Any Duchess Will Do

“Yes, but—”

“If the terms of our bargain are no longer satisfactory, I can send you back to Sussex.”

“I signed on for a week of society’s disdain. Not yours.”

“Well, then. Consider it a bonus.”

“Oh, you—” With a growl, she swung at him again.

This time he was ready. He caught her fist in his hand, enveloping the tight, small knot of knuckles and holding it fast.

“I told you everything last night.” Her whispered words were barbed. “My dreams, my secrets. Everything. And this morning you treated me like nothing.”

He made his voice low. “What is it you want, Simms? What is it you’re wanting to hear? Am I supposed to say you’re the equal of any well-bred lady?”

“Of course not. No. I don’t want to be like those Awful Haughfells or any of their sort.”

“Ah.” He nodded slowly. “Now I see. You don’t want to hear that you’re their equal. You want to hear that you’re their better.”

She didn’t reply.

“I’m supposed to deem your little water-goblet tune more enchanting than any Italian aria. Proclaim your wholesome country manners a breath of fresh air in my sin-clouded life.” He laughed. “What else? Perhaps you’re hoping to hear that your purity is the most intoxicating and rare of perfumes. Your hair smells like hedgerows and your eyes are like chips of wide-open sky, and God above, you make me feel things. Things I haven’t felt in years. Or ever.” With his free hand, he clutched his chest dramatically. “What is this strange stirring in my breast? Could it possibly be . . . love?”

She stared at his waistcoat button, refusing to look at him.

Somewhere in his brain a fragment of reason shouted that he was being a bastard and cocking everything up. But he wasn’t acting on logic right now. He was torn between two impulses: the need to push her away from that raw, aching wound she kept poking, and the impossible desire to draw her close, possess her completely.

Most of all, he needed to leave this place before he went blind and mad with grief.

“I employed you for a reason, Simms. I’m not looking for a fresh-faced girl to teach me the meaning of love and give me purpose in life. And if you’re looking for a well-heeled gentleman to make a fetish of your feisty spirit . . . perhaps you could find one here in London, but it won’t be me.”

“What a speech,” she whispered, drawing close. “I’d be inclined to believe it, if it weren’t for the way you kissed me last night.”

Her angry warmth was palpable. Arousing.

“Oh, Simms. What kind of shoddy libertine do you take me for? I’ve kissed a great many women without caring for them in the least.”

Hm. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen that shade of green.

That was his last coherent thought, staring into her eyes. Then her left fist crashed into his face, and his world exploded with fireworks of bright red pain. He staggered a few steps backward. His skull rang like a bell.

Well. He deserved that.

When his vision focused again, he saw her talking to the boy.

“That’s your first lesson, Hubert.” She crouched before the wide-eyed lad, speaking to him on his level. “Don’t fight fair. Life isn’t fair, especially not life in a place like this. If you have a shot, take it. There’s no call to be sporting about it, not with bullies.”

She went on, “I grew up on a farm, see. A small one. A poor one. It was always one of my chores to mind the chickens. Now, newly hatched chicks are the sweetest, downiest, most innocent looking creatures on earth—but they’re savage little beasts. They’ll peck their own brothers and sisters to death if they sense a weakness.”

As he listened to her, Griff felt his own defenses softening.

“It’s the same with places like this,” she went on. “There’s always a pecking order. The big will torment the small, and the small will torment the smaller, and on down the line. It’s the nature of chicks, and it’s the nature of children, too. Don’t dream it will change. You’ll never be able to pummel every bully, and no amount of prayer or patience will convince them to change their ways. Just keep your head up and get what’s yours. Your food, your schooling. Whatever they give you, don’t squander it. All bread goes straight in your belly, and all the learning you can gather goes here.” She tapped a fingertip against her temple. “Stash it away. Because once it’s in you, it’s yours. No one can take it from you. No schoolyard bully, no mean-tempered lessons master . . .”

Nor an abusive father, Griff silently added. He pictured her, a lock of hair dangling over her smudged cheek as she furtively memorized bits of etiquette and poetry between farm chores. Reading the same words again and again, until they were stashed away. Safe inside, where no one could rob her of them.

“Not even a duke,” she finished.

Hubert eyed her silk day dress, with its flounce of lace. “You, my lady? You raised chickens on a farm?”

“I did. And as a child, I took more than my share of licks. But I got mine, just like I told you. It’s how I’ve come this far. And if you find me impressive now . . . ?” She rose to her feet and patted the boy on the shoulder. “Come visit me next week. I’ll be living wealthily ever after.”

With a fiery glance at Griff, she left the room.

He started off in pursuit, somewhat hobbled by his aching . . . everything. God’s teeth, what this woman was doing to him. He trailed her clipped footsteps down the corridor, catching up to her at the building’s main entrance.

“Listen,” he said, snaring her arm at the top of the steps. “About this morning. I wasn’t trying to be the savage chick, or the pecking bully, or whatever it is you’ve likened me to.”

“Don’t apologize, please. Then I might feel compelled to apologize for hitting you, and I don’t want to be sorry in the least.”

“I’m not apologizing. Just explaining. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, Simms. But if the damned things are really so fragile, you shouldn’t let me anywhere near them. I told you, I’m no prince.”

She squared her shoulders, apparently reaching some decision. “You’re right. You did warn me. And I shouldn’t care what you think.”

No, wait, he stupidly felt like contradicting. I take it back. You should care. Please care.

Because he could see it on her face—just like that, she’d decided she didn’t need him. She would take her own advice to Hubert: complete her week’s employment, take his thousand pounds, and never think of him again.

He wanted her to think of him. Not just this week, but always.

What an ass he’d been, baiting her with all those compliments she might hope to hear. Griff saw himself clearly now. He was the one yearning for approval. Long after this week was over, he wanted her to remember him as the beneficent, handsome duke who’d whisked her away to London and changed her life. No matter what other disappointments he added to his family legacy, he could console himself with the knowledge that there was a shopkeeper at the arse-end of Sussex who worshipped him. Who believed he had a heart of pure, chivalric-grade gold—or at least sterling—hidden beneath the arrogance and vice.

She was meant to be the one good thing he’d done.

And now she looked at him like something that slithered.

“You’re right,” she said. They exited through the front gates, where she drew to a halt in the drive. “Of course you’re right. I’ve been a fool, wanting you to like me, approve of me. If you found anything in me to approve, you wouldn’t have hired me in the first place.”

“That’s not true.”

Now that they were out of the orphanage, he could breathe again. There were too many people about to do what he truly wished—which was to pull her into his arms for an embrace that might comfort them both. He settled for righting her sleeve.

“You don’t understand, Simms.”

She looked at his touch on her sleeve. “Oh, I understand you perfectly. You have good, generous instincts, but they’re all smothered under that aristocratic phlegm. You’re so choked with it, you’re afraid to care about anything. Or at least, you’re afraid to show that you do.”

It started to rain then. Cold, fat drops struck the pavement with audible force. In moments the damp had flattened her clothing to her back and plastered locks of hair to her face, making her look small and alone.

“Simms.”

She flinched from his touch. “What, Griff? What? Did you have something to say to me here? In the midst of a busy street, with people nearby—not in a darkened garden or locked room?”

“I . . .” He set his teeth. “Very well. I like you.”

“You ‘like’ me.”

“I do. In fact, I like you a great deal more than I should. And it’s precisely because you are all wrong.”

She stared at him, pursing those delectable, berry-pink lips. Far too many hours had passed since he’d kissed her.

He cursed. “I’m not explaining it right. I’m not used to making these sorts of speeches. But can’t we call a truce? Find somewhere to have a spot of—”

Before he could finish the thought, a woman in dark, shapeless wool rushed up to him. Like a raven, winging out of nowhere.

“Please, sir. I c-can’t . . .” She sobbed from deep in her chest. “Please.”

She darted away just as quickly, and it took Griff several instants to register that she’d left something behind.

A babe. Wedged into his arms.

Oh, Jesus.

Gray-blue eyes, scratchy little fingers. No nose or neck to speak of. All wrinkles, from head to tiny toes. Christ, why did they all have to look so much the same?

“Oh, goodness,” Pauline said. “That poor woman.”

“Wh—” He held the child slightly out from his body. His arms were frozen with shock. “Where is she? Where did she go?”

“I don’t know. She must have meant to surrender the child. Perhaps she was afraid to come inside.”

Griff scanned the busy environs, hoping stupidly for one flash of dark wool to stand out from the dark, woolen crowd. She’d probably stayed nearby. She was likely watching him now—this stiff, useless nobleman she’d trusted to do right by her child—and feeling keen regret.

The infant knew she’d been done wrong. She wailed up at Griff, puckered and red-faced, waving little fists clenched in anger. Drops of rain spattered her face and blanket. She opened her mouth so wide, her lips seemed to thin and disappear. Her toothless gums and little tongue were bright vermilion with rage.

You’re a bloody duke, the babe seemed to shout at him. Near six foot tall, thirteen stone. Do something, you worthless lump. Make it all come out right!

“What should we do?” Pauline asked.

“I . . .”

Griff didn’t know. With everything in his hollowed-out shell of a heart, he wanted to soothe the child’s cries. But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.

He passed the baby into Pauline’s arms, muttered a few words of excuse that he’d never remember later. Then he turned and strode away, into the rain.

“Your grace! Griff, wait!”

He could shake off her calls, but the wailing carried high above the din of the streets, above the dark clatter of rain. Those wordless cries of accusation followed him all the way to the street.

Haunted him for miles.

Chapter Thirteen

Very early the next morning, Pauline woke in the darkness. She wrapped her body in a dressing gown, lit a taper, and made her way downstairs to the library.

She didn’t find the man she’d spent a fitful night alternately worrying over and dreaming about. But she found something almost as intriguing.