Any Duchess Will Do (20 page)

No, no. This was all too much.

She held his heartbeat in her hand. He treasured her small, insignificant breast with his. And overhead, great bloody fireworks exploded with trails of silver and gold.

The power in the moment was soul-rattling. Without the shield of a kiss, she couldn’t hide her own feelings. There was nowhere she could look but straight into his dark eyes.

Her own pulse was an incoherent flutter, but there was no hesitance in the rhythm beneath her palm. No stutter, no doubt. Just a strong, insistent beat of wanting.

Pauline
, she could almost imagine it to say.
Pauline, Pauline, Pauline.

That couldn’t be right. It had to be saying something else.

Probably,
You fool, you fool, you fool.

Somewhere nearby, love was an ominous, gaping hole in the earth, widening every moment. Unless she were very careful, she’d be sure to fall straight in.

“Griff,” she whispered. “You need someone. Everyone needs someone.”

With an impatient motion, he hiked her bodice, covering her breast. Then he stepped away.

“You don’t understand this.” His words were dark and fierce. “Don’t tell me I need someone. My whole life has been an endless string of someones. Another ‘someone’ is exactly what I don’t need. I most especially do not want to stand in a room of pitiful, lackluster young women and hear, ‘It’s your duty to marry, Halford. Just choose
someone
.’ ”

She reeled away from him, stung. “Oh. I see.”

He cursed. “That’s not what I—”

“No, you’re right.” She edged away in small, hurried steps. “Choosing a lackluster girl from a crowded room. What a nightmare. No good could ever come of a scene like
that
.”

“Pauline, wait.”

She turned and ran, leaving him in the darkened grove and emerging into an open square where a crowd had gathered to watch the fireworks. She stopped in her tracks, working for breath. All around her, people were laughing and cheering and gasping with joy.

An unseen man bumped into her, hard. The old Pauline would’ve elbowed him back, but she didn’t have the heart for it right now. Instead, she turned to face him, laying her hand to her throat in apology.

Oh, God. Oh no.

He was gone. It was gone.

G
riff made his way through the grove, searching for her.

At last he caught sight of her gown on the far side of the crowded green. That throbbing blur of pink, illuminated by gold pulses from above. He felt as though he were watching his own heart, separated from his body.

Then a man emerged from the shadows—and his heart stumbled.

“Pauline!” he shouted.

She didn’t hear him—or didn’t turn, if she had. Instead, she paused for a moment. Then she rucked up her skirts and tore away, darting into the night.

She was chasing someone. He heard her call, “Stop! Stop, you bloody thief!”

Thief?

Griff ran after her, but he still had the crowd to navigate, and she had a formidable lead. He was amazed at how fast she could run in all those skirts. She was giving the villain—whoever he was—quite a chase through colonnades and across lamplit groves.

And as she ran, profanity unfurled behind her like a brightly colored banner. Whatever gains she’d made in elocution this week all disappeared.

“Bastard!” she shouted, jostling past a bemused gentleman Griff recognized as an Austrian ambassador. “Stop, you black-’earted devil!”

Well, if she’d wanted a disastrous public spectacle—she had it. No punch bowl necessary.

“I’ll ’ave your bollocks, you filthy whoreson!”

Griff made an apologetic
No, no, not you
grimace in the direction of the royal booth, not daring to slow down long enough to explain. He would have laughed if he weren’t so breathless—and so worried for Pauline.

They reached the borders of Vauxhall and plunged out into the surrounding neighborhood—a jumble of factories and shipping merchants’ homes and tenements. None of the streets were lit. God only knew what dangers lurked in the alleyways.

Still, she charged on.

What was she thinking? Whatever the brigand had taken, it wasn’t worth risking her life.

She was losing ground on the thief, but Griff was gaining on her.

“Pauline!” he shouted, digging deep for breath. “Let him go!”

“I can’t!”

She turned a corner in pursuit and Griff lost sight of her for a few bleak, endless seconds. He kicked up his pace, just praying that she’d still be whole and unharmed—so he could catch her and shake her silly.

Just as he neared the same corner, a short, piercing scream rent the air.

Holy God. Please.

He rounded the corner, and there she was—crumpled to the ground in the middle of the lane.

“Pauline. Pauline, are you hurt?”

“Don’t stop for me,” she cried. “Run after him.”

“He’s gone.” Griff didn’t even bother to look. “He’s gone. And even if I could catch him, there’s no way in hell I’d abandon you here.”

People were already filing out from the nearby dwellings, having a good look at the fine lady and gent in the street. Griff made his posture strong and turned a wary glance in all directions, letting any ruffians know that they’d better not take their chances.

“What’s happened?” he murmured, crouching down before Pauline. “Did he hurt you? Strike you with something?” He began searching for splashes of blood. A horrid thought struck him. “He didn’t have a pistol or a blade?”

“No,” she sobbed.

He breathed again. Thank God.

“Nothing of the sort. It’s just these dratted shoes. I caught my heel between the paving stones and my ankle turned.”

She lifted her skirt, and he could see her stockinged ankle, caught at an angle that made him wince.

He freed her foot first, then the shoe. With gentle fingers, he explored her swelling ankle. She choked back a sob of distress.

“Is it so very painful? Perhaps it’s broken.”

She shook her head. “It’s not broken. And the pain isn’t so bad. It’s just . . .”

“What?” he said darkly. “What did the villain do to you?”

“Oh, God. You’ll despise me.”

“Never.”

She slumped against him, as if all the fight and fire had gone out of her. “Griff, he took the necklace. Your mother’s amethysts. They were worth thousands. And now they’re gone.”

Chapter Eighteen

T
hat was it, then. Pauline gave up. She surrendered to his care, not knowing what else there was to do. She’d always considered herself a resilient person, but tonight she was beat.

London one, Pauline nothing.

Less than nothing. Even considering the thousand pounds in wages Griff had promised her, she was now several thousand in his debt. The duchess would never forgive her. How would she ever pay them back?

The duke was still crouched at her side.

“Put your arms about my neck,” he directed.

She obeyed, halfheartedly lacing her wrists about his shoulders.

“Hold on tightly,” he admonished, muttering a curse. “You’re a farmer’s daughter and serving girl. I know you can do better than that.”

She willed her muscles to flex. He was right, she had a sturdy frame—which meant she wasn’t precisely a feather’s weight. She owed it to him to do her part.

He lifted her with a low grunt of exertion, shifting his arms until her weight settled against his solid chest.

“The shoe,” she said feebly.

“Damn the shoe.”

She supposed he was right. What difference did a shoe make, when she’d just lost a necklace worth thousands of pounds?

He carried her to the end of the street, down a different way than they’d come in pursuit. She thought about pointing out the discrepancy, but decided he knew where he was going. His face, when she now and then glimpsed it in the weak light thrown from a window, was a mask of stern determination.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

He gave a terse, dismissive shake of his head. “Don’t.”

He didn’t speak to her further on the way home. Not in the boat that ferried them back across the Thames. Not in the carriage back to Mayfair.

When they arrived at Halford House, she heard him giving quiet yet firm orders to the house staff. She found herself whisked into the Rose Salon and propped up on the largest available divan.

“I’m calling for a doctor,” Griff said.

“Really, I don’t need it,” she protested.

He left the room. And that was the end of that argument.

So Pauline sat in the Rose Salon while the doctor poked and prodded and looked over her. The swelling seemed to be improving already. No lasting harm done. Not to her ankle, anyway. Other parts of her might never recover.

As the doctor was on his way out, Griff appeared in the doorway to confer with him. He’d removed his coat, rolling his shirtsleeves to the wrist.

Pauline rose from the chair and hobbled to meet him in the center of the carpet. “Well,” she said. “I finally proved a catastrophe. I must have appeared to be a foul-mouthed harpy, swooping across those manicured greens.”

He didn’t seem to see the humor in her statement. “Come. I’ll help you upstairs.”

She waved off his help. “It’s not a bad sprain. The doctor said it will quickly mend.”

He insisted on placing an arm about her waist, guiding her toward the stairs. She didn’t know how to refuse. The juxtaposition of his glowering expression and his solicitous attentions made everything seem worse.

She took the first stair with her good foot. “You’re angry with me.”

“I am angry,” he said. “I cannot deny it. But I am struggling not to direct my anger at you.”

She hobbled up another stair.

“I’m so sorry. I’ll pay it back somehow. Beginning with the thousand pounds, of course. As for the rest of it . . .” She stopped and looked up at him. “I don’t know how. But I swear to you, I will make this right.”

He looked down at her with an expression of absolute bemusement. “What on earth can you mean?”

“The necklace. I’ll pay for it somehow.” She clutched the banister and took another step.

He didn’t move with her.

“This is absurd,” he muttered.

Ducking, he wrapped one arm under her thighs and lifted her straight off her feet—into his arms. He carried her up the rest of her steps, and at the top of the staircase, he didn’t continue up another flight to her bedchamber.

He turned toward his private suite.

Balancing her weight in one arm, he opened the latch, carried her through the entry, and kicked the door shut behind him. After toting her through a sitting room, he dropped her onto a bed.

His
bed.

It was an enormous bed—a four-poster of solid mahogany, with velvet hangings on all sides.

She tried to struggle up on her elbows, but her heavy gown worked against her. Before she could make any progress, he had her caged. He knelt over her, straddling her thighs.

Then he framed her face in his strong hands, forbidding her to look anywhere but at him. His eyes were wild and fierce. Her heartbeat slammed against his.

“I am angry, Pauline. I have immense rage for that brigand who dared to touch you. I am furious that you’ve been hurt. And I’m angry with you, yes. For chasing after him, putting yourself at such risk. Do you know what kind of people lurk in those paths and alleyways?”

“I didn’t know what else to do. He took your mother’s—”

“Necklace. What of it? She has dozens.”

“But this is a valuable one. I know she prizes it. That’s why she wanted me to wear it tonight, so . . .”

So you could see me, and look at me as a true lady. So you’d fall in love with me and want me to be your bride. What a laugh.

“You believe I’d value a strand of jewels above your life? I know we’ve had our differences, Simms, but that’s low. You truly think so little of me?”

“I . . . No. I think a great deal of you.”

“I happen to think a great deal of you, too.”

Kind words, but he spoke them so viciously.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “I can buy my mother another necklace. A better one. A half dozen of them if she likes. Jewels can be replaced.”

“So can serving girls.”

“Don’t. Don’t play that game.” His brow pressed to hers. “When I heard you cry out . . . it was like a saber to the gut. I wanted to die.”

I wanted to die.

The words pushed a wave of doubt through her. He couldn’t mean that. Just exaggeration, surely.

“I could have found you broken or bleeding, or—” His voice broke. “Or worse. Don’t tell me I care about polished rocks on a chain. I want to believe you know me better than that.”

“I do.”

“And yet you believe I’d be so upset about a necklace that I’d send you away?”

She gestured uselessly. “You’d just said you didn’t want me at all.”

“I said no such thing. You ran off before I could finish.” He ran a hand down her body. “I said I didn’t need ‘someone.’ Because you’re not just someone to me. You’re remarkable and stubborn and lovely and too damn brave for your own good.” His hand fisted in the fabric of her gown. “You’re you. I want you. From the moment you stumbled through that tavern door, I wanted you.”

She pressed a hand to her mouth, stifling her emotion.

“Don’t.” He pulled her hand from her mouth. “Don’t hide. Don’t ever run from me again.”

He kissed her hungrily, desperately, and she opened herself to his sensual invasion, welcoming his tongue with her own and aching to hold him tight.

With labored breaths of effort, he pulled away. His eyes burned into hers. “If I asked you to stay with me . . .”

“I couldn’t.” Stunned, she went still in his arms. “You know I couldn’t. I must go home to Daniela. I promised her, and you gave us your word.”

“If I offered you a home. A house in the country, with everything you and your sister could ever need.”

“I couldn’t be a kept mistress. Not even yours. I’d lose respect for myself, and for you.”

His gaze clouded. “I can’t marry you.”

“I know.” Sadness pressed down on her heart. “There’s no way this can last beyond week’s end.”

He cupped her face with one hand and stroked his thumb over her cheek. “Well, know this. I am damned well going to make love to you tonight.”

Excitement jolted through her.

Yes.

“Yes, Griff. Please.”

He gathered her skirts, tugging them upward. His fingers curved around her thigh, stroking up and down. “Are you sure you’re well enough? You’re not too bruised or hurting under all this silk?”

His concern for her well-being touched her heart. “I promise. I’m fine.”

“I’ll judge for myself.” He turned her on her belly and began to tug at her hooks and laces. “Off with these things. I’ve been wild to see you naked again.”

Again?
“When did you see me naked before?”

“That first night in the library.”

“But . . . I was wearing my shift the whole time.”

“I know.” He pulled the gown down over her hips, then set about untying her petticoats. “But your shift was gloriously thin. When you stepped in front of the lamp, the light shone right through it. I could see everything.”

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

Pauline didn’t know how to take that. She merely went limp as he unlaced her corset and flung it aside. Then, pulling her to a half-sitting position, he lifted the chemise up and over her head. She flopped back on the bed linens, completely nude except for her stockings.

He sat up and began to remove his own clothing. Waistcoat, cravat, shirt. She watched him as he stripped off layer after layer of elegance, down to the man beneath it all.

“Cor,” she breathed.

He was perfect. Broad in the shoulders, lean at the waist. Muscled everywhere. A sprinkling of dark hair on his chest.

He turned away, sitting on the edge of the bed to remove his boots and unbutton his breeches, giving her ample time to admire the sculpted planes of his bared back.

“There,” he said, tossing the last bit of clothing aside.

He stretched out beside her, and she suddenly felt abashed. He was so perfect, everywhere. The ideal form of a man. And she wasn’t the ideal form of woman. Not at all.

For the first time, she felt truly unequal to him.

His gaze swept her body first, but his caress soon followed suit. He cupped her breast in his hand. She began to hope, foolishly, that he might say he liked what he saw. She didn’t need to hear “Beautiful” or “Lovely” or “Perfect.” Something like his terse “Good” earlier that evening would do.

When his thumb found her hardened nipple, he did something much better. He gave a low growl of satisfaction, deep in his throat. The sound was so primal and unambiguous. So utterly male. It called to everything feminine in her, and the response that welled from deep inside was a faint, sighing moan of relief.

“Just as arousing as I remember,” he muttered. “More. You wouldn’t believe how hard you made me that first night. Every night since.”

A self-conscious laugh escaped her. “I’m built like a fourteen-year-old boy.”

“Bollocks. I’ve been a fourteen-year-old boy. I tell you, my breasts were nowhere near this enticing.” He traced her areola, then the curve beneath her breast.

She writhed, undone by the intense sensations. “So you’re one of those men who actually likes his women small-breasted?”

Her well-endowed friends had always consoled her with the promise that such men existed, but she’d yet to meet with one in the flesh. She’d grown to think of them as mythical beasts, in the same class as pixies and dragons.

“I never understood that way of thinking.” As he spoke, he kissed her breasts and swept bold touches over her belly and down her thighs. “It’s like those old men who come to the club for dinner every night and always take the same meal, sitting at the same table. What good is life if a man can’t appreciate variety?” He drew one nipple into his mouth, circling the taut peak with his tongue.

A sigh of pleasure eased from her throat. Beyond that, she didn’t know how to respond. She supposed a duke would have ample access to “variety,” if he wished it. After she returned to Spindle Cove, perhaps he’d find a buxom, fair-haired beauty for contrast.

As if he could sense her unease, his demeanor changed. “You’re an intensely attractive woman. You do know that, don’t you?” To her silence, he replied, “You’d believe me if you could see yourself.”

“I
have
seen myself. That’s the snag, you see.”

He shook his head. “No, no. Not in a mirror. I know how mirrors work. They’re all in league with the cosmetics trade. They tell a woman lies. Drawing her gaze from one imagined flaw to another, until all she sees is a constellation of imperfections. If you could get outside yourself, borrow my eyes for just an instant . . . There’s only beauty.” He pressed his hand to his heart. “I swear it on the seven Dukes of Halford before me.”

Several moments passed before she could speak. “Well. I’ve seen their portraits. I’ll concede that I’m prettier than they were.”

He chuckled. “Thank God for that.”

He wedged his hips between her thighs, spreading her wide. The hard curve of his erection pulsed hot and urgent against her core.

“Let it be now,” he said, burying his face in her neck. “Next time, I’ll go slowly. Kiss you everywhere, touch you for hours. But I can’t be patient any longer. I need . . . God, I need you. I need you.”

“Yes.” She kissed him, tilting her hips in invitation. She needed him, too. So desperately.