Any Duchess Will Do Page 6

Page 6

 

  “Your grace . . . ”

  He tapped the branch against his booted calf. “Don’t play at reluctance. What can possibly be keeping you here? A post serving tea to spinsters? Farm labor, and sleeping space in a drafty loft? A brutish father who would eagerly sell you for five pounds?”

  She set her teeth. “Five pounds is no paltry sum to folk like us. ”

  And even if it weren’t a vast amount, it was five pounds more than “completely worthless,” which was how her father set a woman’s value most days.

  “Be that as it may,” he said, “five pounds is considerably less than a thousand. Even a farm girl with no schooling can do that arithmetic. ”

  She shook her head. Amazing. Just when she thought he’d exhausted the ways to insult or demean her, he proved her wrong.

  He said, “My mother has too much time at leisure. She needs a protégé to take shopping and drill in diction. I need her diverted from matchmaking. It’s a simple solution. ”

  “Simple? You mean to bring me to your home . . . buy me all new things . . . pay me a thousand pounds. All that, just to cure your mother of meddling?”

  He shrugged in confirmation.

  “I wouldn’t call that simple, your grace. Much easier to just tell her you don’t wish to marry. Don’t you think?”

  His eyes narrowed. “I think you enjoy being difficult. Which makes you the ideal candidate for this post. ”

  Pauline was divided on how to receive that statement. For once, she was someone’s ideal. Unfortunately, she was his ideal thorn in the side.

  Nevertheless, his offer tempted in a perverse way. For once in her life she wouldn’t be failing at success. She’d be succeeding at failure. No more would she hear, “But she means well”—the duke didn’t want her to mean well at all.

  “None of this matters,” she said at last. “I can’t leave Spindle Cove. ”

  “I’m offering you a lifetime of financial security. All I’m asking in return is a few weeks of impertinence. Think of it as your chance to write the practical girl’s fairy tale. Come away to London in my fancy carriage. Have some fine new gowns. Don’t change a whit. Don’t fall in love with me. At the end of it, we part ways. And you live wealthily ever after. ” He looked to the carriage. “Just say yes, Simms. We need to be going. ”

  What would it take to convince him? She raised her voice, enunciating each word as best an uneducated farm girl could. “I . Can’t. Go. ”

  He matched her volume. “Well, I can’t leave you. ”

  The world was suddenly very quiet. The duke went absolutely still. She could have thought him a statue if not for the stray apple blossom decorating his shoulder and the breeze stirring his dark, wavy hair. Somewhere above them a songbird chirped and whistled for a mate.

  She swallowed hard. “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. ”

  He tilted his head and stared at her with fresh concentration. She tried not to blush or fidget as his slow, measured paces brought them toe-to-toe. So close, she could see the individual grains of whiskers dotting his jaw. They were lighter than his hair—almost ginger, in this light.

  “There’s something about you. ” His ungloved hand went to her hair, teasing it gently. A little shower of crystals fell to the ground. “Something . . . all over you. ”

  Good heavens. He was touching her—without leave, or any logical reason. And it should have been shocking—but the most surprising part was how natural it felt. So simple and unforced, as though he did this every day.

  She wouldn’t mind it, Pauline thought. Being touched like this, every day. As though there were something precious and fragile beneath the grit of her life, just waiting to be uncovered.

  He dusted more fine white powder from her shoulder. “What is this? You’re just coated with it. ”

  Her answer came out as a whisper. “It’s sugar. ”

  He lifted his thumb to his mouth, absently tasting. His lips twisted in unpleasant surprise.

  “Sugar mixed with alum,” she amended.

  “Oddly fitting. ” He reached for her again, this time leading with the backs of his fingers.

  She felt herself leaning forward, seeking his touch.

  “Pauline?” a familiar voice interrupted. “Pauline, who’s that man?”

  She jumped back and turned to spy Daniela peeking out from the west side of the cottage. After a moment of internal debate, Pauline waved her sister forward. There was no easier way to explain her refusal than to let him see for himself.

  “Your grace, may I present my sister, Daniela. Daniela, our guest is a duke. That means you must curtsy and call him ‘your grace. ’ ”

  Daniela curtsied. “Good day, your grace. ”

  The words came out thick and nearly unintelligible, the way they always did when Daniela was nervous. Her tongue wasn’t so nimble with strangers.

  “The duke was just leaving. ”

  Daniela curtsied again. “Goodbye, your grace. ”

  Pauline watched him with keen eyes, waiting. People of his rank sent their simple folk to asylums or paid someone to tend them in the attic—anything to hide them from view. Still, he would be able to tell. Everyone could always tell within a minute of meeting Daniela.

  The familiar anger welled within her, fast and defensive—a response learned from years of deflecting insults and slights. Her hand reflexively made a fist.

  He probably wouldn’t resort to name-calling. Idiot, numskull, half-wit, dummy, simpleton. Those words would be beneath a duke, wouldn’t they?

  But he would have some reaction. They always did. Even well-meaning people found some way to give offense, treating Daniela like a puppy or an infant, instead of like a full-grown woman.

  Most likely the duke would curl his lip in disgust. Or turn his gaze and pretend she didn’t exist. Perhaps he would sneer or shudder, and that would give Pauline just the surge of anger she needed to send him away.

  But he didn’t do any of those things.

  He spoke in a completely unaffected, matter-of-fact tone. “Miss Daniela. A pleasure. ”

  And as Pauline watched, the duke—God above, a bloody duke—lifted her sister’s hand to his lips. And kissed it.

  Lord help her, for the briefest of instants, Pauline tumbled headlong in love with the man. Never mind his promise of a thousand pounds. He could have had her soul for a shilling.

  She briefly closed her eyes, rooting deep in her heart for all those reasons to dislike him. The most petty, stupid one came to her lips. “You didn’t kiss my hand. ”

  “Of course not. ” He glanced at the appendage in question. “I know where it’s been. ”

  Her cheeks flushed as she recalled her father’s “demonstration” in the cottage.

  “She is the source of your reluctance, I take it?” he asked.

  Pauline nodded. “I can’t leave her. And she can’t leave home. ”

  After a moment’s quiet consideration, he addressed her sister. “Miss Daniela, I want to take your sister to London. ”

  Daniela paled. Her chin began to quiver. The tears were already starting.

  “I will bring her back,” he said. “You have my word. And a duke never breaks his word. ”

  Pauline raised a brow, skeptical.

  He shrugged, conceding the improbable truth of the statement. “Well, this particular duke won’t break this particular word. ”

  “No. ” Her sister hugged her so tightly, Pauline reeled on her feet. “Don’t go. I don’t want you to go. ”

  Her heartstrings stretched until they ached. They’d never been apart. Not for even one night. What the duke might describe to her as temporary, Daniela would experience as endless. She’d spend every moment of their separation feeling miserable, abandoned. But at the end of it . . .

  One thousand pounds.

  They could do anything with a thousand pounds. Escaping thei
r father would only be the beginning. She and Daniela might have a cottage of their own. They could raise chickens and geese, hire a man now and then for the heavy labor. With prudence, the interest alone would be enough to keep them fed and safe.

  And she could open her shop.

  Her shop. So silly, how she’d come to think of it that way. She might as well have named it Pauline’s Unicorn Emporium, as likely as it was to come to pass. It had always been just a dream for someday. But with one thousand pounds, that someday could be quite soon.

  “God’s knees. ” The duke’s voice intruded on her thoughts. “Not you again. ”

  Major, the old cantankerous gander, had found them once more, and he wasted no time in making the duke feel unwelcome. The bird stretched his neck to its greatest length, puffing his breast in a warlike pose. Then he lowered his beak and made a strike at the duke’s boot.

  With a crisp thwack, Halford deflected the goose with a flick of the apple bough. He jabbed the blunt end into the goose’s breast, holding the enraged bird at branch’s distance. “This bird is possessed by the spirit of a dyspeptic Cossack. ”

  “He doesn’t like you,” Pauline said. “He’s very intelligent. ”

  With a short flight, Major managed to squawk free, and then they were starting all over again. Dueling, duke versus gander.

  Halford stood light on his feet, one leg forward and one back, wielding the switch like a foil. “Winged menace. I’ll have your liver. ”

  Major cast some aspersions of his own. They were unintelligible to human ears, but no less vehement.

  At her side, Daniela ceased to cry and began to giggle.

  The tightness in Pauline’s chest eased. “Daniela,” she said. “Take Major to the poultry yard for me. Then come back. ”

  Her sister spread her arms and shooed the gander toward the rear of the house. Once she was safely out of earshot, Pauline crossed her arms and faced the duke.

  “If I agree to this . . . ” She willed her voice not to shake. “If I go with you, will you return me home in one week?”

  “A week?” He tossed the stick aside. “That’s unacceptable. ”

  “It’s the only way I’ll agree. It must be a week. We have a ritual of sorts on Saturdays, Daniela and I. She can understand this. If I promise to be back by next Saturday, she’ll know I’m not leaving forever. ” When he hesitated, she went on, “I assure you, I can prove catastrophic within one week. ”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt that. ” He paused in thought. “A week, then. But we leave at once. ”

  “As soon as I bid my sister farewell. ”

  She turned and looked over her shoulder. Daniela was already on her way back from the henhouse.

  “I need a penny,” Pauline said. “Quickly, give me a penny. ”

  He fished in his pocket and produced a coin, then dropped it in her outstretched hand.

  She peered at it. “This isn’t a penny. It’s a sovereign. ”

  “I don’t have anything smaller. ”

  She rolled her eyes. “Dukes and their problems. I’ll be along in a moment. ”

  Pauline drew her sister aside. She pulled her spine straight. The only way to keep Daniela from dissolving was to hold herself together. There could be no cracks in her resolve. She must be strong enough for them both, as always.

  “Here’s your egg money for this week. ” She opened Daniela’s hand and put the coin in it, closing her fingers over the sovereign before she could notice the color wasn’t right. “I want you to go upstairs and put it in the tea tin straightaway. Tomorrow, it goes in the collection at church. ”

  Daniela nodded.

  “I’m going with the duke now,” Pauline told her. “To London. ”

  “No. ”

  “Yes. But only for a week. ”

  “Don’t go. Don’t go. ” The tears streamed down Daniela’s reddened cheeks.