Page 37 of The Duke of Cups (The Highwaymen #3)

“But why? You are attracted to me, you say, but you are not in love with me—”

“Of course I’m in love with you, Hyacinth. I’ve been in love with you since the moment you told me you weren’t an heiress, I think. ”

“What? You liked me because I didn’t have money?”

“No, not because of that,” he said. “Because you were deceitful and good at it, I think.”

“Oh,” she said, in a voice that told him she wasn’t the least bit flattered by that.

“Still love me?” he said.

“Is it going to be this way between us, then? Are you always going to be testing it?”

“No,” he said. He reached out and took her hand.

“No, not at all, I swear it to you. I shall endeavor to be worthy of this unshakable love of yours, in fact. I shall love you back with as much steadiness as the rising sun. We shall never have any children, and it will just be you and me and our love, and… marry me, Hyacinth. It’s appalling we’ve wasted so much time, when we could have been together all along. ”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I shall think about it.”

He seized her hand and brought it to his mouth. He kissed her knuckles in succession and then turned her hand over and kissed her palm. “Marry me or die. How’s that for a proposal?”

“It’s awful,” she said. “You’re awful.”

“But you’re coming home with me tonight?”

A bright stain of pink spread over her cheeks. “Well, I am ever so ruinously idiotic when it comes to you, Your Grace.”

“And you, my lady, make me just the slightest bit less awful.”

HE TOOK HER home.

If she had been worried the servants would spread rumors, she shouldn’t have been. They only seemed relieved to see her back, and when Dunrose announced he was marrying her, his valet actually clapped his hands in delight.

“I have not acquiesced,” she said, but she was smiling.

“Allow me to convince you, then,” he said, and whisked her off to his bedchamber, where she was allowed to spend as much time as she liked tracing the muscles in his flat stomach and toying with the dark curls on his chest and playing hide-and-seek with his prick, which he liked best of all, of course.

He kissed her all over. Kissed her mouth and her neck and the tips of her breasts and between her thighs, which she liked best of all.

They might have continued that way, paying especial attention to each other’s genitals and never getting out of bed, having the servants bring up all their meals, but at one point, he started talking about where it was they might get married, and she realized she was a bit more attached to a lavish wedding at a fashionable church than she might have claimed.

And, for his part, her husband was, well, a bit of a dandy, truth be told, and he seemed to take nearly as much joy in the preparations as she did.

They matched. She wore a dress of very light blue and his cravat and waistcoat were cut from the same cloth. Everyone enjoyed the wedding and the wedding breakfast that followed, because—between the two of them—they saw to each and every detail quite well.

It soon became clear that they were going to be considered the best host and hostess of the ton , and that their company would be sought after. After all, they were quite a lot of fun.

Once or twice, her bleeding was late.

They sat up together in the darkness on one of these occasions talking about it in grave voices. She said that if they had children, it would be all right. She said that he must want an heir.

And he said that he didn’t want children at all, that he was a very selfish person and that he was rather sure he only had room in his heart for her and only because she liked him so very much.

“With your unshakable love for me and all of that, you know. In the face of it not making any sense. By all rights, you should not love me, but you do, so I can love you back. I think I’ll be a wretched father. ”

“No, you must wish it,” she said.

He gazed at her. “You wish it. Of course you do. All women do.”

“I do not wish it,” she said. “But if it is happening, we shall have no recourse. We… perhaps we can get a house in Nothshire and hire a very good nanny, and Nothshire and Patience, being such excellent parents, will rub off on our own offspring.”

“You really do not wish it?” he said. “Well, then, I thought you had some… carrot seeds or something.”

“I have taken them already and they did not work!”

But the next day, her bleeding came, and they were all the more careful from then on, both aligned in their understanding that they were together in this. Neither was making a sacrifice for the other. They were simply going to be childless.

That decided, they were even easier in each other’s company, quite happy together.

Fateux never attempted to blackmail the dukes, and Seraphine didn’t either. They were free.

At first, when faced with the prospect of knocking over carriages for a “good cause,” her husband Dunrose claimed he wasn’t the least bit interested.

But after more time passed, he seemed to agree to these little schemes more often than not, as if some dark aspect of him was an itch that needed scratching.

They never robbed anyone who couldn’t afford it.

They always used the money to help people.

Hyacinth could not say that she minded it. In truth, she and Patience became close enough that they often joined in the scheming, looking about here and there for the right sort of situations that could use an influx of wealth to set everything to rights.

However, the Duke of Rutchester never participated.

He worked with the Marquis de Fateux as his enforcer, and Hyacinth feared that her worries about the man seemed to have come to fruition.

While he left the dukes alone, she could not say that he was a better man than Champeraigne.

Indeed, it seemed he did exactly the same things that Champeraigne did, but with less finesse.

While Champeraigne could trick people, could manipulate them, could make his quarries at least partly responsible for their own demises, even if it was through his own beguiling, Fateux was cruel and blunt. He cut through people with a scythe, leaving them bloody stumps. He destroyed people.

Hyacinth never thought she’d prefer Champeraigne to someone, but she did not like Fateux.

She wondered if perhaps she had never truly seen him because he had been hidden behind Champeraigne.

But the dukes were happy to be free.

And as for Rutchester, well, the prevailing attitude seemed to be that Rutchester needed some outlet for his violence, and that he was better employed by Fateux than hurting innocents.

Hyacinth remembered the way he had told her that she was theirs, however, because she belonged to Dunrose. She remembered how he had been good to her. There was more to Rutchester than violence and temper. She knew it.

But while the other dukes were happily married, she had to say she agreed with them when they said that Rutchester could not settle down, could not be with a woman, could not marry.

What sort of woman would wish to marry the Duke of Rutchester?