Did love.
He lifted his other hand, holding her face firmly in his grasp, speaking as though the whole world weren’t watching. “I thought that if I chased you long enough and far enough, and held you close enough, I could convince you that I had changed. That we could start anew. But I can’t do that and give you your freedom, which is all you’ve ever asked me for, and all I’ve ever refused you. Because I’ve been a bastard from the start. Never once deserving of you.”
“No, Mal.”
“Yes, love. I’m through chasing you. I shall have to be happy with finding you in the stars, at night.” He paused, and she gasped, realizing what he was about to do. “There will never be another for me. But it is not my choice that matters; it is yours. And if you do not want this, then I would rather you be free of it, as you’ve wished since the start. To begin anew. To choose your happiness somewhere else. With . . .” He paused, began again. “. . . with someone else. Someone you can trust. Someone you believe.”
He’d stolen her breath; her tears were coming in earnest now, streaming down her cheeks, and she could not stop them any more than she could stop herself saying his name.
I believe you.
This is enough. You are.
“We are yet married,” he whispered, and he kissed her, in front of her sisters and Parliament, amid cheers and shouts of disapproval that faded away into the caress, long and lingering and beautifully soft. And sad. Because it felt like a last kiss.
It felt like good-bye.
When it was over, he pressed his forehead to hers. “I only ever want you to be free, love. I only ever want you to be happy. I only ever want you to choose your path and know that I shall love you better for it,” he said, softly, as though he could release her, like a bird, into the sky. “I shall love you.”
What was he doing?
And then he did release her, turning away with utter conviction and raising his voice to the House of Lords. “My Lord Chancellor, I vote Content.”
And, like that, they were divorced.
Chapter 27
Every Duchess Has Her Day
Two hours later, Mal entered his parliamentary offices to discover his ex-wife encamped within.
He stopped just inside the open door, handle in hand, and took her in, perched on the built-in seat at the window overlooking St. Paul’s, knees pulled up to her chest, still and beautiful in the light of the perfect October day.
And here.
Thank God, she was here.
She did not look away from the city skyline when she spoke, her face in perfect, golden profile. “I imagine the members of the House of Lords are not thrilled with you today, Duke.”
He closed the door and pressed his back to it, afraid that if he went any closer, she would disappear, and he would be alone again. She was no longer tied to him, after all. She could leave and never return.
“Many of them are not, no.” Mal had spent the last two hours navigating the anger and disapproval of the eighty members of the aristocracy who had voted against the dissolution of his marriage. “They think we’ve disrespected the institution.”
“The institution of marriage? Or the institution of Parliament?”
“A little of both.”
Her little exhale might have been a laugh. “Only a little? You were shamefully, improperly attired for the floor of the House of Lords, Your Grace.”
“Interestingly, no one seemed interested in that bit.”
“I suppose they were most concerned that you scaled the wall and kissed me.”
“Yes,” he replied. “But you were my wife at the time, so I think they were more irritated that when the news got out, they’d all have to do something similar for their own spouses.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” she said. “Such grand gestures too often end in divorce.”
“Too often?” He would give anything for her to look at him. To turn and face him and tell him every bit of what she was thinking.
And then she did look at him, capturing him. As she had ever done. “One hundred percent of the time.”
It took all his strength not to go to her. He’d vowed to stop chasing her. Vowed to let her make her own choices. “Terrible odds.”
She smiled then, small and perfect. “You’re a madman.”
“You are not the first to have made that assessment today.”
She turned away, lifting one hand to the window, tracing a circle in the glass there. She was silent for so long that he was not sure if she would speak again, and he realized he did not care if they lived here, forever, in silence, as long as they lived here, together.
And then, “The sailors on the ship to Boston called me the Dove.” He inhaled sharply at the words, soft and lovely, hazy with memory. She smiled, wistful in the sunlight. “They liked me.”
“Of that, I have no doubt,” he said, hating those men for having her at a time when he was so desperately seeking her.
She shook her head. “Not like that. I was . . .” She trailed off, searching for the right finish. Then, “I was sad.”
He could not have stopped moving toward her, not if he’d had the strength of ten men. But, miraculously, when he reached the window, he found a way to resist touching her, instead sitting in the chair next to her, wanting to claim her, knowing he shouldn’t. Knowing that if he did, she might stop, and willing to do anything to prevent that.
She did not look away from the city beyond the window. “I was sad, and I barely slept, so I walked. The first few nights, they told me I couldn’t be on the deck, that it was too dangerous.”
“It was an Atlantic crossing in February.” Even saying the words made him nervous. She could have taken horribly ill. Worse. He loathed the idea of her on that terrifying journey, tossed about by the sea, threatened by the elements. Alone.
He should have been with her.
She never should have been there to begin with.
If only he’d been less of a fool.
“You sound like them.” She smiled. “I am not so fragile.”
“No,” he agreed. “You’re beauty and steel.”
She resumed her tale. “Mainly, they didn’t want me topside because I was a woman, and women are bad luck near the sails.”
“I imagine you weren’t having any of that superstition.”
She laughed then, low and soft, and he felt the sound in his gut. “I was not, in fact. I wanted to be in the air. I liked the numbing cold. And so, I persisted.”
Pleasure thrummed through him at the words. Of course she had. Brave and strong, as always. “I also have no doubt about that.”
“And I sang.”
“The Dove.” The name the sailors bestowed.
“They said it was because I only ever sang like mourning.”
He closed his eyes, hating the words and the knowledge that came with them. Knowledge and memory and regret. He should have been there to hold her while she mourned. To love her through it.