The Day of the Duchess Read Online

  Dedication

For soldiers in petticoats,

so and now.

Contents

Cover

Title Folio

Dedication

Scandal & Scoundrel

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Affiliate three

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Affiliate 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Affiliate ix

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Affiliate 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Affiliate fifteen

Chapter xvi

Chapter 17

Chapter eighteen

Chapter 19

Chapter twenty

Affiliate 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Epilogue

Author'south Note

The Bareknuckle Bastards

Almost the Writer

Romances past Sarah MacLean

Copyright

Almost the Publisher

Scandal & Scoundrel

Scandal & SCOUNDREL

Vol 3/Iss 113/August 1836

DISAPPEARED DUCHESS DISCOVERED!

GOSSIP PERFUMED Parliament today when Seraphina, the Disappeared DUCHESS OF HAVEN returned from her scandalous sojourn to surprise Lodge and spar with her spouse on the floor of the Business firm of Lords.

The Long Lost Lady'due south parliamentary petition?

DIVORCE!

By all accounts, HOODWINKED Haven has hied habitation, ceding the flooring (but not the war) to his one time lady love, Dangerous DAUGHTER and disdained duchess . . . now unwilling married woman! The lady will not be ignored, even so. She follows furious, vowing to end the union by any means necessary.

Is there anything more salacious than summer scandal?

More TO COME.

Chapter ane

Deserted Knuckles Disavowed!

Baronial xix, 1836

Firm of Lords, Parliament

She'd left him 2 years, seven months ago, exactly.

Malcolm Marcus Bevingstoke, Duke of Oasis, looked to the tiny wooden calendar wheels inlaid into the blotter on his desk in his private role above the Business firm of Lords.

Baronial the nineteenth, 1836. The last twenty-four hour period of the parliamentary session, filled with pomp and idle. And lingering memory. He spun the bicycle with the six embossed upon it. Five. Four. He took a deep jiff.

Get out. He heard his own words, cold and angry with betrayal, echoing with quiet menace. Don't ever return.

He touched the wheel once more. August became July. May. March.

Jan the nineteenth, 1834. The day she left.

His fingers moved without idea, finding comfort in the familiar click of the wheels.

April the seventeenth, 1833.

The fashion I feel about you . . . Her words now—soft and total of temptation. I've never felt anything like this.

He hadn't, either. As though low-cal and breath and promise had flooded the room, filling all the nighttime spaces. Filling his lungs and heart. And all because of her.

Until he'd discovered the truth. The truth, which had mattered so much until it hadn't mattered at all. Where had she gone?

The clock in the corner of the room ticked and tocked, counting the seconds until Oasis was due in his seat in the hallowed main chamber of the Firm of Lords, where men of higher purpose and passion had saturday before him for generations. His fingers played the little calendar like a virtuoso, as though they'd done this dance a hundred times before. A g.

And they had.

March the kickoff, 1833. The mean solar day they met.

So, they allow simply anyone become a duke, do they? No deference. Teasing and charm and pure, unadulterated beauty.

If yous think dukes are bad, imagine what they accept from duchesses?

That grinning. As though she'd never met another man. As though she'd never wanted to. He'd been hers the moment he'd seen that grinning. Earlier that. Imagine, indeed.

And then information technology had fallen apart. He'd lost everything, and and so lost her. Or perhaps it had been the reverse. Or peradventure information technology was all the same.

Would there ever be a time when he stopped thinking of her? Ever a engagement that did not remind him of her? Of the fourth dimension that had stretched like an eternity since she'd left?

Where had she gone?

The clock struck eleven, heavy chimes sounding in the room, echoed by a dozen others down the long, oaken corridor beyond, summoning men of longstanding name to the duty that had been theirs earlier they drew breath.

Haven spun the calendar wheels with forcefulness, leaving them as they lay. November the thirty-seventh, 3842. A fine date—1 on which he had absolutely no chance of thinking of her.

He stood, heading for the place where his cherry-red robes hung—their thick, heavy burden meant to repeat the weight of the responsibleness they represented. He swung the garment over his shoulders, the red velvet'southward heat overwhelming him almost immediately, cloying and suffocating. All this before he reached for his powdered wig, grimacing as he flipped it onto his caput, the horsehair whipping his cervix before lying apartment and uncomfortable, similar a punishment for past sins.

Ignoring the sensation, the Duke of Oasis ripped open the door to his offices and made his manner through the now quiet corridors to the archway of the chief sleeping accommodation of the Business firm of Lords. Stepping inside, he inhaled deeply, immediately regretting information technology. Information technology was Baronial and hot as hell on the flooring of Parliament, the air rank with sweat and perfume. The windows were open up to let a breeze into the room—a barely-there stirring that merely exacerbated the stench, adding the reek of the Thames to the already horrendous smell within.

At home, the river ran cool and crisp, unsullied by the filth of London. At home, the air was make clean, promising summer idyll and hinting at more than. At the future. At least, information technology had done. Until the pieces of domicile had peeled away and he'd been left alone, without information technology. At present, it felt like goose egg just land. Habitation required more than a river and rolling hills. Abode required her. And so he would practise this summer what he had done every moment he'd been abroad from London for the by ii years and 7 months, exactly. He would search for her.

She hadn't been in France or in Spain, where he'd spent the summer prior, chasing down Englishwomen in search of excitement. She hadn't been any of the false widows he'd constitute in Scotland, nor the governess at the imposing manor in Wales, nor the woman he'd tracked in Constantinople the month subsequently she'd left, who had been a charlatan, playing at being an aristocrat. So there'd been the adult female in Boston—the one he'd been so sure of—the ane they called The Dove.

Not Sera. Never Sera. She had disappeared, equally though she'd never existed. There one moment, gone the next, laden with enough funds to vanish. And just every bit he'd realized how much he wanted her. Simply her money would run out, eventually, and she would accept no choice but to stop running. He, on the other mitt, was a man with ability and privilege and exorbitant wealth, enough to find her the moment she stopped.

And he would notice her.

He slid into 1 of the long benches surrounding the speaker's floor, where the Lord Chancellor had already begun. "My lords, if there is no more than formal concern, we will close this year's parliamentary flavor."

A chorus of approval—fists pounding on seatbacks around the hall—echoed through the chamber.

Haven exhaled and resisted the urge to scratch at his wig, knowing that if he gave in to the desire, he would become consumed with its rough discomfort. "My lords!" the Lord Chancellor called. "Is at that place, indeed, no additional formal business organization for the current session?"

A rousing chorus o

f "Nay!" boomed through the room. One would remember the House of Lords was filled with schoolboys desperate for an afternoon in the local swimming pigsty instead of about two hundred pompous aristocrats eager to get to their mistresses.

The Lord Chancellor grinned, his reddish confront gleaming with sweat below his wig every bit he spread his wide hands over his aplenty girth. "Well then! It is His Majesty's regal will and pleasure . . ."

The enormous doors to the chamber burst open, the sound echoing through the placidity hall, competing with the chancellor'southward voice. Heads turned, but not Oasis's; he was too eager to leave London and his wig backside to worry virtually whatever was going on across.

The Lord Chancellor collected himself, cleared his throat, and said, ". . . that this Parliament be prorogued to Th, the seventh twenty-four hour period of October side by side . . ."

A drove of disapproving harrumphs began as the door close with a powerful bang. Haven looked then, following the gazes of the men assembled to the now airtight door to chambers. He couldn't see anything awry.

"Ahem!" the Lord Chancellor said, the audio full of disapproval, before he redoubled his commitment to closing the session. Thank God for that. ". . . Thursday, the 7th twenty-four hour period of Oct next . . ."

"Before you lot finish, my Lord Chancellor?"

Oasis stiffened.

The words were strong and somehow soft and lilting and beautifully feminine—and so out of place in the House of Lords, off limits to the fairer sex. Surely that was why his breath caught. Surely that was why his heart began to pound. Why he was suddenly on his feet amid a chorus of masculine outrage.

It was not considering of the voice itself.

"What is the meaning of this?" the Chancellor thundered.

Haven could see information technology then, the crusade of the commotion. A woman. Taller than any adult female he'd e'er known, in the most beautiful lavender clothes he'd always seen, perfectly turned out, as though she marched into parliamentary session on a regular ground. As though she were the prime minister himself. As though she were more than that. As though she were royalty.

The only woman he'd always loved. The only woman he'd e'er hated.

The same, and somehow entirely different.

And Haven, frozen to the spot.

"I confess," she said, moving to the floor of the bedroom with ease, as though she were at ladies' tea, "I feared I would miss the session altogether. Just I'm very happy that I might sneak in before you all escape to wherever it is that you gentlemen venture for . . . pleasure." She grinned at an aboriginal earl, who blushed under the heat of her gaze and turned away. "Nevertheless, I am told that what I seek requires an Act of Parliament. And you are . . . as you know . . . Parliament."

Her gaze constitute his, her eyes precisely as he remembered, blue every bit the summer sea, but now, somehow, unlike. Where they were once open up and honest, they were now shuttered. Private.

Christ. She was here.

Here. Well-nigh three years searching for her, and hither she was, every bit though she'd been gone mere hours. Shock warred with an anger he could not accept imagined, simply those two emotions were null compared to the third. The immense, unbearable pleasure.

She was here.

Finally.

Again.

Information technology was all he could do not to move. To assemble her up and conduct her abroad. To hold her close. Win her back. Start fresh.

Except she did not seem to exist hither for that.

She watched him for a long moment, her gaze unblinking, before she declared, "I am Seraphina Bevingstoke, Duchess of Haven. And I require a divorce."

Chapter two

Duchess Disappears, Duke Devastated

January 1834

Ii years, seven months earlier. Minus five days.

Highley Estate

If she did not knock, she would dice.

She should not accept come. It had been irresponsible beyond measure. She'd fabricated the conclusion in a fit of unbearable emotion, desperate for some kind of control in this, the nigh out-of-command time of her life.

If she weren't and then cold, she would laugh at the madness of the idea that she might accept any control over her world, always once again.

Just the only thing Seraphina Bevingstoke, Duchess of Haven, was able to practise was curse her idiotic conclusion to hire a hack, pay the driver a fortune to bring her on a long, terrifying journey through the icy pelting of a cold January night, and state herself here, at Highley, the manor house of which she was—past proper name—mistress. Name did not bequeath rights, all the same. Not for women. And past rights, she was nada simply a visitor. Not even a guest. Non even so. Possibly non ever.

The hack disappeared into the rain that threatened to go heavy, moisture snow, and Sera looked upward at the massive door, considering her next motility. It was the dark of dark—servants long abed, but she had no choice but to wake someone. She could not remain outside. If she did, she would exist dead earlier morning time.

A wave of terrifying hurting shot through her. She put a manus to her midsection.

They would be dead.

The pain ebbed, and she caught her breath once more, lifting the elaborate wrought-iron B affixed to the door. Letting it fall with a thud, the audio an executioner's axe, dark and ominous, coming on a flood of worry. What if no one answered? What if she'd come up all this way, against ameliorate judgment, to an empty business firm?

The worries were unfounded. Highley was the seat of the Dukedom of Haven, and it was staffed to perfection. The door opened, a liveried young footman with tired eyes appearing, his curiosity immediately giving way to shock as pain racked Sera once more.

Earlier he could speak, before he could close her out, Sera stepped into the doorway, one mitt at her heaving abdomen, the other on the jamb. "Haven." The proper noun was all she could speak before she doubled over.

"He—" The male child stopped. "His Grace, that is—he is not in."

She looked up somehow, her eyes finding his in the dim calorie-free. "Exercise you lot know me?"

His gaze flickered to her swollen midsection. Back.

Her hand spread broad over the child at that place. "The heir."

He nodded, and relief flooded her, a wash of warmth. She swayed with information technology even as his young eyes widened, fatigued to the flooring beneath them.

Not relief. Blood.

"Oh—" he began, the remainder of his words stolen abroad by daze.

Sera swayed in the doorway, reaching for him, this virtual kid who had been so very unlucky in his postal service that evening. He took her hand. "He is here," he whispered. "He is abovestairs."

He was there. Strong enough to bend the sun to his volition.

That might accept been gratitude if not for the pain. It might accept been happiness if not for the fear. And it might take been life if not for what she all of a sudden knew was to come.

Become out. She heard the words. Saw his cold gaze when he'd banished her from his sight months earlier. Then, somehow . . .

Come here. That gaze once more, only this time heavy-lidded. Desperate. Hot as the lord's day. And and so his whispers soft and beautiful at her ear. You were fabricated for me. We were fabricated for each other.

Pain returned her to the present, precipitous and stinging, marking something terribly incorrect. As though the claret that covered her skirts and the marble floor weren't enough of a herald. She cried out. Louder than she would have guessed, as at that place was suddenly someone else there; a adult female.

They spoke, simply Sera could non hear the words. And so the adult female was gone, and Sera was left in the darkness, with her mistakes and the boy, the dear, sweet boy, who clung to her. Or she to him. "She's gone to fetch him."

It was too late, of course. In then many ways.

She should not take come.

Sera fell to her knees, gasping through the ache. Sorrow beyond ken. She would never know their child. Dark-haired and wide-smiled, and smart equally his begetter. Lonely as him, too.

If just she could live, she might love them plenty.

But she was to die here, in this place. Yards from the only homo she'd always loved. Without ever having told him. She wondered if he wo

uld care when she died, and the answer terrified her more than than all the rest, considering she knew, without doubtfulness, that it would follow her into the afterlife.

She clutched the boy's hand. "Tell me your proper noun."

"Your Grace?"

She clutched his paw. "Sera," she whispered. She was going to dice, and she wanted someone to say her proper name, not her championship. Something real. Something that felt like information technology belonged. "My proper name is Seraphina."

The dear boy clung to her. Nodded. The knot in his likewise-narrow throat bobbing with his nerves. "Daniel," he said. "What shall I practise?"

"My child," she whispered. "His."

The boy nodded, suddenly wise across his years. "Is there something you lot wish for?"

"Mal," she said, unable to keep the truth at bay. Unable to keep information technology from swallowing her whole. Just over again. Just long enough to put everything dorsum to rights. "I wish for Malcolm."

The Duke of Haven threw open the door to the room where Sera lay, silent and still and pale, the force of the oak slab ricocheting off the wall startling those inside. A young maid gave a little weep of surprise, and the housekeeper looked upwards from where she held a cloth to Sera's forehead.

Only the Knuckles wanted null to do with the two women. He was too focused on the surgeon at his wife's side.

"She lives," Haven growled, the words filled with emotion he did non know he could feel. But then, she had always made him feel. Fifty-fifty when he'd been desperate not to.

The surgeon nodded. "By a thread, Your Grace. She will likely die before nightfall."

The words coursed through him, cold and uncomplicated, as though the medico were discussing the weather or the morning news, and Malcolm stilled, the full weight of their assault threatening to bring him down. Non an hour before, he had held his lost child in his hands, so minor she did not even fill them, so precious he could not bear to return her to the maid who had brought her to him.

Instead, he'd sent the servant abroad, and sat in silence, property the about-weightless trunk of his girl, mourning her expiry. And her life. And all the things she might have been.

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