Any Duchess Will Do (Spindle Cove #4)

But not this serving girl, apparently. This one had just enough pride to trump etiquette and good sense.

With a defiant toss of her head to distribute her brandy-colored locks, she turned and spat the last hairpin aside.

“Bollocks,” he heard her mutter.

Suddenly, Griff found himself battling a grin. She was perfect. Coarse, uneducated, utterly graceless. A touch too pretty. A plainer girl would have better suited his purpose. But fair looks notwithstanding, she’d do.

“Her,” he said. “I’ll take her.”

Chapter Two

Another girl’s prince has arrived.

That was Pauline’s first thought, when she stumbled in and spied the finely dressed man silhouetted in the door.

She watched it happen every few months in this village. These young ladies sought refuge in Spindle Cove for the oddest of reasons. Their harp-playing lacked grace, perhaps, or the color of their eyes was unfashionable at Court this season. And then—to the utter astonishment of everyone except Pauline—some handsome earl or viscount or officer came along and married them.

None of them spared so much as a glance for the serving girl.

So which lady was this one after? Whoever she was, she’d be set for life. Everything about the man’s appearance—from ivory buttons to fitted leather gloves—blared his wealth in trumpet notes. And if his garments screamed “riches,” everything beneath them spoke of power. It would be easy for a gentleman to go soft and paunchy, but he hadn’t. The close cut of his dark green topcoat revealed broad shoulders and defined muscles in his upper arms.

His face was strong, too. Boldly sloped nose, squared jaw, and a wide, confident mouth. There was nothing pretty about his features, but when taken together, they had an undeniable masculine appeal.

In short, he was no trial to look at. But even if he weren’t—Pauline couldn’t take her eyes off the man.

Because he wasn’t taking his eyes off her.

And the way he looked at her—like she was the answer to every question he’d never thought to ask—had her heart beating faster than a trapped hare’s.

“Her,” he said. “I’ll take her.”

“You can’t choose her,” an older woman replied, clearly testy. “That’s the serving girl.”

Pauline spared the lady a brief glance, sizing her up as a silver-haired woman who was small of stature and long on self-importance. She had a rail-straight spine. She’d need it, to hold up that unholy ransom in jewels.

“She’s a girl,” the man replied evenly, still looking at Pauline. “She’s a girl, and she’s in the room. You said I might choose any girl in the room.”

“She wasn’t in the room when I said that.”

“She’s in the room now. And once I saw her, I had eyes for no one else. She’s perfect.”

Perfect?

Pauline looked to the window, expecting a pig to fly through it. A pig strumming a lyre and speaking Welsh, perhaps.

The gentleman moved toward her, navigating the room with ease. As he approached, each heavy, rhythmic footfall made her acutely aware of her wild, sugar-dusted hair and mud-spattered hem. She took comfort from the signs of his own flawed humanity. On closer view, he was unshaven, and his eyes were rimmed with red—from lack of sleep or too much drink, or both.

Pauline inhaled slowly. His clothing carried the fading whiff of some masculine, musky cologne. The scent curled inside her, warming her in low, secret places.

“Tell me your name,” he said.

He spoke in a voice that was low and rich and . . . magnetic, apparently. She could feel every person in the room sway in his direction, to better make out his words.

“I’m Pauline, sir. Pauline Simms.”

“Your age.”

“Twenty-three.”

“And are you married or betrothed?”

She bit back a startled laugh. “No, sir. I’m not.”

“Excellent.” He inclined his head. “I am Griffin Eliot York, the eighth Duke of Halford.”

A duke?

“Oh, Lord,” she muttered.

“Actually, Simms, what you’re meant to say is, ‘your grace.’ ”

She dropped her gaze to the floorboards and made an off-balance curtsy. “Your grace.”

Waving off her belated attempts at deference, he went on. “My mother has grown impatient with my unmarried state. She enjoined me to take my choice of any woman in this room, with the promise that she could make that woman into a duchess. I’ve chosen you.”

“Me?”

“You. You’re perfect.”

Perfect. Again, that word. Pauline’s mind couldn’t handle all this at once. She had to break the information into small morsels.

This robustly handsome, self-possessed, wonderful-smelling man was the eighth Duke of Halford.

Out of all the ladies in this room, he was choosing her, the serving girl.

To be his future duchess.

You’re perfect.