The Day of the Duchess (Scandal & Scoundrel #3)(52)

He didn’t give a damn about food, but he could pretend. “Ah. Hence the duck.”

They made for the dining room. “I know you like duck.”

He shot her a look at her insistent words. “I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

“I spent months learning what you liked. Before we were married and after, even when I was not welcome in your house.” He couldn’t look away from her, even as she stared ahead, refusing to meet his eyes. “I had every intention of planning your meals. Of keeping your house. Of being your . . .”

She trailed off, but he heard the word. Wife.

And he also heard the past tense.

Why were they always in the past?

“Also, I know you loathe asparagus,” she said, and the words were injected with something akin to smug triumph.

“I do,” he said.

“You just wanted to undermine me.”

“You’ve been avoiding me.” Not that it was an excuse, but it was the truth.

“You never said we had to interact.” He sighed, and she misunderstood it for irritation. “You know, you brought this upon yourself, Haven. You decided you wanted a new wife. You decided you wanted me to select her. This is the process. Imagine. You might even like one of them.”

But he wouldn’t love one of them.

“I don’t need to like them to marry them,” he said, knowing he sounded like a beast.

“It helps, don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t know,” he replied. “We never liked each other.”

“Nonsense,” she said as they approached the dining room. “If we hadn’t liked each other so much, perhaps it all wouldn’t have gone so wrong.” Before he could reply, she said, “I’ve put you with Miss Mary. Be kind,” and nodded to the footman standing guard outside the dining room. The boy opened the door, revealing the motley crew of houseguests, who all turned to see the duke and duchess arrive.

“Wait,” he said, and she had to turn back else risk censure for ignoring him. There were benefits to being a duke. He lowered his voice and said, “What do you think I brought you here for?”

They’d discussed her sisters’ theories. But he cared only for hers.

She watched him for a long moment before she said, low enough that only he could hear, “I think I am here to be your toy.”

“What on earth does that mean?”

“You don’t want me, but you don’t want anyone else to have me, either. You never have.” They were not true, but the words stung with brutal honesty, because she believed them. And then she added, “You don’t want any part of a life with me.”

The words sent a chill through him, evoking a memory he’d forgotten. A memory he wanted to expel immediately. Hang dinner and everyone at it. “Sera—”

She shook her head. “Your Grace. I have been in this particular position before.” She was already turning to the room, where a collection of fresh-faced women was waiting.

At a table laden with asparagus.

He looked to his wife, knowing smirk on her lips.

She was wrong. He did want her. He wanted the life with her.

And, this time, he would not stop until he had it.





Chapter 15



Tick Tock Talbot Triumphs!




April 1833

Haven House, Mayfair



He heard her the moment she entered the house.

If Haven were honest, he heard her the moment her carriage pulled to a stop in the street outside the door. The moment she stepped out, like a goddamn queen. He couldn’t see her from his study, but he could feel her, changing the air in the square beyond. Thieving it.

He heard her in the sharp rap of the knocker on the door, and for a heartbeat, he considered telling the footman not to answer.

But therein lay the problem that would always exist between him and Seraphina Talbot—he would always answer her call. Like a damned sailor to a siren. It had been three days since they’d been caught, with another week to pass before they were tied together forever. And it would only grow worse after they married.

“Where is he?” The question was fairly thundered, the frustration and anger in the words rocketing through him on a flood of similar emotions. And anticipation. And desire.

Shame flooded him with the last. He shouldn’t want her. He should want to be rid of her. He should want never to see her again. He should want her punished for what she’d done—trapping him into this farce of a marriage, which was no farce at all because the entire aristocracy and every gossip rag in Britain seemed to know the truth of it.

“I shall stay here all day until he is receiving, so you’d might as well bring me to him.” Haven stood at that, telling himself he was heading for the door to his study because he wanted to protect his servant from her wrath and not because he was tied to her like a dog on a lead.

“M-my lady,” the footman stammered beyond. “I sh-shall see if the duke is at home.”

“No need,” she said.

“My lady! You cannot simply . . .”

But no one had ever successfully told Seraphina Talbot what she could and could not do, and she certainly wasn’t going to begin taking instruction from a footman when she did not take it from the footman’s master. “Oh, but I can! Don’t you read the papers? We are to be married!”