Page 30 of The Duke of Swords (The Highwaymen #4)

RUTCHESTER SORTED THROUGH his letters over tea and a hard-boiled egg.

He was in the breakfast parlor, thinking of how many letters he was going to have to compose to tell everyone that he was married.

At least three for the other dukes, and possibly several others to make sure the announcement was made.

It should probably go in one of the papers, he thought.

That sort of thing was always done. On the other hand, maybe it was best to keep it quiet and not trumpet the news far and wide.

They didn’t really wish to bring the wrath of her father down upon them.

Later, he would think that he should not have even thought of her father, that he must have summoned the man from the depths of hell itself.

For, just then, a servant entered the breakfast parlor and said that a man was very insistent upon gaining entry to the house, even at this early hour.

Rutchester went out to the front door, where Sir Luke was standing just inside the doorway, looking ferociously put out.

“Where is she?” he said to Rutchester. “Release my daughter into my custody immediately, or I shall be forced to take drastic measures.”

“I married her already,” said Rutchester, glaring at the man. “Go away.”

“You can’t have married her already,” said Sir Luke.

“Except that I have,” said Rutchester.

“It’s been days .”

“I got a special license,” said Rutchester.

Sir Luke blinked at him.

Rutchester eyed him. “You sent thirty men to kill me.”

“You deserve to die,” said Sir Luke.

“Perhaps,” said Rutchester. “But I’ve found it’s a world in which people very rarely get what they deserve. Are you going to keep trying to kill me?”

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t.”

“I’m married to your daughter.”

“Yes, but that’s—”

“My wife doesn’t want you dead. I’m well within my rights to defend myself against you, since you are so insistent on ending me. But I shan’t. I present to you your miserable life, you understand me? Now. Go. Away.”

Sir Luke’s gaze left Rutchester to look beyond him.

Rutchester turned to see Rae coming into the foyer. Well, she’d just heard that. Would she be angry?

She came up to stand next to him and surveyed her father. “Papa, you’re here. I thought I wasn’t your daughter anymore, just a demoness.”

“He says you’re married,” said her father. “Is that true, or is he just keeping you here brazenly under his roof?”

“He did marry me,” she said.

Her father shook his head. “Well, I hope he doesn’t murder you, that’s all. I won’t be able to bear it. You’ve married him just to make me angry, just to get some revenge on me for whatever you perceive as your grievances, but I hope it’s worth it.”

“That’s not why I married him,” she said.

“Why, then?” said her father, raising his eyebrows.

She looked up at Rutchester, who set a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

“Why don’t you go, Sir Luke?” said Rutchester.

“You are a willful, stupid girl,” said her father. “You also seem to have no idea how to present yourself as a proper or demure young woman. Since you came back, you did all manner of things like looking into my finances—such a mannish thing to do. No proper woman would ever do such a thing.”

“You think to insult me for saving you now?” said Rae, her voice going higher pitched. “Oh, how quickly it all changes. You were grateful for a time, but now you change your tune.”

“I don’t think my wife wishes to talk to you anymore,” said Rutchester to Sir Luke.

“Yes, Rae, if you please,” said Sir Luke. “Quit the room, so that I may speak to him.”

“No,” said Rae. “What do you wish to say that I cannot hear?”

“Leave my house,” said Rutchester to Sir Luke.

“See here, simply because you’re a duke, it doesn’t mean you can do whatever it is you please,” said Sir Luke. “You admitted to me that you murdered Fateux. I shall tell the authorities about that—”

“I don’t think anyone’s interested,” Rutchester countered. “His wife the marchioness has collected his body, and it looks as if he met with some accident.”

“You’re just like him,” said Sir Luke. “You, Fateux, and all your ilk, you do as you please and you don’t face any consequences—”

“It seems to me, Sir Luke, that you have been delivered from a number of unpleasant consequences yourself,” growled Rutchester.

“Your debts are forgiven, your daughter has helped you stop drowning yourself in drink, and she is respectably married though you allowed her to pay the price for your debts with her maidenhead. It seems to me that you might spend your time being grateful instead of—”

“How dare you?” interrupted her father.

“I am only saying—”

“Maybe my daughter has grown a prick between her thighs,” said her father. “Maybe that’s why you want her. I’ve heard things about you, Rutchester.”

Rutchester sputtered. What?

“Yes, heard that you were happy to serve Fateux in more than one way,” said Sir Luke, his face red, his voice high-pitched. “Maybe you killed him because you were jealous that he paid attention to my daughter.”

Rutchester let go of Rae and stalked toward Sir Luke. “Out,” he said.

“Did you serve Fateux on your knees, you unnatural dog?” said Sir Luke, not moving a muscle.

Rutchester snatched a knife out of his belt—not a large one, something small that would have been suitable for tasks like cutting apples. He sliced up Sir Luke’s cravat and cut off all the buttons on his jacket and then his waistcoat beneath.

Sir Luke cried out, backing up now.

Rutchester pursued him to the front door of the house where he pushed Sir Luke out, shut the door in his face, buried the knife in the door blade first, and then stalked away down the hall, knocking paintings off the wall and kicking over an umbrella stand in his wake.

He turned sharply into the sitting room where he began to tear down every single curtain in the room, until—

“Stop.”

He turned to look at her in the doorway.

“You don’t have to rip everything down!” she said. “You don’t have to be so angry. He did that to you on purpose. He only wanted to make you do this.”

He stalked towards her, Arthford’s voice screaming in his head. Goforawalkgoforawalkgofora—

He snatched at the front of her dress, pulling her close. “Go on then,” he rasped. “Sort me out.”

“Let go of me,” she said, nostrils flaring.

He hesitated and then did it, but he pushed her into the wall. “I can’t stop, you know. Don’t you think I would if I could?” He knocked over a servants’ bucket of ash on the way out of the back door.

Then he did go for a walk.

A long one.