Page 12 of The Duke of Swords (The Highwaymen #4)

“Do you regret killing Fateux?” she said in a tiny voice.

“What?” He turned to her, but she felt it more than saw it, because it was very dark in the room. Now, their thighs collided again, but he didn’t move his away this time. “That’s what you ask me? Well, of course it is.”

“Do you wish me to absolve you for your sins, Your Grace?” she murmured. “I can do so. I shall be your confessor, and I shall give you a prescribed number of prayers to say to wipe away the stain of it.”

He snorted. His thigh was warm and heavy against her own. “Are you a Papist, Miss Smith?”

“Me?” She shook her head. “But when I was young, my mother…” She shrugged. “Have you never had absolution, Your Grace?”

“Is absolution given so easily?”

“Quite easily, Your Grace,” she said, reaching over to lay her hand on top of his knee. “Three Our Fathers, an Act of Contrition, and—”

“Miss Smith,” he said with a chuckle. “I don’t even think I believe in God.”

She considered that, wondering why the baldness of such a statement of pure heresy failed to make her react the way it ought to. He is monstrous, isn’t he? Why can’t you admit it to yourself?

“I only bring it up,” he said, “because of what you said, about rescuing yourself. I don’t know that we can be rescued, once it’s done.

I am not rescued, do you understand? Do you see that?

I may have killed him, may have killed and killed and killed—just cut everything remotely threatening to pieces—but it doesn’t matter. ”

She rubbed her hand reassuringly over his knee. “Well, that’s a quite depressing thought, Your Grace, and I can’t really see how it could be true.”

He covered her hand with his own. “You don’t think so?”

“I thought… and I don’t know, of course, because it must be different to be a man, or to have it in there, where it must be many times more painful, but I was so surprised about how it was.

They say, you know, a woman is intact beforehand, and so I thought I would feel broken or damaged after it was done, but…

I don’t know? I still felt as if I had all of my parts and that no part of me had really been changed.

They say it is something lost, one’s virtue, but I didn’t feel like anything was missing.

They say a man takes something from a woman, but Fateux had nothing of mine once he was done.

I think if anything is taken, it’s from the man. He’s the one leaving his spend behind.”

It was quiet for a moment, and then Rutchester barked out a laugh, and then he squeezed her hand with his. “All very true, Rae. Very, very true.”

“Still,” she said softly. “I should have left. I had chances to go, and I didn’t go.”

He squeezed her hand again. “Where would you have gone? How could you go anywhere when worse things could befall you if you were on your own? Where was there a safe haven for you?”

“Yes,” she said dully. “I suppose I did keep thinking that, again and again.” This seemed to well up in her like a dark cloud. She pitched forward, into him, headfirst, rubbing her forehead into his chest.

He put his arms around her, and they both fell backwards, onto his bed.

She scrambled up, over him, on all fours. She peered down into the darkness, but she could not quite make him out. Then, she climbed away, up to the head of the bed. She settled down on one of the pillows there.

He lay down next to her and pulled the blankets up over them both.

She crawled back into his arms.

He pulled her close, holding her tight. “I didn’t rescue you. Stop thinking that.”

“According to you, there is no rescue,” she muttered into his nightshirt.

He chuckled bitterly. His arms were thick and strong, and she liked being wrapped up in him.

She snuggled in close, finding little places in which his body seemed to curve in just the right ways for parts of her body to fit against his. Perfect. She sighed, shutting her eyes. “I can still tell you a story.”

He grunted.

“If you’re thinking thoughts like that, I mean,” she said. “About him, or about murder, or—”

“I’m not thinking about anything except you,” he said in a tight voice.

She hummed her satisfaction at this. She tried to get even closer to him, which was when she felt his erection. She recoiled from it at first. And then… for some unfathomable reason, she pressed into it, cuddling into it, letting out a little breathy sound.

He groaned.

Then, they were still and quiet for some time.

He spoke again, his voice insubstantial. “I won’t be able to control myself, you know.”

“It seems to me as though you’re doing just fine at that, actually,” she responded. “I can still tell you a story, if you like.”

He laughed, his shoulders shaking as he clutched her close. “What would the story be about?”

“Something abundantly unarousing, of course,” she said. “A fairy story about the North Wind?”

“The North Wind is a fairy?”

“Can you doubt it?” she said.

“And the South Wind?”

“The South Wind is a French witch,” she said.

He laughed again. “Stay, if you please. No stories, no servicing, nothing at all, but if you don’t mind, stay here, stay with me, just to sleep?”

“Oh, may I?” she said with a little sigh. “May I truly?”

He kissed her forehead.

She felt exceedingly drowsy, here in the warm circle of him, pressed into his girth, wrapped up in him the way she was. She yawned. She felt small and safe and quite good. It had been a long time since she’d felt good at all.

She slipped off to sleep without meaning to.