The Day of the Duchess (Scandal & Scoundrel 3)

Chapter 17

Women’s Wiles Await! Mind Yourselves, Men!

“Do you love my sister?”

Caleb Calhoun turned from where he checked the final winch connecting his carriage to the four horses that, in minutes, would ferry him to Covent Garden. Sesily Talbot leaned against the coach, arms crossed over her chest—a chest beautifully showcased by a stunning gold dress that gleamed like fire in the sunset.

The dress was likely thought too low and too tight, but Sesily Talbot did not seem the kind of woman who cared what was thought. And it didn’t matter, honestly, as it wasn’t the fire in the fabric of her dress that made the girl dangerous, so much as it was the fire in her eyes.

No, dangerous didn’t seem the appropriate word for Sesily. Dangerous seemed too gentle. She was positively ruinous. Which was a problem, because Caleb had always been partial to ruination. And being ruined by his dearest friend’s sister was not an option.

Ignoring the thread of pleasure that went through him at the sight of her, he returned his attention to the horse, making a fuss over a perfectly fastened harness. “Lady Sesily, may I help you?”

“Are you not answering me because you think I will judge you for it? I won’t. People have always loved Sera. She’s eminently lovable. The most beautiful of the Dangerous Daughters, to be sure.” Caleb wasn’t sure at all, as a matter of fact. “I only ask because if you do love her, you’ve a problem.”

She was right about that. Haven clearly desired Sera with an intensity Caleb had never seen. When they were near each other, the duke was unable to direct his attention to any but his wife. And Sera—well, she’d never stopped loving her duke, no matter how awful their past and how impossible their future.

And Caleb knew about awful pasts and impossible futures.

He owned one and was speaking to another.

“Of course I love her,” he said. “But not in the way you mean. I’ve no interest in seducing her.”

“Do you love another, then?”

No one had ever taught Sesily Talbot tact, apparently. “I don’t see how that is your business.”

“Ah, so that is a ‘yes.’”

“Love is a fool’s errand. One only need look at Sera and her duke to see it.”

She seemed not to hear him. “Is it unrequited?”

Irritation flared, and Caleb turned to meet her gaze, clear and direct and—Christ, she had the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen, blue with a magnificent ring of black around them. Beautiful enough to make it essential that he say the next out loud. To remind himself of where his loyalties lay. “Your sister is the best friend I’ve ever had.” He paused. “Which means I’ve no interest in seducing you, either.”

He meant for the words to sting, just enough to put her off him, but they didn’t seem to. They seemed to glide right past her. Indeed, she smiled. “I don’t believe I asked to be seduced, Mr. Calhoun.”

He was a bull, and she was a stunning red flag. He couldn’t have stopped himself from approaching her for all the world. “Of course you have,” he said. “You ask every time you look at me.”

“You mistake flirting for desire, sir.”

“I don’t mistake your bold flirt for anything but what it is, Sesily Talbot.”

She lifted her chin, exposing a millimeter more skin. Tempting him with it. “And what is that? Diversion?”

He let a beat go by as he watched this girl who had never in her life faced a proper man. “Disguise.”

He’d shocked her. She uncrossed her arms and came off the coach, unsettled by him. By his ability to see the truth. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean you’re a flirt, Sesily, and a good one, too. Most people don’t see what you are when you’re not full of swagger.”

“And you do?”

“I do,” he said. “I recognize it.”

She blinked. Laughed, bold enough for a lesser man not to hear the nervousness in it. “What do you recognize, Caleb Calhoun? An unwillingness to compromise?”

“An unwillingness to risk.”

She narrowed her gaze. “You don’t know much about me, if you think I do not risk. I’ve done nothing but risk since I had my first season. I’m a scandal for the ages.”

“Nah, you’re only a scandal because they don’t see that you’re the least scandalous of the lot.”

Her brows rose high. “Never tell a Talbot sister she’s not scandalous, sir. You risk us taking offense.”

He smiled. “I’ve spent three years with Seraphina, love. I know the truth. You wear your pretty clothes and talk your clever talk, but when it comes down to it, you want one thing. And it’s not what you want me to think it is.”

Her lips pressed into a straight line. “I do so like it when a man tells me about myself. It’s positively aphrodisiacal.”

“I’m an American, my lady. Don’t flummox me with all your big words.”

Her eyes flashed with humor then. “Shall I tell you what I think about you, then, Calhoun? Never fear. I shall use small words so you understand.”

No.

He didn’t want her telling him anything. They’d already taken this too far. Sera would have his balls if he even touched her. She’d burn the Sparrow to the ground just to keep him from getting his cut. And then she’d hire herself a ship to take her to Boston and do the same to every property he owned there.

The thing was, it might be worth it.

He was so distracted by how well it might be worth losing everything for one moment with Sesily Talbot that he forgot to tell her to stop talking.

“I think you’re here with my sister—in the country, I might add, which is positively dull as dirt, which you know, because you flee to London every night to breathe in the glorious stench of adventure—because being with Sera keeps you safe.”

His heart began to pound. “Being with your sister keeps me in constant threat of being pummeled by your brother-in-law.”

“That may be true,” Sesily said. “But better feel any number of fists upon your face than feel something truly dangerous.”

He’d had enough of her. “And you’re an expert on the subject?”

“On avoiding emotion? I am, rather.” He didn’t know what to say to that. “And on the day one awakens to discover that their future is set.”

“Please,” he scoffed. “You are a child.”

“I am twenty-seven years old. Unmarriageable for many reasons, the least of which is scandal and the worst of which is my tragic descent into old age.”

If that wasn’t some British nonsense, he did not know what was. Sesily Talbot couldn’t take a step down a Boston street without half a dozen men making eyes at her. Even the thought sent Caleb into a fury.

He was done with this. “Well. This has been entertaining, Sesily, but—”

“You and Sera make an excellent pair. Both terrified of what might come if you actually worked for something.”

He scowled. “You know nothing about me.”

She raised a brow. “I know you’re a coward, American.”

She was baiting him. He knew it, and still he wanted to prove himself to her. He wanted to do more than that. He wanted to throw her into the carriage and show her precisely how lacking in cowardice he was.

Instead, he opened the coach door to throw his bag into the carriage.

Only to be attacked by a violent white projectile.

“What in—” He leapt backward, the furred beast apparently not realizing that he’d ceded the carriage, as it clung to his coat with a mighty yowl.

Which was when he realized that Sesily was laughing. And that it sounded like fucking sin. Until that precise moment, Caleb would not have imagined that it was possible to simultaneously be attacked by a cat and go hard as a rock.

But Sesily Talbot was the kind of woman who taught a man things, that much was clear. Including how infuriated he could get.

He grabbed for the animal as it began to scale him like a tree trunk, and Sesily instantly gasped, “No! Don’t hurt him!”

And then she was close enoug

h to touch him. And then she was touching him. If one could claim claw removal as touching. Which Caleb was finding he had to do, considering how the gentle movements and the soothing tuts she offered the little beast made him want to claw something himself.

He had to get away from her.

Which was difficult, as he had a cat attached to him.

Finally, she cradled the animal in her arms, and, from beyond the edge of his jealousy of the damn creature, Caleb heard the smile in her voice. “He likes you.”

He met her gaze. I like you.

Well, he certainly wasn’t going to say that. So he settled on, “Mmm. And why is he in my carriage?”

She lifted one shoulder and dropped it, her lips twisting in amusement. “In my advancing years, sometimes I forget where I leave things.”

This woman was trouble. The kind for which he did not have time or inclination. “So this was your plan? Set your cat upon me and hope for the best?”

She blinked, wide blue eyes making him want to kiss her without consequence. That was the problem, however. There would definitely be consequence. “Is it working?”

“No.” Too much consequence. He put his bag in the carriage and closed the door. “Old maid or not, Lady Sesily, you want love. And I know better than to get anywhere near that. With or without your attack cat.”

He thought she might deny it, but it seemed Sesily Talbot did nothing expected, and certainly not when it came to tearing men to pieces. “You know, Caleb,” she said softly, his name on her tongue a particular weapon. “If you did decide to seduce me . . .” He turned from her, unable to remain still as she spoke, as the words etched pictures upon him—images that he knew better than to think of and that he could not resist. When she finished the sentence, it was with knowing laughter in the words. “Well, you see it as well as I do.”

He turned back like he was under a damn spell, only to discover that she had resumed her lazy place against his carriage. Ruining it, forever, it seemed. Because he’d never be able to look at that door without thinking of the moment that Sesily Talbot, cloaked in sunset, baited him so thoroughly, even as she remained perfectly relaxed against the side of his coach, as though she had no interest in the moment other than to toy with him. “See what?”

And then she smiled, and it wasn’t the way she smiled while flirting. It wasn’t the way she smiled at dinner or when playing lawn bowls. It was private. Personal. As though she’d only ever smiled for him. As if she were his own damn sun. And when she spoke, it was with perfect simplicity. “You see how good it would be.”

He felt his jaw drop, and couldn’t stop it, not even when, without hesitating over the cat in her hands, she dropped into a perfect, pure curtsy that made him think imperfect, impure thoughts. When she came to her full height again, she said, “Travel safely, Mr. Calhoun,” and made for the house, her long strides lazy and without care, as though she hadn’t just destroyed a man in the drive.

Christ. He would spend the rest of the night imagining how good it would be. And he would ache with a desire that would not yield until he returned to her and got her the hell out of his thoughts.

Which was never going to happen.

Haven found Sera on the porch beyond the library that night, after the rest of the women had taken to their chambers. She sat at the top of the stone steps leading down into the gardens, where lawn bowls and dramatic revelations had owned the day, a glass in one hand, a lantern and a bottle of whiskey by her side.

The woman he’d met years ago had drunk champagne and happily scandalized Society with her tales of Marie Antoinette’s breast molded into glass. She’d drunk wine and every so often sherry, though he could remember more than one occasion when she’d wrinkled her nose at the too-sweet swill.

It had never been whiskey, though.

Whiskey had come when they were apart. And somehow now, as she toasted the darkness, it made sense. She, too, was made better with the years. Richer, darker, fuller. More intoxicating.

Minutes stretched into hours and Malcolm watched her, avoiding the temptation to approach, choosing, instead, to take her in, his beautiful wife—the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen—as she confronted the darkness of the countryside, dressed in a deep eggplant silk that had gleamed in the candlelight at dinner earlier and was now turned black in the moonlight.

His chest ached at the vision of her, stunning and still, lost in thought.

There had been a time when he could have gone to her and she would have welcomed him. A time when he wouldn’t have hesitated to interrupt those thoughts. To have them for his own. But now, he hesitated.

She spoke without looking back. “Do you have a glass?”

The question unstuck him. He approached, sitting next to her on the stone steps, as though he were not in a dinner jacket. As though she were not in silk. “I do not.” He watched her moonlit profile. “You shall have to share.”

She looked down the glass dangling from her long, graceful fingers, then passed it to him. “Keep it.”

He drank, unable to hold back the thread of pleasure that came with the familiarity of the moment. “I did not think I would find you alone.”

She looked to him for an instant, then away, returning her attention to the dark grounds beyond. “I did not think you would come looking for me.”

“Or you would have summoned your American to protect you?”

She gave a little laugh, lacking humor. “My American is on his way to London.”

No doubt to care for his tavern. Caleb Calhoun was many things, but he was not a bad businessman. “He should stay there.”

She was silent for so long that he did not think she would reply. But she did. “He thinks I am unable to manage here.”

His brows rose. “Manage what?”

“You, I imagine.”

“Do I require managing?”

She huffed a little laugh at that. “I would never dream of trying, honestly.”

“I think you could, without much difficulty.”

She watched the darkness for a long stretch, then said, “Caleb is willing to play the lover for the divorce petition,” she added.

Later, he would hate himself for saying, “He is a good friend,” instead of saying, There won’t be a divorce.

“He is,” she replied. “He’s willing to do a great deal for my happiness.”

“He is not alone.” She looked to him then, meeting his eyes, searching for something. Finally, she looked away. “What do you want, Your Grace?”

He wanted so much, and so well that he shocked himself with his answer. “I want you not to call me Your Grace.”

She turned at that, her blue eyes grey in the darkness. “You remain a duke, do you not?”

“You never treated me as one.”

One side of her mouth rose in a little smile. “Silly Haven. Didn’t you leave me because I knew your title too well?”

He hated the words. Hated that even in this quiet, private darkness, they were cloaked in the past. But most of all, he hated the truth in them. He had left her because he’d thought she cared for his dukedom more than she cared for him.

By the time he’d discovered that it mattered not a bit why she’d landed him—only that she’d landed him at all—she’d been gone.

And with her, his future.

She finally spoke, as though she’d heard his thoughts. “I didn’t intend to trap you, you know. Not at the start.” She took a deep breath, looking up at the sky. “That is the truth, if it matters.”

He set his glass down and took up the lantern as he stood, reaching one hand down to her. “Come.”

Her reply was as wary as the look she slid his hand. “Where?”

“For a walk.”

“It’s the dead of night.”

“It’s ten o’clock.”

“It’s the country,” she retorted. “If it’s night, it’s the dead of it.”

He laughed at that. “I thought you liked the country.”

&n

bsp; “The city has its benefits. I like to be able to see the things that might kill me in the dark,” she said with dry certainty.

He remembered this, the way it felt to banter with her. As though there’d never been a man and woman so well matched. “Is there something you fear sneaking up on us in the dark?”

“There could be anything.”

“For example?”

“Bears.”

His brow furrowed. “You spent too much time in America if you think bears are coming for you.”

“It could happen.”

He sighed. “No. It really couldn’t. Not in Essex. Name one thing that might kill you in the dark in Essex.”

“An angry fox.”

The reply came so quick, he could not help his laugh. “I think you’re safe. We haven’t had a foxhunt in several years.”

“That doesn’t mean the foxes aren’t seeking revenge for their ancestors.”

“The foxes are too fat with grouse to muster much anger. And if they do come for you, Sera, I vow to protect you.”

“Your vows have not held much promise in the past,” she said, and he heard the way she tried to avoid the end of the sentence, as though she hadn’t wanted to say it any more than he’d wanted to hear it.

Of course, he deserved to hear it. He ignored the sting of the words and faced them head-on. “Tonight, I turn over a new leaf.” He extended his hand to her again, and she considered it for a stretch before she sighed, collected her bottle, and stood, coming to her full, magnificent height.

He lowered the hand she did not take.

“I’m not wearing proper footwear.”

“I was not planning on giving you a tour of the bogs,” he said, descending the steps. “Do not worry. I shall protect you from nefarious creatures.”

“Who will protect me from you?” she asked smartly before adding, “And where are you taking me?”

“See? You should not have been so quick to malign the foxes. They might have been your only saving grace.”

“So this is it, then?” she asked as they marched toward his destination. “It shall be you who does me in in the dead of night?”

He ignored the comment, slowing to allow her a chance to catch up to him. “We’re going to the lake.”