Page 31 of The Duke of Swords (The Highwaymen #4)

RAE DIDN’T WAIT for him to come back.

She gathered herself up and asked for a carriage. And when the servants looked at her oddly when she said, “Might I have the carriage made ready?” she said instead, “I need the carriage made ready now .” Pause. “If you please.”

She took the carriage to the Dunrose house in London. She was not sure if they would be at home, so she told the carriage to wait and watch, for she might be climbing right back inside.

But not only were the Dunroses at home, Hyacinth had company in the form of Patience. The two duchesses were overjoyed to see her and very stunned to hear the news that she was now married to Rutchester.

“Well, he didn’t tell anyone!” said Hyacinth.

“I didn’t even know he was back from Andiley,” said Patience.

Rae got distracted explaining everything that had happened—her father and the attempt on Rutchester’s life. Seraphine and the body of Fateux. The special license.

And the duchesses listened and then they started asking her why she had left before, and why she hadn’t sent any letters to even tell anyone how it was she was doing.

“We were ever so worried, you know,” said Hyacinth. “We had people looking all over for you, tracing as many post coaches out of London as we could.”

“Finally, the Duke of Arthford located you at your father’s house,” said Patience. “Which I suppose is where we should have looked for you in the first place.”

“But you didn’t need to go,” said Hyacinth. “I would have found a way to handle Seraphine.”

“We do handle things,” said Patience.

“We handle things rather well, if I do say so myself,” said Hyacinth.

“You could have stayed,” said Patience.

“I probably should have,” said Rae, sighing heavily. “I don’t know what I’ve done, really. He’s… he’s… he’s never going to stop, I don’t think. And someday, he’s going to hurt me. It’ll be as my father says, an accident, and Rutchester won’t mean it, but I’ll still be just as hurt in the end.”

The duchesses both got twin expressions of consternation on their face, and neither one of them contradicted her.

Rae hugged herself. “Why did I marry him?” It now seemed the stupidest thing she could have possibly done.

“We shan’t let him hurt you,” said Hyacinth in a very serious voice.

“Our husbands would prevent it as well,” said Patience. “If anyone can stop him, it’s the other dukes. They are all quite close.”

“Nothing stops him,” said Rae. And of course, that was why she’d married him, wasn’t it?

“That’s what he said to me just now. He said that he can’t stop and that he would if he could, and I believe him.

He is out of control. It is the thing I like most about him and the thing I hate most about him, and I don’t know what to do about it. ”

“Why do you like it about him?” said Hyacinth, quite confused.

“Because it’s affecting,” said Rae. “He gets… with me… he wants me so badly that he is out of control, and that part of it is so very, very….”

Both of the duchesses nodded silently, eyes wide, and they understood.

Then, there was nothing else to say.

She shouldn’t have come here. There was nothing to be done.

It was just like before when she’d gone back to her father. She was on her own, no matter what. She had but to rely on herself.

“W-well, has he ever done anything violent to you?” said Patience.

“No,” said Rae. “Only around me. However, I feel it’s only a matter of time until that changes. He did grab me today by the front of my dress and then he pushed me into the wall. It didn’t hurt but…”

“Worrisome,” said Patience.

“Why don’t you simply stay here?” said Hyacinth. “If you don’t feel safe with Rutchester—”

“No, it’s not that bad,” said Rae. “I’m not frightened of him.”

Both duchesses raised their eyebrows in disbelief.

“Perhaps I ought to be,” said Rae. “But I’m not.”

“Well, if you ever need to stay somewhere, you’ll come here,” said Hyacinth.

Rae nodded. “Thank you, I would appreciate that.” Maybe she wasn’t all on her own, after all.

She licked her lips. “I shouldn’t have run off without speaking to you when you were trying to help me before.

Really, after everything you did for me, all the expense and the effort that went into making me into a wealthy widow, I owed you more than disappearing like that. I’m sorry.”

“No need for apologies,” said Hyacinth. “Maybe we pushed you into it. We were having ever so much fun making you over into someone else.”

Patience laughed. “We were, it’s true.”

“One thing that is difficult to believe about being wealthy and having everything one needs,” said Hyacinth. “It’s boring.”

Rae scoffed. “Oh, yes, how awful.”

“It’s not awful,” said Patience. “We’d not trade it for real suffering, like the suffering we came from.”

“No, not at all,” said Hyacinth. “But we are still dreadfully and awfully bored much of the time. And helping you, it was a wonderful and time-consuming project that we may have indulged in as much for ourselves as for you, I’m afraid.”

“It wasn’t what you wanted in the end,” said Patience, “or you wouldn’t have run.”

“Well, I don’t know what I want,” muttered Rae.

“I don’t know if anyone really does,” said Patience.

“I once spent a long time thinking the thing that I wanted more than anything on earth was a child. And now I have one and another on the way, and I shall tell you something. That was not the thing that I wanted. I don’t regret my children.

I love them beyond all reason, of course, but if I thought I would be content all the time after they came or that the ache within me would somehow be settled, that I would be finished in some way once they were here?

No, not at all. They only make it harder, really, to satisfy that element of myself.

I love my children, you understand? I love my husband.

I love being a duchess. I love having the freedom to right wrongs for other women.

I love all of it, but it is not enough.”

“No?” said Rae, eyeing her.

“I don’t think that can even be achieved, enough ,” said Patience.

“What?” said Hyacinth. “That’s a very depressing thing to say.”

“I think we always want more. If a person stops wanting, it’s sort of like giving up.

It’s like… death. I’m not ready to give up yet.

There is more that I want. Always more. There will never be enough.

” Patience shook herself. “Oh, here I am going on about this, and we have a very real problem to solve, between you and Rutchester.”

“No, wait,” said Rae. “Wanting, yes, it’s true. We have to keep wanting. But what if you want the wrong things?”

“What do you mean?” said Patience.

“What if you want destructive things, things that hurt other people but that gratify you?”

“This is you or Rutchester?” said Patience.

Rae lowered her face, smiling. “Well, I suppose that was obvious.” She sighed, thinking it over. “Perhaps both of us. Because I want him, you know, and I think he’s bad for me. Why would I want someone who I could not trust?”

“You know, I had a thought about trust once,” said Patience. “That it isn’t true trust if you are certain nothing bad will happen, that trust must only happen when there is uncertainty, when there is risk.”

“Well, it would be foolish to risk things with my husband,” said Rae. “But I suppose… I’ve already done the foolish thing and married him, haven’t I?”

RUTCHESTER FINISHED HIS walk some hours later and returned to his house. As he was walking up the sidewalk, he saw his carriage alight, and his wife got out of the carriage. She turned and saw him coming towards her, and she halted there, waiting.

“Listen,” she said, “we’re in this now, so it doesn’t matter. It’s risk, but I don’t care. I’m willing to take risk.”

“Where were you?” he said, and his voice was gruffer than he meant it to be.

“I went to see the duchesses,” she said, walking toward the door. “Are you going to be like that, then? Tell me where to go and what to do and who to do it with and—”

“No,” he said sulkily. “No, I was going to say that you should go away, or that I should. I have to sort out the deed to the house that I am giving to you and the like, and then, we should probably live separately.”

She stopped and turned to look at him. “No, I don’t like that.”

He shrugged. “Well, I don’t either, but I won’t have what happened earlier happen again. I pushed you into the wall. It’s unacceptable.”

“I agree,” she said. “So, don’t do it again.”

“Can’t guaranteed that,” he said darkly.

She glared at him.

“You wish me to lie to you, Your Grace?” he said. “I shall tell you exactly what you want to hear and then go into a rage and accidentally scar you for life, and I can’t have that happen. That shall not happen, do you hear me? We shall live separately.” He turned and marched into the house.

She came after him, making little furious noises.

“No, this is exactly like the way it was with my father, and I came to you to escape that. You do not tell me what to do, and I don’t care if you are my husband or a duke or if you do, in fact, possess me.

If you try to control me, you will see just how I take to it. ”

He threw open the door. “This is for your own good.”

“I’d rather have choice than protection,” she said, coming in behind him and slamming the door after them both. She stared him down, her expression fierce.

Something stirred inside his trousers at the sight of her, and that made him feel vaguely horrified. Only vaguely because the predominant feeling he had was arousal and it seemed to be drowning everything else out.

She gave him her back and stalked further into the house.

“Where are you going?” he called and went after her.

She started up the stairs to the upper levels of the house. “If you try to prevent me from living with you, I shall simply come to wherever you are and be there.”