Any Duchess Will Do

"I'll take her."

"I'll take her."

...had just enough pride to trump etiquette and good sense.

"My impertinence is the reason I'm here, remember? It's why you chose me from a room of well-bred ladies. Because I'm perfectly wrong. Everything you'd never want in a woman."

He raked a gaze down her body. "I wouldn't say that."

"Very well. You have questions? Here are some answers. 'Yes,' 'No,' and 'Only with ample lubrication.' Apply them to your questions as you like."

Well, it’s officially official: If I want a good cry, I’ll pick up one of my favorite Tessa Dare books. Each and every time she creates heroes and heroines who worm their way into my heart and tug on those heartstrings. Kate and Thorne? Made me bawl my ever-loving eyes out. Minerva and Colin? When they weren’t making me laugh, they put tears in my eyes. Pauline and Griff? Yeah, those two got the water works going pretty good and pretty often. I love the ladies and gents of

Well, it’s officially official: If I want a good cry, I’ll pick up one of my favorite Tessa Dare books. Each and every time she creates heroes and heroines who worm their way into my heart and tug on those heartstrings. Kate and Thorne? Made me bawl my ever-loving eyes out. Minerva and Colin? When they weren’t making me laugh, they put tears in my eyes. Pauline and Griff? Yeah, those two got the water works going pretty good and pretty often. I love the ladies and gents of Spindle Cove, and Pauline and Griff are no exception.

Pauline Simms, serving girl at the Bull and Blossom, is a hard worker. As a poor farmer’s daughter, no one expects great things from Pauline. Her hands have calluses and her dresses often have mud at the hem. Her hair coiffure is the least of her concerns. And, in a town full of women, genteel ladies at that, Pauline is often overlooked. Not that she minds really. She has dreams but none of them revolve around a prince charming or a fairy tale Cinderella ending.

Until Griffin York, the Eighth Duke of Halford, comes strolling (or, well, stumbling) into the Bull and Blossom. Yes, that Griffin York—the debauched and hedonistic sometimes friend of Colin Sandhurst (A Week to Be Wicked). Or, that’s who Griff was... but no longer is. Griff’s changed, things have changed, and no one seems to notice. Not even his mother, who in her quest for grandchildren, has drugged and kidnapped her son to take him to Spindle Cove.

Where he's forced to pick a lady, any lady, from the Bull and Blossom. His mother, the current Duchess, will teach whatever lady he picks to be a duchess. In one week, no less, or she forfeits her rights to ever bother him with matrimony talk ever again. And who does Griff set his sights on? Pauline. Because if anyone will fail his mother’s duchess training, he believes it will be poor Pauline.

Pauline’s family may be poor but they’re well fed thanks to her. Not that her awful father appreciates all she does, but it’s not him that Pauline works so hard for. No, everything Pauline does is with her sister Daniela in mind. Pauline will do anything for her sister, who some rude town’s people would call simple or feeble-minded. Pauline is the only one who cares for Daniela. And the money Griff offers, to go along with the sham engagement, is all going toward a better future for Pauline and Daniela.

I’ll be honest, Griffin nearly broke me. The way he first treats Pauline, the way he's so careless with his words and actions, had me fuming. An arrogant duke to the core, or so he pretends to be. But Griff’s a smart man, thankfully, and it doesn't take long for him to be set straight. To start actually seeing Pauline as the bright and beautiful woman she is. Honest and open. Caring and thoughtful… and exactly what Griff needed. The only person who could see him, just as he can see her. I loved Pauline for never backing down or cowering to him. For forcing him to let go of the darkness inside him. A sadness that’s been eating away at him for so long.

Any Duchess Will Do is an enchanting tale of unlikely love. A depressed duke known for his philandering, libertine ways meets his match in a courageous serving girl who curses like a sailor and wobbles in high heeled slippers. Pauline and Griff’s difference in class, how it made Pauline feel and the difficulties it caused, broke my heart over and over. A duke's world is no easy place to be but, in the end, it’s exactly where Pauline was meant to be. Griff and his prickly seduction is impossible to resist.

“Her,” he said. “I’ll take her.”

“Her,” he said. “I’ll take her.”

“More to the point, I am fifty-eight. I need grandchildren before my decline. It’s not right for two generations of the family to be drooling at the same time.”

“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.”

I’ve tried to find the most accomplished young beauties in England to tempt you. And I did, but you ignored them. I finally realized the answer is not quality. It’s quantity.”
“Quantity? Are you taking me to some free-love utopian commune where men are permitted as many wives as they please?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I was being hopeful.”
Her lip curled in a delicate scowl. “You’re terrible.”

On his way out of the bedchamber he addressed the vigilant butler. “Higgs,” he said, “see that my mother does not move from that bed. And summon the doctor. Not the gentle-mannered one, either. The one with the leeches.”

“I have seen myself. That’s the snag, you see.”
He shook his head. “No, no. Not in a mirror. I know how mirrors work. They’re all in league with the cosmetics trade. They tell a woman lies. Drawing her gaze from one imagined flaw to another, until all she sees is a constellation of imperfections. If you could get outside yourself, borrow my eyes for just an instant . . . There’s only beauty.”

[Colin]“And if our little fact-finding investigations turn up nothing, we’ll perform an experiment. We’ll call at Halford House tomorrow.”
She nodded. Her eyes misted with tears.
“Darling Min.” He stroked her cheek. “Are you truly that concerned?”
“No,” she said. “Oh, Colin. I’m just so proud.” She squeezed his hand. “You’re using the scientific method.”