Page 32 of The Duke of Cups (The Highwaymen #3)

“He forces them to steal,” said Marjorie.

“He forces them to kill. Well, not always, but… the point is, even if there is a roughness to our dukes, he makes that roughness worse. He has the deed to my house, and he forced me, with a blade to my throat, to sign it over to another man. He tells Arthford that if he does not do whatever he asks, he will give that deed to the man who I have signed it to, and I shall be turned out of my home, my safest place, the one place I must not lose.”

“You are his wife,” said Patience. “You share his bed? Could you not, I don’t know, smother him with a pillow or something?”

“I-I don’t share his bed,” said Hyacinth. “It was a bargain struck between us, that the marriage would never be consummated. But I do… I could… it’s only…” She swallowed. “Have you ever killed a man?”

“No,” said Patience immediately.

“Not on purpose,” said Marjorie. She shook her head. “No, wild horses will not drag that tale from my lips, so do not ask me of it.”

“I was sort of not killing him out of spite, I think,” said Hyacinth.

“Because Dunrose wanted me to kill him so badly, and I didn’t want to do anything for Dunrose, because he is…

he is… well, you may trust your dukes, but Dunrose is not worthy of anyone’s trust. I want him, it’s true, but against my better sense, practically against my will. ”

“Oh, I see,” said Marjorie with a sigh. “Yes, that makes sense.”

“That is the only way anyone could want Dunrose, I suppose. He’s always been so… ridiculous.”

“He’s not ridiculous,” muttered Hyacinth.

“Apologies,” said Patience.

“Anyway,” said Hyacinth, “if Dunrose is dying, then trying to get back at him for… for not loving me when I have been disastrously in love with him since the moment he put a gun in my face and told me I must marry him or die—”

“Wait, what?” said Patience. “He did what?”

“I have loved him. I could not help but love him. And he has used me and discarded me again and again,” said Hyacinth. “But death is worse than any punishment I could think of for him. He is punished enough. I need not punish him any further.”

“What are you saying?” said Marjorie.

“That I have no reason not to kill Champeraigne,” said Hyacinth. “But even so, I have no idea how to do it, either.”

“If Dunrose already proposed to you,” spoke up Patience, “and you are in love with him, then why not marry him?”

“He never proposed to me,” said Hyacinth. “Well, he wasn’t serious.”

“Yes, but you just said he put a gun in your face and said that you must—”

But Patience was cut off when the door opened and the Duke of Nothshire came in with a baby boy in his arms.

“Oh, someone is up from his nap,” said Patience, going to her husband, holding out her arms.

“I’ve got him,” said Nothshire to Patience. “I let the nanny take an hour or so to herself.”

“Good,” said Patience. “You hold onto him until he starts screeching, then. Then it will be my turn. ”

“I can handle the screeching!” her husband assured her. He turned to Hyacinth. “You may go in to see Dunrose now if you wish.”

“Where’s Arthford?” asked Marjorie.

“Your husband went for a walk,” said Nothshire. “But he said if you wish to join him, he’d wait at the end of the block for a bit.”

“Oh, all right,” said Marjorie, leaving the room.

Hyacinth left behind her and went upstairs to enter Dunrose’s bedchamber.

He was laid out on his bed with his eyes closed, covered in a blanket, looking peaceful. He was alone.

She stood over him for some time, saying nothing, doing nothing, unsure of what to do.

His breathing seemed fine to her, not labored, not shallow, but deep and even, the breath of sweet sleep. She put her ear to his chest the way she’d seen surgeons do it a time or two, but she couldn’t hear his heart beat.

However, now her cheek was against his chest, and he was warm and he smelled like himself, and she suddenly felt her chest tighten in sudden sadness.

She clung to him, climbing into the bed with him, holding onto him for dear life, tears pricking her eyes.

Soon, she was sobbing with abandon, sobbing into his chest, sobbing as if she had been cracked in two. Maybe she had.

He made a noise.

She stiffened, still and silent.

No, she’d imagined it, hadn’t she?

She lifted her head so that she could look at his face. She brushed tears from her eyes and touched him. “Daniel?” she said.

Nothing from him.

He was dying, after all, so what did she expect?

“You idiot,” she said to him. “You stupid, stupid man. How could you? How could you?”

He made another noise, and this time it was unmistakable. It was a sort of gurgling moan, followed by a convulsion, his lips parting and something dribbling out of the side of his mouth.

Which was when she realized he was vomiting.

She crawled off him immediately.

He drew in a breath that sounded like a snore.

And she realized he was vomiting and lying on his back, and it might choke him, and she seized him by the shoulder and heaved him onto his side.

“Help!” she cried.

He vomited again, and this time, it came out of his mouth.

His valet appeared, and he yanked over a pail to catch it. “Oh, this is likely good news,” he said to her. “He does this sometimes before he comes out of it.”

“Good news,” she echoed.

“I think it’s the body’s way of trying to cleanse itself,” said the valet.

Maybe, she thought.

Dunrose convulsed again, casting up his accounts into the pail. He moaned again, and he made an expression of discomfort. But he didn’t move, and he didn’t open his eyes.

The valet wiped his mouth, waiting.

But then Dunrose went still.

The valet set down the pail and started to push Dunrose backwards.

“Don’t lay him on his back,” she said.

The valet looked up at her.

“I just mean, if he does that again, when he’s alone, he won’t be able to get it out. He might smother on his own sickness.”

“True,” said the valet, pushing Dunrose back onto his side.

She helped to arrange him there and the valet thanked her.

“I think he may wake,” said the valet, smiling.

“Do you really?” she said.

“I do,” said the valet. “This is perhaps the worst I have ever seen him, but he’s more responsive now. He hadn’t been moving at all before this. His lips and fingers were bluish, too, and there’s color back. I think he’s getting better.”

She nodded. “I wish to stay.”

“Yes, of course,” said the valet.

So, she stayed.

She pulled a chair nearer to the bed so that she could sit and observe him, tensing at every breath that was out of rhythm, waiting again for movement.

But nothing happened, and hours passed, and then the same valet came in to say that a letter had been delivered to her from Seraphine.

It said that Champeraigne had been about to send someone to Marian’s house, and Seraphine had been obliged to tell him where she really was. You’d better come home right away. I think that would be the wisest course of action.

Hyacinth was furious. If Seraphine had put her mind to it, she could have come up with some story to tell Champeraigne, to cover for where it was that Hyacinth was. But as it was, she had betrayed her.

Hyacinth bent down to brush her lips over Dunrose’s forehead. “I shall be back as soon as I can,” she promised him.

HOWEVER, WHEN HYACINTH returned to Champeraigne’s house, neither Seraphine nor Champeraigne were anywhere to be found. She went looking all over, and then found that Champeraigne’s bedchamber was closed and locked.

An inquiry to the servants confirmed they were there.

Well, then.

She’d simply go back to Dunrose, she decided. She headed back down the stairs, but she was stopped at the bottom by Fateux.

“Someone’s in the house, anyway,” he said. “Have you seen my wife? ”

“She’s with Champeraigne,” she said.

“Where?”

“Where else?” she muttered, sighing.

“Oh,” said Fateux, making a face. He looked off into the distance.

Hyacinth stopped, cocking her head to one side. “You mind more than she thinks you do, don’t you?”

He furrowed his brow. “What are you talking about?”

“About her and other men.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. She knows I mind .”

“No, she claims you don’t,” countered Hyacinth, coming down the rest of the steps. “She claims you’ve never cared at all about what she does. She claims that she started up with Champeraigne entirely for the purpose of hurting you back.”

Fateux looked her over. “Hurting me back for what?”

“Your dalliances, obviously,” said Hyacinth.

“My dalliances,” said Fateux, chuckling softly under his breath. “Oh, yes, of course, because I have a number of those.”

“Don’t you?” said Hyacinth, who was beginning to get an idea. A very mad idea, though. A very daring idea.

“Let’s put it this way, shall we? When someone says my name, who do people think of? Me? Or do they think of my wife? My very-free-with-herself wife?”

The idea couldn’t work, could it? It was too difficult to pull off, and there was no way that Fateux would fall for it.

Hyacinth nodded. “That’s true. She is notorious. But Champeraigne is far more notorious than she. She is associated with him more intimately than with you.”

Fateux let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t know why we’re talking about this. Are you coming down for dinner? Because it looks as if you’re leaving the house. If you’re not going to be here for dinner, I shall dine in my room, I think.” He started walking away from the stairs, deeper into the house.

She went after him. “Seraphine told me that she took up with Champeraigne because she knew it would hurt you. She said the two of you were close friends.”

“Oh, we used to be,” said Fateux, glancing at her over his shoulder. “Not any longer, truly.”

“No?” she said.

“Why are you pushing this?” said Fateux, turning to look at her.

“You’re not friends?” This was actually falling right into place. It might work after all.

“We are business associates, but he constantly takes what is mine,” said Fateux.

“Why do you put up with that?” said Hyacinth.

“What do you mean?”

“Why tolerate him at all? Why let him have your wife right now? Why offer him a place to stay or travel with him? It seems you could cut him off entirely, couldn’t you?”

“No, he has influence and he has advantages,” said Fateux.

She took a deep breath, and then she just said it. “Well, what if he was dead?”

Fateux blinked at her in shock. “What?”

“You could challenge him to a duel, I think, just on the fact that he keeps bedding your wife,” said Hyacinth. “If you don’t like it, stop it. Stop him. If he has influence and advantages, you could take them if he was out of the way, couldn’t you?”

Fateux shook his head at her. “You’re angling to be a widow, I see.”

“It’s not about me,” said Hyacinth with a shrug.

“Truly, it’s about Seraphine. I think it’s what she wants from you.

She’s been opening up to me about the past, telling me all manner of things about who it is that Champeraigne is and what he’s done and why she is the way she is.

And it keeps coming back to you. You going back to France to search for your mistress and your bastard children and abandoning her.

Picking your best friend to cuckold you with because she knew it would hurt you.

And offhand, all the time, going on about how you don’t care.

You could show that you care. I think it’s what she’s always wanted. ”

Fateux shook his head. “She’s never cared about me.”

“Oh, count on it, she has and she does. She wants you to want her. You act as though you don’t want her.

But perhaps, if you did, things would be different between you.

” Hyacinth could almost believe it as she was saying it out loud.

Maybe it made a certain amount of sense and maybe Seraphine would feel pleased if her husband actually acted jealous.

It seemed true enough that maybe Hyacinth could convince Seraphine of it.

“No,” said Fateux. “And why would she be talking to you of this?”

“Because I have been in the throes of my first love,” said Hyacinth. “She has been telling me how it fades, how it doesn’t last, since you were her first love. But the truth is, the more she tries to convince me she cares nothing for you, the more obvious it becomes that all she wants is you.”

Fateux looked down thoughtful.

“She says that when she married you, she only wanted your attention, and you told her to go bed others. Is that true?”

“It was France in the 1790s,” he said. “I was young. I didn’t know anyone who was actually faithful to their spouse.”

“So, you did tell her that.”

“Well, I never meant…” He rubbed his chin. “She went after him to hurt me? She really said that?”

“Yes,” she said. “But you have to wonder why he went after her, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Fateux softly. “I have wondered that.”

“You came to England, all alone, no land, no family, no money, your mistress and children lost to you,” said Hyacinth.

“And all you had was them, and they had betrayed you, but you were alone else, weren’t you?

You had to let him between your wife’s thighs, that’s what you must have thought.

You had to allow it, or else you would be on your own. ”

Fateux’s face twisted.

“She was younger than both of you,” said Hyacinth. “My age, right?”

“Close,” said Fateux, rubbing his forehead. “Yes, she was hurt, so she was just lashing out. But he… why did he do that to me?”

“Why indeed? And has he really helped you all this time, or has he only helped himself and helped himself to everything that is yours?” said Hyacinth.

Fateux shifted on his feet. “I’ve thought this before, actually.”

“Certainly you have,” said Hyacinth. “But who do you have to talk to besides them, and would they ever admit to you that he’s scheming against you?”

“He is a schemer, isn’t he? He treats everyone as if he can play them like a violin, and why should he see me any differently?”

“He does not see you differently. He never has. He has never held you in any regard. I’m only saying you’d be well within your rights to challenge him to a duel.”

“A duel.” Fateux shook his head. “No, he’d have someone else stand in for him if I did. He wouldn’t dare put himself in danger.”

“If you called him out in that way, though?” she urged. “If you ridiculed him, pointed out that he doesn’t even need that stupid cane he brings with him everywhere?”

Fateux drew in a breath.

“Let’s go to dinner, my lord,” she said to him. “Let’s sit down and talk this over with some wine.”

“I could quite stand a glass of wine,” said Fateux.