar. It was hers now, wasn’t it? She’d paid for the contents. “For example, everyone knows I’m incurably clumsy.”

“Pauline,” Sally warned. “Please don’t.”

Too late. With an angry heave, she launched the bin’s contents into the air.

The room exploded in a blizzard of white, and Mrs. Whittlecombe was at the storm’s dead center, sputtering and cursing through a cloud of powder. When the flurries cleared, she looked like Lot’s wife, only turned to a pillar of sugar rather than salt.

The sense of divine retribution that settled on Pauline . . . it was almost worth all that hard-earned money.

Almost.

She tossed the empty bin to the floor. “Oh, dear. How stupid of me.”

G
riff regarded his mother and that smug smile curving her lips. This time she’d gone too far. This wasn’t mere meddling. It was diabolical.

Not
Spinster
Cove.

He’d never visited the place, but he knew it well by reputation. This seaside hamlet was where old maids went to embroider and consumptives went to dry.

Accepting the footman’s hand, the duchess alighted from the coach. “I understand this place is just bursting with well-bred, unmarried young ladies.”

She motioned toward a lodging house. A sign dangling above the entrance announced it as
THE QUEEN’S RUBY.

Griff blinked at the green shutters and cheery window boxes stuffed with geraniums. He’d rather bathe in water teeming with sharks.

He turned and walked in the opposite direction.

“Where are you going?” she asked, following.

“There.” He nodded at a tavern across the square. By squinting at the sign hung over the red-painted door, he discerned it was called the Bull and Blossom. “I’m going to have a pint of ale and something to eat.”

“What about me?”

He gestured expansively. “Make yourself comfortable. Take a suite at the rooming house. Enjoy the healthful sea breezes. I’ll send the coach for you in a few weeks.” He added under his breath, “Or years.”

The footman followed a respectful pace behind, holding the open parasol to shade the duchess.

“Absolutely not,” she said. “You’re going to select a bride, and you’re going to do it today.”

“Don’t you understand what sort of young ladies are sent to this village? The unmarriageable ones.”

“Exactly. It’s perfect. None of them will turn you down.”

Her words drew Griff to a sharp halt. He swiveled to face her. “Turn
me
down?”

For the obvious reasons, he avoided discussing his
affaires
with her. But the reason he’d been celibate lo these many months had nothing to do with women turning him down. There were many women—beautiful, sophisticated, sensual women—who’d gladly welcome him to their beds this very evening. He was tempted to tell her so, but a man couldn’t say such things to his own mother.

She seemed to interpret his silence easily enough.

“I’m not speaking of carnality. I’m speaking of your desirability as a husband. Your reputation leaves a great deal to be desired.” She brushed some dust from his sleeve. “Then there’s the aging problem.”

“The ‘aging’ problem?” He was thirty-four. By his estimation, his cock had a good three decades of working order ahead, at least.

“To be sure, you’re good-looking enough. But there are handsomer.”

“Are you sure you’re my mother?”

She turned and walked on. “The fact is, most ladies of the
ton
have given you up as a marriage prospect. A village of desperate spinsters is precisely what we need. You must admit, this worked nicely for that scampish friend of yours, Lord Payne.”

God’s knees. So
that’s
what was behind this. Curse that rogue Colin Sandhurst and his bespectacled, bookish bride. Last year, his old gambling friend had been sequestered in this seaside village without funds, and he’d broken free by eloping with a bluestocking. The pair had even stopped at Winterset Grange, Griff’s country retreat, on their way to Scotland.

But their situations were completely different. Griff wasn’t desperate for funds in any way. Neither was he desperate for companionship.

Marriage simply wasn’t in the cards for him.

His mother fixed him with a look. “Were you waiting to fall in love?”

“What?”

“It’s a simple question. Have you delayed marriage all these years because you’re waiting to fall in love?”

A simple question, she called it. The answers were anything but.

He could have taken her into the tavern, ordered a few large glasses of wine, and taken an hour or two to explain everything. That he wouldn’t be marrying this season, or any season. Her only son would not be merely a blot on the distinguished Halford line, but the very end of it, forever, and the family legacy she held so dear was destined for obscurity. Her hopes of grandchildren would come to naught.

But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not even today, when she was at her most infuriating. Better to remain a dissolute-yet-redeemable rascal in her eyes than be the son who calmly, irrevocably, broke his mother’s heart.

“No,” he told her honestly. “I’m not waiting to fall in love.”

“Well, that’s convenient. We can settle this in one morning. Never mind finding the most polished young beauty in England. You choose a girl—any girl—and I’ll polish her myself. Who could better prepare the future Duchess of Halford than the current Duchess of Halford?”

They’d reached the tavern entrance. His mother stared pointedly at the door latch. The footman jumped to open it.

“Oh, look,” she said upon entering. “What luck. Here they are.”

Griff looked. The scene was even ghastlier than he could have imagined.

This tavern didn’t seem to be a “tavern” at all, but more of a tea shop. Young ladies crowded the establishment, all of them hunched over tables and frowning in concentration. They appeared to be engaged in one of those absurd handicrafts that passed for female “accomplishment” these days. Quilling paper, it looked like. They weren’t even using fresh parchment—just ripping pages straight from books to fashion their queer little trivets and tea trays.

He peered at the nearest stack of volumes.
Mrs. Worthington’s Wisdom for Young Ladies
, each one read. Appalling.

This was everything he’d been avoiding for years. A roomful of unmarried, uninspiring young women, from which the common wisdom would argue he should find a suitable bride.

At the nudging of a friend, one young woman rose from her chair and curtsied. “May we help you, ma’am?”

“Your grace.”

The young woman’s brow creased. “Ma’am?”

“I am the Duchess of Halford. You would properly address me as ‘your grace.’ ”

“Ah. I see.” As her nudging friend smothered a nervous giggle, the fair-haired young woman began again. “May we help you, your grace?”

“Just stand tall, girl. So my son can see you.” She turned her head, surveying the rest of the room. “All of you, on your feet. Best posture.”

Pain forked through Griff’s skull as chair legs screeched against floorboards. One by one the young ladies obediently rose to their feet.

He noted a few pockmarks. One case of crooked teeth. They were none of them hideous, just—fragile in some cases. Others were unfashionably browned from the sun.

“Well,” the duchess said, striding into the center of the room. “Jewels in the rough. In some cases, very rough. But they are all from good family, so with a bit of polish . . .” She turned to him. “Take your choice, Halford. Select any girl who strikes your fancy. I will make her into a duchess.”

Every jaw in the room dropped.

Every jaw, that was, except Griff’s.

He massaged his throbbing temples and began preparing a little speech in his mind.
Ladies, I beg you. Pay this raving madwoman no attention. She’s entered her decline.

But then, he thought—a quick exit was too kind to her. Surely the only proper punishment was the opposite: to do precisely as his mother asked.

He said, “You claim you can make any one of these girls into a suitable duchess.”

“Of course I can.”

“And who will be the judge of your success?”

She lifted a brow. “Society, of course. Choose your young lady, and she’ll be the toast of London by season’s end.”

“The toast of London, you say?” He gave a doubtful laugh.

He scanned the tavern for a second time, planning to declare mad, instantaneous love for the most shrinking, awkward, homely chit available—and then watch his mother sputter and flail in response.

However, from the amused glances the young ladies exchanged, Griff could sense that there was more courage and wit in the room than his first impression might have indicated. These young women were no fools. And though they each had their flaws and imperfections—who didn’t?—none were unsuitable to a shocking, insurmountable degree.