Any Duchess Will Do (Spindle Cove #4)

All the Spindle Cove ladies had come to their party. The small shop was crowded with young women poring over scandalous books and dunking their biscuits into cups of milky tea.

Pauline loved this shop, as she’d never thought she could love something that was supposed to be work. And she did work hard—every day, from dawn to dusk—but the labor was a fatiguing kind of joy. Spindle Cove was bustling with a new crop of ladies on holiday, all of them eager for new reading material.

Some days, a young woman might come through the door looking rather lost. And then she’d find an old friend sitting on the shelf, bound in red Morocco. Or perhaps a new, exciting acquaintance. She’d leave with a book in her hand and a smile on her face. Those days made all the hard work worthwhile.

And she never worked alone. She had her sister.

She and Daniela had traded one sleeping loft for another. They lived above the shop now, the two of them. Except for visits to Mama on Sundays, they kept their own hours, made their own meals, cleaned as little or as much as they liked. They were wildly extravagant with candles, burning them late into the night and reading verses to each other.

This place truly was home.

“Who’s that walking across the square?” a lady said, peering out the window. “Do we know him?”

A second young lady laughed. “I think we might.”

“Oh goodness,” said Charlotte Highwood. “Not him again.”

It couldn’t be. He wouldn’t have come. But in the end, curiosity won out. Pauline made her way to the window and peered out through the rain.

Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord. It was him. Even with the rain, she’d know those strong features and broad shoulders anywhere. The Duke of Halford was walking straight toward her shop.

Griff.

Her pulse began to pound. Why was he here now, after months had passed with no word? Just when she’d gathered the pieces of her heart and built it a new, safer home.

“Don’t worry, Miss Simms,” Charlotte said. “I’ll devil him before he can trouble you.”

Pauline stepped toward the rear of the shop, trying to steel herself.

He opened the door, ducking his head to enter. “Is this the—”

“Halt.” Charlotte blocked the doorway with a broomstick. “Are you looking for someone?”

“No.” His deep voice rang out. “I am most certainly not looking for ‘someone.’ I’m looking for Pauline Simms and no other.”

Her heart skipped a beat.

Charlotte held firm. “The cost of entry is a verse. No exceptions.”

Griff looked past her, scanning the crowded shop until his eyes locked with Pauline’s. Heavens above. He was even more handsome than she remembered.

“Miss Simms,” he said. “May I—”

“No exceptions,” Charlotte repeated. “A verse.”

“I don’t know any verses.”

“Write one.”

“Very well, very well.” He pushed a hand through his dark, damp hair. “There once was a libertine duke. He . . . He . . . preferred trout and cod to fluke. He let his love go, but he wants her to know—”

Pauline turned away, unable to look at him anymore.

He shouted after her. “I haven’t ceased thinking of you since that night, Pauline. Not for a moment.”

“That’s a terrible verse,” said Charlotte, holding the broomstick turnpike in place. “Doesn’t even rhyme.”

“I don’t know what else rhymes with duke.”

The ladies muttered among themselves, debating possibilities.

“I have it.” Charlotte’s voice rang out over all. “Puke! ‘He let his love go, but he wants her to know . . . that thoughts of her face make him puke.’ ”

“That won’t do,” Griff said. “That’s not right at all.”

“At least it rhymes,” Charlotte grumbled.

“Rebuke,” Pauline declared, exasperated. “He deserves a stern rebuke.”

“Excellent,” Griff said. “I’ll take that one. May I pass now?”

Daniela threw a biscuit. It bounced off the duke’s forehead. “Go, Duke. Leave my sister be.”

“Daniela has the right of it,” Pauline said. “You should go. I can’t imagine what you want after all these months.”

“I wanted to see you, see how you’ve done.” He looked around the shop. “This is brilliant, Pauline. I knew you’d make a go of it.”

That was all? He’d made the journey all the way down from London just to have a look at his investment, so to speak?

“Well, now you’ve seen me,” she said. “So you can go.”

The other ladies in the room agreed, adding their voices to the call for Griff to leave.

“Listen, if you’ll all just give me a moment alone with Miss Simms, I—”

“Just go,” she shouted, her nerves in tatters. The scent of his cologne was wafting its nefarious way to her, and soon she’d be reduced to a puddle on her newly painted floor. “You might be a duke, but you can’t make a habit of this. Popping into my place of work unannounced and turning my life on its ear. I won’t have it. I just can’t. So unless you’ve come here to fall on your knees, grovel for forgiveness, and beg me to marry you, you can leave this moment and never return.”

He didn’t leave. He merely stood there, staring at her.