Any Duchess Will Do (Spindle Cove #4)(96)

“No.” His deep voice rang out. “I am most certainly not looking for ‘someone.’ I’m looking for Pauline Simms and no other.”

Her heart skipped a beat.

Charlotte held firm. “The cost of entry is a verse. No exceptions.”

Griff looked past her, scanning the crowded shop until his eyes locked with Pauline’s. Heavens above. He was even more handsome than she remembered.

“Miss Simms,” he said. “May I—”

“No exceptions,” Charlotte repeated. “A verse.”

“I don’t know any verses.”

“Write one.”

“Very well, very well.” He pushed a hand through his dark, damp hair. “There once was a libertine duke. He . . . He . . . preferred trout and cod to fluke. He let his love go, but he wants her to know—”

Pauline turned away, unable to look at him anymore.

He shouted after her. “I haven’t ceased thinking of you since that night, Pauline. Not for a moment.”

“That’s a terrible verse,” said Charlotte, holding the broomstick turnpike in place. “Doesn’t even rhyme.”

“I don’t know what else rhymes with duke.”

The ladies muttered among themselves, debating possibilities.

“I have it.” Charlotte’s voice rang out over all. “Puke! ‘He let his love go, but he wants her to know . . . that thoughts of her face make him puke.’ ”

“That won’t do,” Griff said. “That’s not right at all.”

“At least it rhymes,” Charlotte grumbled.

“Rebuke,” Pauline declared, exasperated. “He deserves a stern rebuke.”

“Excellent,” Griff said. “I’ll take that one. May I pass now?”

Daniela threw a biscuit. It bounced off the duke’s forehead. “Go, Duke. Leave my sister be.”

“Daniela has the right of it,” Pauline said. “You should go. I can’t imagine what you want after all these months.”

“I wanted to see you, see how you’ve done.” He looked around the shop. “This is brilliant, Pauline. I knew you’d make a go of it.”

That was all? He’d made the journey all the way down from London just to have a look at his investment, so to speak?

“Well, now you’ve seen me,” she said. “So you can go.”

The other ladies in the room agreed, adding their voices to the call for Griff to leave.

“Listen, if you’ll all just give me a moment alone with Miss Simms, I—”

“Just go,” she shouted, her nerves in tatters. The scent of his cologne was wafting its nefarious way to her, and soon she’d be reduced to a puddle on her newly painted floor. “You might be a duke, but you can’t make a habit of this. Popping into my place of work unannounced and turning my life on its ear. I won’t have it. I just can’t. So unless you’ve come here to fall on your knees, grovel for forgiveness, and beg me to marry you, you can leave this moment and never return.”

He didn’t leave. He merely stood there, staring at her.

Then he went down on his knees.

“Oh, no.” Pauline pressed both hands to her face. “Griff, no.”

“You can’t refuse before I even ask.” He ruffled his hair with one hand. “Why is this all happening backward? I knew you’d be surprised to see me, and no doubt angry that it’s taken me so long. But I thought you’d at least let me have a few words. I had a whole speech prepared, you know. A good one, too. But now that you’ve ruined the surprise . . .”

He reached into his pocket and removed a small velvet pouch.

Pauline peeked at it between her trembling fingers. By now she was crying messily. She swiped impatiently at the tears with both wrists, straining to make out the ring he shook free onto his palm. An emerald, set in a thick gold band and ringed with tiny diamonds.

Well, at least she knew he’d chosen it himself.

It was beautiful.

She turned away, burying her face in her apron. Griffin Eliot York, the eighth Duke of Halford, was here, on his knees. For her. Ring in hand, with the whole village watching.

It was too much. Too much impossibility to accept. To much joy to comprehend.

“I love you, Pauline Simms. I’ve loved you since the day we met. In fact, I suspect some part of my heart loved you long before then. There was no woman for me before you, and if you refuse me, there’ll be no one after. I know I’m no prize, but—”

She interrupted him with a burst of indelicate laughter. “No prize?” Turning, she dabbed at her eyes. “Griff, you’re a duke.”

“Yes, I’d noticed that. So?”

“So . . . we settled this. A duke can’t marry a serving girl. Or even a shopkeeper.”

“You were right. Our lives were too different. For the two of us to make a go of it, something had to change. I couldn’t change the world. And I didn’t want to change one thing about you. It seemed clear, however, that I was overdue for some improvement.”

“Improvement?”

“You’re familiar with the Halford legacy. I come from a long line of scholars, explorers, generals. They amassed quite the string of accomplishments and a vast amount of wealth. And I finally realized there’s one thing I had the heart to do that none of the rest of them could.”