A Scot in the Dark

Chapter 1

August 1836

House of Lords, Parliament

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

Malcolm 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 20, 1836. The last day of the parliamentary session, filled with pomp and idle.

Which lead to lingering memory.

Haven 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 and quiet menace. Don’t ever return.

August became July. May. March.

January 20, 1834. She is gone.

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

March 17, 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 clock in the corner of the office 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 for centuries before him. 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 1, 1833. The day they met.

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

You think dukes are bad, imagine what they accept of duchesses?

That smile. As though she’d never met another man. As though she’d never wanted to. Until him. 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.

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

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

Summoning Haven from his memories.

He spun the calendar wheels with force, leaving them as they lay. November 37th 3842. A fine date—one on which he had absolutely no chance of thinking of her.

Haven stood, moving to the corner of the room where his red robes hung—a thick, heavy burden meant to echo the weight of responsibility shouldered by he who wore it. He swung the garment over his shoulders, the red velvet’s heat overwhelming him almost immediately, fairly suffocating him. All this, before he reached for his powdered wig, grimacing as he flipped it onto his head, the horsehair whipping his neck before laying flat and uncomfortable, like a punishment for past sins.

Ignoring the sensation, Haven ripped open the door to his offices and made his way through the now quiet corridors to the entrance to the main chamber of the House of Lords. Stepping inside, he inhaled deeply, immediately regretting the act. 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.

It was time to go home for the summer.

Haven’s heart filled at the thought. 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.

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 for this session, we will close this year’s parliamentary season.”

Fists pounded on seatbacks around the hall, a chorus of approval echoing 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.

Instead, he thought of Highley. He could be there in two hours, and he would have two weeks before the visitors began arriving. Not visitors. Before the women began arriving. Before he selected his second wife.

After all, he was the sixth Duke of Haven, and he required an heir, something that he could not procure with a wife who had left him two years, seven months ago, exactly. A wife who was gone. Forever.

And so, he would take the summer, and he would find himself a new wife. It should not be so difficult, honestly, considering how easily he’d found the first. He’d stepped from a crowded ballroom to a balcony in search of fresh air. And there she’d been, fresh air, incarnate. As though she’d been waiting for him.

And she had.

He pushed the thought away.

This summer, he would find a new wife. And in doing so, he would do what his first wife so clearly wished. He would forget her. And all the mistakes they’d made in the balance.

“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 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 Twentieth day of October next . . .”

A collection of disapproving harrumphs began as the door closed 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 Twentieth 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 amidst 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. A woman 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.

And Haven, frozen to the spot.

“I confess,” she said, as though she were at a tea party, moving to the floor of the chamber, “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. I shan’t be more than a moment.” She grinned at an ancient earl who blushed under the heat of her gaze and turned away. “But I understand that what I seek requires an Act of Parliament. And you are . . . as you know . . . Parliament.”

That was when her gaze found his, her eyes precisely as he remembered, as blue as a summer sky. No. Not the same. Different. Where they were once open and honest, they were now shuttered. Blank.

As though she, too, were escaped to somewhere else.

She watched him for a long moment, her gaze unblinking, and then declared, “I am Seraphina Bevingstoke, Duchess of Haven. And I require a divorce.”