The Day of the Duchess (Scandal & Scoundrel #3)(99)

Calhoun rounded on him. “What are you smiling at, Red?”

Mal smirked. “Only that it’s nice to see you laid low by one of them, as well.”

“Leave,” Caleb said, jabbing one finger in Mal’s direction before waving it in front of Sesily’s nose. “And take this one with you.”

Her eyes went wide. “This one?”

“You destroyed my tavern, harridan!”

“I did no such thing! There’s barely a scratch.” Mal cast a look about their wreckage. “And besides,” she said, “it’s not your tavern. It’s Sera’s.”

Mal went still. “What did you say?”

Caleb cursed, and Sesily’s eyes widened, as though she’d just realized what she had said. The implications of it. She immediately retreated. “Uh . . . that is—”

“It’s not Sera’s,” Caleb said.

“It’s not,” Sesily lied. Too quickly.

Mal struggled to make sense of the moment through the events of the last ten minutes, the last twelve hours, the last four weeks. Through the ache in his arm where he’d been struck with a chair and the one on his jaw where he’d been struck with a fist, and the one in his chest, where he’d been struck with the truth.

And then the room went silent, impossibly so, considering the fight and the drink and the heat and the sheer mass of humanity, all eyes on the woman now at the center of the small, bright stage, masked and beautiful. The fight was forgotten.

She stood in perfect stillness, as though she had simply materialized there, in a pool of golden candlelight, like a goddess.

“It’s her,” someone breathed, adoration in the words.

Adoration Mal understood, because there, on the stage, was the woman he loved.

He would have known her, masked or no, covered in paint or no. He would have known the long lines of her, the curving shape of her, the breath of her. Like light and air and sin and love.

She wore a stunning gown in the deepest purple, somehow impossibly vibrant in red and blue, shimmering like the metal of her mask, delicate filigree twisted in an elaborate, impossible pattern, an echo of the feathers of her namesake, low over her nose, leaving barely any space between the edge of the mask and her perfectly painted lips, full and stunning.

The dress was too tight in the bodice, too low in the neck, and perfection.

And then she raised her arms in the silence, turning her hands out to her audience, all grace, as though she were inviting them in, so she might tell them her most private secrets, so she might love them, as they deserved.

So they might love her, as he did.

The entire room seemed to tilt, leaning into her, and Mal with it, pulled on a string. There was nothing that could move him from that room in that moment. Nothing that could take him from this woman.

She was magnificent.

“Welcome loves,” she said, her lips curving around the full, proud words, her voice low and languid. Familiar, and somehow entirely foreign. “’Tis lovely to be free with you tonight.”

And that was when Mal realized the truth.

This might be a part she played, yes. And it might be something he’d never seen and never known, but it was she. A part of her. And it was not by requirement. She basked in it. She was elevated by it. And then, when she opened her mouth and began to sing, he realized that they were all elevated by her.

It was no surprise what she sang. Even there, in the dark, where he knew she could not see him, he knew she would sing for him, that song that had echoed in his memory for years.

“Here lies the heart and the smile and the love; here lies the wolf, the angel, the dove. She put aside dreaming and she put aside toys; and she was born that day, in the heart of a boy.”

But he did not know there was more to it, additional verses that were melancholy and beautiful, and that made him ache. “Gone is the flower and gone is the crow; gone is the future that promised to grow. Farewell the past, the present, the now; farewell the ship, the anchor, the bow.”

And then, she found him in the dark room, turning toward him, connected to him now, as ever. As they had been that first night, a hundred years earlier, a thousand, on the balcony in the darkness, destined for each other. For this night. Forever. “So we lie down and pillow our heads; so we lie down in the cool of our beds. We put aside dreaming, and we put aside toys; and remember our days in the heart of a boy.”

The tavern was still and silent as snowfall, the notes filling every corner of the room, the entire assembly enraptured by her beautiful voice. But only Mal was devastated by the song.

Because he finally understood.

The Sparrow was no sparrow. She was a phoenix. Risen from the ash of the past. Of their past. None of the things they’d broken were here. None of the things they’d lost. How often had she spoken of freedom? Here, in this room, she was free.

He finally understood.

When the music ended and she bowed low, the room erupted in deafening applause and thumping hoots of approval that set the walls shaking. She did not linger in the glow of the applause, however. Instead, she turned and pushed through a little curtain at the side of the stage, barely noticeable if one wasn’t interested.

Of course, all the men assembled—and several of the women—were interested. He moved to stop them from following her when a hand stopped him. “There’s security,” Calhoun said. “She’s safe.”