The Day of the Duchess by Sarah MacLean
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.
- File Name:the-day-of-the-duchess-by-sarah-maclean.epub
- Original Title:The Day of the Duchess
- Creator:Sarah MacLean
- Language:en-US
- Identifier:calibre:4090
- Publisher:HarperCollins
- Date:2017-06-27T07:00:00+00:00
- File Size:2.151 MB
Table of Content
- 1. Dedication
- 2. Contents
- 3. Scandal & Scoundrel
- 4. Chapter 1
- 5. Chapter 2
- 6. Chapter 3
- 7. Chapter 4
- 8. Chapter 5
- 9. Chapter 6
- 10. Chapter 7
- 11. Chapter 8
- 12. Chapter 9
- 13. Chapter 10
- 14. Chapter 11
- 15. Chapter 12
- 16. Chapter 13
- 17. Chapter 14
- 18. Chapter 15
- 19. Chapter 16
- 20. Chapter 17
- 21. Chapter 18
- 22. Chapter 19
- 23. Chapter 20
- 24. Chapter 21
- 25. Chapter 22
- 26. Chapter 23
- 27. Chapter 24
- 28. Chapter 25
- 29. Chapter 26
- 30. Chapter 27
- 31. Epilogue
- 32. Author’s Note
- 33. The Bareknuckle Bastards
- 34. About the Author
- 35. Romances by Sarah MacLean
- 36. Copyright
- 37. About the Publisher
Correction: For some reason, some of my typed thoughts did not come through in this review. It should have read ALMOST believable. Also, (this should have been included here but was not) while the author spared the reader a second introduction to the cheating scene in this story, it WAS revealed in Book 1 of the series. You can find the correct review on Goodreads.com because there were other things I said that ebup did not include in the previous review.
The Day of the Duchess, Book 3 of the Scandal & Scoundrel series, was about Her Grace Seraphina "Sera" (Talbot) Bevingstoke, Duchess of Haven, and her husband, His Grace Malcolm "Mal" Bevingstoke, Duke of Haven. Before I even began to read this book, I was prepared to detest it due to all of the negative reviews I found on goodreads.com. But...I didn't detest it. I didn't LOVE it, but I didn't hate it either. There were plenty of reasons to dislike it, starting with ALL of the historical inaccuracies. O.M.G.! The entire story was FILLED with them! This, my dear friends, is just ONE of my pet peeves with any author, of any genre. GET.THE.FACTS.RIGHT, for crying out loud! Authors are supposed to be EXPERTS when it comes to the swill they write about...aren't they?! I don't know, because I find SO many books literally swarming with historically inaccurate information...and this was no exception. A second reason for not desiring to pick up this book? ALL the freaking repitition and FLUFF that filled the TOO MANY chapters!! I mean, seriously, Folks! There were 27 Chapters and an epilogue...(Oh and the story lasted for TWO FREAKING MONTHS of time...the rest was written in flashbacks!!)...and the story COULD have ended ten chapters earlier!! A third reason I was prepared to NOT read this book was because of the Main Male Character. Another O.M.G.! This guy was horrible to the Main Female Character...or was he? Well, let's get to the review and find out, shall we? The book actually starts out three years AFTER the Duke and Duchess married..."two years, seven months ago, exactly" after they had been married for just a few months (why the quotes? Because that phrase was used REPEATEDLY throughout the story! As if ONCE wasn't enough to grasp the reader's attention, the author had to slap them in the face with the info of just how long they were separated! Anyway, the story opened with Mal sitting in his office on the last day of Parliament...thinking about his wife's disappearance. Not just a disappearance. Banished. After all, HE was the one who ORDERED her to leave and to never return. And she did what he commanded. So, he wasn't in a hurry to sit through the last day of the Parliamentary session. He wanted to dwell on how long she was gone...and that lasted. Reluctantly going to the floor to deal with the last issues for the summer, Mal was surprised when the wife he had not seen in nearly 3 years showed up (on the floor of Parliament, where WOMEN were NOT allowed, mind you. One of many historical inaccuracies), and declared she wanted to petition for a divorce. With all the snarling men demanding she leave, Mal managed to get her back to his office, where she declared that adultery was the one way she could force the divorce through. Mal reminded her of the year in which they were living and that SHE could not accuse him of adultery because Parliament did not recognize men's philandering ways as such. She, in turn, hinted that perhaps HE wasn't the only one who had cheated (although SHE had not, although HE didn't know that). Let's do a little flashback of our own, shall we? Three years earlier, Mal and Sera met at a ball on the first day of March (since this author was so big on pointing out specific dates throughout the story, I'll do so as well in my review). Mel was out onto a balcony and had been talking with his friend, the Marquess of Mayweather on the subject of love and marriage (Mayweather had fallen in love, but Mal was not a believer in such a thing and let the other man know it), and he voiced his dark opinions and Sera, who had been there before them, interrupted and the sparks started flying between her and Mel, but after a few minutes, she walked away without telling him who she was, but not before he had the inner revelation that he would end up marrying her...and shared a kiss with her. Though they had a...well, some would call it a courtship, while others would call them clandestine meetings. I'll just say that, for several months, Mal and Sera spent as much time together as they could, always in secret and never with either of their families...until one day her mother found her and shrieked at her like a banshee and demanded to know "has he had you?". When she told her mother she was still a virgin, the countess cruelly informed her that he would never marry her because of the family's reputation. The woman then forced Sera into agreeing to trap Mal and force him to marry her...and reluctantly that's what she did, and destroyed the rest of their time together. When Mal had a coachman secretly deliver Sera to his home (making certain they had not been followed), he (supposedly) had every intention of proposing to her before bedding her. Unfortunately, that wasn't what happened, and they ended up having sex...and being caught by both of their mothers and several other women. When Mal realized she had trapped him, all the warm fuzzy feelings between them evaporated. Immediately following the wedding, Mal abandoned Sera and didn't see her for two whole months. When they both were invited to the same garden party where they saw each other for the first time since the wedding, Mal realized that Sera was pregnant, and had not told him. (Now, most will be upset by that, BUT the week before they were married, Sera had begged Mal to set her free and not go through with the wedding. While he refused, he also told her he did not want a life with her, did not want HER...and did not want children with her. This was due to the fact that his own mother had trapped his father, and he was the product of two people who could not stand each other...and he felt any children that he and Sera had would suffer the same childhood he had.) So, being intensely angry, what did Mal do? Did he confront her with the new knowledge of pending fatherhood? Hell no! The bstrd chose to bed another woman...AT THE GARDEN PARTY! And he made certain he was caught red-handed, then he banished. (Thankfully, all of that was done off-page and only referred to in flashbacks. The author spared the reader that bit of angst.) Just one more flashback and we'll be caught up. In January of 1834, a very pregnant Sera arrived at Mal's country estate in great distress, begging to see her husband because...she was miscarrying their baby and her own life was in peril. The baby (a daughter) was stillborn, and the doctor informed Mal that Sera more than likely would not live through the night but, if she did, she would never bear another child. However, Mal willed her to live because he suddenly realized how much he loved his wife and could not bear to lose her as well as his daughter. As Sera fought to recover, Mal took the time to bury their baby...and his evil b*tch of a mother stepped into her room and bribed her into leaving. Sera took the money and vanished for "two years, seven months ago, exactly". Unknown to her, Mal had been searching for her from the moment she disappeared, without any luck. When she arrived back in London, her husband was determined to win her back, but she was just as determined to get her freedom. So he devised a plan (albeit a very STUPID plan at that) where he would have Sera stay at his country estate, he would throw a house party...and she would choose her "replacement" to be his next wife (although he did not plan to let her go). Not very bright, this would-be Lothario. Forced to accept his deal, Sera took reinforcements with her...all three of her sisters, one of which was married to an earl and another was married to a marquess, and the third sister was still single. (I have to admit, there was quite a bit of humor in this story...all surrounding Sera's sisters, the carriage ride that took them to the estate...and a cat.) Mal had invited four debutantes, their mothers and a father to join them, and from whom he would supposedly be choosing his next bride. There were a lot of emotions in this book, most of which were dark and depressing. There was some levity even with the debutantes and their respective parents, but that was short-lived. While Sera had arranged everything so that Mal would spend most of his time with each of the other girls, HE was just as determined to never be alone with them...and he wasn't. There was no cheating in the story other than that one flashback, so it was easy to say "no cheating" in the story. Both of them were celibate during their separation, though each had not believed it about the other until the very end. Most of Mal's remorse was done inside his head, and the worst part of the entire book was the knowledge that he kept everything internalized. Once Sera had returned, Mal could have ended the charade at any time just by opening his mouth and telling her the truth...the whole truth. But the man didn't seem capable of doing so and he only succeeded in making things worse with every step he took. He also only ever made a small attempt at offering an apology for how he had ill-treated Sera. After the dissolution of their marriage, Mal found Sera in his office. She told him about her journeys to and from America, which was in essence to explain why she wanted the divorce. Then Sara once again apologized for all that happened...and here was where Mal, the one and only time in the entire book, offered his apologies in return, "No, Angel. The sorrow is mine. The regret. I never told you how much I loved you. I never showed you how I ached to know you. I never even broke bread with your sisters—who I like more than I probably should, by the way.". So with those statements, it is easy to see how that could be looked on as only half-hearted, and perhaps not quite sincere enough, because he owed her much more than those few hollow words. When he finally realized just WHY Sera was so adamant about getting a divorce, it all but shattered him. When they were both given the date to show up in Parliament in October, Sera wasn't certain she'd win her freedom. But then the votes started turning in her favor and she was no longer confident in what she actually wanted. Then, when the vote was declared a tie, Mal finally appeared and gave a brief, but loving speech before casting his vote. But he made one fatal error. He didn't take the time to ask Sera if she still wanted the divorce...then he cast his vote and they were no longer married. Oh, but it didn't end there. Nope, they got their HEA when they remarried just a few months later, and the epilogue was quite nicely done. While I don't believe this story deserves a five-star rating, mainly due to all the inaccuracies, it was still a good book...and I think the HEA was believable. Mal may not have been the best choice for the role of a Hero, but Sera was absolutely the best character for the role of the Heroine. She never backed down in the face of it all, even when she was in the wrong, she stood up and took her licks like the mature, grown woman she was.