Page 5 of The Duke of Swords (The Highwaymen #4)

RUTCHESTER STAYED AWAY for weeks.

He expected Fateux to come knocking, but Fateux didn’t.

However, two weeks after Rutchester had proclaimed himself done with everything, he received word that his investment in spices, something that he’d been drawn into because of Fateux, was to be ended.

The note was accompanied by a bank note of a paltry amount of money, which was supposedly all that his investment had gleaned. The letter accompanying it said the association was ended and could not be renewed.

Rutchester had lost a great deal of money, and he knew that the paltry sum wasn’t correct. He went to speak to the man he’d invested with, who told him that the rest of his earnings had been claimed by Fateux, who was entitled to a hefty finders fee for bringing Rutchester into the business at all.

“Didn’t read your contract well, did you?” said the man who shrugged at him. “He can invoke the finder’s fee at any time and he can terminate your ability to invest with us.”

Rutchester went home and took out his books.

He tallied up all the similar sorts of investments he’d made with Fateux, and he determined that if Fateux had this power over all of them, he would be beggared quite quickly.

While he was still reeling over this, he was denied entry to Rathby’s, a gentlemen’s club that he’d been a member of since before his association with Fateux. When he asked why, no ready answer was given, but he could easily assume that it was Fateux’s doing.

Out of curiosity, he inquired about becoming a member at three other gentleman’s clubs, and he was barred from all three.

He was getting an idea of what would become of him if he continued to be “done” with Fateux, but he didn’t much like being forced into anything. Some stubborn part of him did not wish to cave.

However, he wondered why he was even making a stand.

What was it about?

Something about that poor girl had rubbed him the wrong way, it was true, but it wasn’t as if anything had changed in that girl’s situation with his cutting himself off from Fateux.

The girl was still there, with Fateux, likely being used and abused.

All he’d done was make it so he didn’t have to look at it.

So, in the end, he was being punished and nothing had changed. He had done nothing except make his life harder.

Rutchester knew that men like Fateux were always going to exist. There was nothing one could really do about them. He’d killed his own father, but it hadn’t made the world a better place, not really. Someone else was always waiting to take some bad man’s place.

He stewed over it for another week anyway.

Then, eventually, he went back.

Fateux acted as if nothing was wrong, and that there had been no absence, pumping his hand rapidly and saying it was good to see him again.

Within days, his investments were restored and so was his membership at Rathby’s.

They didn’t speak about the girl, but Rutchester saw her once or twice. She was less gaunt than she had been, her face filled out, prettier now that she looked less skeletal. He had a strange reaction to the look of her, a reaction that frightened him.

It lurched all through him, like the burning of some incandescent flame that started somewhere in the midst of his being and singed through him everywhere.

He had an erection, too, but that was the least of it. The sensation overwhelmed him, and he’d never been that way with a woman, never felt it so intensely.

It wasn’t as if he’d never wanted a woman, he supposed. Truthfully, when he started to feel that feeling, he tended to shy away from it as best he could.

This, however, this was like one of his rages, something that overtook him, undeniable.

However, the girl flitted away upon the sight of either him or Fateux, disappearing from sight at once, and so—no matter what he felt—nothing came of it, because he had enough presence of mind not to pursue her.

Then, one day, Fateux said that he would like him to accompany him on a journey to Bath.

There was some man there who owed Fateux money and who was not making good on his debts.

“I wish to show him Miss Smith, show him what happens to men who do not pay me what I am owed,” said Fateux.

“I’d like you there, too. You’re threatening, just standing around with a hand on your sword. ”

Rutchester felt emotion surging in him, the kind that threatened a fiery explosion. He clenched his hands into fists and said nothing.

“I see you don’t wish to come along,” said Fateux. “May I ask why not?”

Rutchester tried to find the capacity for speech. He remembered a conversation he’d once had with Arthford, a conversation about excusing oneself to go for a walk when one was feeling as if one was about to rage. But he could not think and he could not speak.

“Oliver?” said Fateux. “Why not?”

Rutchester pushed past him. They were in Fateux’s sitting room, and Rutchester made it out of the room and into the hallway before he was overtaken by the surge within him and before he knocked over a bust on the platform in the hallway.

It cracked and broke in half.

Damnation.

Rutchester felt everything drain out of him the way it often did once he’d broken something.

Now, he was nothing but shame. He had the urge to begin hurting himself, turning his fists on his own body.

But this was worse than breaking other things, he had discovered.

People were more horrified by his committing violence to himself than anything else.

So, he swept out of the house.

Finally outside, he stalked through the gardens outside Fateux’s house for nearly ten minutes before Fateux caught up with him.

“You never accept my help,” said Fateux, falling into step with him.

“You don’t actually give help,” said Rutchester.

“You’re repressed,” said Fateux. “Anyone can see that. You hold yourself in too tightly, and then it all must come out. If you let it all out, a little bit at a time, here and there—”

“No, it’s not a little bit,” said Rutchester. “It’s never a little bit. It’s always just a roar of raging flame. It’s either hold it in check or raze everything to the ground. I try to tell you this—”

“And you will never even attempt it my way,” said Fateux.

Rutchester sighed heavily.

It was quiet as they walked.

Rutchester’s gait began to flag. He walked more slowly. “I’m sorry about the bust.”

“Yes, I’ll add it to the tally of things you’ve broken that you must pay for,” said Fateux with a little laugh.

“You know, when I took you on, people told me I was mad. They said you were dangerous and unpredictable and that I would never be able to work with something as volatile as you at all. And yet, look at what we do together. Look at how well things have gone for the past two years.”

Rutchester stopped walking and surveyed the man.

It was true that there were periods of calm when he was with Fateux.

He had never questioned why, but perhaps it was because Fateux gave him an outlet for his rages.

He was allowed, encouraged even, to loose his venom on Fateux’s debtors from time to time.

Was Fateux right? Was he a boiling kettle that just needed a bit of steam released from time to time?

Fateux had stopped walking too. He tilted his head to one side. “What’s that look on your face, Oliver?”

“I don’t wish to go with you with Miss Smith, because I…”

“You want her, yes, I know,” said Fateux with a little laugh. “I am fully done with her, actually. I cede her to you.”

“No,” said Rutchester. “No, I can’t—”

“Rutchester, you’re very strange about women. You have no qualms about maiming and killing men. You do it all the time. Why are you worried about doing something to women that they like?”

“Oh, she likes what you do to her?” His voice lilted ironically.

“Well, Miss Smith, as I have said before, is frigid.” Fateux sighed. “But, yes, women do enjoy it, if they aren’t her. I’d recommend someone else, really, but I see the way you look at her.”

“It’s different,” Rutchester breathed.

“It’s a release,” said Fateux. “The fact you deny yourself it does you no favors. Why, how do you know that if you didn’t indulge with a woman, that you wouldn’t have entirely more control of yourself?”

Rutchester felt off-balance, wondering if it were true. “I wouldn’t trust myself with a woman. What if I… I lose control, you see, and women are so fragile.”

“I’ll stay with you,” said Fateux. “I’ll pull you back if you lose yourself.”

Rutchester eyed him. When had Fateux ever pulled him back? When had anyone pulled him back? He shook his head. “No, no, you won’t be able to do that. But I don’t think it will matter, anyway, because if I’m too long in her presence, I won’t be able to stop myself.”

Fateux laughed at the idea of this, delighted. “Truly? But why? What is it about her?”

“I don’t know,” growled Rutchester.

“I think we must simply try it,” said Fateux. “I shall observe, and—”

“No,” said Rutchester, shaking his head. “Definitely not.”

“I want you to come along, though,” said Fateux.

“I cannot be near that woman.” Rutchester turned around and began walking toward the house, trying to outrun Fateux, outrun the idea of it, outrun everything.

“But I need you,” said Fateux, hurrying to catch up with him. “You are my enforcer, and I shan’t go to Bath without you.”

“No,” he said.

“I require it of you,” sang Fateux. “You cannot refuse me. You have, just recently, attempted to refuse me, and you saw how it all went.”

Yes, but…

Damnation.

He walked faster.

There was no more discussion of it, but within three days, he found himself in a carriage with Fateux and Miss Smith, heading for Bath.

Whenever he looked at her, he felt his body turn molten, like he was being thrust into a forge.