The Day of the Duchess Read online

  Sophie seemed to have the memory, too. “Did you tell him?”

  “Tell him what?” Sesily interjected, but no one answered her.

  I never told Haven I loved him, Sera had said, trying to convince Sophie to do the same. And look at the mess I’ve made.

  She looked out the window, into the inky blackness beyond.

  Sophie would not allow the silence. “Sera,” she prompted. “Did you tell him?”

  I love you.

  She nodded, and her youngest sister reached for her, taking her hand tightly, without hesitation. Sera looked to her. “And?”

  Sera shook her head. It didn’t matter. It didn’t change anything. It was all still a mess. She removed her hand from Sophie’s. Steeling her emotion. “And love is not enough.”

  Silence fell in the wake of the words, until Seleste huffed a little sigh and said, “It may not be enough, but it’s something, indeed, if we all had to scurry home in the dead of night.” She waved a hand in the air. “I spend half my marriage sparring with Clare. It makes things interesting.”

  Seline rolled her eyes. “You and Clare are not quite a suitable comparison for others, you know.”

  “And you and your horseman are?” Seleste defended her marriage. “No two people in the world should share similar interests the way you two do. It’s dreadfully boring.”

  Seline gave a little shrug. “It isn’t boring to us.” She leaned forward to look out the window. “Nearly home.” Sera did not miss the excitement in her sister’s voice. She was happy to be returning to her boring marriage and her too similar husband. “Mark shall be so surprised.”

  Seleste sighed happily and leaned her head back against her cheek. “Clare as well,” she said. “He’d better not be at his club. I’ve a use for him tonight.”

  The sisters all groaned at the words, Sesily giving a grinning Seleste a quick thwack. “Please. Not while I’m busy attempting to hold in my accounts.”

  “What?” Seleste laughed. “Are you surprised by the fact that I’m looking forward to a night with my husband?”

  “No,” Sesily pointed out. “But you could be a touch more discreet about it.”

  “Pah,” Seleste said. “Women are present during the act, Sesily. It’s only fair we enjoy it.”

  “Damn right,” Seline added.

  “We all know you enjoy it, Seline. I recall an opera we all had to leave because Mother discovered you and Mark in flagrante behind a curtain.”

  Seline grinned smugly. “At least we were behind it. And besides—you’re one to talk—everyone knows what happens inside that bookshop of yours when King arrives and you lock the door for hours and hours of midday luncheon.”

  Sophie’s cheeks flamed red, and Sera could not help the little smile that found its way to her lips. This was why she had returned to London. Not for Malcolm, or for the family they’d once been promised, or for the title or the life she’d once led. But for these women, loyal and dear and bold and better than all others. And hers.

  And so she would insist upon her divorce. And she would be free of her past and Mal could marry Felicity—who was an excellent choice. She’d be a good companion and make him pretty children.

  The whole idea didn’t make her feel ill at all.

  The queasiness was from the carriage ride. Sesily’s ailment was obviously catching.

  Indeed, that queasiness did not come on a flood of longing for her husband. She didn’t long for him. She had a plan, and she would keep to it. She would have her tavern. She would sing. And it would be enough.

  It would have to be.

  Something in her life had to be enough.

  “It doesn’t seem fair that we were all shipped off the country for a month, and Sera was the only one allowed to have . . . you know,” Seline said.

  Four sets of eyes sought Sera in the darkness, and she did her best to keep her attention out the window, suddenly desperately riveted to the passing buildings.

  “Well, we don’t know that she did have it,” Seleste pointed out.

  “No?” came the reply. “What else might have happened to send her fleeing him in the dead of night?”

  “I’ve never wanted to flee it, have you?” Seline asked.

  “Well,” Seleste said, smirk in her tone. “Then we return to the original theory on Haven.”

  “What’s that?” Sera could not stop the question.

  “That he’s terrible at it.”

  Everyone laughed. Everyone except Sera, who reached up and drew a slow, purposeful circle on the window. “He’s not terrible at it.”

  The carriage went quiet again before Sophie sighed and said, “Sera—why are we here?”

  Irritation flared, hot and unreasonable, but Sera did not care. “Because contrary to the rest of your beliefs, the fact that my husband is a superior lover does not make for a perfect marriage.” Four sets of eyebrows shot high into hair, and the response made Sera even angrier. “You needn’t look so shocked. Not one of you has any idea what it is to be in my situation.”

  “Would you like to tell us?” Sophie was always so calm. So unflappable.

  And she’d never been more enraging than she was then. “What would you like for me to say? There is nothing to say!” she said, her voice elevating to a fever pitch. “Your lives are perfect. Your marriages? Perfect. Your children—” Her voice caught, her heart constricting, and she swallowed, pushing past it. Refusing to allow sadness to come. “They are perfect. And I shall never have any of that.”

  “Sera—” It was the gentlest she’d ever heard Seline.

  “No.” She spun on her sister, one finger raised. “Don’t you dare feel pity for me. I’ve made my choices. I might have run then, but I returned, stronger than ever. I don’t need your pity.”

  “Are you sure?” Sophie snapped, and everyone turned to look at the youngest, quietest Talbot sister—the one everyone called the least interesting. Everyone who didn’t know Sophie, that was.

  Sera leaned toward her sister. “What does that mean?”

  “Only that you seem to require our support—our protection—when it is convenient. And we have given it. Our undying loyalty. Because the Soiled S’s stick together. But you’ve never once offered us your honesty. So my question is this—” The carriage began to slow, quieting as it arrived at Eversley House, where Sophie would disembark. But not before she drove her point home. “Is it simply that you refuse to be honest with us? Or because you refuse to be honest with yourself?”

  There were things that only sisters could say. Ways only sisters could make a woman rage. “I’ve never not been honest with you.”

  “What utter swill,” Sophie scoffed. “You left us. Without a word. What was honest in that? You lost yourself, Sera. You were in mourning for the man you loved and the child you lost. And you threw everything away. Including us. And I was inclined to be understanding. But now—it’s time for you to see that you do yourself a disservice. Lord knows I’ve never had much love for Haven, but the man adores you, and he is willing to give you anything you wish. Anything you require. Though right now I cannot imagine why.” Sera sat back on her seat.

  “Oof. That was a bit harsh,” Seline said quietly.

  “Well, perhaps she needed to hear it,” Sophie snapped.

  “I didn’t, as a matter of fact. Because it isn’t true.” Sophie raised a brow as Sera went on. “I asked him for one thing. A divorce. My freedom. His as well, I might add, and he hasn’t given me that.”

  “Perhaps he won’t give it to you because you have some kind of bizarre fantasy of what freedom is.”

  Sera narrowed her gaze on her sister. “And I suppose you know?”

  “I do, as a matter of fact,” Sophie said as the carriage stopped. She smoothed her skirts and her hair as a liveried footman approached to open the door. She looked to Sera before she took his hand and stepped down from the block.

  Turning back, she said, “I love you, you know.” Tears came, instant and unwelcome, and S
era looked away, which was best because they spilled over when Sophie added, softly, “I only wish you could find a way to love yourself in the balance.”

  Consumed with anger and sadness and frustration she could not voice, Sera did not look at her sister, until the door to the carriage closed with a soft snick.

  With one hand low on her back, Sophie headed slowly for the door to the town house, which stood open, a warm orange glow welcoming her inside. Guilt flared low in Sera’s gut. Her sister was with child, and would have very likely been happier in a bed than crammed into a carriage in the middle of the night.

  But Sophie was home now, and her husband was soon silhouetted in the golden doorway, pausing for the barest of moments before he came to fetch his wife, lifting her high in his shirtsleeved arms and kissing her thoroughly. The servants lingering nearby were either impeccably trained, or they were so used to the affection showed between the marquess and his wife that they were immune to the scandal of it. Sera imagined it was the latter.

  And then King was carrying Sophie over the threshold and into the house, pausing only to kick the door closed behind them.

  The carriage lurched into motion, and Sera put her head to the back of her seat with a frustrated, “Dammit.”

  Her sisters did not reply, and she knew why.

  They agreed with Sophie.

  Sera opened her eyes and looked to them. “I suppose you want apologies as well.” She knew she was being difficult.

  “I don’t much care, honestly,” Seline replied. “But if given the choice between you being here and you not being here, I prefer you in London. So, if you are planning to repeat your past actions and my opinion matters, please refrain from doing so.”

  “Are you? Planning to leave?” Sesily asked from her place in the far corner of the carriage.

  Sera was quiet for a long moment. She shook her head. “I don’t know. I was planning for my life. My business.” She looked away and said the next to the window. “That is all I wanted.”

  Seleste and Seline did not reply, and Sera took their silence as tacit approval. Perhaps it was merely loyalty, but she would take the silence. It was better than the truth. But once the carriage had deposited them at their respective homes, to their respective husbands, leaving her alone with Sesily once more, Sera grew nervous.

  Sesily was the most forthright of all the Talbot sisters and, in light of the events of the carriage ride, that could be a particularly unsettling truth.

  “I would prefer you not leave,” Sesily said, as the darkness of the carriage closed around them, the wheels clattering on the cobblestones as the carriage toddled through Mayfair toward Covent Garden.

  Sera took a deep breath. “I hadn’t intended to.”

  “And then Haven?”

  She nodded. “He does not wish a divorce.”

  “Do you?”

  Yes. No. She ignored the question, hating the strange, imprecise answer that came with it.

  “If I may?”

  “I don’t suppose I could stop you.”

  “No, likely not,” Sesily said, unmoved by the tart reply. “But Sophie isn’t wrong, Sera. Freedom comes in many shapes. And even Sparrows must rest.”

  Sera looked out the window. “The carriage will take you home to Mother and Father when it has dropped me.”

  “Do you wish to join us? Mother will be thrilled to see you.”

  The topic should have been safe and easy. But, instead, it brought memory of their mother who, despite her terrible schemes, loved her daughters beyond reason.

  She shook her head.

  “She’s learned her lesson, you know,” Sophie said. “Hardly ever looks at me with disappointed pity. I suppose I should thank you for that.”

  Sera forced a smile. “You’re welcome. I shall come and see them another day, but tonight I must return to my place.”

  To herself.

  To the woman she’d been when she’d arrived in London weeks ago, before Malcolm had changed everything. Before he’d tempted her with a different future than the one to which she was committed.

  And so she would go to the tavern, and she would sling her drinks and she would sing her songs and she would hope for the night to drown out the day.

  “I’ll join you,” Sesily said.

  Sera looked to her sister. “No, you won’t.”

  It was too dark to see her sister’s face, but Sera knew that nothing would keep Sesily from getting what she wanted. “Why, because you are planning to leave, after all? You don’t want a witness? Or you don’t want someone to whom you’ll have to say good-bye?”

  “I’m not leaving, Sesily. Not tonight.”

  “I’m not sure I believe you,” Sesily replied. “Running from Highley seems to be catching.”

  Sera noticed the irritation in the words. “Running from Highley?”

  “This week, it’s been a sport of sorts.”

  Sera’s eyes widened in the darkness. “You mean Caleb?”

  Sesily sniffed her disdain.

  Good Lord. What had she missed? “Ses—has something happened?”

  “No,” Sesily said. “I simply wish to see this legendary tavern.”

  It was a lie, obviously. “You know Caleb owns it.”

  “Oh,” Sesily said vaguely, “does that mean he will be there?”

  Sera could not help her little laugh at the terrible performance. “You’re not coming with me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, largely because you are an unmarried, recognizable lady.”

  Sera could hear the pout in her sister’s voice when she replied, “There are large swaths of London that would disagree with the lady portion of that sentence. I’m the last of the Dangerous Daughters, Sera. The former paramour of the most notorious actor in Drury Lane.”

  “Nevertheless, I’m not letting you be ruined. Not even by Caleb.”

  “This has nothing to do with Caleb.”

  “You’re speaking to someone who pined for a man for years.”

  Sesily cut her a look in the dim light of the passing pubs and theaters. “And so? You would have allowed him to ruin you without question?”

  “In fact, that is exactly what I did.” And this afternoon, again. She left off the last bit.

  “I’ve no intention of being ruined.”

  “That’s excellent, as I’ve no intention of allowing it to happen.”

  “You cannot simply return to London and take on the role of proper guardian.”

  Sera lost her temper. “For God’s sake, Sesily. One of us will have a happy life!”

  “Yes, and at this rate, it shall be you, for at least you have a man willing to give you a tumble!”

  The words came flying out of Sesily’s mouth, shocking Sera into an unexpected reply. “You know, tumbles aren’t always the solution.”

  Silence fell, and Sera was consumed with curiosity. She waited, knowing Sesily would not be able to leave it. She was right. Finally, her sister said, full of honesty, “I have plans.”

  “Involving Caleb?”

  “Yes.”

  “Has he arranged some kind of assignation?” It was difficult for Sera to avoid sounding shocked.

  “No. Worse.”

  Good Lord. She’d murder him. “What has he done?” Sera was suddenly properly displeased with the man she’d called her friend for so long. It was one thing to meddle in her life, but another thing entirely to seduce her sister.

  “Nothing.” A little sigh. “That’s the problem. He fled Highley when I asked him to do something.”

  Good God. “Sesily—he’s—”

  “You said you’d never played with him. You said you weren’t interested.”

  “And that is all true. I was going to say that he’s old.”

  Sesily smirked. “Not that old.”

  “Not old in body. Old in spirit. And he’s a bastard.” One who deserved a sound punch to the nose, apparently.

  “Yes, I’ve sensed that last bit.”

 
; “And so?”

  Sesily sat back in the seat, the flash of her white grin barely there in the dim light. “And so I think he deserves a bastard in return, don’t you?”

  Hang all men for making women feel.

  Sera appreciated the simple, ideal vengeance of the moment . . . and the punishment it would mete out for Caleb’s interference in her own life—keeping Mal’s presence in Boston a secret. He did deserve a bastard, and Sesily was more than enough woman to play the part. But her sister did not deserve a man who had such a cold view of love. “Caleb . . . Sesily, Caleb is not the kind of man who is forever.”

  Sesily looked out to the darkness beyond the carriage for a long time—long enough for Sera to imagine her sister might not speak. She did, finally. “No one is forever until they are.”

  The simple statement impacted Sera more than she imagined it might. It lingered in the air between them, wreaking quiet havoc, until Sesily looked at her and said, “Are you forever? Is Haven?”

  The questions shattered her—and she found herself unable to reply.

  Terrified of what the reply might be.

  Instead, she looked at her sister—the one who had taken London by storm and stood, brave and tall and beautiful and bold, willing to accept the life that came her way, as long as she had chosen it. A heroine among women.

  Sesily deserved a crack at the life she wished, scandal be damned.

  Didn’t they all?

  Sera might not be able to have the future of which she’d once dreamed, but she could help her sisters have it. If this was her role—helping them to have the future they wanted—then that would be enough.

  It would have to be.

  “Then the Sparrow it is.”

  Someone should find her future there.

  Chapter 25

  Town’s Torridest Taverns!

  “American, there are ladies—”

  Caleb did not look up from the whiskey he was pouring. “Tell them to find another place. We’re not a brothel.”