The Day of the Duchess (Scandal & Scoundrel #3)(19)

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.