Page 23 of The Duke of Swords (The Highwaymen #4)

ON THE NIGHT of the ball, after breaking the potted plant and going on a long walk in the night, Rutchester returned to the Nothshire town house to find that the Dunroses had left. The potted plant had been cleaned up, leaving its twin standing lone and strange on the other side of the staircase.

Rutchester had been planning to go to see Arthford, because he did not think he should be alone, but now it was suddenly abundantly clear to him that he should not be around anyone. All he did was break things.

He went to the stables, which were empty of servants, because it was late.

He saddled and bridled a horse himself and galloped off. He rode straight to Andiley.

There, he spent his days engaged in hunting. He had a few hounds, and he took them out each day, looking for things to kill.

After a month of this, the kitchen staff informed him that they could not do anything with all this meat. There was too much of it for them to keep up even at preserving it by smoking or drying it and that most of it was simply going to go to waste if he kept bringing home dead things.

That night, he got very drunk.

He went down to a room in the house, which was the room where it had always happened, the room his father had kept.

It was a room which had a Roman-style bath and a number of classical-style sculptures sitting out—busts of the gods, paintings of Minerva on horseback with her breast cut off so that she could shoot a bow, a script of the Mars Pater written out in Latin in flowing calligraphy mounted on the far wall.

He mouthed some of the words. Neque satisfactum est.

But was Mars ever satisfied? Ever?

He stood in the midst of the room, looking at the raised bed where he had been forced to do all manner of awful things and he wondered why he’d never done anything about this damnable room.

Grimly, he began to knock things over.

The stupid busts wouldn’t break.

He lifted them up over his head, smashed them on the marble floors again and again until the noses and the ears broke off, but mostly, they remained intact, which enraged him further.

He ripped the paintings from the wall and piled them up in one corner.

Then, he hauled them all outside and doused them in whisky. He lit them and watched the blaze, laughing like a wild man, screaming up at the stars above.

When it was done, nothing felt even the slightest bit different.

Well, usually, after he broke things he felt guilty.

He didn’t feel any guilt.

That was something, he supposed.

He scattered the ashes of the paintings. He took one last look into the room and then he shut the door on it.

Here was the way of it, then. It was always going to have happened. It was never going to have not happened. He was never going to escape it. No matter what he broke or burned or destroyed, he could not burn that part out of his own chest.

He went to bed in a drunken sulk and he slept late.

When he woke in the morning, his head hurt.

But he realized that he knew where she must have gone, and he had sort of always known that, and he simply hadn’t thought about it.

He went through the pile of letters that built up in the weeks since he’d been here. Nothshire had written to him thrice. Dunrose twice. There were nearly five letters from Arthford.

He read them all.

Everyone was worried, but too terrified to come and look in on him.

Typical.

He wrote out letters to all of them that he was fine. Not to worry. He left them for the post to pick up.

And then he set off to her father’s keep, where he’d first laid eyes on her. It was her home, just as this was his home. And no matter what sort of nightmarish place home was, it was home, after all. In the end, one returned to that nightmare, just because it was all one knew.

Nothshire had said that they had all been through terrible things, or something like that, anyway.

Nightmares were an inevitability.

One could only escape them by never sleeping again, which—of course—was impossible. Perhaps all one could hope for was someone to be there during a nightmare. She didn’t have anyone else.

He couldn’t leave her there, in that place.

When he arrived, the place looked better. The grounds weren’t as overgrown as they had been, perhaps. He could not quite put his finger on it, but it seemed less of a nightmarish place.

He tied off his horse and ascended the steps to the front door.

The man who answered was her father, but he looked better too. His hair was combed, there was color in his cheeks, and his skin wasn’t hanging off his bones. He looked a full ten years younger.

“You,” said her father. “What are you doing here?”

“Where is she?” said Rutchester.

Her father lifted his lip away from his front teeth, a look of disgust. “You will get back on your horse and ride off from this place and never darken my door again.”

“She is here,” said Rutchester. “I am here to see her.”

“ Never, ” said her father.

Rutchester hadn’t been expecting this. He scrutinized the man. “It’s a bit late for this, Sir Luke. The time for this was when Fateux came before. Then, you could have prevented all manner of badness befalling her. Now—”

“Yes, I was wrong not to defend her,” said her father. “But I shall not make the same mistake twice.” He reached out with one hand and shoved Rutchester backward, right in the middle of his chest.

Rutchester was so startled that he staggered backward, out of the doorway.

Sir Luke slammed the door in his face.

Rutchester righted himself and ran a hand through his hair. He regarded the shut door for several moments, flummoxed. Should he attempt to gain entry again? He turned to look at his horse, tied up, and considered simply leaving. Why was he here?

Like so many things in his life, he hadn’t really thought it through. He’d simply acted. Now, he began to think that his actions had been foolish and ill-advised.

Sighing, he turned and descended the steps. Squaring his shoulders, he started for his horse.

And then, there she was, coming across the grounds from behind the keep.

Her hair was in a loose braid, strands of it falling out around her face and she was wearing a threadbare morning dress, stained and patched here and there.

She had a bucket in one hand but when they made eye contact, she dropped it.

Her expression was not one of someone pleased to see him. In fact, she looked rather agonized.

But she gathered up her skirts and ran towards him, ran directly to him.

And he held out his arms.

She ran into them.

He caught her behind her head, tangling his hand in her braid, and he kissed her.

She let out a noise like a sob, into his mouth, and she clutched at him, her own hands grasping at handfuls of his clothing—the lapels of his jacket, then the fabric at his shoulders, then the tails of his jacket—and letting go only to grasp somewhere else.

She tasted like the autumn wind, like a tangle of falling leaves in a gust of a whirlwind.

He banded an arm around her waist and held her against him and some part of him knew he was never letting go of her, never again.

RAE STRUGGLED, PUSHING at Rutchester’s chest. “Let me free, let me free,” she panted.

He did, immediately. He was out of breath, too. He ran a hand through his hair and shook himself.

She tried to smooth her braid, but it had come almost entirely untangled.

She breathed as steadily as she could and began to busy herself by taking out the ribbon at the end of the braid and tightly rebraiding it.

She did this and spoke, her voice far too high-pitched. “You have changed your mind then?”

“Changed my mind?” he echoed, and his voice wasn’t strong.

“You wish to keep me after all?”

“Oh,” he said, licking his lips. “Yes, I think I do.”

“All right,” she said, with a nod. “It is being kept here or being kept elsewhere, and some man will possess me one way or the other. You are… well… I choose you.”

“I didn’t come to take possession of you,” he said. “I don’t wish to do that to anyone.”

She shrugged. “It’s the way of the world.

” She finished her braid and then tossed it behind her.

“I think my father will be pleased, though he may balk at the idea of my being some man’s mistress.

Even so, you are a duke, and that is something.

And even if you don’t wish to call me a mistress, if we could at least tell my father that I shall have some—”

“I’ll marry you, obviously,” he said.

This stunned her. She couldn’t find any words.

Her lips parted and she looked up into his eyes.

Rutchester looked extremely uncomfortable, but there was that hungry look in his eyes, the one he got when he looked at her, and she felt that like the warmth of a fire.

A smile broke out over her features. “Well, all right, then.”

“That easily?” he breathed. “What if I’d asked you before?”

“You haven’t asked me this time.” She was laughing. It was all so absurd, wasn’t it, that he could sail in like this and make the world tilt entirely sideways and that she would not even attempt to set the world back to rights, that she would simply tilt sideways with it, everything going askew?

“Will you marry me, Miss Smith? Will you be my duchess?”

“Yes,” she said, smile widening. “Yes, I shall.” She reached out and took his hand. “My father will definitely be pleased. I suppose you should speak to him, actually. Come.” She tugged on him, tugged him in the direction of the keep.

“Well, about that. I did knock at the door first. I spoke to him already, and he told me to go away and never come back.”

“Did he?” She let out a disbelieving laugh. “Well, once he knows there is a proposal, it will be different. Come.” She tugged again.

Rutchester let her lead him back to the door.

She opened it and pulled him in after her. “Papa?” she called. “I’m going to be a duchess.”

Her father appeared, his expression stony. “Duchess, is it?” He sneered at Rutchester. “No.”

“No?” she said, letting out another disbelieving laugh. “That’s mad, and—”