Page 1 of The Duke of Swords (The Highwaymen #4)

RAE SMITH SHUFFLED into the sitting area beneath the staircase in Hawthorn Tower, her family’s home.

There had been other homes at one point, even a house in town.

Then, her father had said that she would have a Season, a proper London Season, in a few years, when she came of age.

That had been when she was but fourteen.

Now, she was one and twenty, and there was just this place, and it was empty of all the art and furniture—most of which they’d burned, actually, because they had no money for fuel for fire, for warmth. Her father could have been out felling trees to burn, but he was drunk most of the time.

“There she is,” said the Marquis de Fateux, who was standing near the fireplace, which was burned down to embers. Her father was on his knees in front of the man, hanging his head. “Look at her, Sir Luke.”

Her father didn’t move his head.

Fateux sighed. “Did I not tell you what would happen if you did not repay me what you owe me? Did I not say that I would make an example of you?”

“Why don’t you just cut something off me?” came her father’s gruff voice.

“Oh, what do I want with pieces of you?” said Fateux, rolling his eyes. “No, I want your daughter. I have things I can do with your daughter. And you as good as sold her to me, so I don’t know why you’re acting as if this is the worst thing in the world.” Fateux caught her gaze. He leered at her.

Rae felt dread crawling up her spine. “Papa?” she said in a tremulous voice. “What is he talking about?”

“I’m sorry, Rae,” said her father, still not lifting his head.

“You know I tried to raise the money. It’ll be better in some ways, eh?

He’ll feed you, keep a roof over your head, all of that.

You’ll be ruined, of course, but in the end, it’s not that much different than being a wife, being a man’s mistress. ”

“Not my mistress,” said Fateux. “Mine, yes, however. Ruined, yes.”

Rae flinched. She started to back away. She wasn’t sure exactly where it was that she was going, but she had a strong urge to run, to get free.

Maybe she’d sprint out of the front door, out over the grounds of Hawthorn Tower, and run and run until she was so far into the forest that no one could find her.

But a man stepped out from behind her, a tall man with long dark hair that fell around his shoulders. The Duke of Rutchester. She knew of him. He was a man with a violent temper who worked for the marquis. He was his enforcer.

Rutchester stepped into her path and she cowered.

Fateux strode across the room. “Very good, then, Rutchester.” He peered down at Rae. “And you. Shall we give your father just a taste of what it is that you will endure, hmm?” He snatched her chin with one hand, digging his fingers into her cheeks.

She let out a cry of surprise.

Fateux was suddenly kissing her, and it was wet and disgusting. He put his tongue in her mouth. He tasted like onions and ale.

She struggled free, gagging.

“Two more months, Fateux!” cried her father. “Let me gather the rents from this place, if you please. If I could but—”

“You have nothing,” said Fateux. “Nothing at all, and no way to raise the money I need. I shall take her, and your debt is erased. Of course, what is the point of doing anything if we no longer have our children to do it for?” He shrugged eloquently.

Rae made a break for it, snatching up her skirts with one hand.

She feinted left, and Rutchester reached for her, only to have her turn right and slip under his grasp and out of the sitting area.

The house was ancient, really more of a keep than an estate.

The area in the center here was a stone tower, the sitting room attached to a chimney that went all the way up the spine of the tower.

The area was open with no doors or walls, just the stairs going upwards in the center of everything.

So there was nothing between her and the front door—ancient as well, made of wood bound with iron.

She dove for it, yanking it inward and slipping through.

Outside, it was a gray day, humid, the air ready to burst with rain.

She rushed down the stairs and across the overgrown stone walkway that led to the house.

The woods loomed ahead.

She would make it there.

What happened after that, she could not say. But she supposed she’d known for a long time that her father was broken somewhere, that he was never going to protect her, not anymore.

She was on her own now.

OLIVER CAMPBELL, THE Duke of Rutchester, sighed as he walked out of the doors of Hawthorn Tower. Where had that girl gotten off to?

It had been two years since the Comte Champeraigne had been killed by his closest friend and most intense rival, the Marquis de Fateux.

Fateux had never faced any real consequences for the murder, something that always ate at Rutchester in the months and years that followed.

His friend, the Duke of Nothshire, had once said to him that they were allowing themselves to be blackmailed by Champeraigne for no reason, that there was little that could be done to men like them, even if they would admit to committing murder, even the murder of their fathers, as horrible as such a thing would be considered.

However, they had been cowed by Champeraigne, who had promised them that they would be taken to task for their behavior, that everyone would assume they were spoiled rich boys who had killed for riches and power. Champeraigne said that they would be destroyed if anyone found out.

So, for years of their lives, they had done whatever Champeraigne bid, no matter how difficult or morally bankrupt the deed might be.

And then Fateux killed Champeraigne, stabbed him in the neck and watched him bleed out, and nothing at all happened to Fateux.

True, Fateux had pulled Champeraigne out of the bed of his wife, and such at thing was excused. They wrote ballads about men murdering their unfaithful wives and the men who bedded them. Everyone knew a man in such a position could not control himself.

Except that was bollocks, because Fateux had turned a blind eye to the affair between Champeraigne and his wife for decades.

However, nothing happened to Fateux.

No one even intimated that he should be punished.

Maybe it was because no one had ever liked Champeraigne.

Rutchester didn’t know, but he wondered about it all, especially after he began to realize he was not free, even with Champeraigne dead, not free at all.

Fateux was subtler than Champeraigne. He didn’t come right out and claim that he was blackmailing Rutchester, but he worked slowly and surely over the two years after Champeraigne’s death to twist Rutchester and tie him down.

It was so deftly done that Rutchester didn’t even see the ties that bound him until they were so tight that he did not know how to fight them.

How did he do it?

Debt.

If Champeraigne had built his empire on threat, Fateux built it on obligation.

Sometimes the debt was financial—often it was.

He paid for things and demanded to be paid back with interest. Sometimes, however, the debt was murkier, not just money spent, but favors performed, kindnesses done, positions secured, that sort of thing.

In Rutchester’s case, it was this. It was social. It was nearly familial, as if Fateux had set himself up to be the father that Rutchester had never truly had, a real father, not the travesty that had passed for one, not the man that Rutchester had cut so many times that he was unrecognizable.

At first, Rutchester had thought that Fateux was simply being kind to him out of sheer human goodness. By the time he’d realized it was different, it was all too late. Rutchester was too entangled with the man to see his way free.

So, now, he looked up at the keep behind him.

It was a wretchedly sad sort of building, the newer additions sagging off the sides of the stone tower in the midst of it all, and every single surface covered in climbing ivy and shrubbery.

The grounds surrounding the place were patchy with overgrown weeds.

Nothing had been seen to in some time. In the distance, a wooded area loomed.

She would have gone there, and Rutchester simply knew it.

He ran a hand through his hair.

Damnation.

He did not feel like chasing after that girl, nor did he like whatever it was that Fateux was going to do with her. He thought it was appalling, truly, but then he wasn’t like other men in that way. He didn’t seem to be motivated by the idea of soiling pretty perfect things.

What was he going to do?

He trudged off in the direction of the wood, thinking that perhaps he could say he couldn’t find her.

Yes, quite.

He’d go into the woods, go far enough in that he was out of sight, sit down and lean against a tree trunk, and then amuse himself by watching birds and squirrels for half an hour or so.

Eventually, he’d emerge and say the girl was long gone.

Too bad. So very, very sad. Fateux should give up and extort more money from Sir Luke instead.

Decided, he continued on his way into the woods.

But when he stepped under the canopy of the trees, she was there.

She had fallen, tripped over that root there, most likely, and now she was cringing in pain. Upon seeing him, she pushed to her feet.

But she couldn’t put weight on one foot.

She let out a little gasp, glaring at him with hatred.

He sighed heavily.

She hobbled off into the woods, making a pained noise with every step.

Damnation.

He went after her. He could have caught up to her and seized her right away, but he kept pace with her, a step behind, following her, seething, clenching his hands into fists.

“All right,” he said finally, “where will you go?”

She stopped and turned on him. “What are you talking about?”

“If I pretend I couldn’t find you, do you have somewhere to go?

Some other relative, perhaps? Or a friend?

” He knew the answer to this question, of course.

Her mother had died when she was young. There was only Sir Luke left now, since the heir, his son, had died in a tragic swimming accident six years ago—this was why Sir Luke was drunk, after all.

He’d given up in the wake of the death of his son, given up on everything.

So, there was no other family, no one at all.

“You would do that?” she said.

“I might,” he said.

“Why?” she said.

“Call it conscience,” he said.

She snorted. “As if something like you has a conscience.”

“I don’t like rape,” he said quietly.

Her eyes widened and her lower lip trembled and she resembled nothing so much as a prey animal.

Damnation.

“Well, tell me that if I don’t haul you back to him you have some way to make sure that you don’t starve to death out here,” he said, nostrils flaring.

“Your foot is hurt, so it’ll take you time to get anywhere at all.

Where are you heading? What do you mean to do when you get there? Do you have a plan?”

Her lower lip trembled harder. She lowered her face, shaking her head quickly. “No plan, not really. But I’d rather starve than… than…”

“Trust me, you would not,” he muttered. “It won’t be that bad. He’s old and won’t be at you too often.” He reached out and took her by the arm.

She pulled her arm out of his grasp. “Don’t.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You could help me,” she said. “You could find me someplace—”

“I could not,” he said. “I can’t go against him like that.”

“Why not?”

“I owe him,” he muttered. He swept her off her feet, like a man carrying a bride over the threshold of their new home.

She looked up at him, eyes wet with her anger at him. “Please,” she said.

He sighed again. He carried her back to Fateux.