Any Duchess Will Do Read online

Page 14

 

  He also kissed like a man who craved warmth and comfort. But she wasn’t about to tell the duchess that.

  “A locked room,” the duchess repeated. “He keeps one chamber of his suite locked day and night. Only he has the key. He doesn’t even allow the maids to dust it. It’s . . . it’s perverse. Who knows what he’s keeping in there?”

  “I do hope it’s not a collection of severed heads. Perhaps he’s been trawling the countryside for impertinent serving girls, and I’ll be number eleven. ”

  The duchess harrumphed. “You’re not number eleven. You’re going to be his first—and only—bride. ”

  “But I’m a commoner. ”

  “The Halford legacy is sufficiently robust to withstand my son’s debauchery. It can even survive a commoner as duchess. But it will end—forever—if there is no male heir. ”

  “Surely the duke has decades yet to produce a son. You can’t honestly believe he’ll marry me. ”

  “He must. I can’t wait decades. You don’t understand. ” The duchess halted. “I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this. Now I see I have no choice. ”

  The older woman thrust one hand into her pocket and drew it back out, clutching something small and fuzzy.

  “There,” she declared. “Just look at it. ”

  Pauline looked at it. A knitted object, of indeterminate purpose, made from light yellow wool. Part of it looked like a cap, and part of it looked like a glove, and none if it looked well made.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “It’s appalling! That’s what it is. I don’t even know how it happens. I haven’t done needlework since I was a girl of fourteen. Even then it was crewel work and embroidery. Never knitting. But every night, for the past several months, I sit down for the evening, intending to read or write letters, and three hours later there’s a lumpy, misshapen thing in my lap. ”

  Pauline stifled a giggle.

  “Go ahead, laugh. It’s ridiculous. ” The duchess picked up the knitted mess and turned it over in her hands. “Is it a cap for a two-headed snake? A mitten for a three-fingered arthritic? Even I don’t know, and I made the thing. The shame. I can’t let the servants see them, of course. I have to stash them in a hatbox and smuggle them out to the Foundling Hospital on Tuesdays. ”

  Pauline laughed aloud at that.

  “A lifetime of elegance, poise, and jewels, and now I’ve come to this. ” She lifted the distorted mitten and shook it at Pauline. “This! It’s absurd. ”

  “Perhaps you should consult a doctor. ”

  “I don’t need a powder or a tonic, Miss Simms. ” The duchess sank into a chair and pressed the snarl of yarn to her chest. Her voice softened. “I need grandchildren. Little pudgy, wriggling babies to absorb all this affection unraveling inside me. I’m desperate for them, and I don’t know what will become of me otherwise. Some morning, Fleur will come in to wake me and find I’ve been asphyxiated by a yards-long muffler. How gauche. ”

  Pauline took the knitting from the duchess’s hands and examined it. “This isn’t half bad, in places. I could teach you to make a proper cuff, if you like. ”

  The duchess grabbed it from her and stuffed it back in her pocket. “I’ll take knitting lessons from you later. This week, you’re taking duchess lessons from me. ”

  “But, your grace, you don’t understand. I don’t even—”

  Pauline shut her mouth. It had been on the tip of her tongue to say, I don’t even want to marry him.

  But something stopped her from saying it aloud. An impulse to spare the duchess’s feelings, she decided. No mother would like to hear her son disparaged, and it would be impossible to explain why a serving girl would turn down the chance to marry a duke.

  Explanations weren’t necessary, anyhow. The duke in question was never going to propose.

  “He’s paying me,” she blurted out. She just couldn’t let the poor woman get her hopes up. Halford hadn’t sworn her to secrecy, after all. “He’s paying me to be a catastrophe. To thwart your every attempt at polish. ”

  The duchess gave a delicate harrumph. “That’s what he told you because that’s what he’s telling himself. He can’t bring himself to admit that he’s fascinated with you. You’re a proud one as well. If I accused you of being infatuated with him already, you’d deny it. ”

  “I . . . I do deny it. Because it isn’t true. ”

  As she spoke the words, Pauline’s heart pounded in her chest.

  Liar, liar, liar.

  She was infatuated. Stupidly, impossibly infatuated with every little thing about the duke. No, not the duke—the man. The way he’d listened to her with true interest. The way he’d broken her fall, kissed her with such passion. The delicious, addictive way he smelled. Just that morning she’d harbored fantasies of stealing his discarded shirt from the laundry so she could stash it under her pillow.

  Oh, ye gods! This was terrible. She even had flutterings.

  Fleur reentered the room bearing a velvet-lined tray, which she placed on the vanity table.

  Pauline gasped. The tray was covered in jewels of every type and color, sparkling in every conceivable setting—necklaces, bracelets, earrings, rings. But they did not come in every size. No, each gemstone was uniformly, alarmingly huge.

  “That will be all,” the duchess said, dismissing Fleur once again.

  She turned her attention to the tray of jewels. “Not pearls, not today,” she muttered, pushing aside a strand of perfectly matched iridescent orbs. “Topaz would be all wrong. It will be a few years yet before you can carry off diamonds or rubies. ”

  Diamonds and rubies? The deluded woman kept speaking as if all these jewels would one day be hers. Pauline didn’t know how to convince the duchess of the truth.

  “Didn’t you hear me, your grace?” she asked in a loud whisper. “Gri—I mean, the duke—is paying me to fail. He just wants to teach you a lesson, so he’ll never be subject to your matchmaking again. ”

  The older woman’s hands settled on Pauline’s shoulders. Their gazes met in the mirror. “How much did he promise you?”

  “A thousand pounds. ”

  The duchess seemed unimpressed. She placed her hands on either side of Pauline’s face and pulled upward, elongating her spine until she sat ramrod straight.

  “There. When your posture is correct, you have a marvelous neck for jewels. ” She tilted Pauline’s head this way and that. “Never let anyone tell you to wear emeralds, simply because your eyes are green. It’s what people with no imagination say. On color alone, your eyes are a closer match to peridot. But peridot always strikes me as lamentably bourgeois. ”

  “I don’t often have people advising me on jewels, your grace,” Pauline said, her voice muffled by the duchess’s hands bracketing her cheeks. “This would be the very first time. ”

  The duchess released her, turned, and lifted a necklace of light purple stones and gold filigree from the velvet-lined tray. As she draped the jewels about Pauline’s neck, she said, “This is your stone. Amethyst. Rare, regal, yet sweet enough for a younger woman. ”

  As the jewels found the dips and hollows of her collarbone, Pauline stared into the looking glass, amazed. The duchess was right—the amethysts’ color did look well on her. The violet shade set off the golden tones in her hair and put a wash of pink on her cheeks.

  Then again, perhaps the flush was born of excitement. She could scarcely believe such a thing was touching her bare skin.

  “So my son has offered you a thousand pounds,” the duchess said. “This necklace alone is worth ten times that. ”

  Holy . . . Ten. Thousand. Pounds. Ten times a thousand pounds. A numeral one with four aughts after it. Hanging around her neck.

  Fear gripped her with sudden, irrational force. She was terrified to move or breathe. If she even dared tilt her head to one side, perhaps the chain would break and the entire priceless business would sl
ide into a floorboard crack—never to be seen again.

  The duchess said, “Keep your eyes on the greater prize, my girl. ”

  Pauline could do nothing but stare at the silver-haired woman in the looking glass. Odd. She hadn’t pegged the duchess for a madwoman.

  “Your grace, it simply won’t work. ” She waved at her own reflection. “I’m not what he’d want. Much less what he’d need. He’s the eighth Duke of Halford, and I’m a serving girl. Perfectly wrong. Just listen to me. Look at me. ”

  “It’s not I who needs a look at you. ” The duchess removed the amethyst necklace and replaced it in the tray, then motioned for Pauline to stand. “Come along. We’re going to have an experiment. ”

  Bemused, Pauline rose from the chair and followed. They went downstairs to the main floor, and the duchess guided her into a large, open salon. As they entered the room, she looked to Pauline and put a finger to her lips for quiet.

  The carpets had been rolled back to the edges of the room, and Pauline quickly learned why. The room wasn’t a salon right now, but some sort of gymnasium.

  In the center of the floor, the duke and a masked opponent squared off against one another. Each man was clad in thigh-hugging buff breeches, a quilted waistcoat, and an open white shirt. Each man held a slender, shining sword.

  Neither noticed them enter the room.

  “En garde,” the masked man said.

  Steel clanged in response.

  Pauline looked on as the two swordsmen traded feints and thrusts. She was speechless in admiration.

  While his opponent wore a mesh helmet to protect his face, the duke’s features were fully visible. She could make out every furrow of concentration and drop of sweat on his brow. The exertion had matted his hair to his skull in dark, curling locks, and his open shirt clung to his torso. His musculature was revealed by the damp white linen, giving him the look of a marble carving come to life. Arms, shoulders, calves, arse—he was beautifully formed, everywhere.

  The masked opponent sent a quick thrust toward the duke’s torso, but the duke deflected it with a sharp flick of his own blade before going on attack. His lunges and thrusts had the grace of a dance, coupled with deadly force.

  As the two battled on, the walls echoed with the exciting sounds of steel whooshing through the air and blades clanging against each other—and most thrilling of all, two athletic men grunting with the force of their exertion. The whole space hummed with virile energy.

  If Pauline had been suffering flutterings since their kiss, this scene ratcheted those sensations to something even more profound. Stirrings? Quakings? She didn’t want to name them.

  In the center of the room, the men locked swords. The shining edge was just inches from Halford’s face, and unlike his opponent, he wore no contraption of metal floss to guard it. A flick of the blade and he could be scarred or blinded.

  Take care, she wanted to shout.

  The duchess put a hand on Pauline’s arm, restraining her.

  Finally, with a primal growl, the two broke apart—each man recoiling several paces backward.

  As he swiped at the perspiration on his brow, the duke turned his head in the ladies’ direction, briefly.

  Briefly was all it took.

  He saw her.

  Even from across the room, Pauline felt it the moment his gaze locked with hers. The heated intensity made her skin tingle.

  Halford must have felt more than a tingle. While he stood frozen in place, his opponent’s blade nicked his upper arm. A line of red blood quickly soaked through his shirt.

  “Oh!” Pauline clapped both hands over her mouth, horrified.

  For her part, the duchess made a satisfied noise. “I call that a success. ”

  Chapter Eight

  Griff growled in pain, dropping his sword and pressing his free hand over the wound. “Damn it, Del. ”