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.