Any Duchess Will Do (Spindle Cove #4)(95)

“What’s that?”

“Come see.”

Sally pulled her over to the storeroom. On the floor in the center sat an immense wooden crate, labeled with Pauline’s name.

“A man delivered it special yesterday,” she said. “It didn’t come through the regular post. But he told me it wasn’t to go to your cottage, ever. I must wait until Miss Simms came to the shop, and I couldn’t speak a word of it to anyone. It was all just painfully mysterious.” She gave Pauline’s arm an impatient shake. “Can’t we open it now? It’s heavy as anything. I’m dying to know what’s inside. Dying.”

Pauline nodded. “Of course.”

Sally gave a little cheer of excitement. With the help of a slender crowbar, she pried the top from the crate and sifted through a top layer of straw.

“Oh,” she said flatly. “Well, that’s disappointing. I hope you didn’t have your hopes too high. It’s only books.” She lifted a red-bound volume off the top and peered into the crate. “Yes. Books, all the way down.”

“Let me see,” Pauline said, snatching the book from Sally’s hand.

She ran a palm over the fresh red Morocco binding, brushing aside a blade of straw so she could read the cover: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure: The Life and Adventures of Fanny Hill.

“Who’s this Mrs. Radcliffe person?” Sally lifted a handful of books from the crate. “She wrote a great many books.”

“Be careful with them, please.” Pauline went to her side and began to sort through the volumes. Radcliffe, Johnson, Wollstonecraft, Fielding, Defoe. All the books on the list that Griff had dictated that day in Snidling’s bookshop.

He’d remembered. And he’d known not to send them to her home, for fear her father would pitch them all into the fire. She lifted the book to her nose and inhaled that aroma deeply—her second favorite smell—before setting it aside to look at the rest.

Halfway through the crate, she found a small volume not bound in red Morocco, but instead covered in the softest, most impractical fawn-hued leather. Collected Poems of William Blake.

Tears welled in her eyes as she opened the cover. Inside, right on the exquisite marble endpaper, there was affixed a bookplate with a stamp.

FROM THE LIBRARY OF MISS PAULINE SIMMS

“Oh, Griff.”

This crate wasn’t merely stuffed with books. It was full of meaning. Messages too complicated to explain and too risky to send in a letter.

He knew her, this crate of books said. He knew her to the deepest, most hidden places of her soul. He respected her as a person, with thoughts and dreams and desires.

He loved her. He truly did.

And most poignant of all, this crate of books held one clear, undeniable message:

Goodbye.

Chapter Twenty-seven

A few months later

If there was anything better than the smell of books, it was the smell of books mingled with the scents of strong tea and spice biscuits—and all of it on a rainy afternoon.

A celebration was in order. The Two Sisters circulating library was exactly one month old today.

All the Spindle Cove ladies had come to their party. The small shop was crowded with young women poring over scandalous books and dunking their biscuits into cups of milky tea.

Pauline loved this shop, as she’d never thought she could love something that was supposed to be work. And she did work hard—every day, from dawn to dusk—but the labor was a fatiguing kind of joy. Spindle Cove was bustling with a new crop of ladies on holiday, all of them eager for new reading material.

Some days, a young woman might come through the door looking rather lost. And then she’d find an old friend sitting on the shelf, bound in red Morocco. Or perhaps a new, exciting acquaintance. She’d leave with a book in her hand and a smile on her face. Those days made all the hard work worthwhile.

And she never worked alone. She had her sister.

She and Daniela had traded one sleeping loft for another. They lived above the shop now, the two of them. Except for visits to Mama on Sundays, they kept their own hours, made their own meals, cleaned as little or as much as they liked. They were wildly extravagant with candles, burning them late into the night and reading verses to each other.

This place truly was home.

“Who’s that walking across the square?” a lady said, peering out the window. “Do we know him?”

A second young lady laughed. “I think we might.”

“Oh goodness,” said Charlotte Highwood. “Not him again.”

It couldn’t be. He wouldn’t have come. But in the end, curiosity won out. Pauline made her way to the window and peered out through the rain.

Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord. It was him. Even with the rain, she’d know those strong features and broad shoulders anywhere. The Duke of Halford was walking straight toward her shop.

Griff.

Her pulse began to pound. Why was he here now, after months had passed with no word? Just when she’d gathered the pieces of her heart and built it a new, safer home.

“Don’t worry, Miss Simms,” Charlotte said. “I’ll devil him before he can trouble you.”

Pauline stepped toward the rear of the shop, trying to steel herself.

He opened the door, ducking his head to enter. “Is this the—”

“Halt.” Charlotte blocked the doorway with a broomstick. “Are you looking for someone?”