Don’t cry so, I beg you. I can’t bear it.

Pauline very nearly gave in. To distract herself, she thought of the golden coin squeezed in her sister’s hand. She imagined a thousand of them, stacked in neat rows. Ten by ten by ten by ten . . .

If only she could explain to Daniela what this would mean for them, and how it would better their lives in all the years to come. But her sister wouldn’t want to hear more talk of change. She needed routine, comfort. Familiar tasks to see her through the week.

“I’ll be back next Saturday to give you your egg money. I swear it. But you must earn that penny. While I’m gone, you must work hard. You cannot laze abed crying, do you hear? Collect the eggs every day. Help mother with the cooking and the house. When the week’s gone, I’ll be home. I’ll be sitting with you in church next Sunday.” She framed Daniela’s round face in her hands. “And I will never leave you again.”

She hugged her sobbing sister tight and kissed her cheek. “Go inside now.”

“No. No, don’t go.”

There was no good to come of prolonging it. Parting wouldn’t get any easier. Pauline released her sister, turned, and walked away. Daniela’s sobs followed her as she went through the gate and entered the lane, where the duke’s fine carriage waited.

“Pauline?” Her mother’s voice, calling from the front step.

“I’ll be home in a week, Mum.” She didn’t dare look back.

When she moved to enter the coach, her step faltered. The duke extended a hand. His hand was ungloved, and when his strong fingers closed over hers, a tremor passed through her.

“Are you well?” he asked. His other hand went to the small of her back, steadying her.

Pauline drew a deep breath. His strong touch made her want to melt against him, seeking comfort. She pushed the temptation away.

“I’m well,” she said.

“If you need more time to—”

“I don’t.”

“Should you go to her?” he asked.

No. No, that would make everything worse.

It was useless to explain. What did it matter if he thought her unfeeling and callous, anyhow? She wasn’t after his approval. She was doing this for his money.

“My sister always cries, but she’s stronger than you’d think.” She released his hand and mounted the stairs on her own power. “So am I.”

It took a great deal to impress Griff. Many an afternoon in Court, he’d looked on as officers and dignitaries were awarded ribbons, crosses, knighthoods, and more for service to the Crown. Some likely deserved their honors; many didn’t. The pomp and ceremony had him jaded by this point, and God knew he wasn’t prone to heroics himself. But he liked to think he could still recognize bravery when he saw it.

He had the feeling he’d witnessed a true act of courage just now. The girl had steel in her. He’d felt it, beneath his palm.

A good thing, too. Because if she was going to spend the next several days with the Duchess of Halford, Pauline Simms was going to need it.

“You have a week,” he told his mother, settling into the coach.

“A week?” Twin spots of color rose on her cheeks, matching the rubies at her throat.

“A week. Simms’s family can’t spare her any longer than that.”

“I can’t possibly accomplish this in a week.”

“If our Divine Creator could make the heavens, earth, and all its creatures in six days, I should think you can manage one duchess.”

She huffed with indignation. “You know very well I’m not—”

“Wait. Hold that thought.” Griff sent a hand into his breast pocket, searching. When he came up empty, he muttered a mild curse and fumbled in his waistcoat pockets, too.

“What on earth are you looking for?” his mother asked.

“A pencil and a scrap of paper. You were about to say you’re not God, or something to that effect. I mean to have the exact quote, date, and time recorded. An engraved commemorative plaque will hang in every room of Halford House.”

Her lips thinned to a tight line.

“You claimed you could make any woman the toast of London. If you can manage that with Simms in one week, I’ll marry her.” He leveled a single finger at her. “But if this enterprise of yours fails, you will never harangue me on the subject of marriage again. Not this season. Not this decade. Not this lifetime.”

She glowered at him in silence.

Griff smiled, knowing he had her right where he wanted her.

He leaned back, propped one boot on his knee, and stretched his arm across the back of the seat. “If the conditions are unacceptable to you, I can turn this coach around right now.”

She didn’t object. He didn’t turn the coach around.

They forged straight on, and Griff pretended to doze through a lengthy lecture on the vaunted family history. It was a litany of heroes, lawmakers, explorers, scholars . . . All the way from his far-flung ancestors in the Crusades to his father, the great, late diplomat.

Just as the duchess’s tale was winding toward the debauched disappointment that was Griff, they paused to change horses and take dinner near Tonbridge.

Thank God.

“This,” his mother informed her new charge as they alighted from the carriage, “is one of the finest coaching inns in England. Their private dining rooms are peerless.”

Miss Simms made comical shapes with her lips as they entered the establishment. “I should think the Bull and Blossom is the superior place, for my money. More welcoming, and that’s certain.”

“A duchess does not look for an inn that is welcoming,” his mother opined. “A duchess is welcome anywhere, anytime. She relies on the establishment to keep everyone else out.”

“Really?” As they were shown into the dining room, Miss Simms turned to the stony footman. “Is that so?”

The footman pulled out a chair, staring forward at the wall.

She gave the blank-faced servant an amused look and waved her hand before his eyes. “Hullo. Anyone home?”

The footman remained still as a wooden nutcracker, until she gave up and sat down.

Griff took his own seat and summoned the waiter with a look, ordering an assortment of dishes. He was famished.

“Cor,” Miss Simms sighed, putting her elbows on the table and propping her chin on one hand. “I’m famished.”

The duchess rapped the tabletop.

“What now?” the young woman asked.

“First, remove your elbows from the table.”

Miss Simms obeyed, lifting her elbows exactly one inch above the surface of the table.

“Second, mind your tongue. A lady never refers to the state of her internal organs in mixed company. And you will strike that word from your vocabulary at once.”

“What word?”

“You know the word to which I refer.”

“Hm.” Dramatically thoughtful, Miss Simms put a fingertip to her lips and cast a glance at the ceiling. “Was it ‘famished’? Or ‘I’m’?”

“Neither of those.”

“Well, I’m confused,” she said. “I can’t recall saying anything else. I’m just a simple country girl. Overwhelmed by the splendor of this inhospitable establishment. How am I to know what word it is I shouldn’t say if your grace will not enlighten me?”

A pause stretched, as they all waited to see whether his mother could be provoked into repeating such a common slang as “cor.”

Griff reclined in his chair, happy to wait her out. This was the most enjoyment he could recall at a family dinner.

His mother had been needing someone to manage. She certainly couldn’t browbeat him—no matter what measures she’d resorted to yesternight—and the servants at Halford House were too well-trained and stoic. He’d been flirting with the idea of getting her a mischievous terrier, but this was better by far. Miss Simms wouldn’t leave any puddles on the carpet.

Perhaps after this week was over, he’d hire his mother another impertinent companion.

But next time he’d find one who wasn’t so pretty.

The girl sparkled. Sparkled, deuce her. Griff couldn’t help staring. Hours of coach travel hadn’t dislodged those sugar crystals dusting her form, and his eye couldn’t stop searching them out. They were like grains of brilliant sand strewn in her hair, clinging to her skin. Even tangled in her eyelashes.

Worst of all, one tiny crystal had lodged itself just at the corner of her mouth. His awareness of it had long passed distracting and verged on maddening. Surely, he thought, at some point during dinner she would catch it with her tongue and sweep it away.

If not, he’d be tempted to lean forward and tend to the cursed thing himself.

“Miss Simms,” his mother said, “if you think you can trick me into repeating your vulgarities, you will be disappointed. Suffice it to say, slang, blasphemy, and cursing have no place in a lady’s vocabulary. Much less a duchess’s.”

“Oh. I see. So your grace never curses.”

“I do not.”

“Words like cor . . . bollocks . . . damn . . . devil . . . blast . . . bloody hell . . .” She pronounced the words with relish, warming to her task. “They don’t cross a duchess’s lips?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

Miss Simms’s fair brow creased in thought. “What if a duchess steps on a tack? What if a gust of wind steals a duchess’s best powdered wig? Not even then?”

“Not even when an impertinent farm girl provokes a duchess to a simmering rage,” she replied evenly. “A duchess might contemplate all manner of cutting remarks and frustrated oaths. But even in the face of extreme annoyance, she stifles any such ejaculations.”

“My,” Miss Simms said, wide-eyed. “I do hope dukes aren’t held to the same standard. Can’t be healthy for a man, always stifling his ejaculations.”

Griff promptly broke the prohibition against elbows on the table, smothering a burst of laughter with his palm and disguising it as a coughing fit. The violence of it caught him by surprise. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d laughed from so deep in his chest that his ribs ached. For that matter, he couldn’t recall the last time he’d been tempted to lean across the table and catch a lush, clever mouth in a kiss.

For several months he’d been stifling . . . everything.

“Let it out, your grace. You’ll feel better.” She looked to him with false concern and a coy, conspiratorial smile.

Oh, he liked this girl. He liked her a great deal.

And that worried him intensely.

Chapter Four

Drat. So close. She’d almost had him laughing just then.

The duke had hired Pauline to provoke his mother, but somewhere in the past few minutes, Pauline had grown far more interested in provoking the duke.

For all his devil-may-care posturing, it would seem the devil did care about something. In the hours since they’d left Spindle Cove, a strange cloud of melancholy had gathered about him. She wanted to dispel it. Not out of charity, precisely—but because his brooding made her so acutely aware of her own sadness.

She was already sick with missing home.

She wondered if Daniela had stopped crying yet. Would she be able to sleep alone in the loft? Perhaps their mother would climb up to soothe her after Father had fallen asleep, bringing a dish of blancmange.

Pauline would tell herself that was the case. More comforting that way. When she returned home independently wealthy, her sister would have a great bowlful of blancmange, every single night.

Speaking of food . . . On the table before her, the inn’s servers spread a veritable banquet. Her stomach rumbled. She’d scarcely eaten all day, and she’d never been served a meal like this.