Page 8 of The Duke of Cups (The Highwaymen #3)

“HYPOTHETICALLY,” SAID HYACINTH , standing in the sitting room at the brothel, “if you decided to kill me today, you could do it easily, couldn’t you?”

It was the following day. She’d received a missive from Dunrose, delivered by a servant, asking if she could get away, as she’d promised she could do. If so, she was to send back word that she could come there that afternoon.

Since she could get away by simply telling Seraphine she was going on a ride, and since Seraphine never bothered to make sure Hyacinth was properly chaperoned, saying such things were an insult to a woman’s autonomy, she had replied in the affirmative.

Dunrose was trying to tidy up the room, which was in shambles, covered in empty liquor and port bottles, burned-down candles, and dirty glasses. He was in the midst of putting everything on a tray and he stopped what he was doing to look up at her. “Are you frightened of me?”

She rolled her eyes, sitting down heavily in a shabby chair near the fire.

“That’s a fascinating sensation,” mused Dunrose. “No one’s ever afraid of me.”

“Oh, yes,” she said sarcastically, “when you are holding up carriages, telling people they must give you their money or you will take their lives, no one is frightened.”

He considered this, going back to putting things on the tray.

“All right, I suppose, then, people are afraid, but they don’t know who I am.

I’m really, of the four of us, the silly one.

No one ever thinks I’m dangerous. I don’t kill people often myself, really.

Especially not women. So rest easy, Miss Thomas. You’re quite safe.”

“You’d make the Duke of Rutchester do it, then?”

He laughed softly. “Perhaps. And seeing as he’s not here, you are quite secure, mmm?” He picked up the tray and went for the door. “Do you think you might…?” He nodded at the door.

She opened it up for him.

He went through it. “So,” he said, walking into the hallway, “I have been meaning to ask you if you have any special skills.”

She followed him. Apparently, they were conversing all over this wretched brothel. “What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, walking down the hallway, “women always have various accomplishments, don’t they?”

“You mean do I play the piano-forte or recite Shakespeare?” she said.

They emerged into a kitchen, and Dunrose deposited the overflowing tray on a countertop next to a moldy loaf of bread.

She wrinkled up her nose. “Are there no servants in this place?”

“The strumpets mostly see to themselves,” said Dunrose.

“We are meant to as well, but we usually give someone coin to clean up after us. Honestly, Arthford is better about that. He doesn’t come here much anymore, being married and distracted, so I must take over the practice myself, I think.

” He started back out of the room. “Well? Do you?”

“I’m really not particularly musical,” she said, regretful.

She didn’t much understand music was the truth of it.

She supposed she liked it well enough, when it was playing, and she could sort of hear when a note sounded sour or when it sounded clear, but when it was her producing the note, she was hopeless at correcting the sourness .

“That’s all right,” he said. “Anything else. Is there something you’re very, very good at?”

“Why?” she said, pursuing him back up the hallway.

He stopped at the door to the sitting room and opened it for her.

She stepped inside.

He followed her and shut the door. “Rutchester and I were trying to determine why it is that men want wives at all, and we determined that if you have a wife who is vastly talented at something or other, it is nice to show her off. If you have something like that, we’d be remiss if we didn’t take advantage of it. ”

She sighed. “No, I don’t think so.”

Dunrose looked her over. “You know, it occurs to me that people are rather terrible at assessing themselves in this manner. I know a number of very talented musicians who think they are not good at all, and a number of very horrible musicians who think they are quite skilled. The fact you think you’re bad may mean nothing.

I shall have to hear you myself. Do you play at all? And what instrument?”

“I have a passing ability at the piano,” she said.

“Excellent,” he said. “Let’s go to the main room. There is a piano there.”

She put her hands on her hips. “We have just come back here. We’re leaving this room again?”

“You want to get married or not?” he said.

“I assure you, no one is going to marry me due to my musical skills.”

“I shall be the judge of that.” He opened the door with a flourish.

She groaned.

They trooped into the main room, which was also shabby. She had never been in a brothel before, but she had imagined them differently, rather like Arabian harems or something, exotic and covered in filmy multi-colored scarfs, or something like that.

The piano had several empty wine glasses sitting on it. He swept these off and opened it up. He gestured grandly for her to sit down.

Sighing, she did. She knew only one piece well enough to play without sheet music, and she launched into it. It went well enough, she thought, and she mostly hit all the right notes.

He stopped her. “All right, fine.”

“I told you,” she said.

“You’re not bad,” he said with a shrug. “But not extraordinary, I don’t suppose. Do you sing?”

She cringed. She started playing again and then began the singing part.

“Yes, thank you,” he said immediately.

She folded her arms over her chest.

“Oh, don’t worry, I can’t sing either,” he said. “I mean, you wouldn’t wish to hear me sing.”

“You forced me into this,” she said.

He sat down next to her, shoving her to one side, and began to pluck out, with only one hand, a very simple child’s tune. He began to sing along, tonelessly.

She couldn’t help but laugh.

He turned to look at her, still plucking out notes on the piano, though now that he wasn’t looking, he was hitting them all wrong. He grinned at her, mischievous. “There, you see. I have humiliated myself as well.”

“Yes, you’re very bad,” she said.

He was too close. His face was right there, and he was looking into her eyes. His fingers slid off the piano keys and his expression changed. His gaze darted down to look at her lips and then back up to her eyes.

Her heart stuttered in her chest.

“All right,” he said in a different voice, getting up from the piano. “That’s enough of that.”

She got up, too, feeling more embarrassed by his pointed rejection than of his opinion of her singing and playing. She wrapped her arms around her waist and clutched her elbows.

“Back to the sitting room,” he said.

“It’s a hovel is what it is,” she muttered .

“Perhaps,” he said with a nod.

He went first.

She trailed behind him.

In the sitting room, he let her go in first again and he shut the door behind them.

She stood just inside, unsure of what to do with herself.

He blew out a noisy huff of air. “The, erm, the problem, I think, is that I’m simply not quite sure why people even do it.”

“Do what?”

“Get married,” he said.

She turned to look at him. “Oh, I see. Yes, I suppose I’ve never really understood it from the male perspective either. It makes abundant sense for women.”

He nodded sagely. He walked around the room, giving her a wide berth, going over to sit down on a couch. He gestured for her to sit down on the chair opposite him.

“So, it seems as if I am going begging, truly,” she said. “What do I really have to give a man, anyway, that would be worth taking care of me for the rest of my damnable life?”

“Well, a womb,” he said.

She sat down. “Oh, that’s depressing.”

“Do you not want to have children?”

“I mean, does anyone?”

“I think some women really do, yes,” he said with a nod. “But, considering it, it does sound rather horrifying. Dangerous, too. Just… mad.”

“Exactly,” she said with a sigh.

They were quiet.

“Yes, but other people don’t think about it that way,” he said. “So, we need to think like they do. That is the real problem, for me, is having trouble understanding normal people, I think.”

“I’m not normal either,” she said with a sigh.

“I don’t think other people feel as if everything is so very desperate.

Some other girl, she’d have a father to take care of her, or elder brothers, or something.

So, if she couldn’t get married, she’d be an annoyance, but it wouldn’t be as if she were going to starve or something. ”

He gave her an alarmed look. “That is very desperate.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Well, perhaps this will be reassuring, then. I have decided, if we can’t get anyone else to marry you, that I’ll do it.”

She let out a choked noise. “What?” She had thought that it would be very convenient if he would marry her, hadn’t she?

And he was… well, look at him. But she thought it might be a very terrible thing to be trapped in a marriage with a man she wanted who didn’t want her back.

“You shouldn’t put yourself out in such a way. ”

“I don’t know that I would be,” he said with a shrug.

“You’re very lovely and I need to get married at some point, I suppose, and if you do this thing for us with Champeraigne, it would really be the least I could do in return.

I shall be quite grateful. I don’t understand why anyone hasn’t married you already, I must say.

There’s positively nothing wrong with you. ”

This hurt, this casual assessment of her as not-flawed. She could not entirely say why. She supposed some part of her wished to be thought of as much more than not-flawed, to be exceptional and cherished in some way.

Well, he would obviously never think of her that way. However, she’d be foolish to turn him down if he was really serious. “That would be most convenient, really,” she said carefully. “It would solve all my problems.”