Any Duchess Will Do (7 page)

“There you are. The library.” He handed her the lamp.

Blinking, she moved forward into the room, using the light to lead the way.

“Have your choice of books,” he said. “I’ll wait.”

She stood in the center of the room, turning slowly. Awestruck, no doubt. Even he would admit it was an impressive collection. As it ought to be, having been amassed over a dozen generations. The room was two stories high and hexagonal in shape, due to some fit of whimsy on the fifth duke’s part. He’d been an amateur architect, in addition to a naturalist and several other lofty things. One side of the hexagon served as the entryway, but bookshelves covered each of the other five, from floor to soaring ceiling.

“Go on, then,” he prodded.

“Am I truly allowed to touch them?” she whispered.

“But of course. Someone ought to.”

Still, she stood huddled in that twisted counterpane, face tilted to the rafters. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“What sort of books are your preference?” he asked, not bothering to hide the smugness in his tone. “Are you a great reader of philosophy? History? The sciences?”

“I like verses mostly. But I make no claims of being a great reader at all, your grace.”

So. She admitted it that easily.

He crossed his arms. “Yet you claimed to be looking for the library.”

“Yes. I wanted to see the books, not read them. I hoped to have a look through the collection. Perhaps make a list.”

At last she ventured forward and ran her finger down the spine of a slender leather volume. She didn’t even take it from the shelf, just touched it—gingerly, as though it might disappear into mist.

“How are they organized, do you know?”

“Not really. I suspect it’s loosely by subject. My grandfather invented some system of classification and made a catalogue, but I’ve never troubled to understand it. I don’t use the library often.”

She raised the lamp and turned to him, blinking in disbelief. “You mean you live in this house, with all these books”—she waved the lamp in an arc—“and you never read them?”

He shrugged with nonchalance, belying the sore spot she’d poked. “I am an embarrassment to my forebears. I know this well.”

“How much do books cost, anyhow?”

He gave up on drawing connections between these questions of hers. The hour was too damned late. “That would depend on many factors, I suppose. The nature of the book, the quality of the binding. Novels might be had for a crown or two, whereas a nine-volume set on the history of Rome . . .”

She waved off his answer. “I don’t believe I want histories of Rome.”

“The Romans weren’t as boring as you’d think.” History lectures were one of the few parts of his schooling he’d enjoyed.

“If you say so. But I doubt even the most bookish of Spindle Cove ladies will want to read nine volumes about it on holiday.”

Griff watched as she nimbly climbed the rolling book stair, lamp in hand. She hung the lamp on a hook created for just that purpose and tilted her head to peruse the titles of the shelved books. Her hair fell to one side in a shimmering cascade, like poured brandy. She had a lovely neck—a smooth, graceful ivory slope.

“You mean to take books back to Spindle Cove?” he asked.

“As many as I can. You see, that’s how I mean to spend my thousand pounds—or part of it, anyway. I’m going to . . . Well, never mind.”

“What do you mean, never mind? You’re going to spend your money on books and then . . . ?”

She sighed. “If I tell you, you’ll laugh. And if you laugh, I’ll hate you forever.”

“I won’t laugh.”

She gave him a dubious look.

“Very well, I might laugh. But you’ll only hate me for a day or two.”

“I plan to take books home and open a circulating library.”

“A circulating library,” he repeated—without laughing . . . noticeably.

“Yes. I’ll rent out books to ladies visiting on holiday. And since I’ve little experience with libraries myself, I hoped to glean some ideas from yours. Do you believe me now, that I was out of bed with honest purpose—not with snooping or thievery in mind?”

He did believe her. A lending library for spinsters? Not even a champion liar could weave such a preposterous tale from nothing.

“Very well. I apologize,” he said. “I misjudged you.”

“You apologize?” She looked at him, shocked. “Those aren’t words I expected to hear from your lips.”

“Then you’ve misjudged me.” His faults might be legion, but no one could say he didn’t admit them openly.

“Maybe.” She folded her bottom lip and sipped on it. “Well, then. While we’re talking . . . perhaps you could suggest a book. What do you read, your grace?”

“I don’t read much of anything besides estate correspondence. Never seem to find the time.”

In demonstration, he lifted a newspaper from a side table and cast it aside. He felt a small twinge of guilt. Each morning, Higgs went to the trouble of ironing the thing, page by page. Griff seldom gave it a glance.

Instead, he moved to the room’s large desk and lit a pair of candles. There was a broken clock there he’d been meaning to tinker with—one of the Viennese curiosities his father had collected. Really, he should have been a tradesman’s son. He always felt more comfortable, more capable, when his hands were occupied.

Her questions followed him. “But if you did have time to read, what would you choose?”

“Plays,” he answered. For no particular reason, other than to have the question gone.

“Oh, plays. Those would be good for the library. The Spindle Cove ladies are fond of staging theatricals.” Clutching the counterpane about her shoulders with one hand, she used the other to pull the rolling ladder toward another bank of shelves. “Do you go often to the theater?”

“Not lately.”

“But you did in the past, then.” Genuine interest warmed her voice. “Why did you stop? How long has it been?”

His grip tightened on a screw he’d been loosening. No one questioned him about this. Not even his mother. He felt the unexpectedness of it first, like a cold splash of water to the face. But once the initial affront wore off, he was left feeling oddly relieved. Almost grateful.

Griff’s peers, associates, friends from the club . . . they must have noticed his retreat from society this past year. But if they wondered at the reasons and speculated amongst themselves, not a one of them had directly asked him why. Whether they lacked the courage or the interest, he didn’t know.

Pauline Simms had the courage. And the interest, it seemed. Her innocent question warmed a place inside him that had long gone cold.

For a moment he was tempted to answer.

But then he dismissed the idea. There was no way for a man of his wealth and rank to relate his personal trials to a serving girl without sounding completely insufferable. Miss Simms had been raised in poverty, with a simple-minded sister to protect and a violent father she couldn’t escape. Despite it all, she retained her pride and a sharp sense of humor. Was this girl supposed to pity him for missing the Theatre Royal’s spring season, when she’d never attended the theater for even one night?

She would chide him for his whinging, and justly so. He could hear it now:
Dukes and their problems.

He worked another tiny screw free of the clock’s back facing. “I don’t see that it should be any of your—”

“Any of my concern,” she finished for him. “I know. You’re right. It’s not my business, but I couldn’t help asking. It’s the oddest thing, your grace. Even amid all the ancient, moldering volumes in this library . . . I find you the most unreadable book in the room. Just when I think I understand you, you confound me again.”

“Simms, I’m a man. I’m not that complex.”

He set aside the clockwork, intending to call an end to this literary interlude and send her upstairs to her chamber. But when he looked up, he saw her.

All
of her.

And his voice ceased to function.

She stood perched on the second highest rung of the ladder. The counterpane had slipped to a downy cloud on the floor, and she floated above it—just a wisp of woman, wreathed in the thinnest, most fragile linen shift he’d ever seen. The thing had been worn and washed and mended so many times, it was like a lace of cobwebs rather than proper fabric. And when she swung her body in front of the shining oil lamp?

The shift was utterly transparent.

He could see everything. She didn’t have a boyish figure at all. No, she was all woman. Her small, apple-round breasts were capped with dark nipples. Her belly was sleek. When she perched on the ladder, stretching on tiptoe for another book, the curve of her silhouette called to him like a familiar melody. Arched foot, slender calf, sweetly flared thigh . . . and a rounded, graspable bottom.

True, hers wasn’t a Rubenesque, buxom figure. No artists would paint her lolling about in white sheets. There was something wild and elemental about her. They’d be inspired to depict a dancing nymph or chasing dryad. Hers was a body that would always show to its best advantage in motion.

And bare.

Brilliant. Now his imagination rioted with thoughts of her naked
and
moving.

She turned on the ladder, facing him.

Eyes
, he told himself.
Stay focused on the eyes.
She had lovely eyes, with that startling leaf-green hue and her impossibly long eyelashes. He needn’t let his gaze wander anywhere else.

Not to her spritely breasts.

Nor the enticing, dark triangle nestled between her thighs.

Damn.

He was a man, as he’d told her. Not that complex. The reaction in his groin was pure, simple, and about four extra inches of straightforward. Surely she didn’t realize how she appeared. She
couldn’t
realize, or she’d jump down from that ladder at once and cover herself.

“Where are the novels?” she asked, matter-of-factly propping her elbow on the ladder’s nearest rung.

An insidious thought occurred to him. If she didn’t realize why he was staring, he could safely stare as long as he liked. He could drink in every bit of her, store up enough glimpses to fuel his fantasies for months.

“I think the novels are there,” he answered brusquely.

He motioned to the wall in question. Then he positioned the dismantled clock like a shield, blocking her from his view. Behind it, he briefly rolled his eyes heavenward. Someone up there had better be adding a hash mark to his “Good Deeds” tally. Perhaps now his lifetime total came to five or six.

“Do you have any favorites to recommend?” she asked.

“No.” He sighed with gruff impatience. He wished she would cease being so blasted friendly when he was striving to stop mentally undressing her. In his mind’s eye she was two buttons from complete ruination.

“I don’t read many novels, either,” she said. “The few I’ve tried were like forests to me—I got lost. I prefer verses, when I can find them. Little posies of pretty words, easy to grasp and keep with you. There was a woman in Spindle Cove one summer who fancied herself a poetess. Her own poems were horrid, but I liked the books she left lying about. I committed my favorites to memory, so I could share them with my sister.”

“And which ones were your favorites?” he asked, happy to let her speak so she’d cease asking questions.

She was silent for a moment. “I like this one. ‘The maiden caught me in the wild, where I was dancing merrily. She put me into her cabinet and locked me up with a golden key.’ ”

Griff had the panel almost freed now, but his fingers slowed.

She went on, her voice gaining a dreamy, velvet texture. “ ‘The cabinet was formed of gold, and pearl and crystal shining bright. And within, it opens into a world, and a little lovely moony night. Another England there I saw. Another London with its Tower. Another Thames and other hills. And another pleasant Surrey bower.’ ”

He stared at the gutted clock before him. It didn’t seem to be a clock anymore, but a cabinet. One with a secret window onto a little lovely moony night. A different London, a different England. An entirely different world.

He was enchanted, just a little.

“The story goes all wrong from there,” she said regretfully, “but I loved that bit. A cabinet of gold and pearl and crystal, with a little secret world inside. It’s something beautiful to picture when I’m washing up glassware at the tavern. Or, you know, when I’m elbow-deep in a mare.”

He looked up from the clock a fraction. Just enough to receive the mischievous, fetching smile she cast his way.

“What do you think?” she asked. “Could it ever work?”

No.

No, you bewitching creature. It could never, ever work.

“You mean the circulating library, I assume.”

She nodded. “I have it all planned out, you see. There’s an empty shop front on the village square where the old apothecary used to be. It’s all shelves already, with a sturdy counter. Only needs a bit of sunlight and wood polish. Lace curtains maybe, and a chair or two for those who’d like to sit.” Her mouth pulled to the side. “But the prettiness is all for naught, if it isn’t a sound business idea.”

“And you want
my
opinion?”

“If you’re paying me a thousand pounds, I’d think you wouldn’t want to see it squandered.”

He chuckled. “You can’t know how many thousands I’ve squandered on my own.”

“Just give me your honest judgment. Please.”

He squinted, easing a bit of clockwork loose. “Honestly, I’m the wrong person to ask. No doubt the spinsters will queue up for your verses and novels. The only books I ever went looking for were the naughty ones.”

She clutched the ladder rung. “Oh, your grace. You’re brilliant.”

Griff sat back in his chair, amazed. Never in his life had anyone said
that
to him. Not outside of a bed, anyway. “What’s so brilliant about me, precisely?”

“A lending library full of naughty books. That’s exactly what I need. I mean, not every book would necessarily be scandalous. But a good many of them should be. At home, the ladies can acquire all the boring, proper books they like, can’t they? They come to Spindle Cove to break the rules.”