Page 10 of The Duke of Swords (The Highwaymen #4)

“You don’t have to do that,” she said. “You don’t need to do anything you don’t wish to.

I don’t wish to impose upon you further.

I can be very little trouble, you see. I don’t need much, not lots of dresses or a whole house with servants or whatever it is that dukes do for mistresses.

You may tuck me away in one of your country estates, even in a servants’ cottage or an attic room or—”

“Miss Smith,” he said gruffly. “Stop that.”

“But—”

“My father fucked me,” he said. Oh, there, see, that was the wrong word for it. He should have said… what? Sodomized? Molested? Did it matter? It was out there now, crude and awful, but clear.

She went entirely still, looking up at him with wide, unblinking eyes.

He swallowed and went on. “When I was young. It started when I was about six or seven. Well, not the, erm… It was just touching at first, and then he started making me use my mouth and then he eventually worked up to my…”

“Your what?” she said. “Men can’t do that to other men, to boys—”

“Arse,” he said.

She pressed her face into his chest. “That was what he meant when he said not in my cunny, that was Fateux meant. Oh, God, oh, God, that’s… it can’t…” She writhed there, in some kind of ecstasy of horror.

He felt… better. He’d never just said it like that before.

Saying it so baldly seemed to take some of the awful power from it in a strange way.

How odd. He squared his shoulders, and they seemed a bit lighter.

“I loved him, though, Miss Smith. Even through it, I loved him. I loved him right up until the moment I killed him, and after he was dead, it didn’t go away. I love him still.”

She lifted her face from his chest and gazed at him with a look of terrified bewilderment

“You think you feel things for me,” he said. “But it’s only… it’s a… you shouldn’t .”

“Oh, I know,” she said, pulling away from him a bit. “Believe me, I know that. I think I’ve gone mad, though.”

He grimaced.

She climbed out of his lap to sit next to him.

“Something has gone wrong with me, truly. At first, my foot was hurt, and so I told myself that was why I stayed, but then it was healed, and I still stayed, and then, he was gone, and I was all alone for hours in the dark, and I told myself I would go, and I didn’t go—”

“This is exactly what I’m talking about,” he said.

“No, it’s not the same. I don’t love you,” she said. She winced. “Oh, apologies. Maybe I could, I suppose. Something about you—”

“No, don’t,” he said. “Don’t love me. I’m monstrous.”

She tilted her head to the side, regarding him, sizing him up. “No. No, you’re not.”

He scoffed.

She got up and went to the other side of the carriage and sat opposite him. “You should be, I think. But you really aren’t.”

“If you knew half of the things I had done, you would not say that.”

She shrugged. “I definitely didn’t love Fateux. I despised him. I’m rather pleased he’s dead.”

He let out a breath.

“He is dead, is he not? You killed him?”

He gave her a curt nod.

“Thank you,” she said.

Ah, damnation, that look of gratitude again. Her savior. And he’d wrapped her up in his arms and held her like she was his to protect, and some part of him wanted badly to be her protector, to shield her from anything that could ever harm her.

Except that he could harm her, and he must shield her from himself.

“What would be best for you, madam,” he said quietly, “would be to recover somewhere, away from me, until you have had the chance to sort through what befell you. If you are feeling as if you’ve gone mad, then some time may help you find your right mind again.

When you do, you will see the truth of it. The truth of me.”

“But where am I to go?” she said. “I have nowhere—”

“I have said, even now, that you will be cared for. I shall see to it. You will be fed and clothed and housed. But not with me .”

“Oh,” she said. “Then where?” She lifted a finger.

“You said something about friends in London. I know of your friends, the other three dukes. You have a reputation, the four of you. And I do remember that the other three are all lately married. You said their duchesses would sort me out or something of that nature. Will they truly? Why?”

“We are close,” he said. “I would do anything for them. They would do anything for me.”

“And their wives, too?”

“Well, their wives, at least two of them, anyway, are on some mission to help the helpless in London or some such nonsense. I don’t know how it works, but you will be just the sort of person they will wish to save. They have a soft spot for women who have been badly used by men.”

She looked confused. “A mission?”

“I’ve been distracted,” he said. “I have been working with Fateux. I don’t know the particulars. But when we get there, I am certain they will be able to explain it much better than I can.”

“Well,” she said, laying her hands together in her lap, “that is very good of you. You are not obliged to give me charity.”

“Not charity, madam,” he said. “Reparations. I shall owe you for the rest of my life. What I did to you was despicable.”

She eyed him. “Well, Fateux sort of forced you into it, I suppose. But then later…” She lifted her chin. “If you think it so despicable why did you come for me with all that blood on you and put your hands on me and your mouth and all of that? Why did you do that?”

“I told you why,” he said tightly. “I’m monstrous.”

“No,” she said. “That is not the reason.”

“Miss Smith—”

“I see you don’t know the reason,” she said. “Just as I do not know why I did not escape Fateux. Sometimes, a body behaves irrationally, I think. Sometimes, especially when one is under quite a bit of strain. You, Your Grace, seem to be constantly under strain.”

His nostrils flared.

She had no idea.