Any Duchess Will Do (Spindle Cove #4)

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.”

“Oh, truly.” The man laughed. “I suppose the Queen of Sheba had other plans today. Now out, before I chase you off with the broom. This isn’t the place for you.”

She couldn’t move. His words threw her back to an old, hurtful memory. A book ripped from her white-knuckled hands. Pain splitting her head, from one ear to the other. Harsh words adding insult to the ringing in her ears.

That’s not for you, girl.

She wanted to retaliate, stand up to the shopkeeper—but how? She had nothing. No coin to spend. No cultured accent or knowledge to prove his assumptions wrong.

She was visited by a powerful, childish temptation to throw a book at the man, but that would be less dramatic than sugar—not to mention, unkind to the book.

So she simply turned and left, cheeks hot and fingers shaking.

Someday, she promised herself, I will own my own shop filled with lovely books. And it will be a home to me, and to Daniela, and to anyone else who needs it. No one will ever be turned away.

Outside, the Halford coach now resembled a four-layer cake, with boxes and parcels tied to every available surface.

The duchess waved at her from inside the carriage. “Come along, then.”