Chapter Six
CHAPTER SIX
ARTHFORD LEFT BEFORE sunrise, left the circle of Marjorie’s warm arms and the sweetness of the curves of her body, the curves that were becoming too familiar to him, too dear, too beloved.
There must be something very wrong with him, he thought.
He hadn’t thought that he’d fall so badly in love with a woman just from sticking his prick in her, but it seemed to be a pattern.
As he rode off in the darkness, leaving Marjorie behind, leaving the deed to her new estate, he considered what she’d said to him about whether it meant anything that he had found himself feeling so devoted to her.
She had asked if she was lovely or just… there.
He knew she was lovely.
At least…
Well, it was making him think about Seraphine.
Why was he in love with Seraphine?
He’d never really thought of it that way, as if he had any choice in the matter. He’d assumed he didn’t. He’d assumed his feelings for her were rare and special and that they’d come for him and that he had absolutely no choice over them. But then, he felt similarly attached to Marjorie, he had to admit.
He had to wonder if, erm, he did just fall in love easily.
And if that were the case, if he could really fall in love with anyone, well, then choosing Seraphine had to be the stupidest thing he’d done in his life.
The sun was struggling into the sky when he got back to Bluebelle Grange. He left his horse at the stable and saw a carriage was there. He recognized it as hers, Seraphine’s. He waited to feel guilty for finally having slept with a woman that wasn’t her.
It didn’t happen.
Well, he would have had no reason to feel guilty, that was the truth. Even while they were together, she had made it very plain he did not have to confine himself to her bed. She certainly did not confine herself to his bed. She always had a revolving door of lovers, and one of them was Champeraigne—probably she’d been with Champeraigne for over twenty years at this point—and he hated Champeraigne.
Even so, he went straight for her bedchamber.
What am I going to do when I get there? he asked himself. The idea of fucking her, coming straight from fucking someone else, it seemed horrifying, not the least bit exciting.
Well, she’d probably have been up drinking. She would have a headache, anyway.
Had she come back to make amends, though?
She always had in the past…
True, they’d never been apart this long, but maybe she’d been suffering just as he had.
It was only that the thought of taking her back made his stomach twist in a way it never had before.
By this time, he was to the door of her chamber. She had her own rooms in his estates, as if she was mistress of them, though she was not. This one was just down the hall from his own.
He stared at the closed door and then thought about not going in at all, simply going to his own room and ringing for a bath and ignoring her entirely.
It seemed the right course of action, a delay, to give him time to sort through however it was he was feeling about her and about Marjorie and about his own interactions with women in general. He probably would have done it, except he heard the rumble of some deep voice from within.
And then Seraphine, annoyed, her voice sleep-ravaged. “What are you still doing here? You said you were leaving.”
This annoyed him, that she would bring some other lover here, to his estate.
She had never done that before.
There were rules, perhaps unspoken rules, but rules, and one of them was that she did not force him to watch her parade about with other men. (Well, once, some time ago, when it had all been in its beginnings, she’d once engineered something between her and him and another man—a viscount called Cumberbottom—and he’d put an end to that by making the other man leery when he’d touched his prick.) Anyway, when she was with him, she was his, or that was the way the charade went.
He thrust the door open, his nostrils flaring.
And was treated to the sight of Dunrose—fucking Dunrose—entirely naked, climbing out of bed with Seraphine. He had seen Dunrose’s prick before, obviously, if only because he’d seen Dunrose using a chamberpot in the corner because they had all seen each other doing that. But he and Dunrose had known each other for years now, so it wasn’t as if the sight of Dunrose’s bare arse was some revelation. But to think, after everything, after…
First, he was frozen.
He just stared at them.
Seraphine tried to cover herself, wincing, pulling the blankets on the bed over her body, and he thought that her skin was old and her breasts were sagging, and that she wasn’t nearly as delectable as Marjorie.
And then he was angry.
He shut the door, shutting himself away from them, and he was trembling. He thought, If I had a gun right now, I think I would shoot them both.
That terrified him, so he fled, down the hall, to his own room, as he’d intended to do anyway. He shut himself away in there and sat down on his bed. His heart was pounding very fast and he could not seem to get his breath.
Well, that was why, then, he thought—with a detached part of his brain that didn’t seem to be residing in his trembling body—that was why there were so many of those ballads about men killing women when they found them with other men. He’d never quite understood before, but it was like an explosion in his brain, an instinctive bit of outrage. No wonder it was so common.
And here, he’d thought himself so evolved and beyond it all, and in the end, he was just as common and violent as any idiotic man.
And I’m not even in love with her anymore!
Oh.
He wasn’t.
He was just realizing that now.
A tentative knock at the door. “Simon?” It was Dunrose.
“No, I can’t look at you right now, Daniel,” he said in a dull voice.
“You’re angry,” said Dunrose, as if this surprised him.
That went through him like a jolt, and he found himself across the room, hurling open the door to seethe at his friend. “Obviously, I’m angry.”
“She said you would be, but I wasn’t sure I believed it,” said Dunrose, who was now wearing trousers, nothing else. He had a shirt and he was trying to find a way into it, but he had it backwards.
“Go away,” he said, peevish, sounding like a child who had not gotten his way in some game, and this annoyed him even more, that he was being so churlish about it, when, really, what was it he had expected?
Dunrose was concentrating on his shirt. “I shall definitely go away. Really, in but a moment, it’s only that I seem to be too stupid to figure out how to dress myself. And people wonder why men like us need valets.”
Arthford snatched the shirt from him, turned it, and presented it back to his friend.
“Thank you,” said Dunrose, shrugging into it. He turned and walked down the hall.
Arthford glowered into his wake. He should have shut the door, shut himself away, but he wanted it all over, he supposed, so he stalked towards her door.
“Seraphine?”
The door was shut. “One moment, I’m trying to get something on,” she said.
He opened the door. “Nothing I haven’t seen before,” he said flatly.
She pulled her dressing gown closed over her nightdress. “It’s better this way, Simon. You needed some kind of clean break, I think. I don’t know if there was any other way, and Lord knows, I’m too weak to give you up myself.”
He raised his eyebrows, trying to make his mind follow the convolutions of whatever it was she’d just said. “I want you out. Now. You were not invited here, and you cannot stay for breakfast, and I’d be happy to never see you again.”
“Right,” she said, wincing again. “It’s only that I’ve been sent by Champeraigne, and he—”
“Christ,” he said and walked out of the room.
“CHAMPERAIGNE ENTERED INTO a bet with the Baron Hellingswith,” Seraphine said.
They were all in the breakfast parlor, and they were all dressed, and Arthford hadn’t even had time for a bath.
“I thought this was about robbing carriages,” said Dunrose. He was eating, which he hadn’t done much of in a while, and if the situation had been different, Arthford might have even been pleased to see his friend making a recovery.
He’d conceived of this little scheme, to get Dunrose off the opium, as a bit of a project since he was so broken up over the loss of Seraphine. But now, he didn’t care if Dunrose killed himself, he found. He wanted to pour laudanum down the other man’s throat. He wanted him pasty and pathetic. He might hate Dunrose.
“Allow me to explain,” said Seraphine. “Without interruption.” She had a cup of chocolate, because that was what she liked to drink in the morning, and Arthford’s own servants had become quite adept at getting the egg white foam exactly the way she liked it.
He hated Seraphine, too.
He’d never hated this woman before, but he despised her, now, and he was beginning to wonder how it was he had ever loved her. He wanted her dead, too.
Maybe he should shoot them both.
He considered it, but it was definitely worse if he did it this way, cold and calculated, than if it happened in the heat of the moment. He was no stranger to guilt, it was true, but he didn’t run about murdering people as a matter of course.
Besides, it would be messy, dealing with the bodies.
Also, Nothshire and Rutchester would be cross with him if he killed Dunrose.
Dash it all.
He was not eating. His plate was full of sweet bread, but he hadn’t touched it. He was just glaring at the two of them and plotting ways to kill them, apparently.
“We’re waiting,” said Dunrose with a shrug.
“Right,” she said. “Well, anyway, Hellingswith had just married this little chit of a girl. Fresh from a convent, actually, if you can believe that—”
“I can’t,” said Arthford. “Hellingsworth marrying a Catholic? Really?”
“Well, she converted,” said Seraphine. “Obviously.”
Seraphine was nominally Catholic, because she was French, but her Catholicism was about as true to her actual beliefs as Arthford’s Protestantism was. Neither of them really believed any of it.
“Go on,” said Dunrose. “I notice Simon doesn’t get chided for interrupting you.”
Seraphine gave him a withering look. “Dunrose, if you had some idea about your prowess in bed, allow me to disabuse you of the notion that you have even a remote amount of skill.”
Dunrose snorted. “Yes, that’s not what you were saying last night.”
Arthford got up from the table and started out of the room.
“Where are you going?” called Dunrose.
“To get a pistol and shoot you both,” said Arthford.
“Oh, really, must we be so dramatic?” said Seraphine. “He’s the most selfish lover I’ve ever had and that’s saying something, really.”
“Selfish in what way, though?” said Dunrose.
Arthford thrust open the door.
“Simon, you can’t kill me,” said Seraphine, raising her voice so it carried. “I know you’re not really going to kill Dunrose, either.”
“I might,” he said, hesitating in the doorway. “I really might.”
“Well, damnation,” said Dunrose. “If I’d thought you’d be this angry, I wouldn’t have done it, you know? It’s not as if you’ve ever much cared if she was whoring herself out to everyone in the entire country.”
“I’m going to hit you,” said Arthford mildly, changing direction and coming towards Dunrose.
“Will it make you feel better?” said Dunrose, getting up.
“I think it might,” said Arthford.
“Well, all right, then,” said Dunrose. “Not the face, if you don’t mind. I really don’t wish to have a black eye.”
“We’re not negotiating where it is I’m going to hit you!” cried Arthford. “If I wish to hit you, I shall hit you wherever I please, you arsehole.”
Dunrose flinched.
“Oh, you’re not even angry with him,” said Seraphine. “It’s me, and we both know it.”
Arthford clenched his hands into fists, looked back and forth between them, and then collapsed into a chair. “You could sort of attempt to be sorry, you know. Neither of you has even apologized.”
“Oh, that can’t be true,” said Dunrose. “I’m sure I have. Anyway, I am sorry. Dreadfully and woefully sorry. And if it makes you feel better, I had to talk her into it for… I don’t know, ages. She resisted forever . She really didn’t want to do it.”
“Simon, I’m sorry,” said Seraphine. “I’m sorry for letting this go on as long as it did. You deserve better than me. You always have, and it’s been wretched that I’ve allowed you to be devoted to me. I should have ended it a long time ago.”
“I do deserve better than you,” he muttered, glaring at her. “I really do. Why have I never realized that, though?” He slumped down in his chair. “All right, all right, Hellingswith married a nun—”
“She wasn’t a nun,” said Seraphine. “She was just raised in a convent. Hellingswith wanted her because he thought she would be impervious to anyone’s attempts to cuckold him.”
“Oh,” said Arthford, laughing softly to himself, “so that was the bet. Champeraigne bet he could get her into bed?”
“I don’t know if Hellingswith took it as seriously as he ought,” said Seraphine. “He was in his cups and he made the bet, and then Champeraigne took it very seriously.”
“Did he do it himself?” said Dunrose.
“Obviously,” said Seraphine. “I doubt Hellingswith would have taken to it as easily if it had been someone else. And everyone knows that Champeraigne has that…” She considered. “You know what I’m speaking of? His oiliness? He’s off-putting, especially to young women.”
“Oh, good enough for you, though,” muttered Arthford. “How long have you been fucking him?”
“A long time,” she said to him sharply. “Since you were a toddler.”
He really did hate her. He was frankly surprised at how much he hated her. Maybe he’d hated her for a long time and hadn’t allowed himself to admit it. He was too stunned to react. He sat there, slack-jawed, eyeing her as if she were a stranger.
Seraphine rubbed her forehead. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“I’m not looking at you in any way at all,” he said in rough voice.
“No, you very much are,” she said. “It’s as if you have never seen me before, and I…” She turned away. Her eyes were shining.
She didn’t get emotional often, and seeing it, on the rare occasions that he had seen it, used to make him react with a surge of his own emotion, but it wasn’t happening now.
He poured himself some tea. “Let’s leave this. So, Champeraigne cuckolded Hellingswith and then demanded money from him, and Hellingswith didn’t pay, undoubtedly, and now—”
“You never have, though, I suppose,” said Seraphine, and her voice cracked. “You never saw me. Here, all this time, I thought you saw some part of me that no one else did, but it was only that you lied to yourself about what you saw. You never did love me, anyway. You loved some idea in your head. I think I always knew that.”
Now, he felt emotion. A lump growing in his throat. Because maybe she was right. Maybe he’d made up some pretend Marchioness de Fateux, someone who had never even existed. He’d loved the idea of loving her. He’d loved…
No, it was more than that.
Worse.
Some part of him expected to be treated the way she treated him, some part of him responded to her cavalier dismissal, the way she trampled on him, some part of him felt it like coming home.
God, he was pathetic.
“And it isn’t good for either of us, though I treasured it,” she said. “I would like to be loved, perhaps, loved like the way you seemed to love me. But if I were, I would want to be accepted for what I am. And you… you never…”
“But he accepts you,” said Arthford, his voice like gravel. “Champeraigne does.”
She nodded once, a curt sort of nod.
“But he doesn’t love you,” said Arthford. “Because something like him, something twisted and corrupt like him, isn’t capable of it.”
“Neither am I,” she said.
He nodded back, another curt nod. “I think I see that now.”
Dunrose cleared his throat. “If you two would like to be alone, I could go out of the room.”
They both turned to regard him.
“No, we’re done,” said Arthford. He put sugar in his tea and stirred. “So, we’re to collect the money from Hellingswith? Is that what he wants?”
“Yes,” said Seraphine. “Hellingswith is traveling from London, two days from now. You are to set upon the carriage, take what you can, and deliver it to Champeraigne.”
“And if we don’t, he’ll tell everyone that we murdered our fathers,” said Dunrose. “Because that is what he dangles over our heads to make us do his bidding.”
“Why do you do his bidding?” said Arthford to Seraphine. “Why are you his creature? It’s not love, and he can’t smear your good name, because you don’t have a good name. Why?”
“He and I both like our games,” she said with a shrug. “I suppose we are kindred spirits in some way.”
“Yes, I suppose you are,” he said with a sigh.
“Just us?” said Dunrose. “Or are we to get Nothshire and Rutchester to come back from the north and assist us?”
“We can handle it on our own,” said Arthford. “Nothshire’s wife is going to give birth at any second, so he won’t wish to leave her. And Rutchester’s as like to cut everyone to ribbons as to get the money.”
“Yes, that’s why Champeraigne sent me to you,” said Seraphine. “I asked him not to send me, if it matters. I said it would be better if we didn’t see each other anymore.”
“I’m meant to be grateful for that?” He laughed bitterly. “How I have lapped up the crumbs you left for me, Seraphine. How embarrassing.”
It was quiet.
“Well,” said Dunrose, “if I knew all it would take to make you stop being a dolt about her was to fuck her myself, I would have done it ages ago.”
“ I’m going to hit you,” said Seraphine darkly.
Dunrose let out something like a giggle.
“Not like that,” she muttered.
“Spare me,” said Arthford. “Are we done, then? Is there anything else we need to know?”
“I think that covers it,” said Seraphine.
“Then, you can leave,” said Arthford to her, pointedly.
“You promise to see this through, because Champeraigne wanted me to oversee it all,” she said.
“You don’t need to look over my shoulder,” said Arthford.
“Well, there is the matter of delivering the loot,” said Seraphine. “I was going to do that. But if you’d rather not have me as your go-between—”
“I wouldn’t,” he said.
“Then you may take it to him yourself,” she said. “He’s in London, near as I know.”
“Fine,” said Arthford.
“Fine,” she said, getting up from the table. She gave him a small smile. “I thank you for your hospitality, Your Grace.”
He looked her over. He had been very fucking hospitable to her over the years. Damnation.