Any Duchess Will Do (Spindle Cove #4)

“Let me see.” Pauline leaned forward on her yellow-striped chair.

The older woman held up her knitting needles. From one of them dangled a grayish, shapeless lump with no conceivable function. It resembled nothing so much as a dead rat.

“It is rather hideous,” Pauline had to admit.

“Wrong. It is hideous.” The duchess clucked her tongue. “Hideous. Back to your diction exercises, girl. We’ve made great strides, but those H’s must be clear by tomorrow night. We can’t have you curtsying before ’Is Royal ’Eyeness, now can we?”

“I shouldn’t be going anywhere near the Prince Regent at all.”

Just the thought made her stomach twist. There was to be a ball at Carlton House, the Prince Regent’s own residence, tomorrow. The duchess had seized on the invitation as Pauline’s last and best chance to make a splash in London society.

“Even if I can say proper H’s, I don’t belong in a palace. Your grace, I wish you’d abandon the idea.”

“I’m not abandoning anything. It’s our only remaining chance, after last night.”

When Pauline had appeared at breakfast that morning and Griff had not, the duchess concluded that her Vauxhall hopes had been for naught. Though her assumptions about the intervening hours might be faulty, she had the end result correct.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Pauline said. “I’ve told you and told you, he won’t marry me.”

“Perhaps not willingly.” The duchess resumed her seat and began furiously working her needles again. “But he will be forced to propose tomorrow. That was the bargain. If I make you the toast of London, he promised to marry you.”

Pauline shook her head. “You must accept reality, your grace. It’s just not possible.”

“It is. I know it looks unlikely. But this is the point where we rally and make a triumphant finish. Diction this morning. I have a dancing master coming by the house later. We’ll practice your curtsy and greetings, too. I’ve bought you a set of lovely chimes to replace your water goblets. And of course, we’ve ordered the finest gown available. I’m not surrendering.” She held up her hideous knitting. “I can’t.”

With a resigned sigh, Pauline cracked open the Bible. “Holy,” she read aloud. “He. Hath. Hosanna.”

Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed a familiar figure entering the room.

“Oh, hell.”

Griff.

So many impulses flooded her. She wanted to fly to him, hug him, shake him, kiss him, tackle him to the carpet. She didn’t know how she’d even look at him without giving everything away.

But she needn’t have worried. The duchess was too mortified to notice Pauline’s reaction.

The woman jumped to her feet. That ghastly gray rat still dangled from her knitting needles, and she had nowhere to hide it.

The duke frowned at his mother, then dropped his gaze to the knitting. “What on earth is that?”

A very good question—and one Pauline hoped the duchess would now be forced to finally, honestly, answer.

“This?” the duchess asked.

“Yes. That.”

“I will tell you exactly what this is.” She lifted her chin, then turned to Pauline. “It’s exceedingly poor handiwork. Very bad indeed, Miss Simms. I expected better of you.” She cast the entire mess of yarn into the coal grate.

Pauline rolled her eyes at the Bible. “Hypocrite,” she pronounced softly, with perfect diction.

Ignoring her, the duchess smoothed her hands down the front of her gown. “Well, what is it?” she asked her son.

“I need to tell you something.”

Hope jumped in Pauline’s chest. Perhaps he’d changed his mind, seen the benefit to revealing his painful secrets and unburdening his heart. She looked up from the Bible and sent him an encouraging look. Please. You’ll feel so much lighter.

But he didn’t even turn her way.

“I’ve sent your amethysts to the jeweler for repair,” he told his mother smoothly. “The clasp broke while Miss Simms was wearing them last night.”

Pauline released her breath, frustrated. There went her hopes of honesty.

The duchess’s eyes narrowed to suspicious slits. “It broke?”

“Yes.” He tweaked a button on his cuff. The ducal calm was in top form this morning. “You’ll have them back in a few days.”

Surely the duchess would, Pauline thought. Just as soon as the jeweler had time to recreate the entire piece, in meticulous detail, so the duchess could never know the difference. What an absurd amount of effort. Why didn’t he just tell her the jewels had been stolen? Pauline would feel much better.

“You’re certain it can be repaired?” the duchess asked. “Perhaps I should have a look at it myself.”

“No need. Just a simple matter of mending the clasp.”

“Hah,” Pauline interjected.

When the duke and duchess swung on her with questioning gazes, she pointed one finger at the Bible page and added: