It was not because of the voice itself.
“What is the meaning of this?” the chancellor thundered.
Haven could see it then, the cause of the commotion. A woman. A woman in the most beautiful lavender dress he’d ever seen, perfectly turned out, as though she marched into Parliamentary session on a regular basis. As though she were the Prime Minister himself. As though she were more than that. As though she were royalty.
The only woman he’d ever loved. The only woman he’d ever hated.
And Haven, frozen to the spot.
“I confess,” she said, as though she were at a tea party, moving to the floor of the chamber, “I feared I would miss the session altogether. But I’m very happy that I might sneak in before you all escape to wherever it is that you gentlemen venture for . . . pleasure. I shan’t be more than a moment.” She grinned at an ancient earl who blushed under the heat of her gaze and turned away. “But I understand that what I seek requires an Act of Parliament. And you are . . . as you know . . . Parliament.”
That was when her gaze found his, her eyes precisely as he remembered, as blue as a summer sky. No. Not the same. Different. Where they were once open and honest, they were now shuttered. Blank.
As though she, too, were escaped to somewhere else.
She watched him for a long moment, her gaze unblinking, and then declared, “I am Seraphina Bevingstoke, Duchess of Haven. And I require a divorce.”