Any Duchess Will Do Read Free Page B

upon entering. “What luck. Here they are.”
    Griff looked. The scene was even ghastlier than he could have imagined.
    This tavern didn’t seem to be a “tavern” at all, but more of a tea shop. Young ladies crowded the establishment, all of them hunched over tables and frowning in concentration. They appeared to be engaged in one of those absurd handicrafts that passed for female “accomplishment” these days. Quilling paper, it looked like. They weren’t even using fresh parchment—just ripping pages straight from books to fashion their queer little trivets and tea trays.
    He peered at the nearest stack of volumes. Mrs. Worthington’s Wisdom for Young Ladies , each one read. Appalling.
    This was everything he’d been avoiding for years. A roomful of unmarried, uninspiring young women, from which the common wisdom would argue he should find a suitable bride.
    At the nudging of a friend, one young woman rose from her chair and curtsied. “May we help you, ma’am?”
    “Your grace.”
    The young woman’s brow creased. “Ma’am?”
    “I am the Duchess of Halford. You would properly address me as ‘your grace.’ ”
    “Ah. I see.” As her nudging friend smothered a nervous giggle, the fair-haired young woman began again. “May we help you, your grace?”
    “Just stand tall, girl. So my son can see you.” She turned her head, surveying the rest of the room. “All of you, on your feet. Best posture.”
    Pain forked through Griff’s skull as chair legs screeched against floorboards. One by one the young ladies obediently rose to their feet.
    He noted a few pockmarks. One case of crooked teeth. They were none of them hideous, just—fragile in some cases. Others were unfashionably browned from the sun.
    “Well,” the duchess said, striding into the center of the room. “Jewels in the rough. In some cases, very rough. But they are all from good family, so with a bit of polish . . .” She turned to him. “Take your choice, Halford. Select any girl who strikes your fancy. I will make her into a duchess.”
    Every jaw in the room dropped.
    Every jaw, that was, except Griff’s.
    He massaged his throbbing temples and began preparing a little speech in his mind. Ladies, I beg you. Pay this raving madwoman no attention. She’s entered her decline.
    But then, he thought—a quick exit was too kind to her. Surely the only proper punishment was the opposite: to do precisely as his mother asked.
    He said, “You claim you can make any one of these girls into a suitable duchess.”
    “Of course I can.”
    “And who will be the judge of your success?”
    She lifted a brow. “Society, of course. Choose your young lady, and she’ll be the toast of London by season’s end.”
    “The toast of London, you say?” He gave a doubtful laugh.
    He scanned the tavern for a second time, planning to declare mad, instantaneous love for the most shrinking, awkward, homely chit available—and then watch his mother sputter and flail in response.
    However, from the amused glances the young ladies exchanged, Griff could sense that there was more courage and wit in the room than his first impression might have indicated. These young women were no fools. And though they each had their flaws and imperfections—who didn’t?—none were unsuitable to a shocking, insurmountable degree.
    Damn. He’d looked forward to teaching his overstepping mother a lesson. As matters stood, he supposed he’d be better served to just mutter a few apologies, drag the duchess back to the carriage, and drop her at Bedlam on the way home.
    And then, with a creak of hinges and a slam of the rear door—
    His salvation arrived.
    She came stumbling through the back entrance of the tavern, red-faced and breathless. Her boots and hem were spattered with alarming amounts of mud, and a strange white powder clung to her everywhere else.
    A serving girl’s apron hung loose around her neck. As she gathered the tapes and knotted them behind her back, the