Any Duchess Will Do

“Not my fault. Why’d you stop defending?” His friend pushed back his protective mask and looked about the room. When his gaze found Miss Simms, he smiled broadly. “Hullo. I see for myself now.”



Hullo, indeed.



Pauline curtsied, and Griff gave her a brisk nod.



He shouldn’t have been so surprised. It was just that he hadn’t seen her since the library last night, where they’d spent that time talking. Then embracing. Then kissing like lovers who’d been imprisoned in separate cells for ten years and were headed for the gallows at dawn.



Good God. Good God.



Today, he’d resolved to find her and have a brief, businesslike chat to set matters straight, assure them both it wouldn’t happen again—but the talk wasn’t supposed to happen like this. They were meant to be alone, but only to a safe degree. When he was too exhausted from hours of vigorous fencing to even contemplate lust, and when she was . . . not looking like that.



Are you all right? she mouthed.



No. No, he wasn’t all right. He was devastated.



Yesterday she’d turned his head with impropriety and all those sparkling sugar crystals. Now she didn’t sparkle any longer. She wore a frock of white so sheer and pure, the sun-burnished warmth of her skin shone through.



She glowed.



He’d always loved this: a woman’s elemental effect on him, as a man. He used to live for these moments of raw, instinctual attraction. When a source of celestial-grade femininity wandered into the room, and his internal compass recalibrated. It was a sublime shift from internal chaos to single-minded determination. The difference between Ye gods, what next? and . . .



Her. I’ll take her.



Damn. He wanted her. He had from the first. He understood it now, that some deadened part of him was kindling back to life.



But this was the worst possible time, and she was the least possible woman, and whatever effect she had on him, Griff knew he must make absolutely sure that no one in the room—not his mother, not his friend, not Pauline Simms—had any clue.



Well, aside from the bleeding.



Turning away, he used the edge of his sword to shear a strip of linen from his shirt and used it to bind his wound.



“Your grace.” Del stretched one leg forward and made a deep, courtly bow to the duchess.



“Lord Delacre.” His mother inclined her head.



“Will you do me the honor of introducing your lovely friend?”



Don’t start, Griff silently warned. Not with her.



He and Del had a long history of locking horns over conquests. In their most callow, youthful years they’d even made a sport of it, with wagers and a complex system of points. Griff had long outgrown such things, but there was no telling, where Delacre was concerned. He might still be keeping a tally somewhere.



“This is my guest,” the duchess said. “Miss Simms, of Sussex.”



“Well, Miss Simms of Sussex. It’s a true pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Lord Delacre, of wherever I’m least wanted.” He lifted Pauline’s hand and kissed it.



She lifted an eyebrow at Griff, and it was as though he could hear her teasing, You didn’t kiss my hand.



But I saved you from falling on your face, he retorted with a quirked brow of his own.



For a moment they began to share a smile. And then it was though they both remembered the kisses that had followed said rescue—not to mention the implied intimacy of conversing in eyebrow quirks while other people looked on.



Her throat flushed. Griff looked away.



“Don’t be worried about him, Miss Simms,” said Delacre. “We’re expert swordsmen, the two of us. Best in London. We have to be.”



“And why’s that?” she asked.



“Because we’re the two greatest rakes.” Del winked at her. “A reputation for expert swordsmanship is the best defense against being called out in a duel. No man, no matter how enraged, would put the choice of weapon in our hands.” He set his practice blade aside. “Have you been long in London, Miss Simms?”



“Only since yesterday, my lord.”



The duchess put in, “Miss Simms’s parents have been unable to expose her to society, so I’ve offered to give the girl some polish here in Town.”



“Judging by the slice in Halford’s arm, I’d say you’re off to a promising start,” Delacre said. In a lowered voice, he told the duchess, “I know what you’re up to. And as one blood-sworn to defend him against all marriage traps, I ought to object. But for once, your grace, I think we may be allies. There’s no denying he’s been a monk all season. Only less amusing.”



“I heard that,” Griff said curtly.



Del ignored him, still addressing the duchess in confidential tones. “Of course, we’re not entirely aligned. You’re his mother. You want to see him married. As his friend, my goal is different. I’d settle for getting him—”



“Del.”



“—out,” Delacre finished, clapping a hand to his breast in innocence. “Getting him out. Of the house. What did you think I meant to say? You have a filthy mind, Halford. Positively diseased.”



Annoyed, Griff swung his sword in idle threat, testing his wounded arm. With friends like these . . .



“This is excellent.” Delacre clapped his hands. “Miss Simms needs an introduction to Town. Halford’s been needing to use his—”



“Del.”



“—legs.” Delacre raised his hands in innocence. “Obviously, we all need to attend the Beaufetheringstone crush this evening.”



His mother sighed. “I will speak these words just once in my lifetime, I’m sure. Delacre, you make an excellent suggestion.”



“It’s a terrible suggestion,” Griff muttered.



“Until this evening, then.” Delacre gathered his things and sketched a quick bow. “I must be going. I like to wear out at least three welcomes before teatime. Otherwise, the day feels wasted.” From the doorway, he leveled a finger at Griff. “You can thank me for this later.”



Oh, I will gut you for this later.



“But I just arrived in Town,” Pauline said. “I don’t have anything to wear.”



The duchess raised a brow. “Girl, you have so little faith in me.”



Griff knew better. He put nothing past his mother when she had a goal in mind. But even if she managed to make Miss Simms look the part of a young lady, she couldn’t remedy the girl’s accent, education, woeful etiquette, and utter lack of genteel accomplishment. Not in a single day’s time.



He wasn’t worried.



Much.



A few hours later Pauline understood why the duke might price a week’s maternal diversion at one thousand pounds and still think it a good value. The duchess could spend that sum in one afternoon, twice.



They visited the modiste first—an aging, turbaned woman who appeared better suited to fortune-telling than mantua-making. She surveyed Pauline with dramatic, kohl-rimmed eyes.



“Oh, your grace,” the woman said, in a tone of despair. “What is this you’ve brought me?”



“She needs a week’s full wardrobe,” the duchess said. “Altered samples will do for today, but we need better for tomorrow. Morning, walking, and evening dress. A ball gown by Friday night. And she must look ravishing beyond compare.”



“Ravishing? This?” The modiste clucked her tongue. “You ask too much.”



The duchess lifted a brow and fixed the woman with a severe look. “I’m not asking.”



The room froze over with an icy, tense silence.



Finally, the modiste clapped her hands, and a bevy of assistants rushed forward.



Pauline played scarecrow for hours, standing with her arms spread to either side while flitting seamstresses circled her. They measured every bit of her with tapes, from wrists to ankles, and draped her with lengths of shimmering fabric.



Once the seamstresses were finished pricking her with pins, it was on to the linen draper’s, where Pauline learned just how many shades pink came in: scores. The duchess pored over bolt after bolt of satin in shades of blush, rose, berry, and one unpleasant, flaming shade she could only describe as “rash.” The duchess had several fabrics cut and sent to the modiste.



Then it was on to the haberdasher’s. And the milliner’s. Then the glover’s. By the time she’d tried on a dozen pairs of toe-pinching slippers, Pauline came to a realization.



Achieving the look of pampered elegance required a ridiculous amount of work.



While the duchess was directing the footmen in their efforts to secure fourteen parcels and hatboxes atop the coach, Pauline’s attention strayed to a shop next door.



A happy flutter rose in her chest.



It was a bookshop.



She peered through the lattice of diamond-shaped windowpanes, greedily drinking in every detail and committing it to memory. In the window, someone had made a display of geographical titles—the travel memoirs of wealthy gentlemen, mostly. In the center lay an atlas, open to a tinted map of the Mediterranean Sea.



She noted the careful manner in which the unbound volumes were arranged on shelves. The titles were impossible to make out from this distance. Were they sorted alphabetically by title or by author? Or grouped by subject, perhaps? Maybe they were organized by some other method entirely.



Pauline cast a glance at the duchess. She was still wholly occupied with the parcels.



“No, no,” she told the footman. “That one must go on top. I don’t care that it’s the largest. It mustn’t be crushed.”



A pair of ladies emerged from the bookshop, turning to walk down the street in the other direction. Pauline peered through the window again. She saw no other customers within. After scribbling a few lines in a ledger, the shopkeeper disappeared into a back storeroom.



Her curiosity got the better of her common sense. While the duchess saw to the parcels, Pauline opened the door of the bookshop and ducked inside. She would only be a moment.



Oh, but she could have lingered for weeks.



The most glorious smell met her as she entered the establishment. Ink and paste and leather and crisp new parchment—all tinged with just the right amount of mustiness. It was the perfect blend of familiar and new, like the spice-laced comfort of walking into Mr. Fosbury’s kitchen at Christmastime.



Beyond the display she could spy the shopkeeper’s counter, with a slate of titles neatly labeled NEW PRINTINGS. Samples of various leather bindings were laid out for customers making a purchase—black, green, red, dark blue, and a scrap of light fawn-hued calfskin as impractical as it was lovely.



She walked to a shelf and let her touch linger on the spine of a book. A poetry volume.



Pauline didn’t have much in common with the ladies who visited Spindle Cove. But she shared their love of the printed word. It seemed any young woman at odds with her place in life—be she a genteel lady or a serving girl—might find a happier home within the pages of a book.



“Who’s that?”



The shopkeeper came out from the storeroom. When his sharp gaze fell on Pauline, she snatched her hand away from the poetry volume, cradling her fingers in her other hand as if they’d been burnt.



The man eyed her with suspicion. “What do you want, girl? If you’re selling pies or oranges, come ’round the back way.”



“No, I . . . I’m not sellin’ anythin’.” The broadness of her accent pained her own ears. Never mind the new frock—she was instantly given away. “Anything,” she repeated, making certain to attach the G sound this time. “I only wanted a look at the books.”



The shopkeeper snorted. “If you’re wanting horrid novels, you can find them down in Leadenhall. I don’t permit girls to stand about gawping.”



“I’m companion to the Duchess of Halford. She’s waiting for me just outside.”