Any Duchess Will Do (Spindle Cove #4)(24)

Nor the enticing, dark triangle nestled between her thighs.

Damn.

He was a man, as he’d told her. Not that complex. The reaction in his groin was pure, simple, and about four extra inches of straightforward. Surely she didn’t realize how she appeared. She couldn’t realize, or she’d jump down from that ladder at once and cover herself.

“Where are the novels?” she asked, matter-of-factly propping her elbow on the ladder’s nearest rung.

An insidious thought occurred to him. If she didn’t realize why he was staring, he could safely stare as long as he liked. He could drink in every bit of her, store up enough glimpses to fuel his fantasies for months.

“I think the novels are there,” he answered brusquely.

He motioned to the wall in question. Then he positioned the dismantled clock like a shield, blocking her from his view. Behind it, he briefly rolled his eyes heavenward. Someone up there had better be adding a hash mark to his “Good Deeds” tally. Perhaps now his lifetime total came to five or six.

“Do you have any favorites to recommend?” she asked.

“No.” He sighed with gruff impatience. He wished she would cease being so blasted friendly when he was striving to stop mentally undressing her. In his mind’s eye she was two buttons from complete ruination.

“I don’t read many novels, either,” she said. “The few I’ve tried were like forests to me—I got lost. I prefer verses, when I can find them. Little posies of pretty words, easy to grasp and keep with you. There was a woman in Spindle Cove one summer who fancied herself a poetess. Her own poems were horrid, but I liked the books she left lying about. I committed my favorites to memory, so I could share them with my sister.”

“And which ones were your favorites?” he asked, happy to let her speak so she’d cease asking questions.

She was silent for a moment. “I like this one. ‘The maiden caught me in the wild, where I was dancing merrily. She put me into her cabinet and locked me up with a golden key.’ ”

Griff had the panel almost freed now, but his fingers slowed.

She went on, her voice gaining a dreamy, velvet texture. “ ‘The cabinet was formed of gold, and pearl and crystal shining bright. And within, it opens into a world, and a little lovely moony night. Another England there I saw. Another London with its Tower. Another Thames and other hills. And another pleasant Surrey bower.’ ”

He stared at the gutted clock before him. It didn’t seem to be a clock anymore, but a cabinet. One with a secret window onto a little lovely moony night. A different London, a different England. An entirely different world.

He was enchanted, just a little.

“The story goes all wrong from there,” she said regretfully, “but I loved that bit. A cabinet of gold and pearl and crystal, with a little secret world inside. It’s something beautiful to picture when I’m washing up glassware at the tavern. Or, you know, when I’m elbow-deep in a mare.”

He looked up from the clock a fraction. Just enough to receive the mischievous, fetching smile she cast his way.

“What do you think?” she asked. “Could it ever work?”

No.

No, you bewitching creature. It could never, ever work.

“You mean the circulating library, I assume.”

She nodded. “I have it all planned out, you see. There’s an empty shop front on the village square where the old apothecary used to be. It’s all shelves already, with a sturdy counter. Only needs a bit of sunlight and wood polish. Lace curtains maybe, and a chair or two for those who’d like to sit.” Her mouth pulled to the side. “But the prettiness is all for naught, if it isn’t a sound business idea.”

“And you want my opinion?”

“If you’re paying me a thousand pounds, I’d think you wouldn’t want to see it squandered.”

He chuckled. “You can’t know how many thousands I’ve squandered on my own.”

“Just give me your honest judgment. Please.”

He squinted, easing a bit of clockwork loose. “Honestly, I’m the wrong person to ask. No doubt the spinsters will queue up for your verses and novels. The only books I ever went looking for were the naughty ones.”

She clutched the ladder rung. “Oh, your grace. You’re brilliant.”

Griff sat back in his chair, amazed. Never in his life had anyone said that to him. Not outside of a bed, anyway. “What’s so brilliant about me, precisely?”

“A lending library full of naughty books. That’s exactly what I need. I mean, not every book would necessarily be scandalous. But a good many of them should be. At home, the ladies can acquire all the boring, proper books they like, can’t they? They come to Spindle Cove to break the rules.”

Griff had a memory of the young ladies in that tavern, merrily ripping pages from an etiquette book to make tea trays. Yes, he could imagine torrid novels and radical pamphlets would do a brisk business in such a place.

And in making the inadvertent suggestion, he’d now be responsible for debauching-by-proxy an entire village of spinsters. This surely represented some sort of zenith or nadir of his life. He wasn’t sure which.

“Where are the naughty ones?” She tilted her head back, peering into the farthest upper recesses of the room. “I suppose they’d be on a high shelf. Or did you have a locked cabinet somewhere?”