Chapter 46
LUCY
There’s a beat of silence. Then, from the other side of the door, comes Duchess’s pretty voice. “Alice? You decent?”
I instantly relax at my friend’s voice, snorting at our dressing room joke. I never have people over, but something knots in my chest that she might’ve arrived just in time.
I’m going to miss you.
Keeping my smile on despite the urge to cry over losing yet another friend. I press Hatton’s forearm down gently, lowering the—
“Is that a butter knife?”
“Yeah?” He frowns at my smile and shrugs. “It’s what I had.”
I snort. “Okay, hold on. Let me go grab my nail file so we can terrify everyone on Wander Isle.”
“Hey now, I can do some mean shit with both of those things.” He flips the butter knife absently, catching it. “Spoons, too, in case you’re curious.”
“Alice?” Duchy’s voice again, closer. “You alright in there, girl?”
Hatton’s attention shifts. Something in his posture changes, so subtle I might not have caught it before I knew who he was. His head tilts slightly toward the door, like he’s cataloguing something.
“You okay?” I ask.
He nods, but his brow creases. “Her accent. I never noticed it before.”
“She doesn’t wear it at the club.” I step around him toward the door. “Being Southern isn’t part of her Duchess persona.”
“Huh. Where’s she from?”
I chuckle. “I don’t know, Detective. I don’t ask my friends questions I’m not willing to answer myself. Rabbit Hole Mirroring 101, duh.”
I open the door to find Duchess standing on the deck in an oversized hoodie and fuzzy boots, no makeup, her dark red hair piled loosely on top of her head.
She looks younger than I’ve ever seen her, and with the huge Sweet Tea Bakery box in both hands, she’d pass for a punk-Girl Scout selling cookies.
She holds the box up in front of her face and makes the flaps on the front talk as she squeaks, “Eat me.”
“Duchy!” I grin.
She laughs, bringing the box back down. “Hey, babe.”
Her eyes sweep my face in one quick pass. Whatever she finds makes worry and relief flicker across her expression at the same time, one chasing the other.
“I was planning on coming by yesterday to check on you, but something came up with the club. Then X told me he had some errand last night for—Oh!” Her eyes land behind me, and her accent vanishes. “Um, hey, Hatter.”
Hatton growls behind me, “What kind of ‘errand’ did X run?”
In the face of jerks, Duchess is always the picture of composure, and despite Hatton’s embarrassing attitude, she shrugs.
“Nothing. Just that he and Alice’s boatlord had to go out.
” She grimaces. “Didn’t know it was a secret, whoopsie.
” Then her eyes cut back to me and her smile returns.
“He also told me you could use some nourishment, which might be the understatement of the century after your past forty-eight hours. So…”
She lifts the box.
“Cherry tart? The big one with extra fiii-lling!” She says the last part in a sing-song voice, and I respond with a near-squeal.
“That’s Iris’s best recipe! Come, come. Come in.”
I step behind the door, widening it, and wave her inside.
Duchess steps into the cabin and gives the space a single sweeping look before settling onto the edge of the bed with her legs crossed and a waiting grin. That’s Duchy for you—occupying every room she enters like she’s the gift people were waiting for.
“You’ve never been here before?” Hatton asks, his tone tainted with wariness I instantly become protective over.
“Nope. First time,” I answer for her, giving him a look.
Back. Off.
He gives me an equally pointed one back.
Make. Me.
“Then how did you know where Alice lives?” he asks her, ignoring me.
I’m just irritated at this point, but… that’s actually a good question. I never advertise where I live in any town. X only knows due to safety reasons for the club, but even he hasn’t walked me all the way down here to my slip.
Duchess raises a brow at me, then gives him a look that can only be described as amused bewilderment. “X told me? He’s walked her home dozens of times. After that, it wasn’t hard to find the only houseboat on this side of the dock.”
I feel Hatton bristle at that, and I know he’s already imagining X inside the houseboat, probably sitting in that exact spot, probably eating a cherry tart of his own.
He hasn’t even gotten past the security fence, but now isn’t the time to play into his paranoia.
I get this way too right before I leave a town, so I don’t blame him.
“He was just leaving,” I say. Hatton scowls.
Duchess shifts her gaze between us, the box still in her hands. “What’s going on here? I was just wanting to check in, but if this is a bad time—”
“Hatter?” I use his nickname and hold his gaze. “Can I have some time with my friend, please? We have things to talk about.”
He looks at me for a long, measuring moment. His jaw works once.
“Yeah… sure.” He reaches past me for the coat hook to grab the jacket Harry brought him. “I need to go by Harry’s anyway. Pretty sure he’s been hoarding her favorite blanket. And if Dinah’s forbidden from eating the good stuff, then I’ll have to get her cat food while I’m staying here.”
“Dinah?” Duchess asks.
“Hatter’s cat,” I offer quickly. “If he spends the night again, he wants her here.”
“Xavier said you’re allergic to cats,” she points out.
“Good ol’ Xavier is just a sieve of information, isn’t he?” Hatton grumbles the non-answer.
Then his arm hooks around my waist and his other hand tips my chin before I can object. The kiss he gives me is deep and unhurried, with long slow strokes of his tongue that spark a flame in my core. I’m breathless by the time he pulls back and shiver as his lips find my ear.
“Be discreet, bunny.”
I give him a look that I hope communicates shut up, you absolute jerk, this is not my first rodeo with full clarity.
Something in it must land, because he snorts, cradles my nape and presses his lips to my forehead, then releases me.
He looks past me at Duchess and puts on a lopsided grin. “Good seeing you, Duchy.”
“It was great seeing you too, Hatter,” she says sweetly. She opens the bakery box. “See you at work tomorrow.”
He hums his agreement, then his eyes find mine again, steady and serious underneath the performance he’s putting on for Duchess.
“Thirty minutes,” he murmurs just for me to hear. “Tops.”
After I nod once, he looks down at Dinah and clicks his tongue. “Let’s go give Grandpa Curmudgeon a visit, Princess. Come with Daddy.”
I scoff but keep my mouth shut. That jerk knows I can’t argue it right now, having just claimed Dinah is Hatter’s cat.
He smirks at me infuriatingly and closes the door, winking at me through the window before turning to go. The boat sways, and the dock creaks under his retreating weight until it’s quiet.
“Woof. I thought he’d never leave. He’s always so intense.” Duchess sighs.
I laugh lightly. “Yeah, he can be like that.”
I quickly yank on a comfy, red sweaterdress, and pile my hair on top of my head. When I turn around, Duchess already has box open, fork extended.
“Eat me, Alice,” she squeaks in a tiny mouse voice again, then immediately snorts. “I crack myself up.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” I scootch onto the bed beside her and take the fork.
I moan preemptively, even before the first bite hits my tongue. But when it does, my eyes close and the moan turns obscene. Hatton thinks my reactions are all for him, and sure, I do ham it up sometimes, but sometimes I can’t help the noise that comes out. Now’s no exception.
“That’s so good.” I tip my head as I savor the flavor. “Is it a little sweeter than usual? How on earth does it get better?”
Duchy’s brow raises. “Girl, I don’t know. I know next to nothing about cooking.”
“Fair.” I take another bite.
She steals the corner of the crust the way she always does, like it’s muscle memory at this point, and she doesn’t even know she nearly loses an appendage every time she risks it with me.
“Okay.” Duchy tucks her feet under her and grabs a pillow to hold on her lap. “Talk to me. How are you feeling? I never did get to talk to you when you sobered up from the Smoke and Mirrors Room.” She winces. “First of all, I’m so sorry. I had no idea he would do that.”
I shake my head. “What would you have done? He’s our boss.”
Something sad moves through her expression, but she doesn’t object. “Are you okay?”
“I’m—”
I stop at the concern in her pouting lip and actually weigh the question.
“Yeah. I think so. Mostly.” I breathe out. “Where do I even start?”
“Wherever.” She shrugs. “We’ve got time.”
I take another bite and wrap my legs with my quilt. The heater’s on, but the sun has lowered below the horizon, taking any heat with it.
“I wish I could tell you everything,” I say, a little caught off guard at how much I mean it.
Of everyone on this island—of everyone over the past six months—she’s the one I’ve wanted to share with most besides Hatton. There’s a kinship here, as if we’ve somehow grown up speaking the same rare language but in different countries.
“There’s so much I’ve wanted to—”
“Maybe I could go first,” she says quietly.
I take another bite. “Yeah?”
She doesn’t answer immediately. Her fingers—always in motion, I’ve noticed—start picking at a loose thread on my pillow. Even her real lashes are impossibly long, and they fan against the apples of her cheeks.
“You know Duchess isn’t my real name,” she starts.
“Yeah?” I eat another bite.
“My real name has…” She pauses, seeming to test the words on her tongue before choosing them. “A lot of baggage. I guess you could say.”
A harsh huff leaves her chest, and her voice is hard and almost sad as she continues, “My family is real big on the whole concept of ‘blood is thicker than water,’” she says, her accent slipping back out. “Bloodlines, loyalty. All that. It’s oppressive. Scary even, sometimes.”
I know this song and dance. Different lyrics, same melody, same brutal choreography.
“I’m not that way.” She shakes her head. “X is the only family I claim. My actual family?” She exhales through something heavy. “They’re batshit crazy.”