The Day of the Duchess (Scandal & Scoundrel #3)(100)

Two massive men took their place at the curtain, prepared to do battle for the Sparrow, their Queen.

He didn’t care. He wanted to protect her.

“Perhaps you should wait,” Sesily added.

Mal heard the meaning in the words. She doesn’t want you.

He turned on the duo. “This isn’t her tavern, yet. That’s what you meant to say.”

“I didn’t mean to say anything.” The American scowled at Sesily.

Sesily lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “You made me angry. And besides, it’s time someone chivvied them along.”

“Along, where?” Caleb growled.

“He’s not divorcing her, American,” Sesily said. “He loves her quite thoroughly.”

She was not wrong, but nothing in the conversation was helping. Mal resisted the urge to tell them both to shut up and said, “I’m right, am I not? The tavern is to be hers.”

The answer was wrenched from the American. “It’s hers when she can take it.”

Mal shook his head. Married women could not own property. And they could not own businesses. “Which can never happen. Not as long as she is married to me.”

The American did not have to reply.

To have her future, she had to forget her past. Which was impossible, if he was with her. He looked to Sesily, the only sister who seemed remotely willing to forgive him. “Why didn’t she tell me?” Calhoun did not have to reply to that, either. Mal answered for him. “She did not trust me not to play games with her.” She did not trust him, full stop. And he had done nothing but prove her right, scheming and planning and throwing a damn house party to lure her to him instead of telling her the truth. And risking everything.

Everything he’d lost anyway.

He’d never given her reason to trust him.

Her words from that morning—had it only been that morning? Christ, it felt like an age—echoed through him like her song, sweet and honest and melancholy. Final.

Love is not enough.

There had been a time when it would have been. When he had been all she’d ever wished for. All she’d ever needed. But he’d been too blind to see that everything she’d done had been for him. For their family. For their future. And by the time he’d understood, she’d already been fixed to the firmament.

He nodded, knowing what was to come next. Knowing that if it did not work, he would lose her forever. And knowing that he had no other choice.

He turned to leave, and Sesily stopped him. “Wait! Haven! What do we tell her?”

He replied without looking back. “Tell her I’m not marrying Felicity Faircloth.”

He crossed the street outside, needing air and a moment to think. Turning his back to the curved cobblestone wall, he closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, the tight ache in his chest threatening to consume him.

When he opened them, it was to find two brutal men standing in front of him, one tall and lean with a wicked scar down his cheek and a walking stick that looked like it was no more designed to assist in balance than it was to assist in flight, and the other shorter, broader, and with a face that would evoke Roman sculpture if he didn’t look a portrait of cruelty.

They looked too turned out for pickpockets or drunk blades, but it was Covent Garden, so he said, “If you’re looking for a fight, gentleman, I should warn you that I’m more than willing to give it. Find another bear to poke.”

The tall man didn’t hesitate in his reply. “We’re not here for you, Duke.” Mal was unsurprised that they knew him. They seemed the type of men who knew a fair amount. “At least, we didn’t come for you. But now that we’ve seen the way you fight . . .” The scarred man tutted his approval. “Don’t suppose you’d be interested in fighting for us. Good blunt in it.”

“I’m not.”

The other one—the one with the handsome, cruel face—spoke then, his voice low and graveled with what sounded like disuse. “Nah. You’d be rubbish at it.”

“Why is that?”

The tall one again. “My brother means that there are two kinds of fighters; the ones who excel at the fight no matter what, and the ones who only excel when something they love is on the line. You’re the latter.”

Like that, he knew who they were. “You’re the pair that pummeled Calhoun.”

The tall one tipped his cap, wide grin on his face. “Just a little how’d’y’do, welcome to the neighborhood. Calhoun fought back, and well. We’re friends, now.”

Mal nodded, even as he doubted every word. He paused, considering the two men and all the ways he might ruin them if they dared even look at his wife. Finally, he gave a little growl and leaned in. “You are right, you know. I am single-minded when something I love is on the line. And I assume you can tell that because you are cut from similar cloth.”

The men watched him carefully, but said nothing.

Mal held his fury and frustration in rigid control. “You listen to me. Everything I love is inside this place. If anything happens to it, I come for you.”

There was a beat of silence, after which the quiet man grunted and the tall man said, “Christ, I wish we could get you in a ring. Think of the money he’d make us!”

“He’s other bouts in mind.”