Page 21 of The Duke of Cups (The Highwaymen #3)

ON HER WEDDING day, Hyacinth wore a regular morning dress, not even a fancy one, because she didn’t wish to give away anything to Seraphine.

As it turned out, it wouldn’t have mattered. Seraphine was not awake when they left the house that morning. Hyacinth and Champeraigne rode into London, where they were married in a church with two witnesses provided by the church itself. Neither had friends or family present.

Hyacinth had sort of always thought she’d get married in a lavish ceremony in one of the fashionable churches in London. She thought she’d have a very well-attended wedding breakfast, that people would be pleased to be invited, and it would be the talk of the town.

But she could not even tell Marian.

And Seraphine would not be pleased when she found out.

Champeraigne barely looked at her during the ceremony, which was a relief, she thought.

They went out to a local tavern for a meal afterwards, and then they rode back on horseback.

Seraphine met them at the gate to the estate. Her hair had been up, but it was falling down out of its updo. She did not even speak to Hyacinth, but only to Champeraigne. She planted herself in front of his horse and screamed up at him, “How could you? ”

Champeraigne dismounted from the horse. “It’s an expedient, and it means nothing, and you know this, my angel. You know that I would never—”

“I know that you are as attracted to young women as any man is,” she said.

“Was it not only months ago, you were bragging to me about the Baroness of Hellingsworth? How old was she at the time you talked your way between her thighs? Sixteen? I am through with it.” She was red in the face.

She switched to French, her words coming out fast now, as she began to call him names, French insults, one after the other.

He took her by the shoulders and shook her. In French, he said, “I love you, my seraph, my angel, and it has always only been you.”

She shook herself free. “Your first love,” she said in French, “has always been yourself.”

Hyacinth got down from her horse as well. She felt as if she was witnessing something that was not her place to see.

“Let us go somewhere and talk,” said Champeraigne to Seraphine.

“You lay a finger on her, and I will cut it off,” said Seraphine.

“Understood,” said Champeraigne, draping an arm around her.

Seraphine put her face into his chest and beat a fist into it. Then, she let him lead her into the house. Neither of them spared even a glance at Hyacinth, who was left out there all alone.

She started for the house herself.

On her way there, she saw movement in the bushes and glanced over to see that Dunrose was hiding in the shrubbery outside the house. He gave her a little wave.

She looked pointedly away. “I think I shall go inside and change into something more adequate for a walk in the gardens,” she said loudly.

Dunrose waved again in understanding.

She went inside and did change, calling for her maid to help her out of her wedding dress, such as it had been. She walked past Seraphine’s room. She and Champeraigne were still arguing in French.

Hyacinth went outside to the gardens and walked down the path until Dunrose tugged her off of it and behind a rose bush.

“Well,” she said, “you’re here.”

“I need you back out here before dinner,” said Dunrose. “I’ll have Rutchester here with the laudanum, and I’ll give you specific instructions on how to dose Champeraigne’s glass—”

“You think I’m going to try to poison him tonight?”

“It seemed safest,” said Dunrose. “You know, before your wedding night.”

She lifted her chin. “I see.”

He reached out and took one of her hands. He put his other hand on the other side of it, so he was holding her hand in both of his. He looked down at her fingers, and his countenance twisted.

She tried to pull her hand away.

He tightened his hold for a moment, and then let go.

She tucked the hand he’d been holding against her chest.

“I didn’t think you’d just go off and marry him without talking to me,” he said softly.

“You sent me a missive urging me to do it,” she said tartly.

It was true that she had not informed him of it.

Champeraigne had bid her to do it, to send word to Dunrose, but in the end, she did not quite have the taste for rubbing Dunrose’s nose in it, no matter what Champeraigne would have liked.

“And you left. You ran away and did not even come to the ball where you were supposed to help me have a full dance card. I did not, by the way. And whatever it was you thought, that it would help me with thinking about the fact I’d have to go to bed with a man… ”

“Damnation, Miss Thomas,” he breathed. “You know I’m sorry, do you not?”

“Well, I couldn’t think of anything else! And so I knew I couldn’t do that with any of them, and so—”

“So, you agreed to marry him? ”

“Does it bother you if I fuck him?”

“Obviously,” he snapped.

She drew back. Yes, this was why she hadn’t rubbed his nose in it, wasn’t it?

Because she suspected he cared. On the other had, did he care?

If he did, why had he behaved the way he had?

“You left me to that ball, to those other men, and you sent me the letter, and I don’t think you care about me at all, so—”

“He’s my enemy , isn’t he?”

“Oh,” she said. “You’re bothered because it’s him.”

“Well… well…” He licked his lips. “I should not have…”

“Fucked me?” she said in a low voice.

“Well, no,” he said. “But can we stop using that word?”

“Why not?” Her voice cracked. Dash it all. Was she in love with this man? Was that what this was?

“Only because it’s not what it was like for me,” he said. “I suppose you must have felt used. I’m sorry about that.”

“Was I not used?”

“What did I get out of it?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Whatever men get out of it, I suppose, whatever makes them wish to talk women into it by any means, by any art, to lie and cheat and pay money just for a chance at it. You tell me what you got out of it.”

He sighed. “All right, that’s fair. I suppose you’re right. It is the sort of thing men do, isn’t it? It wouldn’t be cliche if it weren’t commonplace. I apologize. I didn’t mean to be so prosaic.”

“Well, what did you get out of it?”

“Your virtue, obviously,” he said, meeting her gaze. “That’s what I wanted. That’s what I got. And no matter what you do with him, he can’t have that.”

“You don’t want me to fuck Champeraigne.”

“Obviously not.”

“Because he’s your enemy?”

“Because he’s a horrible person, and you’re a sweet and lovely young girl who shouldn’t be subjected to—”

“But you wanted to manipulate me into poisoning him!”

“I still want you to do that. Are you somehow deciding you’re not going to do that?”

“I’m just saying that you don’t need to pretend that you care about my welfare, because you don’t.

” She paused too long, waiting for him to say something.

When he didn’t, she prompted him, and she hated herself for doing it.

“Do you?” It was far too vulnerable, the way her voice sounded when she said those words.

“I don’t like the idea of you hurt or dead, at the very least. Beyond that, I...” He shoved his curls off his forehead. He seemed out of sorts, and this made him beautiful, she thought. “Please tell me you’re going to poison him.”

“What if I don’t?”

“Then you’ll have to stay married to him.”

“I suppose.”

He seized her by the shoulders. “You can’t be serious!”

“Let go of me.”

His nostrils flared, but he did. “You’re angry with me.”

“Am I.” She planted her hands on her hips and looked him over.

“If you are going to stay married to Champeraigne to spite me, know that it will be worse for you than it is for me, and you ought to find some other way to spite me.”

She raised her eyebrows. “I’m not doing it to spite you.”

“You could hit me.” He gestured to his face. “Or knee me somewhere. In the bollocks, if you’re very angry. I’ll let you and I won’t even try to stop you.” He swallowed and braced himself.

She let out a disbelieving noise. “It’s not about you.”

“What’s it about, then?”

“Killing Champeraigne hurts Seraphine. And I have to decide whether I’m better off married to him or his widow, don’t I?”

“Obviously, you’re better off his widow.”

“I don’t know if I am,” she said. “But anyway, he’s very old. Maybe he’ll just keel over on his own within the next five years or so. Then I wouldn’t have his murder on my conscience, and it would be less dangerous all around.”

“He’s not going to keel over. He’s only fifty-five or fifty- six, I think. He’s barely that old.”

“That is old.”

He gave her a withering look.

“Isn’t it?” she said.

“Someone like Champeraigne is going to live until he’s ninety,” he said.

Maybe he was right. “All right, well, maybe I’ll poison him at some point. I’m definitely not doing it tonight.”

“Why not? Don’t tell me you wish to take his wrinkly arse into your bed.”

She should tell him that she wasn’t going to do anything like that with Champeraigne.

On the other hand, maybe she’d just let him think she was, if it bothered him.

Maybe she didn’t mind that. Or… well… maybe she wished to think that his possessiveness meant he cared about her.

She didn’t know that it did, in the end.

She thought that it might simply be his own selfishness, some desire to be her only sexual partner, as a sign of his prowess.

It would be about him, not about her. But maybe he cared.

Maybe he did. “Seraphine says if you don’t wish to bed a man, you simply lie there and let him do all the work and think of something else. ”

“She said that?”

Actually, it had been her foster mother. Seraphine would likely not stand for a sexual experience that she didn’t enjoy. “Yes. I’ll get through it, I’m sure. Women do.”

His face twisted.

“Stop pretending it’s about me.”

He rubbed his face. “Fine.” His voice was strangled. “It’s not about you.”

This settled sourly into her. She sneered at him. “It’s about your own stupid—”