Page 30 of The Duke of Cups (The Highwaymen #3)

HYACINTH’S MONTHLY COURSES started that evening, and she informed her husband of this in his study before dinner. She told him that she would not be coming down that evening, because she had cramps.

It was not a lie.

She lay in her bed wrapped around a bottle of hot water, wishing for some of Dunrose’s laudanum. It would have wiped away the pain and pulled her into a warm and drowsy embrace. She could see why he liked it so much. It made the world easier to take.

Why was it that the world was so very hard?

It seemed that it shouldn’t be.

Why, there were so many people who had it much worse than she did.

The servants in this house labored long hours, sometimes up with the sun and still working into the wee hours.

They were summoned for trifles, forced to clean and tidy, stuck with emptying chamberpots and keeping fires going.

Surely, being a woman such as she, titled now (even if it was a French title and the land was gone), living in a fine house with fine clothes and all the comforts that were not afforded to others below her station, surely she should not feel as if everything was so hard.

She should not crave to have the world dimmed and muted and smoothed out by opium.

She hated Daniel Roberts, the Duke of Dunrose .

Despised him.

She had never hated anyone with this kind of vitriol before. It was so intense that it stunned her.

And even as she hated him, she wished she was with him now. She longed to be back in his arms, having his hands on her body, his voice in her ear calling her ‘love.’

It was such a strange feeling, loathing and craving someone all at the same time.

She did not even know why she loathed him so fiercely.

She had not ever truly thought that he cared about her.

She had always known that he was a creature of darkness and desire, that he simply pulled things down into the mire with him, that he was a whirlpool of destruction who would only drown her.

But that moment this morning when he’d said that she should go away, when he’d simply ceded her to Champeraigne, it had been a betrayal, worse somehow than all his other betrayals.

Some part of her kept expecting this man to stand up for her.

She could see now that he never would.

She didn’t wish to think of it.

She rolled over onto her side, bringing the hot water bottle with her, pressing it into the dull ache in her pelvis, and decided to think about how much she also hated her husband.

She had never really hated Champeraigne before. She had never liked him either. She had been faintly disapproving of him and a little bit wary.

But when he said to her that he would send her somewhere that was not of her own choosing, she realized that Champeraigne had never thought of her as a person, not really.

He had viewed her as a playing card, something to tuck into his hand to bring out and play when it suited him.

He thought of her as a thing, something he could use.

When she wasn’t useful, he would discard her.

And she had married him, and he had absolute control over her.

She hadn’t noticed, she supposed, because Champeraigne always viewed Seraphine as a person, not a thing.

But she was realizing that the only person he thought of as a person was Seraphine.

Well, Seraphine and himself. When Seraphine had said to her that Champeraigne had no one counting on him, she had badly misunderstood the man.

It wasn’t that he had no one to love, it was that he didn’t see other people—besides Seraphine—as worthy of love.

Or worthy of anything, really, except to be his playing cards.

Everything was a mad game of strategy to him. He was on one side and the whims of fate were on the other. He wasn’t playing against anyone else. He was playing with everyone else.

And a man like that?

He was too dangerous to remain alive.

He should die.

Someone should kill him.

She didn’t wish to do it, however, for a number of reasons, and the chief amongst them would be that if she did, she would be Dunrose’s plaything, doing his bidding, and she did not wish to do anything to oblige that man, not ever again.

She rolled back over onto her other side, and the feeling she felt now was simply despair.

She was alone.

No one loved her. No one cared about her. No one would look after her.

There was Seraphine, true. Seraphine said that if it came to a choice between Champeraigne and Hyacinth, she would choose Hyacinth, but when she had married the man, Seraphine had warned her not to attempt to strike against her lover.

Do not think you can best Champeraigne, she had said.

So, truly, Seraphine had abandoned her, despite whatever she had said.

The loneliness was like claws raking up her body, pulling her towards a dark, fanged mouth that would devour her.

Perhaps this was why life was so hard ?

The loneliness.

Could life be better if it wasn’t a battle fought all alone?

Perhaps, she thought, but it didn’t seem likely she’d ever know what that was like.

TWO DAYS LATER , the Marquis and Marchioness de Fateux appeared at the doorstep of Champeraigne’s town house, saying that they could no longer afford the rents on the house they had been letting outside of town, and insisting they must stay here, since Champeraigne was doing so well for himself.

This arrangement was commonplace amongst the three of them, as Hyacinth knew, that they would stay with each other whenever they could, whenever someone had the funds to keep them.

She began to think, darkly, that they were all very silly and stupid with money.

Hyacinth had lived with a foster family most of her life and had not had much of her own coin to spend.

She knew that the amount of money that flowed through the hands of the French ex-patriots would be enough to keep them if they changed their lifestyles.

They could have had a small house somewhere, not with a whole raft of servants, no, but perhaps a maid of all work and her husband, two people to cook and clean and keep up with the household repairs.

They would not have been able to entertain or to attend balls or to mingle with London’s ton , but they could have made do.

They did not do this, however, and Hyacinth began to think they were frivolous sorts of people. Slowly, she began to despise them all, even Seraphine, even though Seraphine was the only person who’d ever loved her.

Hyacinth began to plan.

If Champeraigne died now, she would inherit whatever it was that he owned.

It wouldn’t be much, but there would be money, enough to buy herself a small house with two servants.

It would be a lonely life, she supposed, with no social activities and nothing to do, but she was lonely now anyway, even surrounded by the crush of London parties and operas.

It was a way out.

She wanted it.

But she would need to get rid of Champeraigne, and she still didn’t wish to do it, because she did not wish to do Dunrose’s bidding.

So, she did nothing except think on it. Think and stew and despise everyone who resided under the same roof with her.

Four days later, when her bleeding was ebbing out and her cramps had dissipated, she was wakened in the midst of the night by someone throwing rocks at her window.

It was quite warm now, and her window was open, so the rocks came inside and crashed into the floor by her bed.

She got up and tugged the curtains away to tell Dunrose to leave her be.

It wasn’t Dunrose down there, however.

It was the Duke of Rutchester. He looked up at her. “Can you come down for a moment?” he called.

She perhaps should have asked more questions, but she did. A certain dread seized her, and she rushed down in the darkness to meet him on the sidewalk outside.

When she reached him, she said, “It’s Daniel, isn’t it? Something’s happened.”

Rutchester nodded in the direction of the shadows of an alley. “Let’s talk out of sight, in case your husband is watching. I’d rather he didn’t know.”

Her heart thudded against her rib cage, her body in a state of high alert. “What?” she said, letting him lead her into the shadows. “What is it?”

“He’s not waking up,” Rutchester said when they were out of sight of the house or the street.

“What do you mean?”

“I sent letters to his house and he did not answer them. So, I went to check on him, and the servants said he’d been abed for days, asleep.

It’s not uncommon when he’s on the laudanum for him to sleep hours on end.

But he isn’t responsive, and he cannot be roused.

I sent for a doctor and a surgeon, of course, and the doctor said that he may wake by and by, but the surgeon listened to his breathing and put his ear to his chest to hear his heartbeat.

He says that he’s seen these sorts of opium-induced comas before, and they rarely have good results.

His opinion is that, erm, Daniel will most likely never wake.

He will slip off at some point, soon, he says. ”

She could not breathe. Her own heart was beating so fast and so strenuously that it was painful.

Rutchester shoved his hands into his pockets. “I simply thought you should know, I suppose. I might have written a letter, but I did not know how things are in this household. I’d rather Champeraigne not hear of it now. I don’t know what he would do.”

“I must go to him,” she whispered, certain of that. “I need to be near him.”

Rutchester gave his head a firm shake. “No.”

“If he is dying—”

“There is nothing you can do, my lady, and he is not aware. He would not know if you were there or not. Furthermore, you would not be welcomed.” He touched his chest. “I do not blame you for this, understand? Daniel has been slowly poisoning himself for over a decade at this point. I knew this would happen sooner or later. But the Duke of Arthford, he has some idea of whatever happened between the two of you, and I have heard him bandy about accusations attached to your name.”

“The Duke of Arthford is there?”

“Oh, yes. I sent for all of them immediately. Nothshire and his wife and babe will be here on the morrow. They had to come all the way from Nothshire, so it is a longer journey. But we shall be with him. We are his family.”

She drew back, her insides twisting on themselves.

Family.

How could he, then? Dunrose did not have to contend with that clawing, fanged loneliness, not when he had his three friends, his family. How could he?

“I don’t think he did it on purpose,” said Rutchester, and she realized she must have said that aloud.

How could he? “He had gotten off of it, and the surgeon says that when people are deep into a dependency, they have built up a sort of tolerance to the substance, but when they are not using it for some time, that tolerance is gone. However, it is habit for the opium eater to eat just as much opium as he used to take, and this can have quite bad consequences. I don’t think he meant to do away with himself, not consciously. ”

“I hate him,” she said, her voice trembling. “I have never hated anyone the way I hate that man. If he dies, I shall hate him all the worse. I have to see him. I have to make him live, because I cannot bear how much I shall hate him if he dies!”

Rutchester cleared his throat. “If you… you should know, that if you happen to be gone with Daniel’s child—”

“I’m not,” she said, and now she convulsed, wishing for it now, wishing to have some piece of that man growing inside her, something of him to carry on, wishing for it so hard it burned like the way it had burned when he took her virtue. Tears started to stream down her face.

Rutchester handed her a handkerchief, and when he spoke, there was none of the faint disapproval or discomfort that men seemed to have around sobbing women.

“Well, that’s for the best, I think. For my part, my lady, if there is anything you need, ever, for Daniel’s sake, I shall be your willing servant. ”

She choked, mopping at her face. “That’s—that’s… thank you. You don’t have to say such things to me.”

“We dukes have a saying amongst ourselves,” he said. “We ask each other if we are four or one, and we always respond that we are one. If we are one, then you are ours now, for you were his. Arthford may disagree, but that is how I see it. If you ever need my protection, you need only ask.”