Any Duchess Will Do (Spindle Cove #4)(50)

“I hope your evening was more exciting than mine,” she said lightly. “After dinner, your mother set me reading aloud from Scripture to improve my diction. I was told to read only the H words. Hath, holy, heresy. Rather a bore.” She lifted the book in her hand and reopened to her current page. “Now that I’ve found the naughty books, the exercise seems much more interesting. Hard as hornbeam. Heaving hillocks of bounteous flesh.”

When that failed to coax a smile from him, she set the book aside and curled up in the chair. Propping her chin on her knees, she regarded him through the veil of lingering dark.

Something was very, very wrong. In a word (in an H word, no less—they seemed all the words she could think of now) he looked horrible. Haunted, too—even more so than he had the first night.

And part of her suspected he needed to be held.

She wasn’t sure how to initiate anything of that sort. To make the attempt seemed unwise, for many reasons. But there was one thing she could do for him—a skill learned through years of practice.

She rose from her chair, crossed to the bar in the corner and poured him a drink.

“When I started working at the tavern years ago, Mr. Fosbury told me I prattled on too much.” She watched the amber liquid swirl into a glass. As she recapped the decanter, she made her voice gruff in imitation. “ ‘Pauline,’ he said to me, ‘you have to learn to tell the difference between men who come in wanting a chat, and men who just want to be let alone.’ ”

After crossing the carpet in slow, careful steps, she set the drink on the desktop just inches from Griff’s elbow. He didn’t look at it, nor at her. He rubbed the fatigue from his face and peered at the broken clock. As if he could stare at the thing hard enough that the gears would leap into motion of their own accord. Perhaps begin churning time in reverse.

“I took his advice,” she went on, “learned to mind my conversations. But I also learned Mr. Fosbury had something wrong. There were men who wanted a chat and those who didn’t.” Gathering her courage, she laid a hand to Griff’s shoulder. “But none of them wanted to be alone.”

He drew a deep breath. His strong, linen-clad shoulder rose and fell beneath her palm.

She silently counted to five, as slowly as her skittering nerves would allow.

Nothing.

Well, then. She’d given him a chance. Nodding to herself, she lifted her hand and turned away. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

“Don’t.”

The hoarse command froze her in place.

He swiveled his chair so that they faced one another, reached to take her by the waist, and drew her close between his sprawled legs.

Then he leaned forward—slowly, inexorably—until his forehead met her belly.

“Don’t,” he told her navel. “Don’t leave.”

Overwhelmed with some unnamable emotion, she stroked her fingers through his thick, dark hair. “I won’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I . . . I know.”

They remained that way for several moments. Touching. Breathing. Warming each other in the dark. Gratitude swelled in her heart. She hadn’t let herself realize how worried she’d been for him. Not until this moment, when he was home safe. With her.

“How is she?” he murmured.

Something told her he didn’t mean the duchess. “The babe?”

She felt his nod of confirmation chafe against her belly.

“The babe was a he, actually. And he’s fine. I took him in to the matrons. They dressed him in clean swaddling, filled his belly with milk. He’ll have been named and christened by now, I expect.”

“I hope he fared better than Hubert with that naming part.”

She smiled and stroked his hair again.

“I shouldn’t have left you. I just . . .” He huffed out a breath.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. It was obvious the whole place set you on edge. Many a big, strong man has been sent into a panic by a wailing infant.”

He lifted his head and gave her a searching look.

And her silly, girlish brain picked that moment to decide he was the handsomest man she’d ever seen. Probably because he was the only man to ever look at her this way. Holding her together with his strong, sculpted arms while his heated gaze turned her to slag.

“Can we return to the conversation we were having just before all that?” she whispered. “We were standing at the gate. You were saying how much you liked me, asking for a truce. And I . . .” She grazed a light touch over his cheek. “I was about to apologize for this.”

“Don’t. I deserved the punches and then some. For most of my life I’ve been a first-rate jackass. For the past year I’ve been trying to be less of one. But I don’t think I’m succeeding. I’ve merely graduated from first-rate jackass to flagship bastard.”

“I don’t know about that.” She tamed a lock of his hair. “You’ve had your moments this week. Saved me from falling not once, but twice. You were perfect with my sister. And I suspect that when you offered me this post, you thought you were doing it to rescue me.”

Now she wasn’t sure.

Now she wondered if she was here to rescue him.

He said, “At any rate, I owe you an apology for everything today. Including the water goblets.”