Any Duchess Will Do (Spindle Cove #4)(7)

“She’s a girl,” the man replied evenly, still looking at Pauline. “She’s a girl, and she’s in the room. You said I might choose any girl in the room.”

“She wasn’t in the room when I said that.”

“She’s in the room now. And once I saw her, I had eyes for no one else. She’s perfect.”

Perfect?

Pauline looked to the window, expecting a pig to fly through it. A pig strumming a lyre and speaking Welsh, perhaps.

The gentleman moved toward her, navigating the room with ease. As he approached, each heavy, rhythmic footfall made her acutely aware of her wild, sugar-dusted hair and mud-spattered hem. She took comfort from the signs of his own flawed humanity. On closer view, he was unshaven, and his eyes were rimmed with red—from lack of sleep or too much drink, or both.

Pauline inhaled slowly. His clothing carried the fading whiff of some masculine, musky cologne. The scent curled inside her, warming her in low, secret places.

“Tell me your name,” he said.

He spoke in a voice that was low and rich and . . . magnetic, apparently. She could feel every person in the room sway in his direction, to better make out his words.

“I’m Pauline, sir. Pauline Simms.”

“Your age.”

“Twenty-three.”

“And are you married or betrothed?”

She bit back a startled laugh. “No, sir. I’m not.”

“Excellent.” He inclined his head. “I am Griffin Eliot York, the eighth Duke of Halford.”

A duke?

“Oh, Lord,” she muttered.

“Actually, Simms, what you’re meant to say is, ‘your grace.’ ”

She dropped her gaze to the floorboards and made an off-balance curtsy. “Your grace.”

Waving off her belated attempts at deference, he went on. “My mother has grown impatient with my unmarried state. She enjoined me to take my choice of any woman in this room, with the promise that she could make that woman into a duchess. I’ve chosen you.”

“Me?”

“You. You’re perfect.”

Perfect. Again, that word. Pauline’s mind couldn’t handle all this at once. She had to break the information into small morsels.

This robustly handsome, self-possessed, wonderful-smelling man was the eighth Duke of Halford.

Out of all the ladies in this room, he was choosing her, the serving girl.

To be his future duchess.

You’re perfect.

Chills raced from the nape of her neck to the soles of her feet, leaving her breathless. Either the whole world had turned on its ear, or after twenty-three years of never being good enough . . . in the eyes of one man—in the eyes of this duke—she was perfect.

The duchess cast a cool gaze on her son. “Unnatural child. You live to thwart me.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he replied calmly. “I’m doing precisely as you asked.”

“Be serious.”

“I am serious. I’ve chosen a girl. Here she is.” The duke made a sweeping gesture from Pauline’s tangled hair to her muddy shoes, painting her with humiliation. “Go on, then. Make her a duchess.”

Ah. She understood everything now. She was perfect in his eyes. Perfectly dreadful. Perfectly graceless. Perfectly wrong to be a duchess, and by making her an example, the duke meant to teach his interfering mother a lesson.

How clever of him. How obnoxious and insufferable, to boot.

It’s your own fault, Pauline. For that one, mad instant, you were a fool.

She didn’t find him so handsome anymore. But he still smelled wonderful, drat him.

There was a pause, which no one in the room dared interrupt. It was as though they were spectators to a championship match of some sort, and the duke had just scored a critical point.

Every head swiveled to face the duchess, waiting for her move.

She had no intention of forfeiting. “Well, then. We’ll go to the girl’s parents.”

Brazen strategy, thought Pauline. Two points to you.

“I’d love nothing more.” Halford pulled his coat straight. “But I must be returning to Town at once, and I’m certain Simms can’t leave her post.”

“Certainly I can,” Pauline said.

Both the duke and his mother turned to her, clearly irritated that she’d dared interrupt. Never mind that she was subject of their argument.

“I can leave my post anytime.” She crossed her arms. “I don’t need a post at all, do I? Not if I’m to be a duchess.”

The duke gave her a blank look. Obviously, he hadn’t expected this reaction. She was probably supposed to stammer and protest and run blushing into the kitchen.

Unlucky for him. He’d picked the wrong girl.

Of course, she knew he’d meant to pick the “wrong girl,” but he’d picked the wrong “wrong girl.” Pauline enjoyed a good laugh as much as the next person, but already she’d lost too much today. She couldn’t part with her last tattered remnant of pride.

“Mr. Fosbury,” she called in the direction of the kitchen, untying her apron strings. “I’ll be leaving now. I don’t expect I’ll be coming back today. I’m taking this duke ’round to the cottage so he can ask for my hand in marriage.”