The Day of the Duchess (Scandal & Scoundrel #3)(22)

The American’s brows rose.

Sera nodded.

And that was enough. Calhoun turned and left the room like a fool. No. Not a fool. A king. Because in that decision to leave without looking back, there was an unfathomable amount of trust, born of the knowledge that when he returned, she would be there, waiting for him.

Another thing Malcolm had once known himself.

Calhoun made his way from the room, the curtain through which he had pushed still swaying behind him when Mal said, “So the American is your lapdog? Goes where you tell him?”

“He trusts me,” she said. “’Tis a glorious luxury in a man.”

The words at once shamed him and infuriated him.

“What do you want? Covent Garden was never your haunt. And even if it was, you always made an impressive effort to avoid any doorways I might darken.”

“That’s not true,” he said, wishing they were anywhere but here. “I remember a few times I wanted to be nowhere but with you.”

“That was before you decided you wanted nothing to do with me,” she said.

You lied, he wanted to say. You lied and then you left. But it wasn’t so simple. The truth ended with, I chased you away.

He should leave her. Give them each freedom from the other. How many times had he told himself he should stop looking for her? How many times had he been unable to do so?

And now that he’d found her, he knew he’d never be able to leave her.

“Why are you here, Malcolm?”

The name shivered through him. She was the only woman who’d ever called him by his name. He’d not even been Malcolm to his mother, for whom he was nothing but triumph—the future duke. But Sera always seemed uninterested in the title.

Even when it seemed the title was all she’d been interested in.

And now, hearing his name on her lips for the first time in years, he was at once desperate for the sound of it—for the man he’d once been in the shadow of it—and filled with anger for the way she wielded it. Soft and lilting and entirely too personal.

As though she were his wife in truth.

He gritted his teeth. Answered her question. “I’m here to fetch you.”

“I’ve no interest in being fetched,” she said.

“Then you shouldn’t have come back.”

“I came back to set us both free.” She drank again, finishing the amber liquid in the small, heavy glass. “I’ve plans. A life to live. I could have disappeared forever.”

“Why didn’t you?”

For a moment, he thought she might answer. The truth was there, suddenly, shot across her face. But he couldn’t read her the way he’d once been able to. And then she said, “I suppose I thought you deserved better.”

It was a lie.

He didn’t deserve better; he deserved much, much worse.

Which meant only one thing. She was hiding something.

His gaze narrowed on her. “Better, as in public embarrassment as a cuckold? Better, as in a wife who so loathes me that she finds divorce more palatable than a dukedom?”

She smirked. “You say that as though I have any claim at all to the dukedom. You made it more than clear that I was not welcome in your world, Your Grace.”

“You left before—” He stopped himself from finishing the thought.

A long moment passed, emotion absent on her face. “I left before you could send me away, like unwanted property.”

“I wouldn’t have—”

“Of course you would have. And I didn’t want it. I didn’t want the anger. I had enough of that myself. And I didn’t want the regret. I had enough of that, too. And what else was there? Pity? No, thank you. I wished for a future free of all that. And you should, as well.”

The words rioted through him. He hadn’t wanted to send her away. He’d wanted to keep her forever. He’d grieved for her, dammit. For years. He’d grieved for what they might have been. And when she’d left—he’d never admit this to anyone—he’d pitied himself.

She lifted a flint box and came around the bar, making for the stage. “We’re through here, Duke. Go home to your estate and plan your bright future. Leave me to mine, and think of how lucky you are that you are being offered a second chance. Find a new duchess!” she offered, as though the idea were an excellent one. “And when October comes, bring the petition for divorce to the floor. Paint me an adulteress. And let’s get this business done.”

Dammit, he didn’t want another future. He wanted the one that had tempted him all those years ago. Her future. Theirs. He’d sought it, dammit, the world over. He wanted to scream the truth at her. That he’d been in Boston. That he’d searched the Continent. That he hadn’t slept in two years, seven months. That he’d only ever wanted her.

And he might have, if it hadn’t seemed that she wanted nothing to do with him.

“You wish your adultery to be made public?” He was riveted to her grace as she began to light the candles on the stage.

“The House of Lords certainly won’t allow the dissolution of our marriage to be on your actions, and I would not be the first wife to bear such a brunt in order to get what she wishes.”

But it was not what he wished. He wished the opposite. A marriage in truth.

“The powerful collude, Duke. They connive and they scheme to get what they want.” She looked to him, inscrutable. “And the proof of it is how well they suspect it in others.”