Page 22 of The Duke of Cups (The Highwaymen #3)

“I don’t want him to have you. I hate him, and I want him dead, not to experience your very perfect body.”

A current of sensation went through her when he said that. “I can’t poison him tonight. He knows about you. He knows you wanted me to marry him as part of a scheme to harm him. ”

“You told him?”

“He guessed.”

“Shit.” He turned away from her, tangling his hand in his hair, shaking all over. “Of course he did.”

“So, you see, it’s impossible, not tonight. He’d be expecting it. He’d be on guard. I can’t. I must wait.”

He turned back around. “Fine. Come with me now.”

She was surprised. “What?”

“I only have one horse unless you can get one from your stables here, but I can fit us both on the saddle. We can go to my town house or we can simply stop there and get a carriage and go north. We can go to Dunrose, of course, or maybe somewhere closer. I have a house in the southwest part of the country, also. It’s not as if he won’t know where you are, I suppose, if you told him about me, so he’ll come for you, but I won’t let him have you. I’ll never let him have you, and—”

“You’re serious.” She blinked at him, her heart starting to pound, because maybe he did care, maybe he did .

“I really don’t want him to bed you,” he said. “That’s actually kind of strange, how intensely I feel about that.”

“Strange, because you want him dead very much, and if I run off with you, I can never poison him.”

“True,” he said. “That’s very true.”

“And what would you do with me? You can’t marry me if I’m married to him.”

“I’ll protect you, though. You can simply be with me.”

“You want me to be with you?” she whispered.

“Oh,” he said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “Well, look, you’re angry with me, and I understand that, and I would absolutely keep my hands to myself. It would simply be about keeping Champeraigne from having you, do you see?”

She nodded, and she felt deflated. “I do see.”

“Good,” he said.

She took a deep breath. “Yes, we’ve established that you don’t actually care about me, and that you never even really wanted me— ”

“I want you, Miss Thomas,” he said, his voice like iron.

She took a step backwards, shaken by that.

He reached for her.

She wavered, searching his gaze. “You… but when you say that, you mean that you want me in your bed. You only mean that.”

“What else would I want?” The answer was so instantaneous, as if he couldn’t even conceive of anything else, that it cut her.

She was so stupid, stupid, stupid. “No, nothing, obviously. You don’t care about me. You don’t…” She sucked in a breath through her nose and then just said it. “Love me.”

“Oh, God, Miss Thomas, you should understand that I’m sort of broken in that way. I don’t do that anymore. Love, I mean. It’s nothing personal, though, because if I could, I would, really, with you, I think.”

She let out a noise that sounded pained and that was mortifying.

“Oh, please tell me you haven’t somehow fallen in love with me, after everything I did to you. I have been abominable to you. Tell me you’re not so stupid as to feel anything for me.”

“No,” she said coldly. “I could never love something like you. You’re… a skinny dandy who used me. You didn’t even care about my pleasure, did you, only your own. You made me touch myself.”

This last bit seemed to bother him. “I’m sorry about—” He broke off, covering his head with both of his hands. “All right, look, whatever the case, I don’t care. Champeraigne does not get to touch you in that way. If I have to steal you away to prevent that—”

“Oh, he and I have a bargain, you dolt. Seraphine would never forgive him if he had me. It’s an agreement. There will be no consummation.”

His lips parted.

“Yes, sorry I didn’t tell you. Thought I’d see what you were made of, I suppose. ”

“You let me think you were going to bed with him to see if I’d be jealous. Because you do love me, didn’t you?”

“ No. ”

“Why would you ask me—”

“How could a person love someone like you?” she said, her voice rising. “You’re a drunk and a rake and an idiot. You’re too silly to be loved. No one fears you; no one loves you. You know this.”

He went entirely still.

She turned on her heel and walked out from behind the rose bush. She half-expected he’d stop her, keep arguing with her, do something.

But he didn’t.

He let her go.

ON THE NIGHT of her wedding, Hyacinth dined alone, because Champeraigne and Seraphine were together in her bedchamber. They had food sent up, but they did not come out. She did not linger near their door when she couldn’t hear sounds of arguing. She had no desire to hear any other kinds of noises.

She thought maybe Dunrose might come back.

She didn’t know why.

She thought, maybe he’d think that she was lying about the consummation and he’d show up to try to prevent it.

Maybe he’d come in with a gun, like the way she’d seen him outside the carriage that night.

He’d demand that Champeraigne take his hands off her—she supposed in this fantasy, she was being manhandled by Champeraigne, which wasn’t happening, because he was in Seraphine’s room.

Anyway, Dunrose did not come back.

And Champeraigne and Seraphine did not come out of her bedchamber for the entire night.

In the morning, they were in the breakfast parlor when she came down, but so was the Marquis de Fateux, who looked them all over blandly and said, “I am to wish you joy, I suppose?”

“Oh, many thanks,” said Champeraigne, lifting his tea cup in a mock salute.

Fateux chuckled. “If you’re married, you can get the fuck out from under my roof, monsieur le comte . You can definitely leave off tupping my wife, can’t you? At least for the honeymoon?”

“Oh, my darling!” protested Seraphine. “Turn the comte out, of course, but not poor mon chaton .”

“She agreed to marry him,” said Fateux with a shrug at her.

“If I’m not tupping your wife, someone else is,” said Champeraigne.

“True,” said Fateux.

Seraphine rolled her eyes.

So, the upshot of all of this was that Hyacinth had to pack up and leave by that evening. There was no carriage, so she and Champeraigne had to travel horseback.

Before she left, she had a conversation with Seraphine, who assured her that she did not blame her for this turn of events at all, that she could see that Champeraigne had done all of the convincing, and that he was a vile and dreadful man.

“Careful, though,” said Seraphine to her.

“If you are under the spell of Dunrose still, which it seems you would be from the way you spoke of his muscles, do not think you can best Champeraigne, please? He will hurt you if you try to hurt him. Know this. I won’t be able to bear it if that happens, mon chaton , and I cannot be there for you.

You have tied yourself to him, and I—for better or worse—am tied to my own husband, who wishes me away from Champeraigne.

I am sorry, but you are on your own.” She kissed her on both cheeks and looked at her with watery, shining eyes, and Hyacinth felt her own throat tighten, because she did not wish to leave Seraphine.

She got the feeling she was leaving the only person in the entire world who actually cared about her.

Champeraigne certainly didn’t, but she had known that from the outset.

She did not regret the choice to marry him, however.

She had been over and over the ins and outs of the reasonings for her actions, and she had no desire to think through that again.

Had it been a good choice? No, but there hadn’t been any good choices.

She had chosen as well as she could. Now, she must live with her choice and make the best of it.

She and Champeraigne traveled all the way to the tip-top of the country, to the north, just on the Scottish border. They stayed at a country estate of a man named Howardson, who was apparently a member of this famed Wallace party, the one that Champeraigne was trying to infiltrate.

They were there for six weeks, until the party commenced.

Champeraigne wouldn’t tell her anything about it, saying that it was a secret society, and that he must keep its secrets, of course, but he came back smelling of woodsmoke, with splashes of animal’s blood on his boots, and she had an idea of whatever it was.

Something arcane and pagan, worshiping ancient gods long hidden in favor of the Christian ones.

It might have unsettled her, except that Hyacinth didn’t believe in those sorts of gods. She didn’t believe in magic or arcane pagan power, or that there was anything to be released by slaughtering an animal.

Champeraigne got what he was after, though, which was interest in his trumped-up investments, and contacts with very rich men.

When they went back to London, he had enough money to rent them a town house, just the two of them, and the town house had servants and a carriage and all the conveniences.

Champeraigne went out every night to gentleman’s clubs and tried to find more people to convince to make investments, leaving her alone.

He had been as good as his word. He’d never so much as attempted to kiss her. He did not touch her, not in mixed company (which would have been improper, anyway, since affectionate displays amongst those of good breeding were simply not done in public) and not when they were alone.

She was bored.

“Why don’t you go to balls or something?” he said. “Don’t you women call on each other in the afternoons?”

It was true, she supposed. She was a married woman now. She could go out without a chaperone. She was quite free.

“If you please, don’t let on that you didn’t have a dowry, of course,” he said. “We wish everyone to think we are simply swimming in money. People love giving money to people who don’t need it, after all.”

“Of course,” she said, and sent for the trunk she’d left at Seraphine’s house, the one containing all her evening gowns.

There was a ball that Thursday evening. She selected a dress and had the maid do up her hair. She arrived and expected to spend the evening the way she usually did, in the company of Marian, whenever she saw her, for she hadn’t sent word to her friend that she was even in London.

But he was there.

He was dancing with Marian when she arrived, as if he wished to insult her, as if he knew she would be there and simply wanted to hurt her.