The Day of the Duchess

Book 3: Scandal & Scoundrel

by Sarah MacLean

Genres: Romance; Historical Romance; Regency Romance

Synopsis

The one woman he will never forget…

Malcolm Bevingstoke, Duke of Haven, has lived the last three years in self-imposed solitude, paying the price for a mistake he can never reverse and a love he lost forever. The dukedom does not wait, however, and Haven requires an heir, which means he must find himself a wife by summer's end. There is only one problem—he already has one.

The one man she will never forgive…

After years in exile, Seraphina, Duchess of Haven, returns to London with a single goal—to reclaim the life she left and find happiness, unencumbered by the man who broke her heart. Haven offers her a deal; Sera can have her freedom, just as soon as she finds her replacement…which requires her to spend the summer in close quarters with the husband she does not want, but somehow cannot resist.

A love that neither can deny…

The duke has a single summer to woo his wife and convince her that, despite their broken past, he can give her forever, making every day

THE DAY OF THE DUCHESS

Release date: June 27, 2017

Publisher: Avon

Print pages: 400

Reader says this book is...: entertaining story (1) sex scenes (1)

Sample

Chapter 1

Deserted Duke Disavowed!

August 19, 1836

House of Lords, Parliament

She’d left him two years, seven months ago, exactly.

Malcolm Marcus Bevingstoke, Duke of Haven, looked to the tiny wooden calendar wheels inlaid into the blotter on his desk in his private office above the House of Lords.

August the nineteenth, 1836. The last day of the parliamentary session, filled with pomp and idle. And lingering memory. He spun the wheel with the six embossed upon it. Five. Four. He took a deep breath.

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

He touched the wheel again. August became July. May. March.

January the nineteenth, 1834. The day she left.

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

April the seventeenth, 1833.

The way I feel about you . . . Her words now—soft and full of temptation. I’ve never felt anything like this.

He hadn’t, either. As though light and breath and hope had flooded the room, filling all the dark 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 Haven was due in his seat in the hallowed main chamber of the House of Lords, where men of higher purpose and passion had sat 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 thousand.

And they had.

March the first, 1833. The day they met.

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

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

That smile. 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 smile. Before that. Imagine, indeed.

And then it had fallen apart. He’d lost everything, and then lost her. Or perhaps it had been the reverse. Or perhaps it was all the same.

Would there ever be a time when he stopped thinking of her? Ever a date that did not remind him of her? Of the time 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 before they drew breath.

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

He stood, heading for the place where his red robes hung—their thick, heavy burden meant to echo the weight of the responsibility they represented. He swung the garment over his shoulders, the red velvet’s heat overwhelming him almost immediately, cloying and suffocating. All this before he reached for his

 powdered wig, grimacing as he flipped it onto his head, the horsehair whipping his neck before lying flat and uncomfortable, like a punishment for past sins.

Ignoring the sensation, the Duke of Haven ripped open the door to his offices and made his way through the now quiet corridors to the entrance of the main chamber of the House of Lords. Stepping inside, he inhaled deeply, immediately regretting it. It was August and hot as hell on the floor of Parliament, the air rank with sweat and perfume. The windows were open to allow a breeze into the room—a barely-there stirring that only 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 clean, promising summer idyll and hinting at more. At the future. At least, it had done. Until the pieces of home had peeled away and he’d been left alone, without it. Now, it felt like nothing but land. Home required more than a river and rolling hills. Home required her. And so he would do this summer what he had done every moment he’d been away from London for the past two years and seven 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 found in Scotland, nor the governess at the imposing manor in Wales, nor the woman he’d tracked in Constantinople the month after she’d left, who had been a charlatan, playing at being an aristocrat. And then there’d been the woman in Boston—the one he’d been so sure of—the one they called The Dove.

Not Sera. Never Sera. She had disappeared, as though she’d never existed. There one moment, gone the next, laden with enough funds to vanish. And just as he’d realized how much he wanted her. But her money would run out, eventually, and she would have no choice but to stop running. He, on the other hand, was a man with power and privilege and exorbitant wealth, enough to find her the moment she stopped.

And he would find her.

He slid into one of the long benches surrounding the speaker’s floor, where the Lord Chancellor had already begun. “My lords, if there is no more formal business, we will close this year’s parliamentary season.”

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 there, indeed, no additional formal business for the current session?”

A rousing chorus of “Nay!” boomed through the room. One would think the House of Lords was filled with schoolboys

desperate for an afternoon in the local swimming hole instead of nearly two hundred pompous aristocrats eager to get to their mistresses.

The Lord Chancellor grinned, his ruddy face gleaming with sweat beneath his wig as he spread his wide hands over his ample girth. “Well then! It is His Majesty’s royal will and pleasure . . .”

The enormous doors to the chamber burst open, the sound echoing through the quiet hall, competing with the chancellor’s voice. Heads turned, but not Haven’s; he was too eager to leave London and his wig behind to worry about whatever was going on beyond.

The Lord Chancellor collected himself, cleared his throat, and said, “. . . that this Parliament be prorogued to Thursday, the seventh day of October next . . .”

A collection of disapproving harrumphs began as the door shut with a powerful bang. Haven looked then, following the gazes of the men assembled to the now closed door to chambers. He couldn’t see anything amiss.

“Ahem!” the Lord Chancellor said, the sound full of disapproval, before he redoubled his commitment to closing the session. Thank God for that. “. . . Thursday, the seventh day of October next . . .”

“Before you finish, my Lord Chancellor?”

Haven stiffened.

The words were strong and somehow soft and lilting and beautifully feminine—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 because of the voice itself.

“What is the meaning of this?” the Chancellor thundered.

Haven could see it then, the cause of the commotion. A woman. Taller than any woman he’d ever known, in the most beautiful lavender dress he’d ever seen, perfectly turned out, as though she marched into parliamentary session on a regular basis. 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 ever loved. The only woman he’d ever hated.

The same, and somehow entirely different.

And Haven, frozen to the spot.

“I confess,” she said, moving to the floor of the chamber with ease, as though she were at ladies’ tea, “I feared I would miss the session altogether. But 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 ancient earl, who blushed under the heat of her gaze and turned away. “However, I am told that what I seek requires an Act of Parliament. And you are . . . as you know . . . Parliament.”

Her gaze found his, her eyes precisely as he remembered, blue as the summer sea, but now, somehow, different. Where they were once open and honest, they were now shuttered. Private.

Christ. She was here.

Here. Nearly three years searching for her, and here she was, as though she’d been gone mere hours. Shock warred with an anger he could not have imagined, but those two emotions were nothing compared to the third. The immense, unbearable pleasure.

She was here.

Finally.

Again.

It was all he could do not to move. To gather her up and carry her away. To hold her close. Win her back. Start fresh.

Except she did not seem to be here 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 2

Duchess Disappears, Duke Devastated

January 1834

Two years, seven months earlier. Minus five days.

Highley Manor

If she did not knock, she would die.

She should not have come. It had been irresponsible beyond measure. She’d made the decision in a fit of unbearable emotion, desperate for some kind of control in this, the most out-of-control time of her life.

If she weren’t so cold, she would laugh at the madness of the idea that she might have any control over her world, ever again.

But the only thing Seraphina Bevingstoke, Duchess of Haven, was able to do was curse her idiotic decision to hire a hack, pay the driver a fortune to bring her on a long, terrifying journey through the icy rain of a cold January night, and land herself here, at Highley, the manor house of which she was—by name—mistress. Name did not bestow rights, however. Not for women. And by rights, she was nothing but a visitor. Not even a guest. Not yet. Possibly not ever.

The hack disappeared into the rain that threatened to become heavy, wet snow, and Sera looked up at the massive door, considering her next move. It was the dark of night—servants long abed, but she had no choice but to wake someone. She could not remain outside. If she did, she would be dead before morning.

A wave of terrifying pain shot through her. She put a hand 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 sound an executioner’s axe, dark and ominous, coming on a flood of worry. What if no one answered? What if she’d come all this way, against better judgment, to an empty house?

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.

Before he could speak, before he could shut her out, Sera stepped into the doorway, one hand at her heaving belly, the other on the jamb. “Haven.” The name was all she could speak before she doubled over.

“He—” The boy stopped. “His Grace, that is—he is not in.”

She looked up somehow, her eyes finding his in the dim light. “Do you know me?”

His gaze flickered to her swollen midsection. Back.

Her hand spread wide over the child there. “The heir.”

He nodded, and relief flooded her, a wash of warmth. She swayed with it even as his young eyes widened, drawn to the floor beneath them.

Not relief. Blood.

“Oh—” he began, the remainder of his words stolen away by shock.

Sera swayed in the doorway, reaching for him, this virtual child who had been so very unlucky in his post 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 will.

That might have been gratitude if not for the pain. It might have been happiness if not for the fear. And it might have been life if not for what she suddenly knew was to come.

Get out. She heard the words. Saw his cold gaze when he’d banished her from his sight months earlier. And then, somehow . . .

Come here. That gaze again, but this time heavy-lidded. Desperate. Hot as the sun. And then his whispers soft and beautiful at her ear. You were made for me. We were made for each other.

Pain returned her to the present, sharp and stinging, marking something terribly wrong. As though the blood that covered her skirts and the marble floor weren’t enough of a herald. She cried out. Louder than she would have guessed, as there was suddenly someone else there; a woman.

They spoke, but Sera could not hear the words. Then the woman 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 so many ways.

She should not have 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 as his father. Lonely as him, too.

If only she could live, she might love them enough.

But she was to die here, in this place. Yards from the only man she’d ever loved. Without ever having told him. She wondered if he would care when she died, and the answer terrified her more than all the rest, because she knew, without doubt, that it would follow her into the afterlife.

She clutched the boy’s hand. “Tell me your name.”

“Your Grace?”

She clutched his hand. “Sera,” she whispered. She was going to die, and she wanted someone to say her name, not her title. Something real. Something that felt like it belonged. “My name is Seraphina.”

The dear boy clung to her. Nodded. The knot in his too-narrow throat bobbing with his nerves. “Daniel,” he said. “What shall I do?”

“My child,” she whispered. “His.”

The boy nodded, suddenly wise beyond his years. “Is there something you wish for?”

“Mal,” she said, unable to keep the truth at bay. Unable to keep it from swallowing her whole. Just once more. Just long enough to put everything back 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 cry of surprise, and the housekeeper looked up from where she held a cloth to Sera’s brow.

But the Duke wanted nothing 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 not know he could feel. But then, she had always made him feel. Even 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 simple, as though the doctor were discussing the weather or the morning news, and Malcolm stilled, the full weight of their assault threatening to bring him down. Not an hour earlier, he had held his lost child in his hands, so small 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 away, and sat in silence, holding the near-weightless body of his daughter, mourning her death. And her life. And all the things she might have been.

Knowing that, despite his virtually limitless wealth and power and position, he could not bring her back. And when he had been able to think beyond grief, he’d found solace in fury.

He would not lose them both.

Malcolm’s gaze narrowed on the surgeon. “You misunderstand.” He reached for the doctor, unable to stop himself. Lifting him by the lapels of his coat, the duke rained thunder down on the older, smaller, weaker man. “Do you hear me? She lives.” The surgeon stuttered, and rage flooded Malcolm. He shook the doctor again. “My wife lives.”

“I—I cannot save her if she will not be saved.”

Malcolm let go, not caring that the surgeon stumbled when he hit the floor. He was already headed for Sera, coming to his knees at her bedside, taking her hand in his, loathing the cold in it, tightening his grip, willing her warm. He took a moment to look at her—she’d been gone for so long, and before that, he’d hated her too much. And before that, he’d been too desperate to notice what precisely he desired about her.

How was it that it took until now—until she was pale and still and on the edge of death—for him to realize how beautiful she was? Her high cheekbones and her full lips, and those sooty black lashes, impossibly long where they lay on her porcelain skin.

What would he give to have her lift those lashes? To look at him with those eyes that never failed to steal his breath, blue as the summer sky. He’d take them however they came—filled with happiness. With sorrow. With hatred.

He’d already given so much. So had she. What more did he have?

What meager sacrifice could he offer? None. And so, in this, he would take without payment. He closed his eyes and pressed his lips to her cold fingers, limp and unmoving. “You shall live, Sera. If I have to pull you back from heaven itself. You shall live.”

“Your Grace.”

He stilled at the words, clear and emotionless, spoken from the door to the chamber. He did not turn to face the woman who stood there; he could not find the patience for it.

His mother’s skirts rustled as she drew closer. “Haven.”

Fury threaded through him at the title here, in this moment. Always a duke, never a man. How often had she reminded him of his place? Of his purpose? Of the sacrifices she’d made to ensure it for him? Sacrifices that made her one of the most feared women in Britain. A cut from the Duchess of Haven could ruin a girl before she’d even had a chance.

Not duchess. Dowager.

Malcolm stood, turning to face his mother, blocking her view of Seraphina. Suddenly, keenly, wanting her out of this room. Away from his wife.

He brushed past the older woman and the surgeon, pushing into the hallway beyond, sending maids scattering from their bent heads and hushed whispers. He swallowed the urge to bellow after them. To go against decades of training in title and position.

“You are being dramatic,” she said. The greatest of all sins.

His heart began to pound. “My child is dead. My wife nearly so.” Her gaze did not warm. He should not have been surprised by the fact, and yet it made him want to rage. But dukes did not rage. Instead, he met her cool blue gaze and said, “Your grandchild is dead.”

“A girl.”

Heat threaded through him. “A daughter.”

“Not an heir,” she pointed out, with cool dismissal. “And now, if you are lucky, you can begin again.”

The heat became fire, rioting through him. Clawing up his throat. Suffocating. “If I am lucky?”

“If the Talbot girl dies. The doctor says that if she lives, she will be barren, and so she shall no longer be of use. You can find another. Produce an heir. One with better pedigree.”

His gaze narrowed, the words difficult to understand over the roar in his ears. “She is Duchess of Haven.”

“The title means nothing if she cannot produce the next duke. That’s why you married her, is it not? She and her mother set a trap. Caught you. Kept you with the promise of an heir. And now it’s gone. I would be less of a mother if I did not wish you free of such a cheap woman.”

He chose his words

carefully. “In this moment, you could not be less of a mother. You are a cold, heartless bitch. And I want you gone from this house when I return.”

She raised one elegant brow. “Emotion does not become you.”

He left his mother then, because he did not trust himself not to unleash every ounce of his unbecoming emotions upon her.

He left his mother and went to bury his daughter in the cold January ground, all the while praying that his wife would live.

 

When she woke, Sera was alone, in a room filled with blinding light. She ached everywhere—in bones and muscles and in places she could not name. In the place that had been so beautifully full of something more than hope, and was now so devastatingly empty of it.

She moved her hand on the counterpane, her fingers tracing over the softly worked, pristine linen to her stomach, tender and swollen and vacant. A tear spilled, racing down her temple, leaving a trail of loneliness as it slipped into her hair and disappeared. She imagined that it carried the last shred of her happiness.

Beyond the window, bright blue sky shimmered, clouded by nothing but the heavy glass panes. A bare tree branch in the distance appeared malformed, great black blotches upon it.

Not malformation. Crows.

One for sorrow. Two for mirth.

Her breath hitched in her throat.

“Tears won’t bring it back.”

Sera turned toward the voice, dreading what she would find there. Not her husband, but her mother-in-law, who seemed to make a practice of inhabiting rooms in which she was not welcome. Indeed, the Dowager Duchess of Haven was regularly present in the worst of rooms. The ones that destroyed dreams. The woman was a harbinger of sorrow. Even if Sera hadn’t known in her soul that the child was gone, the presence of the dowager proved it.

Sera looked away to the window, to the sky beyond, bright and full of stolen promise. To the crows.

Three for a wedding. Four for a birth.

She did not speak. She could not find the words, and even if she could, she was not interested in sharing them with the other woman.

The dowager found enough words for both of them, however, drawing closer, speaking as though about the weather. “You might not like me, Seraphina, but you would do well to listen.”

Sera did not move.

“We are not that different, you and I,” the older woman said. “We both made a mistake trapping a man in marriage. The difference is that my child survived.” She paused, and Sera willed her to leave the room, suddenly exhausted by the dowager’s very presence. “If he hadn’t, I would have run.”

Running was a glorious thought.

Could she outrun it? The sorrow? The pain? Could she outrun him?

“There was no love lost in our marriage. Just as there is none lost in yours.”

She was wrong, of course. Sera’s marriage was all love lost. And now, as she lay alone in this blindingly white bed in this blindingly white room in this oppressively daunting home, she knew that her marriage would never be love regained.

Because there would never be love again. Not for Malcolm. Not for their child. Not for herself. She was alone in this room and in this life.

If only she could run. But he’d stolen her freedom just as well as he’d stolen her heart. And her happiness. And her future.

“You are barren.”

Sera felt nothing at the words, which held no meaning in the moment. She did not care for the news of future, fantasy children, only for that of the child she’d lost. The child they had lost.

“He will need an heir.”

He did not wish one. Hadn’t he made it clear?

His mother either did not know, or did not care. “You cannot give it to him. Someone else can.”

Sera looked away.

“If you wished it, I could help you.”

She looked to her mother-in-law, into grey-blue eyes cold as the woman’s soul. Sera did not pretend to misunderstand. She knew that her disappearance was all this hateful woman had ever wanted. The dowager had loathed Sera from the start—hated the circumstances of her birth, her father a commoner who had bought his way into the aristocracy and her mother, willing to do anything to climb, who had clawed her way up, crowing to all who would hear that her eldest had captured a duke.

Of course, Sera had believed him caught. Believed him hers. Wished it beyond measure.

But this woman—this cold, aging woman—had made sure that was never to be. In spite of the promise of a child. Because of it.

Until this moment, Sera had planned to stay. To win her husband’s forgiveness. To defy the dowager’s fury. But that was before. That was when she thought they might one day be a family.

When she had still harbored dreams of happiness.

Now, she knew better.

Thick skirts rustled as the other woman drew nearer. “You could run. Begin anew. Let him do the same.”

It was madness. And still, she could not stop herself from saying, “What of our marriage?”

A muscle twitched at the edge of the dowager’s lips. She sensed triumph. “Money buys everything. Including annulment.”

Sera looked to the crows outside. Five for silver. Six for gold.

The dowager continued. “The absence of children will ease the way.”

The words were a cold, quiet torture.

The absence of their child would never be easy.

“Name your price,” the dowager whispered.

Sera was silent, watching the door behind the older woman, willing it to open. Willing her husband to return, filled with the aching sadness that consumed her. Desperate to mourn their child. Their past. Their future.

Willing to forgive her.

Willing to ask for forgiveness.

The mahogany door remained firmly shut.

He didn’t wish it, and so why should she? Why shouldn’t she close a door herself? Why shouldn’t she choose a new path?

How much to do it? How much for a future? How much to run? How much for a life, alone, pale in comparison to the one she’d been promised?

Alone, but hers.

She whispered the exorbitant number. Enough to leave. Never enough to forget.

Seven for a secret never to be told.

 

Chapter 3

Difficult Duchess Demands Divorce!

August 19, 1836

House of Lords, Parliament

He was as handsome as he’d ever been. She didn’t know why she’d expected him to be otherwise—it had been three years, not thirty—but she had. Or perhaps not expected, but hoped. She’d harbored some small, secret dream that he’d be less perfect. Less handsome. Less, full stop.

But he wasn’t less. If anything, he was more.

His face more angular, his gaze more consuming, he was even taller than she remembered. And so handsome, even as he came toward her, dressed in ancient parliamentary robes and the inane powdered wig that should have made him look like a child playing at fancy dress and instead made him look a man with a purpose.

Namely, removing her from the floor of the House of Lords.

He parted the similarly garishly appointed members of Parliament like a red velvet sea, encouraged by the hoots and jeers of those assembled aristocrats whose disdain she knew all too well from her former life. Men who could ruin a woman in a heartbeat. Destroy a family and a future. And do it all without thinking twice.

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. ...