The Day of the Duchess (Scandal & Scoundrel #3)(6)

She’d loathed them all, and him the most.

But not for long.

She planned to put the loathing behind her now that she’d returned, ready to forget him. She’d imagined this moment for months, since before she’d returned to Britain, the entire plan designed to infuriate him to the point of agreeing to the dissolution of their marriage. For, if there was anything Haven loathed in the world, it was being played the fool.

Had that not been their demise at the start?

He approached, the massive chamber falling away along with the years. She’d been haunted by his eyes. Somehow not brown, not green, not gold, not grey, and somehow all of them at once. Fascinating and full of secrets. The kind of eyes that might steal a woman’s wits if she wasn’t careful.

Sera was careful, now.

Careful, and smart. She resisted the urge to back away from him, simultaneously afraid of what might happen if he touched her, and determined never to cow to him. Never to run from him again.

She was not the woman she had been when she’d left. She was returned with a singular promise to herself; when she left him this time, she would do so with pride. With purpose. With a future.

She had plans. And these men would not stop her.

And so it was that London’s most powerful, assembled for the final day of the parliamentary session, witnessed Seraphina, Duchess of Haven’s winning smile as she faced the duke of the same name for the first time in two years and seven months. Exactly. “Husband.”

Another woman might not have noticed the slight narrowing of his eyes, the barely-there flare of his nose, the nearly imperceptible clenching of his square jaw. But Sera had once spent the better part of a year fascinated by the way this proud, unflappable man revealed himself in the infinitesimal. He was angry. Good.

“Then you remember me.” The words were quiet and sharp. Of course she remembered. No matter how well she tried, she seemed unable to forget.

And she had tried.

She lifted her chin, keenly aware of their audience, and slung her arrow. “Don’t fret, darling. I predict we shan’t need to remember each other for long.”

“You are making a spectacle of yourself.”

She allowed her smile to widen. “You say that as though it is a bad thing.”

One brow rose, superior as ever. “You are making a spectacle of me.”

She did not waver. “You say that as though you do not deserve it.”

She didn’t expect him to reach for her, or she would have been prepared for what came when his fingers wrapped around her elbow, firm and warm and somehow unexpectedly gentle. Would have steeled herself for the assault of too long ago memories.

I’ve never felt anything like this.

She resisted the memory and slid her arm from his grip with a graceful force that he would feel and no one watching would ever notice. The duke had no choice but to let her go, even as he lowered his voice and spoke, the words barely there. “Who are you?”

It was her brow that rose this time. “You do not recognize me?”

“Not this incarnation, no.”

Incarnation. It was not the wrong word, for she had been reincarnated. That was what happened to those who died and returned. It had felt like death, just as this morning, in this place, in all its heat and rancid stench made worse by the assembly of pompous masculinity, felt somehow, remarkably, like life once more.

“I could not taste freedom then.”

His lips flattened. Before he could reply, a man shouted from the assembly beyond. “Oi! Haven! The chit’s not allowed on the floor!”

Sera turned to the man. “My Lord Earl, I believe you meant to address me as Duchess.”

The men assembled harrumphed and grumbled as the earl in question—now sporting scarlet ears—spoke to Haven. “Control your female.”

Sera returned her attention to her husband, but did not lower her voice. “It is impressive that he believes you are able to do such a thing.”

Her husband’s eyes narrowed and Sera’s heart began to pound. She recognized the look. An animal, challenged.

Let him come for her. She, too, had teeth.

“My offices. Now.”

“And if I refuse?” She saw him realize her power. How many other wives could stand here, before God and husband and the House of Lords, and hold sway without fear of repercussions?

That was the secret, of course. If one did not fear ruin, one could not be threatened with it. As Sera had seen ruin in all its forms, had faced it and survived it, she did not fear it, and so he could not harm her. She’d been gone from London for nearly three years, her reputation in tatters long before she’d set foot in the carriage that had carried her away from the Haven estate on that long ago winter’s day. It was remarkable, the power one held when one had nothing to lose.

At least, when one was thought to have nothing to lose.

And so she stood before the most powerful assembly in Britain, toe-to-toe with her husband, who had always held sway over her. Over her heart, and her hand, and her body, and her identity. Equals at long last. And she waited for him to make his move.

She did not expect him to smirk. “You shan’t refuse.”

“Why not?” she asked, uncertainty flaring, though she’d be damned if she’d show it.

“Because if you want a divorce, you will require my assistance to get it.”