Page 35 of The Duke of Swords (The Highwaymen #4)

THE FIRST THING Rae did was to go to the Duchess of Dunrose, who sent word to everyone else about the situation.

Nothshire went about, making inquiries at the docks.

Dunrose went to places in town where a man like Rutchester might get a carriage or horses or the like.

Rae herself asked the servants in her own house. He had not told any of them where he was going, but from the amount of things he packed, she gleaned that he wished to go far away, somewhere it might be cold, and that he had little intention of returning.

They had a few leads in various places. It was possible someone matching Rutchester’s description had boarded a ship to America, but it was also possible he’d taken a carriage to the north of the country, and that perhaps he was going to settle somewhere in the tip-top of Scotland.

There was also an indication that someone matching his description might have gone to the continent.

They could not personally pursue all of these leads, so they sent out letters and paid people to look into things for them.

It was soon confirmed.

New York City.

Then came the part where they all traveled to Arthford’s estate, Bluebelle Grange, to talk to the other three dukes and their wives and to argue about what could be done about Rutchester.

Rae wanted to go.

The dukes didn’t think she should.

A woman alone on a ship to the Americas? No, they said.

On the other hand, neither Nothshire nor Arthford wanted to go along. Both of them had young children at home. Furthermore, the Duchess of Nothshire was going to give birth very soon and could not be left alone.

So, that left Dunrose, who thought the idea of spending thirty days on a smelly ship in a tiny cabin and without any of the amenities or comforts of home was horrifying.

Eventually, Rae told them she would take a servant, one who she could pay to fight off any unwanted attention and to keep her money safe.

They all grumbled over this, mostly at Dunrose, but he rightly pointed out that a muscled servant would be better at protecting her than he could ever be, anyway.

Then, she set off on her own for the long journey across the ocean.

And all the way, she practiced what she would say to him. She practiced it and practiced it, and she practiced what he might say back and what she would say in return. She went to sleep every night going through the discussion this way and that.

And then, when she got to his house in New York, where it was frightfully cold , she stood there inside his sitting room, and everything she had thought to say fled from her head.

“You shouldn’t have come,” he said, but he was kissing her, kissing her mouth and her jaw and her chin and holding her tightly in his arms.

This was partly why she couldn’t think, admittedly, because he was touching her. She wished to touch him, too, but she was angry with him, and she needed to tell him about that, talk to him about—

“You should not have taken a journey like that in your condition,” he said into her ear.

She pushed him away. “I’m not with child!”

He took a step back. He ran a hand through his hair. “You’re not?”

She shook her head.

He furrowed his brow. “Oh.”

It was quiet.

She was trying to remember the speech she had worked up. What was the first thing that she wanted to say?

He spoke again, eventually. “Well, that doesn’t matter, because had I not left, it would have simply happened anyway, and this is better. I have to be away from you.”

“No,” she said.

“No?” He spread his hands. “I must tell you, Rae, I’ve tried to talk it out, tried to get to the root of it, as you say, and I have to say that it isn’t working.

I feel it’s making it all worse in some way.

I feel as if I had some way to sort of cope with the reality of it before, and the more I look at it, the more I realize I never should have coped, that it’s not something one can cope with. ”

“But that’s it, you see.” She went to him. “This is what I was going to say to you. Obviously, you do it to protect yourself.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean, you are frightening, are you not? Everyone is afraid of you. And you do that to protect yourself.”

He eyed her, thinking that through.

“Don’t you see?” She took both of his hands in hers.

“You’re afraid of ever loving anyone. You were supposed to be able to love your father and he betrayed you, so now you think everyone else will betray you, and I shan’t, you know, I shan’t.

I promise I shan’t. You don’t have to make me frightened of you. ”

He took his hands out of hers. “That would make sense, I agree.”

“But?” She could hear the word in there.

“It’s only it doesn’t feel like that. It’s not that I don’t trust you, Rae. I don’t think you’d hurt me on purpose. I don’t lash out to protect myself. It’s not like that at all. I don’t think when I lash out. It just happens. This is why I can’t stop it. It just happens .”

She bit down on her bottom lip.

“That last argument we had, you know, when you—”

“You mean the only argument we had. You were never angry at me except that one time, and—”

“Yes, all right. But I was going to end up getting angry at you more often, and we both know it,” he said. “Anyway, I was only bringing it up because you threw my glass at me, do you remember?”

She nodded.

“It happened to you, too,” he said. “It happens to other people when they get angry, I know it does. They get angry and they don’t think, they simply act.”

“Well, because you had already tossed my plate across the room and—”

“It’s not an accusation, Rae,” he said. “I don’t know why I go into it more often than everyone else, or why I get so angry about trifles, but I do. And there’s nothing in that moment that could have stopped you from throwing that glass at me.”

“Oh, that’s not true!”

He laughed. “Rae, I know you. I know that you don’t think that throwing a full glass at someone is appropriate behavior.”

“No, I suppose not,” she said. “If I’d had a moment to think, I might have thought better of it.” She thought of finding his letter, of wishing to tear it up and of crumpling it instead and hurling it at the wall. Anger was like that.

“A moment to think,” he murmured. “That’s what Arthford’s advice tried to give me. ‘Go for a walk,’ he told me, and if I could ever have that moment to think, if I could ever interrupt it, but I never can .”

She cupped his face. “Oh, Oliver, my own Oliver. You’re still coming back with me, you know.

I have not traveled weeks and weeks across the ocean to fetch you only to go back empty-handed.

I told you, did I not, that if you tried to escape me, I would simply chase you until you tired of running away? ”

He shut his eyes, looking weary as he leaned into her open palm. “Rae, Rae, Rae, you are the stubbornest woman on earth. I can’t come back with you.”

She wrapped her arms around his waist and lay her head on his chest.

“It’s the wrong thing,” he said. “It’s against every instinct you should have, you know, to come for me. I am not good for you.”

“Well,” she said, “that seems to have been the way all along, though. I should have left that inn after you ravished me, after you and Fateux went off. I tried. I imagined it, but I was frozen, it seemed, stuck in that place, unable to move.” She hugged him tighter.

“I was like a rabbit, when it knows it’s been seen, and it goes entirely still, as if it hopes it will be invisible that way. ”

“You think rabbits do that on purpose?” he said. “Or do you think they can’t help it?”

She pushed away from him, blinking hard. “Oh,” she said.

“What?” he said.

“I am right,” she said, “about why you lash out, about why you do it, but you’re not doing it on purpose.”

“I’m confused,” he said.

“Why do you think we get angry in the first place?” she said, starting to pace as she thought it through.

“Erm…” He shook his head. “I don’t know. We can’t help being angry.”

“No, and none of us like it. It’s almost never the right way to handle a situation with another person. If we could be calm and collected, it would be better, in every argument, don’t you agree?”

He thought about it and then nodded. “Maybe not every argument, though.”

“No, if someone is trying to hurt us, if someone is coming at us with his fist, and we are angry, then we strike back,” she said.

He swallowed hard.

“Your body is primed to strike back, Oliver,” she said. “At everything. At every little thing. Because your body is primed to think that danger is everywhere, even in places that are supposed to be safe. Because you grew up in a place where there was nowhere safe, so you are always on high alert.”

“But I never fought him,” he said softly. “My father? I never fought him.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, nodding. “That’s why he’s still alive.”

He let out a funny half-laugh. “True, yes.”

“Did it start after that, the violence?”

“After I killed him, you mean? Killed them? ” Rutchester sucked in a sharp breath, nodding. “I suppose, yes. Well, maybe it started before. Maybe killing them was a symptom of it, not the cause, but all of it… you’re not wrong.”

“I’m not,” she said. “You are protecting yourself, some subconscious part of you is protecting yourself. If no one ever gets close to you, Oliver, no one can ever hurt you.”

“But I don’t… I don’t mean to push everyone away.”

“You traveled across an ocean!”

“Yes, but…” He threw up his hands. “This is why it’s foolish, you see? Because I can’t control it.”

“Is it happening now?” she said.

He sucked in a breath. “It is. I should go for a walk. Perhaps if you could but notice—”

“No walk,” she said, reaching out and seizing his hand.

He jerked away from her touch.

She touched him again, but more gently this time. “Oliver, what if you were safe?”

“I’m not safe,” he said.

“But what if you were?” she said. “What if you didn’t need to hurt anyone, because you were safe.”

“In this situation, it’s me who’s making it not safe,” he said. “I am going to hurt you—”

“No,” she said. “Won’t let you.”

“How would you stop me?” His voice cracked.

“Like this,” she said, and she wrapped her arms around his arm, hugging his bicep to her chest. “You’re safe, and I love you, and I’m never going anywhere, and I don’t care what you do, I shan’t.”

“You cannot promise that,” he murmured, but he was softening, and they both could feel it.

He touched her face. He pulled her against him, wrapped both arms around her.

“I wouldn’t let you promise that. That’s not fair, Rae, to make you responsible for my safety.

I won’t depend on you in that way. If I hurt you, you must leave. ”

“I don’t know exactly, Oliver, but…” She was sorting through it, remembering the things she’d wanted to say, had practiced saying on the way over on the ship, and trying to align them with what she had just realized.

She tilted her head back to look up at him.

“I think… it is safe to feel a feeling, isn’t it? Your anger can’t hurt me.”

“Yes, it can.”

“No, only the results of the anger,” she said. “Only your lashing out in anger.”

“But when I’m angry, I can’t stop lashing out,” he said.

“You just did,” she said, grinning up at him.

“And besides, there must be other ways to feel angry, ways beyond striking out and ripping and destruction. You cannot control the anger, no, because we feel it as an instinct, to protect us from threat, and you will likely always feel it. You must feel it. You don’t have to do anything with the feeling, though. ”

“I do, though, as I’m saying, I feel as if it comes and takes control of me—”

“I just wonder if it’s different if you don’t feel ashamed of feeling it, though,” she said, flattening her hands on his chest.

“Of course I feel ashamed,” he said. “Other people don’t lash out when it rains. Something is wrong with me.”

“No,” she said. “Other people were not tortured as small boys. Your body is protecting itself exactly as it should. You grew up in hell. In hell, people lash out when it rains and it’s exactly the right thing.”

He hesitated. “But it doesn’t stop the rain.”

“Nothing you did to him stopped him either, not until the last time,” she said. “And then it did stop. So maybe this time, your body thinks, maybe this time it does stop the rain.”

“No,” he said.

“But you see why it’s doing it, though. You don’t have to be ashamed. It makes sense to your body. Don’t shame it for doing what it can for you. Don’t shame your anger for arriving to protect you.”

“Ah,” he said softly, pulling her closer, pressing his mouth to the crown of her head, “that is what I’ve been doing.

I was all alone, a sad small boy, and then I became an angry young man.

And the anger, it did keep me safe, but every time I felt it, I hated it, and I became angry at it.

So it was two angers—the anger at whatever threatened me and also the anger at my own self, which was only trying to protect me. ”

“Yes,” she said. “You can release the second anger, anyway, even if you can never stop being angry at the rain.”

“Or the snow,” he muttered. “You have no idea how much snow there is in America. It’s abominable. No wonder they’re always in such a mood, Americans. The whole country is simply awful .”

She chuckled. “Well, let’s go home, then, my love.”

“I suppose if I don’t come with you, you are simply going to chase me until I get tired of running.”

“You want me,” she said. “That is how I know I shall prevail.”

“I do want you,” he sighed. “Lord, I missed you, Rae. I missed you so very, very much.”