Any Duchess Will Do (Spindle Cove #4)(76)

As he left the room, Pauline dashed after him. “I’m sorry. I had no idea all that would happen. But don’t you see? This house is full of secrets, and it’s making everyone unhappy. No one more than you. You need to disclose your sorrows, open your heart.”

“The only thing I’m opening right now is the front door.” He strode to the entrance and yanked on the door latch. When he saw the visitors standing outside, he muttered, “Brilliant. Just what this morning needs.”

Pauline froze in disbelief. On the doorstep stood not one, but two familiar people. The woman she’d known in Spindle Cove as Miss Minerva Highwood. And Miss Minerva’s husband—Colin Sandhurst, Lord Payne.

“I knew it,” Minerva said, pushing past the duke to catch Pauline in a desperate hug. “Never fear, Pauline. We’ve come to save you.”

Having opened the door, Griff took on the duty of closing it. As he did so, he felt heartily sorry that these two visitors were on the wrong side.

“It’s been too long, Halford.” Payne offered a hand and a genial smile.

Not long enough. For his part, he could have lasted a week or two more.

Lady Payne looked up at him, eyes burning with violence behind those wire-rimmed spectacles. “You revolting trilobite.”

Charming. And here he had been wondering what Payne saw in the girl.

“If only I hadn’t left my reticule at home,” she said bitterly.

He hadn’t the faintest idea what that signified, but he supposed this wasn’t a conversation to conduct in the entrance hall.

Griff showed them to his study—it was one room he felt certain would not be occupied by a sobbing housemaid. Ringing for tea seemed a chancy prospect. He poured Payne a brandy and made the offer of a cordial to the ladies. Another episode in today’s adventures in self-sufficiency.

“Pauline, what’s happened?” Payne’s excitable wife asked. “What’s he done to you?”

“My lady, he’s only employed me. I’m in this house working as a companion to his mother, the duchess.”

“Oh, really.” Lady Payne’s voice was rich with skepticism. “And where is the duchess now?”

“She is upstairs,” Griff said. “Dealing with a small crisis of the house staff.”

“So,” she huffed. “Servants in this house are often unhappy.” She slid her gaze between Pauline and Griff. “And I’m to believe nothing untoward has happened between you?”

“You’re to believe it’s none of your concern,” Griff answered. “Why are you so suspicious of me?”

“I’m not suspicious. My dislike of you is formed on abundant evidence. I’ve been to that ghastly pleasure palace you keep.” She turned to Pauline. “Do you know he has a den of iniquity in the country?”

Pauline shook her head. “No, my lady. It wouldn’t be my business to know that.”

Griff frowned. Why had she become so docile and compliant all of a sudden? This was hardly the same Pauline he knew. Certainly not the same Pauline who’d pressed him back against his bed last night and dragged her tongue over every inch of his chest.

“It’s called Winterset Grange. I was there last year,” his bespectacled inquisitioner continued, speaking to Pauline. “Colin and I stopped the night there on our journey to Scotland. Oh, it was disgusting.” She shuddered.

“Not so disgusting that you declined my hospitality,” Griff said, leaning against the desk and crossing his arms. “And if you’ll forgive me for saying it, Lady Payne, I’m not sure you have the moral high ground in this particular tale.”

“What can you mean?”

“By your own admission, you’d run away from your family with a scandalous rake. And, I might add, lied to my face about your identity. I seem to remember Payne introducing you as Melissande, some sort of long-lost Alpine princess and cold-blooded assassin who spoke not a word of English. I mean, really. An Alpine princess-assassin. You will call me depraved?”

She sat tall, indignant. “You made inappropriate overtures to me. And you suggested Colin wager my favors in a game of cards. What can you say to that?”

He spread his hands. “Alpine. Princess. Assassin.”

She fumed at him.

Griff said, “I admit that the scene you wandered into was one of flagrant vice. I’m just pointing out that you were hardly the saint in the lion’s den. Isn’t it conceivable that we’ve all changed in the past year?”

“People don’t change that much,” she said. “Not in essentials.”

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” he replied angrily. “In essentials.”

He stalked toward the window. This conversation was making him angry, and a little bit afraid. It had been a full year since he’d engaged in anything like Lady Payne described. His heart and his life had fundamentally changed. And no one saw it. Not Payne, whom he’d once thought a close friend. Not even his own mother. Society still linked him with opulent debauchery, and those assumptions would color the way they perceived anyone close to him—including Pauline.

So this was the price he paid for a misspent youth. Last autumn he’d wanted nothing more than to give his daughter a respectable life. Perhaps it was best she hadn’t lived to feel the brunt of his failure. She would have been ashamed to be his.