Page 28 of The Duke of Cups (The Highwaymen #3)

DUNROSE WAS PREVENTED from leaving Rutchester’s house for most of the day and into the afternoon, but eventually, he managed to convince the other man that he was just fine, and that the desire for the laudanum had left him.

Of course, he was lying.

He went immediately to the apothecary upon leaving. He took a bottle home with him, drank as much as he usually would have several months ago, but it affected him badly.

He ended up passing out quite quickly, lost to the drug.

When he woke, some time had passed, and his servants were worried, because they had been unable to rouse him.

He realized that he must be careful. He was out of practice, and the amount of opium he used to use was now likely too much for him after a long break in its use.

It was now evening of the following day. He’d lost nearly twenty-four hours. This shook him badly.

He had a notion he should go to Arthford, hole up in the country there, away from the temptations of the city. It would have been the right thing to do.

However, he did not wish to leave her .

So, instead, he filled up another flask and went walking, as twilight overtook the city.

He walked until it was dark, and he had come to Champeraigne’s house.

He watched the house from the shadows, taking nips from the flask here and there, trying to monitor how much of it he drank, not wishing to allow himself to get too far under the opium’s influence.

It was difficult, however.

He seemed to quite like the feeling of taking a drink from the flask, even if his overall state of inebriation was no longer pleasant, and he knew adding to it would only make him worse off.

He watched the windows when they lit up, and in this way, he saw her when she retired to her bedchamber. She stood in the window, holding a lamp, and her maid came up to help her undress, and he thought perhaps he’d be treated to that, something that he likely shouldn’t watch, but would anyway.

However, the maid whisked the curtains closed, hiding her from view.

Time passed.

The curtains were closed, but there was a light burning within.

Then he saw the carriage leave the house. Champeraigne’s guards were sitting on the back of the carriage, looking out into the darkness for danger, which must mean that Champeraigne was aboard. Maybe he’d taken his wife with him.

Or maybe she was ensconced up there in her room, alone.

He wandered closer.

He searched in the darkness for pebbles, loose bits of cobblestone, bits of brick from the sidewalk. He started hurling them up at the window.

It didn’t take long until the curtains were pulled aside. For one moment, he feared it would be a maid or another servant, glaring down at him from up there.

But it was her.

She peered down at him, and he waved up at her, smiling a stupid smile. It was good to look at her, to have her look at him.

She opened the window. “What are you doing?”

“Come down,” he said .

She chewed on her bottom lip, hesitating. “I shouldn’t.”

“Do it anyway,” he said in a low, urgent voice.

She shut the window.

He waited, convinced that had been a refusal, and then the front door opened, and she hurried to meet him on the sidewalk, wrapped up in a pelisse.

He reached out to touch her, and she shied away. “No, no, not where anyone could see.”

“So, where?” he said. “We could walk to my house. It’s only four blocks away.”

She let out a noisy breath and then nodded. “All right, fine.”

He took the flask out of his jacket and offered it to her.

She snatched it away and took a long drink. “Are you back on this, then?”

“I think so,” he said, with a shrug.

“If you say it’s my fault—”

“The fault’s my own, my lady,” he said. “I think some part of me likes lighting my life on fire. The flames are pretty.”

She shrugged. “Yes.”

They walked.

Inside his house, his servants swarmed him, but he shooed them all off, saying that they would keep their counsel about this woman being there, and if they did, there was coin in it for them.

He took her to his bedchamber.

It was warm, and he had the windows open, his own curtains fluttering in the night breeze.

His bed had not been made up. He’d told the servants not to bother since he’d been asleep in it all day and thought he’d crawl right back in.

But there was something intimate about it, a woman in his room, his bed turned down.

He was suddenly rock hard.

He took her by the hand and guided her to touch him there. “This is what you do to me,” he breathed in her ear.

“Don’t spend inside me again,” she whispered back and started undoing the falls of his trousers .

She pushed him back onto his bed and he lay there, with his trousers around his ankles and his shirt and waistcoat and jacket on, while she played with him.

It was just that, really. She wasn’t trying to tease him to a climax. She was simply amusing herself, exploring him, running her fingers over him, moving about his foreskin, planting little kisses on various parts of him.

He liked it.

He shut his eyes and let the opium take him. He went on a journey into a strange city with jeweled buildings and gleaming streets. He floated through the place, feet off the ground, his hand twined in hers.

Eventually, he opened his eyes to find her climbing over him, draping her skirts over both of them as she fitted his cock to her opening.

He grinned at her. “Oh, hello, there.”

She descended onto him with a groan. “There,” she breathed, rolling her head on her shoulders, eyes closed. “Now I’m complete.”

“Are you? Is that what you need, then? My hard cock to fill you up?” He started to thrust into her wet heat. He liked this, both of them mostly clothed but still joined. It seemed rebellious in some delightful way.

“Yes,” she told him.

“Because I belong here.”

“You do, you do,” she said.

He shut his eyes and fucked her, half aware of his body and hers, half floating in the gleaming opium dream, so that everything about the experience was hazy and half-real.

At one point, she pulled his hand under her skirts and made him touch her clitoris.

He did it too roughly and she swore at him, and he opened his eyes to concentrate, pulling her skirt out of the way so he could see what he was doing. He was treated to a fantastically erotic sight, the shaft of him going in and out of her as he barely brushed her sensitive clitoris.

He nearly came, but he didn’t. Likely that was the opium, or the alcohol in the laudanum, or the lack of sleep. Who knew? He was hard, so that was good, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to finish.

It was a good thing, because he was able to service her as long as she liked, to feel her clench around him, to watch her pleasure travel across her face and feel her tremors against his fingers.

Then he moved his fingers, and he rolled them over, her beneath him.

She lay back, eyes closed, waiting.

He just lay there, lodged in her, not moving.

She opened her eyes. “Are you…?”

“Just relax,” he murmured. “Let’s stay this way.”

She shut her eyes again, humming her assent.

He lay down against her, half on the bed, half on her body. He shut his eyes and the opium whisked him off, down the gilded streets of the strange city where he flew and flitted and eventually fell asleep inside her.

HYACINTH WOKE WITH a start. Sunlight was streaming in through the open windows. It was morning, and she was uncomfortable. She had to use the chamberpot and Dunrose was lying on top of her, and he was still in her, though he was soft now, so she managed to writhe free of him.

He groaned and rolled away and she got up out of the bed and went across the room to find the chamberpot. No screen to use it behind, of course.

Fuming, she looked back at the bed, where he was just lying there, eyes shut.

She could take it out of the room, go in search of some closet or antechamber. There probably was another smaller room for his valet. Well, there might be. But, he was asleep, and she didn’t suppose it really mattered at this point…

She draped her skirts around herself, squatted, and relieved herself.

“Well,” came his voice from the bed, “I guess this is a new level of intimacy we’ve uncovered.”

Oh, God. She wanted to die.

Finishing her business, she stood up, careful not to get her skirts in the chamberpot, and moved away, unable to look at him. Her face was flaming hot.

He was sitting up, his trousers around his ankles, his soft prick just there . He yawned, scratching himself, and got up, hauling his trousers halfway up to walk over to the chamberpot himself. He stood there and used it, and she looked away.

Horrifying.

This was all horrifying.

It was morning . She had stayed out all night. She had slept in the same bed with this man.

Champeraigne was going to…

Well, he would not be pleased.

She started for the door.

Dunrose came after her, tucking his cock into his trousers with one hand, and catching her with the other hand. “Wait.”

“Wait?” she said. “My husband knows it’s you. He’s not pleased. He specifically asked me to find someone else, and I said I likely could, and then you show up and throw rocks at my window and I go out of my damnable head, and—”

“All right.”

She shrugged him off. “All right. I need to go.”

“What? You’re going to walk home in the streets like that, all alone?”

She let out a little cry of horror.

“You can take my carriage,” he said. “I can accompany you. Or not, as the case may be. I get the feeling I’m not entirely your favorite person at the moment.”

“What gave you that notion?” she muttered. “I can’t go home in your carriage. It’s worse than arriving on foot.”

“What do you mean you could find someone else? For what?”

“For fucking,” she snapped.

“Well…” He worked on buttoning his falls. “Don’t. Pl ease?”

She let out a noise of frustration and disbelief.

“I don’t want you to. Am I doing something wrong, because, if so, tell me how to do it better.”

“Oh, God, you’re an idiot.” She threw open the door and hurled herself into the hallway.

“I am,” he said, “but you’re not exactly the most intelligent person either, telling Champeraigne that you and I are having an affair.”

“Is that what this is? I think it’s madness.

” She was walking down the hallway, but she wasn’t sure if she was heading in the right direction of the stairs.

There had to be stairs somewhere, though, even if they were just the servants’ stairs.

She’d go into the kitchens if it got her out of this place.

He caught up to her. “It is madness, yes, assuredly, but…” He turned her to face him. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

“Don’t say things like that. Stop trying to seduce me. Can’t you see you’ve succeeded? You don’t have to make it worse.”

“I’m not saying it to seduce you. Besides, I think it’s the other way around. You have seduced me . I’m out of my head here.”

She rolled her eyes and turned to walk again.

But a servant appeared, coming down the hallway. “Oh, Your Grace. You, erm, you have a caller.”

“A caller?” said Dunrose, stepping out around her. “What time is it?”

“A quarter past eight,” said the servant. “Yes, it’s most irregular, but it is the Comte de Champeraigne, and you have said we must never turn him away, so…”

“Fuck,” said Dunrose. He scratched the top of his head.

Hyacinth put a hand over her mouth, trying to stop the noise she was going to make, but it came out anyway, and it was pained.

“Well, show him into the breakfast parlor,” said Dunrose with a little smile. He turned to look at her. “And send someone up to see to the comtesse’s hair, so she looks presentable for her husband, not like I’ve just been at her all night.”

She shuddered. “You’re horrible.”

He moved in close and kissed her. “You like that about me.”