Any Duchess Will Do (Spindle Cove #4)(60)
Author: Tessa Dare

He stared at the room’s lone blank wall for several moments. “I never had the chance to bring her here. She caught a fever that first week. It’s been months now. I should repaint, but I haven’t found the will to do it.”

“And no one knows of your loss? Not your friends, either?”

He shook his head.

Her heart ached for him. Naturally he’d been withdrawn these past months. He’d been grieving. And what was worse, grieving all alone. The duchess thought him reluctant to have children, and the truth was just the opposite. He’d been ready to welcome his daughter with an open heart—and then all his hopes were crushed.

She wanted to take him to bed and just hold him, for days and days.

“So you see,” he said, “I truly don’t need a fresh-faced young thing to teach me the meaning of love, make me want to be a better man. I already found that girl. She was about so big”—he held his hands just a foot apart—“with very little hair and no teeth. She taught me exactly what would give me true happiness in this life. And that I can never have it.”

“But that’s not true. In time you’ll—”

“No. I can’t. You don’t understand. My father was an only child. My mother bore three other children after me. None of them survived a week. I was young, but I remember the whole house in mourning. That’s why I delayed even attempting a family until the issue was forced—precisely because I’m the last of the line. All those generations of difficult childbearing didn’t bode well for my chances. But then that fierce little kick . . . It gave me hope that things could be different.”

She went to his side and touched his arm.

He steeled his jaw. “I can’t go through that again. The Halford line ends with me.”

“You sound very resolved.”

“I am.” He looked around at the room. “I trust you won’t tell anyone about this.”

She knew he wasn’t concerned about her telling just “anyone.” He didn’t want his mother to know.

“You have my word, I won’t tell her. But I think you should.”

“No,” he said firmly. “She can’t know this. Ever. I’m serious, Pauline. That’s the whole reason I—”

“The whole reason you brought me here. I know. I see it now.”

She understood, at last. It wasn’t simply that he was a rakish libertine, reluctant to marry. He’d decided he couldn’t marry, and he didn’t know how to break the news. The duchess wanted grandchildren so desperately. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her she had one grandchild she’d already lost, and now there’d never be another.

He knew it would break his mother’s heart.

So he’d kept his grief a secret, determined to manfully shoulder all the heartbreak himself.

“Griff, you needn’t go through this alone. If you won’t tell the duchess, I’m here for a few more days. At least talk to me.”

“Isn’t that what I just did? Talk to you?”

Not really.

Throughout their conversation, his tone had been so calm. Almost eerily matter-of-fact. She knew it was a façade. He hadn’t been able to fully grieve. It wasn’t possible to do so in a cold, secret room. He needed to talk, to rage, to cry, to remember.

He needed a friend.

“You’ve been locking all your grief away. Months and months of it now. You can try to keep it secret, pretend it’s not there. But until you open your heart, give it a good airing out—no sunlight can come in.”

She reached for his hand. “Won’t you tell me more about her? Did she favor you or her mother’s side? Did she smile and coo? What was her name?”

He remained silent.

“You must have loved her very much.”

He cleared his throat and pulled away. “You’d better go. The servants will be coming around soon to lay fires.”

So that was that. As close as they’d come today, as much as they’d shared . . . it still wasn’t enough.

She nodded, then moved to quit the room. “If that’s what you want.”

Chapter Twenty

“Good heavens. This is the worst yet.”

In the morning room the following day, her grace was most displeased.

“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.”