The Day of the Duchess (Scandal & Scoundrel 3)

She caught her breath as the looming shadow growled, “Get your hands off my wife.”

Chapter 6

Calhoun Clocked; Tory Toff Tossed from Tavern

January 1835

One year, seven months earlier

Boston, Massachusetts

The Duke of Haven had barely found his footing on American soil before he was headed for the line of taverns overlooking the wharf. Salt and cold hung in the night air, clinging to the uncomfortable wool of his greatcoat, heavy and full of the lingering smell of weeks at sea.

There was a time when he would have made straight for an inn after interminable nights aboard a frigate in an uncomfortable berth, unable to find sleep or an inch of dry air, his nights spent pacing the deck of the ship, staring at endless black sea and sky made star-bright with the bitter cold.

There was a time when he would have left the ship and gone instantly in search of a warm bath, fire, and bed.

But that was before he searched for her.

Before he’d spent months crawling the cities of northern Europe after she’d left, certain she’d fled Highley for passage on a ship to Copenhagen, believing her sisters when they’d offered their suggestions for her destination. Oslo, Amsterdam, Bruges.

He’d forgotten that, however much his wife loathed him, his sisters-in-law loathed him far more. That was, until the one he’d nearly ruined had taken pity on him and told him the truth. “She might have left us, Duke, but she left you first. And we shall honor that wish above all.”

Damn women and their loyalty. Did they not wish her found? Did they not see she could be in danger? Did they not see what might come of her leaving? She could be—

He stopped the thought. She wasn’t dead. If she were dead, he would know. Even now, after all they’d been through, after all the sorrow and hate, he would know if she were dead. But gone was nearly the same. Worse, perhaps, because of the lingering, flickering, barely-there promise of it. Because of the memory that came with it, impossible to forget. He couldn’t forget an instant with her. Not since the night he’d stepped from a crowded ballroom to a balcony in search of fresh air, and there she’d been. As though she’d been waiting for him.

And so she had been.

It wasn’t a trap. It was all real.

Her words echoed in the cold wind. He hadn’t believed them. And now, he didn’t care if she’d been waiting for him. He could only hope she waited for him now. Here.

It was a year since she’d left, nearly to the day, and he found that as the time passed he only became more dogged in his search for her. It did not help that the anniversary of her leaving marked a different anniversary—one that brought an ache to his chest that could not be relieved. An ache he knew she felt, as well. He could not bring back their child. That, Haven knew, just as he knew there would never be another.

But he could love her well, and out loud. He could mend what he had broken. And that might be enough.

Would. It would be enough.

It took him longer than it should have to find the tavern he sought, The Bell in Hand, through the twisting, turning labyrinthine streets of the unfamiliar city. It did not help that his accent and clothing revealed his home country; it seemed many Americans were uninterested in aiding an Englishman—and so Haven was grateful they did not immediately identify his title.

He’d traveled half the world for her—older, more venerable, more powerful countries. He was not about to let America keep him from her.

He pushed into the smoky tavern, assaulted immediately with dim lights and the din of men on their way into their cups. Not only men. There were women, too, laughing and drinking deep of their tankards, and Haven tracked them with eager eyes, searching for one woman in particular. His woman. His wife.

It was a full room, and poorly lit, and he could not be immediately certain she was not there. There was a woman, he’d been told. Voice like a summer songbird. Dark hair and a perfect face that had the rumor mill thinking she was French—weren’t all beautiful women French?—but it was possible she was English. She’d appeared from nowhere three months after Sera had left him. They called her The Dove.

He’d imagined her just inside this door, alone, frozen in time and space. Close enough for him to capture her by the waist, toss her over his shoulder, get her back to the boat, and spend the entire journey home apologizing to her. Winning her back. Loving her to distraction.

But dreams were not reality. Seraphina was not in this room. Haven purchased an ale and, putting his back to the bar, considered the assembly. The timing was right. Perhaps he was desperate. Perhaps he was mad. But the timing was right, and it seemed right. She was dark and beautiful, tall and elegant, and she sang like an angel.

His gaze fell to a doorway at the back of the room, hinting at more space, promising more people. Promising her. He headed for it. Might have reached it, if not for the heavy hand that came to his shoulder.

“Looks like you’ve lost your way, toff.”

Haven shrugged off the hand and turned, one fist curling at his side, ready for a fight. An American stood inches away, an inch or two shorter than Haven, but an inch or two broader. It had been a few years since Haven had felled someone of this size, but he had been a top fighter at Oxford, and had little concern for the skill returning if necessary.

Before he could speak, the American added, “You aren’t welcome here.”

Haven’s brows rose. “You disapprove of men with funds to drink?”

Something flared in the American’s gaze. Something like recognition, tinged with something like loathing. “I disapprove of Brits who don’t know their place.” The American nodded to the door. “Find somewhere else to drink.”

Haven emptied his tankard and set it on the bar, then extracted his purse and removed several coins. Extending them to the other man, he said, “Give me five minutes in the other room. I shan’t break anything.”

The American stared long and hard at the coin before taking it. Haven resisted the urge to smirk. Every man had a price, and it seemed as though this man’s was rather low. The American flashed a row of straight white teeth. “Well, if you’re paying for it. What are you looking for?”

Haven looked toward the door. “A woman.”

The American grunted. “We’re not a brothel.”

“I’m looking for a specific woman,” Haven said. “A singer. I’m told she sings here.”

The other man nodded. “You’re talking about The Dove.”

“She is here.” The words came on a wave of relief. Haven’s heart beat stronger and faster. It was she. He knew it without hesitation. He turned to the doorway, his only thought getting to her.

The hand again, at the same shoulder. This time firmer.

This time, Haven swatted it away with force, turning again. “Touch me again, and I will not hesitate to touch back.”

“With that response, I’m not letting you get near her.”

Malcolm took a deep breath. Willed himself calm. Failed. “Where is she?”

“What do you want with her?”

“To—” He stopped. To bring her home. To start anew. To find what they had once had. To find more. “To talk.”

“Who are you?”

I’m her husband. How long had it been since he’d said that word? It felt, somehow, unwelcome until she’d returned it to him. He hesitated over his reply.

The American did not hesitate. “Cat got your tongue, Red?”

A collection of laughter followed the words, and Haven imagined he’d been insulted, as though it hadn’t been half a century since the redcoats fought in Boston.

I’m a goddamn duke! he wanted to scream, but he knew it would do him no good. There were few doors such a statement could not open in Britain, and yet here it would likely make things worse.

“I’m a friend.”

The American’s unsettling green eyes narrowed. “That’s a lie if I’ve ever heard one.”

The words were low enoug

h that they should not have been heard by any but Haven, but they seemed to silence the room nonetheless.

And that’s when he heard her.

“When I remember all the friends, so link’d together, I’ve seen around me fall, like leaves in wintry weather; I feel like one who treads alone.”

He’d know the voice anywhere. The way it curled like liquid smoke through the room, sad and soulful, touching minds and hearts and making men sit up and pant. He remembered her singing in his arms once before. Before she’d betrayed him. Before he’d betrayed her.

He met the American’s gaze, the other man’s green eyes flickering away the moment they met him. Past him. To the door to the back room. Haven saw the nervousness in them, even as he saw the barely-there shake of the other man’s head.

She was there.

And he would tear the place down to find her if he must.

Curse on his lips, he turned and started for the room, the crowd suddenly thicker, less fluid. He threw shoulders and elbows to get men out of the way.

“Wait!” the American shouted from behind, catching him by the sleeve, then the arm, leaving him no choice.

Haven turned, the punch already flying. Connecting with a wicked thud, the other man’s nose giving way beneath his fist.

“Christ!” The other man buckled, hand flying to his nose, blood immediately covering his hand.

Haven had broken it, and he had no regrets. The American could hang, for all he cared. Shaking the sting from his hand, he said, loud enough for the room to hear it, “Anyone who gets in my way receives the same.”

He turned on his heel, and the path to the back room opened, bodies eager to clear it. He had to get to her. He would apologize. Make her believe him. Make her believe that they could start anew.

But he had to get to her.

He pushed through the doorway, eyes adjusting to the dimmer light, finding the poorly lit stage at the far end of the room as applause and whistles rang in his ears. It took him a moment to see the woman standing there for what she was—pretty and dark, with a wide, welcoming smile.

Not Sera.

The woman waved her hand in the direction of a man with a fiddle at one side of the stage, and he began to play a rousing jig of sorts, at which point she lifted her skirts to show her ankles in red stockings, to the pleasure of the assembled crowd.

Haven watched for what seemed like forever, not believing.

He could have sworn he’d heard her. He would have known that voice anywhere. A girl pushed past him, tray laden with ale. He stayed her movement with a touch. “That woman. The dancer. Who is she?”

Her gaze followed his. “The Dove.”

The words, so uninterested, so direct, were a knife to his heart.

The Dove wasn’t Sera.

It was never his Sera.

Chapter 7

Sparrow Sings to City’s Soul

She’d been in Boston.

He’d traveled half the world to find her, the echo of that song curling through him in that godforsaken tavern in that godforsaken city an aching reminder of his failure.

Regret slammed through him.

He should have searched more. Should have torn the damn place apart. But he’d felt the disappointment so keenly, been so thoroughly overwhelmed by the futility of the search, by his anger—at Sera for hiding so well, at her sisters and his own mother for aiding her so thoroughly. And at himself, for his inability to find her.

Except he had found her.

It had been her, all along.

And it had been this goddamn American, too.

Haven’s gaze fell to the other man’s now crooked nose, the pleasure he might have found in having been the instrument of the feature’s demise overwhelmed by the fury that this man was touching Sera. Laughing, happy Sera. Comfortable in her skin.

When was the last time he’d seen her that way?

How often had he remembered her that way?

Countless times. As many times as he’d remembered the way she sang, so out of place with the dark, empty tavern down a dingy Covent Garden lane. Because she sang like an angel, achingly beautiful, full of sorrow and longing and truth. And as he’d stood in the doorway, watching her, the ache had returned, though it had never been far to begin with.

He’d ached for her for years.

She filled him, stifled him, stole his breath, marking his chest with her lilting, sad song, as surely as if she’d extracted a blade and carved it herself, drawing blood like a siren.

And then she’d turned away, giving all that beauty to another man, and laughed, the sound—free and light and damn perfect—a harsher blow than the music. He remembered every time she’d ever laughed with him, making him twice the man he was. Ten times it. Making him a king. A god.

There was nothing in the wide world like his wife’s laugh.

He hated that she gave it to another.

And then the American put his hands on her. Lifted her from the stage with such ease that there was no question that he’d done it before. That he’d touched her before. That he was allowed access to her.

Jealousy raged through Haven, fury in its wake.

There was no way she was leaving him for an American.

There was no way she was leaving him, full stop—but the American did add insult to injury. Particularly when Haven considered the fact that the other man was broader, bolder, and possibly handsomer than Haven was, broken nose aside.

Not that any of that mattered. She was his wife. And he would not stand by while another touched her. In fact, if the damn Yank did not remove his ham hocks with all deliberate speed, Haven was likely to remind his opponent just how well he could break a nose. As soon as he navigated his way through the tables and chairs to reach them.

As though she heard the thought, Sera moved in front of the other man, and Haven tried not to notice the way the action stung, whipping envy through him—the vision of his wife protecting another man. A man who continued to touch her with a certainty that could mean only one thing. Possession.

He’d known she was here, with an American. He’d been prepared for the idea that they were lovers. But the visual of it was a wicked blow.

“Ah,” the American drawled. “The duke arrives.”

“The husband arrives,” Haven replied, unable to bank the anger in his tone. And then, to his wife, “We are yet married, Seraphina.”

How was she so utterly calm? “Not in any way that matters.”

In every fucking way that mattered.

She added, “The silly laws of this nation may make me your chattel, Duke. But I will never play the role. I should think the last three years would have made that point well.”

He resisted the urge to spirit her away and show her just how well he could claim her. To make love to her so thoroughly that she screamed to be his. To lock her away and show her how well the role of wife could suit.

Instead, he took the nearest seat, at a low table in the dark corner, knowing she wouldn’t be able to see him as well as he could see her. Desperate to regain the upper hand, he willed his voice calm. His muscles still. Even as he wanted nothing more than to tear the tavern to pieces. “I shan’t be cuckolded,” he said.

Her spine straightened. “If only I had been able to say the same.”

Shame came, hot and unpleasant. He resisted it, redoubled his conviction, directing his attention to the American. “Remove your hands.”

For a moment, he wasn’t sure the other man would respond in any way but to level him with a long, superior look, one that Haven imagined had been taught to every young man in the colonies with a loathing for the king. After several seconds, however, he let go of Sera, spreading his hands wide with a too-loud laugh. “Far be it from me to suffer the fury of a husband scorned.”

“That door should have been locked,” she said, released from the touch of her lover. Sera headed to the bar at the end of the tavern, seemingly uninterested in the masculine posturing in which Haven could

not help but engage. As though he were a much younger man. A much stupider one.

Not so much stupider.

He directed his scorn to the other man, who touched his wife with such casual comfort that there was no doubt of their intimacy.

She’d been unfaithful. He shouldn’t mind it. Shouldn’t have been surprised by it. After all, it had been years.

And he had been unfaithful, too.

Once. And not like this. Not with emotion.

Lie.

There had been emotion. The action had been full of anger. Full of punishment. All for Sera. Sera was the only woman who had ever had his emotions. Not that she would believe it.

Not that she would care.

“Don’t worry, Caleb,” she was saying, “Malcolm doesn’t believe himself scorned. For that to be the case, he would have had to have wanted the marriage from the start.”

He had wanted it. He’d wanted her.

He stayed silent as she moved around the bar to place a small glass on the counter and pour a healthy drink into it. “How did you find us?”

Malcolm hated that us. The way it cleaved her to another man. Instead of answering her, he asked a question of his own. “What in hell are you doing here?”

She raised a brow. “Here, London?”

There had been a time when he’d enjoyed her playing the ingenue. When it had made him feel a dozen times the man. No longer. “Here, in a damn pub.”

“We prefer the word tavern.”

We. “Call it whatever you like, but it’s a pub in the heart of Covent Garden, inhabited by a duchess with newfound skill in drinking.”

The American laughed, and Malcolm hated him a little more. “Should have called it The Drunken Duchess!”

And then Sera was laughing and Mal had the distinct desire to burn the place down. “I am deadly serious, Seraphina. Why are you here?”