The Day of the Duchess (Scandal & Scoundrel #3)(104)

“The man should take his wife in hand is what he should do!”

“Who said that?” Seline leaned over the edge of the railing. “I want to be certain to invite your poor wife round for cake—perhaps we can convince her that marital dissolution is a worthy goal!”

The men below thumped and bellowed, disliking the brazen women above. “One wonders why Haven would want anything to do with you lot! How any man would throw in his lot with such a horrid group!”

Sophie’s husband leapt into the fray, the Marquess of Eversley coming to his feet, robed and wigged and not a bit lacking in intimidation. “Say it again!” he thundered.

Shouting ensued, the room gone wild with the restrained madness that comes only from parliamentary antics.

And all the while, Sera was consumed by the vote. “How is it a tie?” She looked to her sisters. “We were assured I did not have the votes!” Her gaze fell to the Marquess of Mayweather, who looked perfectly calm. As did the owners of Mal’s club and several other members of the Content Lobby.

Sesily Talbot was not content, however. She stood up, grabbing hold of the railing guarding her from toppling over into the throngs of lords below. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Lord Chancellor. Get to it! What happens now?”

What happens is, Mal comes.

And as though Sera summoned him with her thoughts, the enormous doors at the far end of the room burst open, the sound echoing through the quiet hall, quieting the chatter. There was Malcolm, calm and unflappable, as though this were a perfectly ordinary day, and his wife weren’t sitting in the gallery waiting to hear of their future.

“If I may, Lord Chancellor?”

Sera drank him in, marveling at how she could have gone years without seeing him and now, three weeks had made her desperate for him.

“You are late, Duke Haven,” the Speaker called. “Which is not a small amount strange, considering the business of the day. Additionally, your inappropriate attire insults the circumstance of the House of Lords.”

He wasn’t wearing his robes. Or his wig.

“I do apologize,” he said. “I was whipping votes.”

Sera went cold at the words, then fiery hot.

“Well, you’ve done a poor job at it, as the count is a tie.”

Was that a smile on his lips? She could not look away from that expression—not happy and not sad. What was happening? “Ah. Well. Perhaps, as I am here, now, I might be able to cast a verbal vote?”

The Speaker paused. “That is unorthodox.”

The room erupted in a chorus of pounding fists and hissing. “Let the man speak,” came a cry from somewhere below her.

And then Mayweather spoke up. “He’s got a right to vote on his own marriage, doesn’t he?”

“He does,” she said softly.

Her sisters heard her. Sophie turned to look at her. “You want him to vote.”

If he voted, it would be to keep their marriage intact.

Yes.

Shock coursed through her, and she nodded, the movement barely there, so small that no one should have seen it. Of course, her sisters saw it, and they set to hooting and shouting themselves, banging their hands on the observation railing, and drawing Mal’s attention to the upper level of Parliament. When he found her, he met her gaze without hesitation, and she saw everything there. Love. Passion. Conviction.

He wanted her, and he would do anything to have her.

And in that moment, she realized, she felt the same way.

“I don’t think you’re getting your divorce now,” Sophie said, squeezing her hand.

“But it does seem like you might be getting a grand gesture,” Sesily said happily. “I told him we like a grand gesture.”

“All right then, Haven, get on with it,” the Lord Chancellor said with more than a thread of irritation in his tone. He seemed to have eschewed parliamentary formality.

Haven moved to the center of the floor, his gaze riveted to her, and somehow, all Parliament fell away, as though it were the two of them somewhere private and perfect. The underwater ballroom at Highley. The stage of the Sparrow in the early morning. Somewhere the world could not see them.

She caught her breath, waiting for him to speak.

“I love you.”

A chorus of irritated harrumphs sounded around the room as peers from across Britain realized what they were in for, but Sera found she did not care a bit. She stood, clutching the rail of the observation gallery for support, wanting to be as close to him as possible for whatever was about to come.

Especially when he pressed on. “I have known I wanted to marry you since the moment I met you, when you gave me a dressing down for insulting women’s motives in marriage. You were magnificent.” He pointed. “Mayweather was there. He would have thought so, too, except he was in love with Helen already.”

Her sisters all offered little sighs of pleasure, so Sera assumed the marquess did something lovely at that, but she was too busy watching her husband, who was moving toward her, as though she weren’t ten feet in the air. “Do you remember what I said to you that night?”

“You said that love is a great fallacy.”

Several of the men assembled seemed to agree.

Mal nodded. “I did. And not ten minutes later, I had tumbled into it.”

Her heart pounded. She had, too. She’d been planning to seek him out, this legendary eligible duke, and then she’d stumbled upon him, and he’d been perfect. And she’d almost been disappointed that he was the same man she’d thought to catch.