Any Duchess Will Do (Spindle Cove #4)(28)

Why did men have to ruin everything? The answer was simple, she supposed—because foolish women gave them the chance.

“Listen. I’m just trying to say it won’t happen again. And I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for kissing me? Or sorry it won’t happen again?”

He approached and tucked the counterpane tight about her shoulders. “Both.”

In the flickering candlelight, his face took on that same haunted, lonely look. If he truly had no difficulty finding companionship—and after that kiss, she could believe he didn’t—why wasn’t he off pleasuring his mistress, or entertaining a widow, or debauching a virgin tonight?

For a man with no desire to marry, he wasn’t exactly reveling in his freedom.

“It was just a kiss.” She gathered a lit candle from the desk. “What’s a little kiss or two? Nothing.”

He stopped and looked at her. “Did you hear yourself?”

“What?”

“You just said nothing. Not nothin’.”

“No, I didn’t. I said nothing. Nothing.” She gasped. “Cor. I did say it. Nothing.” She tested more words. “Kissing. Embracing. Fluttering.”

“Let’s just”—the duke held up a hand—“stop the exercise there.”

Pauline clapped a hand over her mouth and laughed into it. “Oh, no. This can only be your fault. Your mother did say it was all in limbering the tongue.”

He gave her a dark look.

“Don’t worry, your grace. No matter how you pronounce it, it truly was nothing. Just a kiss.”

Liar, her heartbeat pounded. It was so much more.

“I’ve been kissed before,” she continued.

Liar, liar. You’ve never been kissed like that.

“I know not to make too much of it. This is hardly cause for alarm,” she finished.

Liar, liar, hair afire.

“You’re right,” he agreed. “We both have our goals. You have your naughty bookshop to open, and I have my ribald life story to continue, unfettered by matchmaking. The only way this week can go wrong is if it ends with us engaged to marry, and God knows that’s not going to happen.”

He drew the doors shut, then turned to her. Their gazes caught in the warm, golden space above the candle flame.

Pauline forced a laugh. It came out high and wild and ridiculous, and she wished she could blame it on someone else. “Oh, heavens. Don’t flatter yourself, Griff. The kiss wasn’t that good.”

And then she hurried up the stairs, trying to outrun that pounding accusation in her chest.

Liar, liar, liar, liar, liar.

Chapter Seven

By mid-morning the next day, Pauline was amassing quite the mental list of things duchesses didn’t do.

Duchesses didn’t curse, spit, serve themselves at the table, buckle in any sense of the word, or speak of their internal organs in mixed company.

But on a happy note, duchesses did not have chores. They didn’t draw water, or feed the hens, or turn out the cow, or chase a loose piglet all through the yard. Duchesses didn’t make their own breakfast, or anyone else’s. That part was lovely.

And when the Duchess of Halford swept into her bedchamber, Pauline added one more item to her list:

Duchesses did not knock.

She startled and thrust the bookkeeping manual under the pillow before rising from the bed. She didn’t want to explain how that book had come to be in her possession. Even if she’d spent the past hour or two reliving the scene in her memory.

Oh, that kiss.

Her lips still tingled.

“I’m glad to see you’re awake,” the duchess said, “even at this early hour.”

This early hour?

“It’s nearly eleven o’clock in the morning. I’ve been awake for ages.” Never in her life had Pauline slept later than six. She turned her head and gazed out the window. “Half the day’s gone.”

“You’re used to country hours. We operate on a different schedule in Town. The time for morning calls begins at noon. Luncheon might be taken at three. The evening is just getting under way at nine o’clock, and midnight suppers are de rigueur.”

“If you say so.” Pauline woke with the dawn every day, without fail. Mornings would be her time for reading. Perhaps she could steal a visit or two to the library, once she finished the bookkeeping text.

“My son seldom rises before noon,” the duchess sighed. “But that’s why we’re getting an early start. We’ve a great deal of work before us.”

Pauline scanned the room. “I would have dressed, but I didn’t see my frock.”

“Oh, that.” The duchess waved a hand. “We burned that.”

“You burned it? That was my best for everyday.” As opposed to the two other frocks she owned, one of which was strictly for church.

“It’s not going to be your best ever again. From now on, you wear better. Later we’ll visit the shops, but I’ve had my modiste send over some samples for today. I’ll ring for Fleur, and we’ll have you dressed.”

“Jolly good, your grace.”

Pauline’s spirits sank straight to the carpet. Two minutes into her undressing last night she’d realized she didn’t get along with Fleur. Or more to the point, Fleur didn’t get along with Pauline.