Page 26 of The Duke of Cups (The Highwaymen #3)

HYACINTH CAME HOME to a dark house, no one moving as she quietly let herself in the front door. She moved as softly as possible up the stairs to her bedchamber.

But when she got there, there were guards on the doors, Champeraigne’s guards, and they followed her through the door. He was seated in a chair by the cold fireplace in her room, a lamp burning, a book open on his lap.

“Ah,” he said, without looking up, “you’ve come home. My wife has been out all night.”

She bit down on her lip. “Is that not permitted, husband? I didn’t think there were strictures on my movements.”

He folded the book closed and got up, pushing on his cane to stand. He came over to her. He put his nose against her neck and breathed in. Then he turned away, chuckling. “You smell like sex. Who were you with?”

Her stomach churned. She knew, with a bright certainty, that trusting anything this man had ever said to her had been foolish. He was not going to be pleased with her infidelity, no matter what it was he’d claimed to the contrary.

He settled back into his chair and gestured to the chair that flanked his own. “Sit, comtesse.”

She found she did not wish to do anything he bade her to do. “I shall stand.”

He laughed. “Whatever pleases you, then. ”

She folded her arms over her chest. “I don’t think anyone saw me. I was discreet when I secreted myself out of the ball. I certainly wasn’t seen leaving with another man, if that is what troubles you.”

He shook his head. “You know it is not.”

“Well, what is it?”

“Was it him? Dunrose?”

She didn’t say anything.

“Shall I have my guards search you for a weapon, perhaps a little knife tucked into your cleavage? You wouldn’t be so stupid as to think that you could poison me, not after you admitted that was the plan before?”

“I’m not trying to kill you,” she said in a low, sulky voice, and sat down in the chair.

“Oh, and I shall simply trust you?”

“Seraphine would never forgive me if I did. She is in love with you, and she is the only person who loves me. I would be an absolute imbecile to make her turn against me.”

He regarded her, seemingly thinking this over. “I see.” A pause. “But it was him?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does. You have misrepresented the relationship between yourself and him, I think. I need to understand it. Answer the question.”

“No,” she said. “It wasn’t him.”

“Then who was it?”

She hesitated, searching about for a lie. “The Earl of Yinshire.”

He shook his head. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not,” she insisted. “Or… if I am, it is only to protect my lover. I don’t wish for him to be harmed.”

He laughed again. “You’re not very good at falsehoods, my dear.

” He tilted his head to one side. “I don’t think you wish to protect Dunrose from me.

After all, you know that I need to keep him alive, because I enjoy the money he gets for me.

I like him just where he is, a mark for my blackmail.

” He nodded at the guards and they quit the room silently, shutting the door behind themselves .

Now, she was entirely alone with this man. Her heart began to pick up speed.

“Did he tell you why I blackmail him?” said Champeraigne.

“I… something to do with his father,” she said. “Who’s dead, and seemingly wasn’t a very nice person, so… I suspect he killed him.”

“They arranged for their fathers to have a hunting accident,” said Champeraigne. “The four of them, shot their own fathers and then—when they weren’t dead—cut them to pieces.”

She wasn’t sure what to think of that.

“You would have been appalled, of course,” said Champeraigne.

“The sheer brutality of it, the way they went at those men. And they’ve never recovered from it, whatever they did.

You see the dukes, what sort of men they are.

They are all broken in various ways. They are hard men, and they have lost whatever respect they had for human life in the first place. ”

This made her think of the way that Dunrose and Rutchester had killed the driver and footman on her carriage, the way they’d been so utterly cavalier about such a thing. It was true, she supposed. He was broken. He was hard. He was…

“I’m not saying, you see, that I’m some paragon of virtue,” said Champeraigne.

“What I am saying is that they are not any better than me, and in many ways, they are worse. Dunrose himself…” He shrugged.

“You know his reputation, of course, everyone does. He’s a drunken louse.

He has an opium dependency. He fucks anything in a skirt.

The pack of them, they say they want to kill me because they don’t want me to extort more money from them, but they have a taste for whatever it is I have them do. They enjoy violence. They enjoy power.”

“But you do, too.”

“Yes, but I see what I am,” said Champeraigne. “They, deep down, think they still have a conscience, each of them. But you have observed him, haven’t you, my lady? Does he seem like a man with a conscience to you?”

She became very interested in smoothing her skirt over her knees. As she did it, she became aware of the fact that the duke’s seed was oozing out of her, claiming her, and she felt a fresh bit of horror grip her at the enormity of what she’d begged him to do to her.

“No, he does not,” said Champeraigne. “Did he tell you he loved you?”

She shook her head. “He says he’s not capable of it.”

Champeraigne shrugged. “Well, perhaps he’s not as entirely stupid about himself as I think he is. You know that he is only interested in you because of me, though, do you not? He has seduced you in order to use you.”

“I suppose I do know that,” she said softly.

“So, what is the allure, dear? Explain it to me, please. I do not understand, but it seems to be a womanly weakness.”

She lifted her gaze and glared at him. “It’s not about those parts of him, obviously.”

“Oh?”

“He’s pretty,” she said bitterly. “He has… his arms, his chest, his—anyway, it’s just that.”

Champeraigne raised his eyebrows. “Truly?”

“Well, what did you think, comte? That women weren’t moved in that way?”

“No, I suppose…” He shrugged. “All right, then.” He stroked his chin. “Well, couldn’t you find someone else?”

“Likely,” she said. “Likely, I could.”

“Do that, then,” he said. “Someone bland and beautiful, if you please. And I don’t care if you’re discreet, truly.

Just make sure not to get yourself with child, if you please.

Get some rest, and when you wake, you can go to Seraphine.

She has some herb or something she grinds. You’d likely do well to see to that.”

SERAPHINE TOOK HER walking in the gardens and showed her a patch of wild carrot flowers. “You need the seeds,” she said. “You need to grind them up, and enough to have several teaspoons of it. There’s no point in taking it all the time. It’s simply there in the case of some sort of accident.”

“What do you mean by that?” said Hyacinth.

“I mean, if a man tries not to spend in you but does, then you can try this. It’s no guarantee, of course.

Nothing works all of the time except abstaining entirely.

If you’re well and truly gone with a man’s child, there are other, more intensive herbs that can be tried, but they are more dangerous to you, and they aren’t guaranteed either. ”

“Oh,” said Hyacinth, who had spend the morning trying to expel everything that Dunrose had deposited in her over the chamberpot, and she didn’t think she’d done a very good job at it. “But it seems to work very well for you?”

Seraphine shrugged. “I have been lucky, I think. I do not know if I have ever been with child. There were a few times that my bleeding was late, and very heavy, and maybe those times I lost a babe, but I cannot be sure. At least one of those times was the product of those intensive herbs, but I grew very ill, and I would not recommend it, I have to say.”

Hyacinth nodded carefully. “Oh,” she said again. She was not feeling very reassured, she had to say.

“What happened?” said Seraphine. “You’ve been married for over a month now, and it seems odd that he sent you here now. So, there was an incident?”

Hyacinth hunched up her shoulders.

“Oh, it was him again,” said Seraphine, rolling her eyes. “Can’t say I’m surprised. Please tell me it was recent. If it’s been too long, we shall have difficulty. The carrot seeds are best close to the incident itself.”

“Last night,” she said.

“All right, well, when was your bleeding?” said Seraphine.

“Not for some time,” said Hyacinth, thinking about it. “It was when we were in the north. I should be due soon, any day now. ”

“All right, well, you’re likely in the clear,” said Seraphine. “Wait three days, and if your bleeding has not come by then, you may try the carrot seeds. It’s a specific dosage, and the timing is important. I shall write it all out for you.”

“Thank you,” Hyacinth said. “In the clear?”

“Yes, it seems that it’s most likely towards the beginning of it all, right after your bleeding. If you have pain in the midst of the cycle, a dull ache on either side of your body? Once that’s happened, you usually can’t be gotten with child, not until after you bleed again.”

“But why?”

“No one knows that,” said Seraphine. “But it seems to be true. It’s a passed-down knowledge of courtesans and mid-wives that is well observed. Even so, there are always exceptions, just like anything.” She gathered up some of the plants and took Hyacinth back into the house.

After they went to the kitchens and Seraphine had written down the dosage instructions for her and given her both the slip of paper and the seeds in a small, cloth bag, they went back up to a sitting room and Seraphine called for tea.

“So, it’s one of those, is it?” said Seraphine, while they waited for the tea to be brought up.

Hyacinth had no notion what she was speaking of. “What is one of what?”