Page 36 of The Duke of Swords (The Highwaymen #4)

IT WAS VERY strange how quickly it went away, Rutchester thought.

It shouldn’t have been quick, he didn’t think. Not much in life was that way. Not much in life came down to a realization and then one’s behavior entirely changed.

Most behavior was habitual, a groove that had been worn over years of similar behavior. Getting out of the groove, it usually didn’t happen instantly.

But he only had one outburst, one, after the conversation with her.

And she flinched when he smashed his fist into the wall and she looked so very disappointed, as if she had sort of known, deep down, that there was no hope for him, and it reached inside him and…

Well, it was strange.

Usually, when he’d see that on someone else’s face, he’d fall into this bottomless well of self-recrimination where he would flagellate himself over and over again, telling himself how awful he was, how wretched, how much different than everyone else, how impossible it would ever be for him to ever achieve any kind of happiness. He didn’t deserve happening, after all.

And this didn’t happen that time.

He thought, I don’t want to do that to Rae.

And then he thought, Well, I think I’m going to stop. I’m never going to do this again.

And then… he didn’t.

And it wasn’t that he didn’t get angry, because he did, all the time. And when he got angry, he had a different kind of reaction to it, a kind of grudging permissiveness. Oh, yes, here you are, my anger, thank you ever so. I suppose I must be angry for now, mustn’t I?

He would grouse in the anger. He didn’t yell, but he would name it and speak about it, telling whoever happened to be nearby how angry he was at whatever it was that had triggered the anger—the rain, the food, the snow, the carriage not being on time, the wine not being to his taste.

The funny thing about this was that the anger passed through him much more quickly than it ever used to.

It used to linger for hours on his walks, which—he had to admit—had mostly been about his abusing himself and feeling guilty for being angry.

Letting the anger happen meant it was brief, a bright flash that came and passed quickly.

And then something truly strange started happening.

He actually got angry less.

It was as if he was developing some sort of resilience to the trials and troubles of life.

“No,” his wife would say, “you’re realizing you’re safe now. Safe from the world, safe from yourself, safe .”

He wouldn’t go quite that far, he didn’t think.

The world wasn’t safe.

People weren’t safe.

But… he liked his wife. He trusted her, even if he didn’t trust anyone else in the wide world.

His wife?

Yes, she was safe.