The Day of the Duchess (Scandal & Scoundrel #3)(50)

“I wasn’t after it the first time.”

“No,” Sophie said. “You were after his ruin.”

He wasn’t proud of it. He’d been blind with anger and frustration and betrayal, thinking that she’d never cared for him. Desperate for her to care for him. And he’d gone after her father. Would have paupered him if not for Eversley, who stepped in and settled him down. “I’m not after either, this time.”

Sophie looked unconvinced, but Sesily continued. “Seleste thinks you’re a spy.”

That was unexpected. “To what end?”

Sesily put down the paper and waved a hand in the air. “Something to do with Mr. Calhoun and their tavern. It doesn’t make any sense.” Later, he’d wonder about that reference to the tavern. He’d think on the their. But Sesily was still talking. “Now I . . .” She paused with unsettling gusto. “Call me a romantic, but I think you’re trying to woo her back.”

His heart nearly stopped at that. He steeled his features as his sister-in-law soldiered on, thankfully unaware of the effect she’d had upon him. “Which is a terrible idea, I know. I mean, it doesn’t take a brilliant mind to see that she’ll never ever take you back.”

The words were so matter-of-fact, he couldn’t help but feel their sting. And say, “Even if I’ve changed?”

“You haven’t,” Sophie said.

“I might have,” he found himself defending like an imbecile. “It’s been years.”

“Time is irrelevant,” Sophie said. “Leopards and spots.”

He opened his mouth to argue again, somehow unable to stop himself from the futility of the action, when Sesily interrupted. “It’s worth saying at this point that Sophie thinks you’re trying to exact further revenge.”

Sophie nodded and waved in the direction of the letter now open on his desk. “Hence, the missive from King.”

Malcolm resisted the urge to remind her that threatening husbands were rendered less so when they made their threats via post. “I’m not exacting revenge.”

“That’s exactly what you would say if you were exacting revenge, though,” Sesily pointed out.

It really was no wonder that she remained unmarried. She was straight from Bedlam. Haven ignored her and looked firmly at Sophie. “I’m not.”

She narrowed her gaze. “You forget that I witnessed your anger, Haven. I saw the things you did. Heard the things you said.”

All things he would give anything to take back. “I was—”

“You were an unmitigated ass.”

He blinked. Sesily snickered. And then he conceded the point. “Yes.”

Sophie watched him for a long while, and then said, “I feel I should tell you I loathe you. More than the rest of them do.”

He nodded. All of Sera’s sisters were forthright, but Sophie was the most honest. Always had been. He was going to have to win her back, as well. “Do you know what they call me now, Sophie? Since our last meeting?”

She smirked. “The Dunked Duke. I’m quite proud of it.”

He inclined his head, unable to forget the way she’d set him on his ass in a fishpond. Unable to forget the fact that he’d deserved it. “As well you should be. It’s a sound, embarrassing name.”

That long assessment again. And then, “I see what you’re doing. It won’t work.” Maybe not. But it was worth a try. “And besides, it’s not me about whom you should worry. I don’t loathe you more than Sera does. So, if Sesily’s right, and you’re trying to woo her back, you’re going to need quite a bit of luck.”



He rapped on the adjoining door to his wife’s room sharply at a quarter to eight that evening. She opened it instantly, as though she’d been waiting for him on the other side, pulling it wide and stepping back to let him in. Keeping her distance even as she made it easy for him to look at her.

For a moment, he found he could not breathe.

She was more beautiful than ever, in a stunning amethyst gown, devoid of the wide sleeves, frills and frippery that graced every frock in existence these days. In its simplicity, the dress devastated, tracing her shape down her torso to her waist, where it dropped in magnificent lines, not a spare crease to be found.

She’d always been able to steal his breath. And now was no different.

She filled the silence he’d brought with him.

“I see my sisters delivered my message about dinner.”

Why hadn’t she told him herself?

Her sister’s words echoed through him. I don’t loathe you more than Sera.

He pushed the thought aside. “Yours, and their own.”

She was already across the room at her dressing table, lifting a button hook. It was then that he realized one long amethyst glove was unbuttoned.

She extended one long arm to the light, revealing a long line of buttons, and began working to fasten them.

“I heard there was a message from King,” she said, nearly absently. King was the Marquess of Eversley, a man whose infuriating superiority had been instilled with the name at birth.

It grated that she used the informal name without hesitation.

“He threatened harm should I hurt your sister.”

She smiled at that, not looking up from her glove. “He loves her quite thoroughly.”