Any Duchess Will Do (Spindle Cove #4)(33)
Author: Tessa Dare

“That won’t help,” he told her. “What makes you think that will help? I’m not a virgin, either.”

“I didn’t think you were, but—”

“But nothing. I was hoping to hear something like, ‘I have a creeping skin disease.’ Or, ‘I hoot like a barn owl when I reach orgasm.’ Those would be deterrents. I’m not sure the second is strong enough, actually. Curiosity might win out over trepidation.”

“But noblemen don’t want a woman who’s lost her virtue. Mrs. Worthington was very clear.”

“Who is this rabidly ill-informed person you keep quoting? Mrs. Who-ington?”

“She wrote an etiquette book. Haven’t you heard of it? Mrs. Worthington’s Wisdom for Young Ladies. That book is how I know exactly what a proper young lady should—and shouldn’t—do.”

“Did my mother give you that?” The title sounded vaguely familiar, but he didn’t think such a book could be from his library.

“No, no. I’ve been reading it for years. There are copies of it all over Spindle Cove. Miss Finch—she’s Lady Rycliff now—wanted to remove every copy from circulation. There are hundreds of them in the village, just heaped everywhere.”

Griff frowned, remembering that first afternoon in the village. “Right. I remember it now. They had stacks of them. And they were ripping them apart to make tea trays.”

She nodded. “They try to find uses for them. It used to be powder cartridges for the militia, but since the war’s over, they’ve moved on to tea trays.”

The logic in this eluded Griff, but he didn’t want to interrupt.

“Anyhow,” she went on, “a few years ago I took a copy home from the tavern. I knew they wouldn’t miss it, and I’d never had a proper book of my own before. I wanted to see what it was that had the ladies so angry. A good half of the book is twaddle, I’ll grant them. But the rest is just practical advice. Recipes for orange flower water. How to write invitations to parties and sew your own silk gloves. Suggestions for polite dinner conversation. Reading that book was like peering through a window onto a different world, until . . .” She dropped her gaze. “ . . . until my father slammed it shut.”

“Your father?”

“He found the book. I caught him staring at it. He can’t read much, you know. But still, he stared at that title for the longest time. He didn’t have to read the words to understand what it meant. It meant I wanted something more.”

Reaching up, she plucked a low-hanging leaf and twirled it between her fingertips. “All my life, he’d made it no secret that he was disappointed in me. He’d wanted a boy to help with the farm, and he never hid the fact that he viewed me as useless. But when he found that book . . . For the first time, he was seeing it went both ways. That I might not be happy with the life he’d given me. Oh, it made him so angry.”

Griff was becoming rather furious himself. Not with her. Never her.

“What did he do to you?” he asked.

She hesitated.

“Tell me.”

“He picked up that book in one hand.” She held the leaf in her fingertips and regarded it. “Said, ‘That’s not for you, girl.’ And then he struck me with it, right across the face.”

I’ll kill him.

The intent roared to life in Griff’s chest before his mind could even conceive the words. He was harboring elaborate fantasies of finding a horse and a blade, then haring down to Sussex to have a very short exchange with Amos Simms. One that began with “You rat-faced bastard” and ended with blood.

He was calculating just how long it would take, and how much daylight he’d have when he arrived. Whether he’d permit the man to beg for mercy, or skip straight to—

“I was nineteen years old,” she said.

He closed his eyes and breathed deep, forcing himself to abandon his thoughts of the far-off villain who deserved to be run through. He should concentrate on the woman who needed him, here and now.

“Nineteen,” she repeated. “Already a woman grown. I helped with the farm and earned wages for the family. And he struck me across the face like a child, just for wanting to improve myself. To learn.” She let the leaf twirl to the ground. “Then he threw the book in the fire.”

Griff cursed, sliding closer on the bench. He’d given up on disentangling his button for the moment. He didn’t give a damn about the people inside, what they might think or conclude. For now, his only goal in this garden—in this life, perhaps—was to guard her. And to make her feel safe, which he suspected would be the more difficult task. Too many people had failed her that way.

“It didn’t matter.” Her chin lifted bravely. “I got another copy. And that time, I hid it somewhere else. When that book disappeared, I got another. Over and over again, until I found the way to outsmart him for good.”

“What was that?”

A little smile curved her lips. “I learnt it by heart. Page by page, cover to cover. I committed the entire thing to memory. He couldn’t beat that out of me, now could he?”

With a single fingertip, he tilted her face to his. Her eyes sparkled with the reflected torchlight. Brave and beautiful.

He marveled at the wild kaleidoscope of emotions she inspired in him. Violence, admiration, skin-scorching desire. The tenderness welling in his heart was almost too much to bear. No woman made him feel these things. Not all of them at once.

He cupped her chin in his hand and stroked the lovely cheek that had received such vile treatment. “You are never going back to that man again.”

“No, I’m not,” she said. “I’m going to have my very own circulating library, stocked with every book a proper young lady should never read.” She sent a look toward the house. “Just as soon as I can get back into that ballroom and earn it.”

He studied her delicate profile, amazed by the strength and determination writ there. She couldn’t know how remarkable she was.

Perhaps . . .

Oh, damn. Perhaps he ought to tell her. Gather her close, turn her face to his. Give her the truth.

You’re lovely. You’re clever. You’re turning me inside out, and I don’t like it. I don’t want to care for you. I’ve suffered enough over females who crawled inside my heart and deserted it after one week. But if I don’t say these words right now, I’m the lowest of the low. So here it is. You’re remarkable.