Chapter Fifteen
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE FIRST THING Champeraigne wanted was the deed.
When Marjorie resisted that, he brought in her maid and threatened to kill the woman in front of her.
Shaking, still in pain, too horrified to even cry, Marjorie got it for him.
He made her sign it over, but not to him, to the Viscount of Lilsbin. He explained, “I lost it to him in a card game, you see.”
She was speechless. That didn’t even make sense.
“I know,” said Champeraigne. “You might think, legally, I have no right to gamble away a house that’s not mine. But let’s be clear here. This house is really Arthford’s, not yours, and anything of Arthford’s that I want, I can have. I have the capacity to make him do whatever I wish. Lilsbin is a problem for me, but Arthford is going to take care of that problem.”
She didn’t understand, not at all, but she knew that Champeraigne was blackmailing Arthford, and she knew that had something to do with whatever Arthford had done to his own father, and she felt helpless and beaten.
Champeraigne looked her over. “You’re bruised. That’s unfortunate. I should have thought a bit more about what I was doing, but you did put up an admirable fight. Undo your dress, let’s see if there’s a bruise on your chest.”
She only shook her head.
“Must we do the charade with another of your servants, Miss Adams?”
Her throat tightened. Her eyes stung. But she didn’t cry. And her fingers were sure and nimble as she undressed for him.
“The stays,” he said. “Loosen them.”
“I can’t,” she said. “They tighten in the back. It hurts too much to reach around.”
He sighed heavily. “Stand up, then.”
She clenched a hand into a fist, thinking about hitting him. She needed to do something .
“Miss Adams,” he roared. “Stand up.”
“Why?” she said, and her voice cracked.
He sighed. “Well, Lilsbin knows all about you, of course. When he won this house, he knew it meant he won access to you. He will want to take advantage of that. After that’s done, I shall see to it that you’re set free, and you will go directly to Arthford and tell him what it is that Lilsbin has done to you.”
No, she would not. No, if this Lilsbin tried anything, she would kill him herself. She would kill Champeraigne, too. She wasn’t entirely sure how yet, but she would not go running to Arthford. She would never go running to Arthford.
“Arthford will dispatch Lilsbin for me,” said Champeraigne. “Problem solved.”
What problem? God, but her head ached.
“Of course, if Lilsbin finds you a bruised mess, he might not be very enticed.” Champeraigne grimaced. “Maybe I should just kill you. Maybe that’s the easiest thing to do. Arthford would most definitely kill Lilsbin if he thought he’d killed you. I could say he raped you first, of course, and Arthford already has a history of killing men who take advantage of his women. Look at what he did to Penbrake for Seraphine, after all.” He mused over it. He shook his head. “You know, I’ve never actually killed a woman. Don’t really kill a lot of people, truly. And with a blade.” He shuddered. “Messy.”
A tear was leaking out of her eye, a traitorous damned tear.
He saw it. “Oh, fuck, of course you’re crying. Yes, I’m going to murder a woman while she sobs.” He dragged a hand over his face.
Oh, the crying bothered him? Good. She let loose, the sobs taking over her body, though they hurt, because of where he’d gotten her with the cane, because of where his knee had driven itself into her chest. The pain made the tears come faster.
He threw up his hands, swearing under his breath. He quit the room, locking her inside.
AFTER ARTHFORD WAS rejected soundly by Marjorie, he did not go back to Bluebelle Grange. Instead, he went to his house in London, which put his servants out, for it was late autumn, and no one was even in London.
Arthford, being a duke, did have a seat in Parliament, and he even attended sometimes. He and Nothshire took it seriously, but Dunrose and Rutchester never seemed to. Parliament, of course, was not in session, so there was no reason for anyone to be in London. The ton regularly spent the autumn in the country, not returning until the late winter or spring for the Season. So, his servants were expecting to have the house mostly closed down, no one there to see to.
Arthford promised he wouldn’t be any trouble at all. He sent word to Dunrose that he should come to London, too, and that they should spend the next several weeks getting very, very drunk.
Dunrose came at once.
They had exactly two nights of debauchery.
One morning, after having been up all night, Dunrose went to an apothecary to procure some laudanum, something that Arthford was too drunk and depressed to protest about too much.
But Dunrose then came back and paced, staring at the bottle, agitated. He went back and forth on whether he should actually drink any of it, citing all the work he’d done to get off the stuff in the first place.
Arthford got bored by this and passed out in a chair.
When he woke up, the fire had burnt out, and there was a note from Dunrose. He had poured out the laudanum and decided that he should not be in London, should not be out drinking and carousing, and was going off to the country for some fresh air and wholesome living.
Arthford read the note five times. “What has become of Dunrose?” he muttered. He knew that it was really his doing. He was the one who’d insisted that Dunrose must get off the laudanum, but now he was left alone to drown his sorrows.
Well, that was likely fine.
He wasn’t going to be good company to anyone, it seemed. He wouldn’t have been any fun, anyway.
So, he set about drinking himself into a stupor, something he usually accomplished before dinner hour. Then, he’d wake in the night, rouse the servants wanting something to eat, have a cold supper while the cook raged at him, and drink some more. He’d wake late the next day to do it all over again.
Time passed.
One day, he was awakened in the late afternoon by a servant who said that the Duke of Rutchester had called upon him. He’d told the servants not to admit anyone, of course, but everyone was afraid of Rutchester.
Arthford staggered down into the sitting room where Rutchester was waiting.
He packed a pipe and mumbled pleasantries.
Rutchester shook his head at him. “You look wretched.”
“Thank you,” said Arthford with a shrug, offering the pipe to Rutchester.
Rutchester took it, puffed, and handed it back. “I sent a letter to Nothshire, and he said we shouldn’t worry, but I don’t know if his judgment can be trusted these days. He’s distracted by married life and being a father.”
“All right,” said Arthford. “What’s happened?”
“Champeraigne went to the north to where Lilsbin is staying.”
Arthford sat up, sucking intently on the pipe. “Did he kill Lilsbin? Why didn’t we think of his doing that? Are we idiots?”
“Lilsbin lives,” said Rutchester. “But there was some sort of card game, high stakes, I don’t know. Apparently, Champeraigne put up an entire estate and seemed to play to lose it. As if he wanted Lilsbin to win it from him.”
“Champeraigne doesn’t have any estates.”
“I know that, and you know that. But apparently Lilsbin didn’t.”
“Well, what estate could it possibly be?” said Arthford.
“I don’t know,” said Rutchester. “I don’t even know if that’s important. It just seems suspicious, and I think we need to look into it further. I’m not good at getting gossip from people. I tried to press the man who told me this, and he got terrified and ran away. So, I don’t know. Perhaps I’m not the person to determine this. I thought Dunrose would be with you.”
“No, he’s in the country,” said Arthford. “It’s true. He’s better at gathering gossip.” He drew in a breath. “Well, we’ll simply go out, the both of us, and ask around. People don’t run in terror from me, you know.”
“Go out? Where? It’s November, in case you hadn’t noticed. No one is in London. There’s no one to ask around from.”
“Right,” said Arthford, tapping his chin. “Well, what should we do?”
“I don’t know. Write to Dunrose, I suppose. See if he can determine anything.”
Arthford considered. “All right. You couldn’t have written to him yourself?”
“I thought he was here.”
“Fine, fine.” Arthford puffed on his pipe. “Would you like a drink?”
“Write the letter, Arthford,” rumbled Rutchester.
“Right now?”
“Yes, right now. We have no idea what Champeraigne is up to. We haven’t a moment to lose.”
Arthford sighed heavily. “All right. No need to get so excited, Rutchester.”
“You’re lucky I like you. If anyone else talked to me this way…”
Arthford yawned. “I shall need paper, I suppose.” He puffed on his pipe. “And ink.”
He wrote the letter. He sent it off.
Then, it became clear that Rutchester was determined to stay with him, here in his house, until they got a reply, which would be days. He tried to hint that perhaps Rutchester should stay at his own house in town, but Rutchester said his servants had the place shut down for the autumn.
Arthford had never known Rutchester to care much about upsetting servants. His own servants were not pleased at the idea of housing Rutchester, who was wont to, well, tantrums, for lack of a better word.
Anyway, he had to play host.
He had to come down to dinner.
Rutchester didn’t approve of how much Arthford was drinking. “What is wrong with you?” he said. “Why are you in this state? You haven’t even had someone shave you in what looks like a week.”
Arthford touched the growth on his chin, which could probably be termed a beard at this point. He shrugged. “I’m heartbroken. I’m dealing with it.”
“Heartbroken? I thought you were done with the marchioness.”
“Oh, not her.”
“How did you have time to meet someone else and become this heartbroken in such a short span?”
“It happens quickly, Rutchester,” he said. “Someday, perhaps you’ll understand.” He looked his friend over. “On second thought, I doubt it. I pity any woman you would fall in love with, truly.”
“No chance of that happening,” said Rutchester.
“Likely not,” said Arthford, pouring himself more whisky. He was very drunk, so he said the next thing, which he would normally never have said aloud. “Maybe you don’t like women, anyway. Maybe you like men.”
Rutchester reached over, took the whisky glass from him and drank it all down in one swallow. “No more for you.”
“It’s really all right,” said Arthford. “I mean, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but when I was young, I had a sort of… entanglement, I suppose, with a man. It was—”
“Arthford,” growled Rutchester.
Arthford sniffed and made to take back the glass from Rutchester.
Rutchester got up from the table. “You should go to bed, I think.”
“Look, I know, when you were a boy, your father—”
Rutchester picked up the chair from the table and hurled it at the wall.
It splintered.
Arthford flinched. But belatedly, because he was very drunk. “All right. Apologies. I should keep my counsel, really.”
Rutchester rounded on him, breathing hard, his hands clenched in fists.
“Bed,” said Arthford with a little nod. “I should go to bed.” He left the dining room, apologized to the footman at the door about the broken chair and announced his intention to retire for the night.
“What do we do about… him?” said the footman.
“Give him a quarter hour to seethe,” said Arthford. “And then, if he seems quiet, ask him if he’d like to retire.”
The footman nodded, but he looked worried.
Arthford poked his head back into the dining room. “Can you not terrorize my servants if at all possible, Oliver?”
Rutchester only bared his teeth at him.
“Good, then,” said Arthford, and left the room.
Once in his room, he told his valet he might like a shave before bed, and the valet said that was a very good idea and went off to get the razor and the shaving cream.
Before the valet returned, Rutchester appeared in Arthford’s bedchamber, though, and he came in and sat down on the bed and buried his face in his hands. He started to speak, but it was muffled and very fast, and Arthford didn’t catch what he was saying.
Then he realized that Rutchester was actually sobbing.
Shit .
He sat down next to his friend and very gingerly put a hand on his back. “I shouldn’t have—I’m a dolt. I’m so very, very sorry.”
Rutchester turned his tearstained face to look at him. “I don’t think so,” he said. “But I do wonder sometimes, because there were parts of it, at the beginning, before it started, um… when I liked it.”
Arthford wasn’t really sure what he was talking about. He simply waited, his hand heavy and comforting on Rutchester’s back. He waited, looking at him, giving him what he hoped was an encouraging look.
“Your father never… to you.”
“Not to me, no,” said Arthford. “No, but he made me watch things.”
“At the beginning, when it first started, it was… it felt good. He would be kind to me. Gentle. His touch, it was… well, I knew he wasn’t supposed to be touching me there, but it wasn’t bad, and he said it was because he loved me and that it was about love, and it was the only time he was ever even a little bit good to me. Only then.”
Shit. But Arthford nodded. “Yes, I think we all had aspects of that. My father would cajole me for those odd sessions, give me sweets to bribe me, and then he would tell my mother I wanted to be there, and I would agree with him, because… because…” He shuddered. “I hate that he did that, turned me against her, made her think I was on his side in any way.”
“But then…” Rutchester turned away, scrubbing at his face, at the tears coming out of his eyes. “But then it hurt a lot, and he started… and it made me bleed and I hated it.”
“It was wrong,” said Arthford. “And he deserved to be slaughtered the way we did it. He was a monster.”
Rutchester nodded, his lower lip trembling. “But I did… I did like it, so does that mean…?” He swallowed hard. “What about this thing with you and a man? Did you…? Did he…?”
“No,” said Arthford, understanding what he meant somehow. “No, we were both too afraid of actual insertion. When my father did it to men, it didn’t always look, erm, comfortable.” He drew in a breath. “I think the real issue is less whether you enjoyed some aspect of being abused—because he—they—our fathers, they used our natural desire to please them against us, you see? So, we liked things about it, but not it . We liked feeling loved by our fathers, because all children wish to be loved by their fathers.”
Rutchester nodded, letting out a shaking breath. “Yes. Yes, that. Quite.”
“But when you see men, are you ever…? Do you like the look of them?”
Rutchester shrugged. “I don’t think so.”
“And… with women?”
“My father hated women. He said things about women.”
“Well, so did mine,” muttered Arthford. “They were of a similar mind, that women were little more than beasts, things to be enslaved, and that the only true connection could be between men, between equals. But they were wrong. Women… women are people .”
“I don’t really like people, not as a general rule,” said Rutchester, sounding sulky.
This struck Arthford as funny, and he snickered.
Rutchester gave him a look, and Arthford worried he’d done something wrong, but then Rutchester snickered, too.
They grinned at each other for a moment, and then the smiles slid away from their faces. Arthford sighed, thinking that it was amazing that any of them ever found anything to smile about at all, considering all they’d been through, and all that continually beset them. Champeraigne was right when he said that they’d been turned to men of violence. It was ironic, truly. Their fathers had set out to carve them into Roman soldiers, hard men with no softness or weakness. And despite everything they had done to try to get away from that influence, it seemed their fathers had succeeded. It was like something out of a Greek tragedy, like Oedipus or something.
“Women frighten me,” said Rutchester. “Truly, everything frightens me. But what I do when things frighten me is I…”
“Break them,” said Arthford. “Like that chair downstairs?”
“I was not frightened of the chair,” said Rutchester, sulky again.
“You were frightened of what I was saying,” said Arthford. “You couldn’t break me, so you broke the chair to shut me up.”
Rutchester got up off the bed, shaking his head.
“Apologies,” said Arthford. “Perhaps I should not have said that. I do not know what is going on inside your head.”
“I suppose it’s accurate.” Rutchester crossed his arms over his chest. “But with women… with my mother… the way my father treated my mother … I don’t wish to frighten women, that’s all. However, when I am frightened, the only way to fight the fear is to be more frightening than the thing that I fear, to make it fear me . And I won’t do that to a woman. It’s disgusting.”
“No, agreed,” said Arthford.
“The truth is, though, the thing that I fear the most, really, is myself. I feel very out of control, much of the time, and I find myself doing things and I don’t feel as if I choose to do them. It’s as if they simply happen, and I am standing outside myself, watching myself do them, and I am afraid. I try to simply not let myself get into those states, I suppose, but I can’t help it. People say things, do things, and then I simply explode.”
Arthford wasn’t sure what to say. He could see that this was true, that this must be exactly how Rutchester felt, as if he were encased in the skin of a ferocious beast that simply struck out all the time.
Frightened.
Yes, of course. He was still that little boy, being repeatedly molested by the man who was supposed to have protected him. No one had ever protected Rutchester, and now, he and the other dukes relied on Rutchester to protect them more often than not.
Arthford stood up. “I shall try to do better. I could think more, before I said things. I don’t wish to, er, set you off more than necessary.”
“No, that’s not fair,” said Rutchester. “I should control myself. Other people control themselves.”
“It occurs to me,” said Arthford, “that perhaps you can’t.”
Rutchester drew back, wounded.
“Well, because of what you said, because you’re frightened.” Arthford gestured. “Think of it, think of a caged and abused animal, locked up somewhere, always beaten and struck, never knowing where the next blow might come from. You try to show a beast like that kindness, and it attempts to maul you, anyway.”
“I’m a human fucking being, Arthford,” growled Rutchester.
Arthford winced. “I’m saying everything wrong.”
Rutchester sighed. “No, perhaps I see what you mean. As long as a creature is frightened, it cannot do anything except act to defend itself. If I am frightened all the time, what else could I expect?” He eyed Arthford. “But how does one not be afraid? How does one trust that anything good could happen?”
“Right,” said Arthford dully. “Nothing good ever has happened.”
“Just so,” said Rutchester, hanging his head.
“Well, you know what I do when I have hopeless thoughts like that?”
“What?”
“I drink,” said Arthford. “I think there’s a bottle in here somewhere…” He looked around, scratching at his beard. Where the devil was his valet, anyway?
“No, thank you,” said Rutchester with a small smile.
Arthford eyed him. “Look, Oliver, I’m not saying there’s some answer here, but there have to be at least some people you feel safe with, yes? You feel safe with me? With Nothshire and Dunrose?”
Rutchester nodded.
“Well, you don’t have to trust everyone, but maybe you can at least trust us.”
“Four or one?” murmured Rutchester, speaking their phrase, what they always said to each other.
“One,” answered Arthford firmly. He reached out a hand for his friend.
Rutchester clasped it.
They gripped each other, hard, looking into each other’s eyes.
That night, when Arthford fell asleep, he wasn’t nearly as drunk as he had been for all the other nights in recent history. And he felt better, because he realized that—even if he never found a woman to spend his life with—he had the others, the four highwaymen, and that they were his family, closer than brothers.
Then, days passed.
Arthford got a shave.
Rutchester broke other things in Arthford’s house. Several plates. A vase. A painting, which he tore off the wall.
None of this went well. Despite Arthford wishing not to do things that made Rutchester lash out, he began to realize the impossibility of such a thing. Rutchester was entirely unpredictable.
Indeed, it put him in mind of living with his fucking father, who would routinely get angry and lash out at either Arthford or his mother or the servants or anyone handy. Arthford thought, as a child, that he could somehow curb this behavior in his father, and his mother had tried, too, but Arthford had come to understand that his father simply got angry and then blamed someone else for his reaction. There was no controlling his father.
It was different with Rutchester, for he seemed to take responsibility for what he did, insofar as that he didn’t blame others for his reactions and he recognized they were inappropriate or too intense.
But it hardly mattered, because Arthford was always flinching around the other man, living in fear of his ridiculous rages.
They got into a shouting match about it one evening—that was when the painting got ripped off the wall—and Arthford said that he could not be held responsible for whatever it was that Rutchester did, and Rutchester said that he had never asked him to try to take control of him and then the painting got torn down.
It ended with Rutchester in a heap on the floor, close to tears again, asking what he was supposed to do with these feelings that overtook him? Where were they supposed to go?
Arthford was still angry at that point, and he barked out that Rutchester should simply walk away if he couldn’t stop himself. Go outside! Go for a walk! I don’t know!
So, at that point, Rutchester did walk away. He went out of the house and was gone for three hours, and Arthford didn’t know if he was even coming back.
But he did and went directly to bed.
The next morning, there was a letter from Dunrose.
Rutchester was still abed, which turned out to be a good thing, because Arthford read the letter with a growing sense of horror and dread and he knew he was going to have to do something the others wouldn’t like.
It was a violation of their agreement with each other.
It was four, not one.
It was putting his own cares above the cares of the group.
But Champeraigne had gambled away Marjorie’s estate.
Arthford saw it all very clearly, what Champeraigne had done, and it was devious and it was personal and it was the most horrific kind of revenge he could think of. No, he would never have thought of it, in truth.
That blackguard.
Lilsbin was a problem. Champeraigne knew that if he got Lilsbin to invade Marjorie’s home, that Arthford would have to step in.
Killing Lilsbin would free Champeraigne.
Champeraigne couldn’t do it himself. Oh, no. Instead, he would force Arthford to do it, force Arthford to betray his closest friends.
He picked me because he knew I would do it. He knew the way I get about women.
Champeraigne could have threatened Nothshire’s duchess to the same effect, of course, but she was with her husband, safe and sound and tucked away, and Arthford had walked away and left Marjorie all alone and defenseless. He’d practically set it up for Champeraigne.
Arthford didn’t even have breakfast. He left a vague note for Rutchester that he had pressing business in the country, and that he had to leave immediately. He didn’t leave the letter from Dunrose, because that would give the game away.
Of course, Dunrose knew.
But maybe Dunrose wouldn’t realize what Arthford would be compelled to do. Dunrose was sort of self-involved and a little bit stupid, and he also didn’t understand what it was to be devoted to a woman.
So, he might think that Arthford would talk to the others first before taking action.
Arthford hoped so.
Certainly, if either Rutchester or Nothshire had known, they would have stopped Arthford from killing Lilsbin.
And he could not let anyone stop him.