And then, from someone else, “Give us another?”
The melody began again.
With slow, quiet footfalls, Griff traced the sounds to the dining room. He eased open the door a fraction.
At the far end of the room, he spied Pauline Simms. She stood before about fifteen water goblets lined up on the table, each one filled with a different amount of water, and she was pinging them with two forks. He couldn’t tell if they were pickle forks or oyster forks. And then he decided this absurd preoccupation with forks was why he didn’t do mornings.
Anyhow, she was doling out a cheerful melody with these forks, as if each note were a bite of music.
No wonder the house was a shambles. All around her the assembled servants of Halford House stood looking on, rapt. Anticipating each musical morsel that fell from those precious little tines. None of them noticed Griff standing in the door.
The music was only part of the entertainment. As she worked, she pulled the most amusing faces. Delicate frowns of concentration, punctuated by disarming cringes when she struck a wrong note. When a lock of hair worked loose to dangle over her brow, she huffed a breath, blowing it away without skipping a beat.
She was working so very, very hard—so very, very earnestly—to create this display. It was absurd. Ridiculous. And utterly adorable.
Everyone in the room was enchanted, and Griff couldn’t claim he was immune to her spell. She was enchanting.
When the last note faded, all the servants clapped.
“That was Handel, my girl,” his mother said, beaming with pleasure. “How did you learn that piece?”
Pauline shrugged. “Just by listening to the village music tutor. She taught piano lessons in the Bull and Blossom.”
“That’s natural musicality,” the duchess said. “You could translate that ability to any of several proper instruments, with practice.”
“Truly? But, your grace, there’s no time for prac . . .” Her voice trailed off as she looked up—and saw Griff, standing in the doorway.
Their gazes tangled.
Without breaking eye contact, he could feel all the others in the room turning his way.
Griff knew he had a split-second decision to make. He was either going to be caught staring at Miss Simms, exposed for the enraptured, lusting fool he was, in front of his mother and all his servants—or he could do what he did best: hide his every emotion behind the mask of an indifferent, entitled jackass.
Really, there was no choice.
Jackass it would be.
He began to applaud in slow, smug claps—and continued long after the room had gone silent.
Long after the shy, endearing smile had fled her face.
He let one last, ringing clap echo through the sobered room. He brought out his most bored, condescending tone. “That . . . was . . . capital, Simms. You will certainly stand out from the debutante crowd.”
She ducked her head, looking flustered. “Just an old trick I learnt at the tavern. Some nights are slow. The duchess asked after my musical talent, and this is the sum of it.”
“Do you juggle tankards, too? Fold table napkins into jousting cranes?”
“I . . . No.” She set aside the forks.
“Pity.”
“Excuse me,” she muttered, rushing out the dining room’s other door.
Griff stared at the empty space she’d left. He hadn’t expected her to take it quite that hard. She wanted to be a successful failure, didn’t she?
Once she was gone, every footman and housemaid in the room turned in his direction. Their eyes shot beams of pure resentment.
“What?” he asked.
Higgs cleared his throat in subtle rebuke.
Good God. He’d lost them, their loyalty. Just like that.
“Really,” Griff said. He ceased leaning on the doorjamb and drew to full ducal height. “Really. I’ve been your employer for years. In some cases, decades. Annual rises in pay, Christmas boxes, days off. Simms pings a fork on some goblets, and now you all side with her?”
Silence.
“You’re servants. Stop standing about, and go . . . serve.”
A dour parade of footmen and maids filed past him on their way out of the room, leaving Griff alone with his mother.
She opened her mouth to speak, but he held up a palm.
“I will do the talking,” he said. He was the duke. He was solely responsible for six estates, a vast family fortune, and this very house—and he meant to assert that authority.
“I don’t know what else you have planned for Simms this morning, but I intend to be a part of it. No more of this scheming and shopping in secret, only to ambush me with new frocks and water goblet sonatas. Am I understood?”
She lifted her chin. “Yes.”
“Good.” He clapped his hands together. “So what’s on today’s agenda, now that music is finished? Whatever it is, I’m joining you. More shopping? Etiquette lessons? Some stab at exposing the girl to art or culture?”
“Charity,” she said.
“Charity?”
“It’s Tuesday. We’re going to the Foundling Hospital. I visit every Tuesday.”
The Foundling Hospital. The floor dropped out of Griff’s stomach. Of all the places. He had no desire to spend his day at an orphanage.
“You only have a week with Simms. Why not skip this particular Tuesday?”
“Because it’s an essential part of any duchess’s duty—charity toward the less fortunate.” Her brow quirked. “It’s an essential part of a duke’s duty, too.”
Now he saw where she was going with this. And he didn’t like it.
“On second thought,” he said, “I can’t go.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“I have an urgent appointment. I’ve just remembered it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “An urgent appointment with whom?”
“With . . .” He churned air with one hand. “Someone who needs to see me. Urgently. The land steward.”
“He’s in Cumberland.”
“I meant the family solicitor.” He looked down his nose at her. “I’ve decided to decrease your quarterly allowance.”
She hmphed. “Well, then. You can discuss the matter with him today. His office is in Bloomsbury, directly across from the Foundling Hospital.”
Griff sighed. Damn.
Chapter Twelve
Pauline was amazed. In London, it seemed even the orphans lived in palatial splendor.
The Foundling Hospital was a grand, stately edifice in Bloomsbury, surrounded by green courtyards and fronted by a formidable gate. Inside the building, the halls and corridors were lavishly decorated with paintings and sculpted trim.