After a tense standoff between the gang and their host, the gang left Annabelle and Dutch alone in each other's company.
"Are you sure about leavin' them alone?" They heard Arthur ask Hosea who made a sharp inhale loudly before whispering something to both Susan and the young man before their footsteps faded away.
"I will fucking end you the second you put hands on your woman, Mr. Van der Linde." Annabelle seethed, tossing the revolver on the desk and snorting when she saw the chess pieces littered on the other side of the room.
"What I do with that whore is no concern of yours." He snarled from the floor as he went to stand up again.
"You're pathetic." She moved to her desk and sat down, making sure to slide the revolver closer to her as he picked himself up and rubbed the place her boot had been in his back.
"What can I do for you, Annabelle?" He gritted his teeth as she picked up the revolver and pointed it at him again and gestured for him to sit the chair across from her.
"Mr. Atkinson is what you can do for me. It's about time you started earning your keep, Mr. Van der Linde."
"I don't take orders from you. I'm not a serf, your highness." Dutch growled, keeping his arms raised above his head as he sat down in the chair across from her. She cocked the revolver back and raised an eyebrow.
"You sleep in my bed, eat my food, manhandle and dog ear my books, and you want to talk back to me? Shut the fuck up and listen. Like the whimpering little peasant you are." She slowly lowered it as he took a deep breath to try to calm himself down and set it in front of her, still primed in case she needed it again.
"I would never dog ear a book, that's a cardinal sin." He protested and she rolled her eyes, reaching into her desk and producing two cigarillos and tossed one at him.
"Atkinson is hosting a party in two weeks. If you're as smart as you think you are, you'll be there. You're no longer Dutch Van der Linde, you're Thomas de Jong. Dutch trader and merchant. You got started in Amsterdam in the family business and you're the second son of a rich asshole. Understand?" She put the cigarillo in her mouth and lit it, puffing on it as the sweet smoke began to fill the room.
"Really pandering to my childhood trauma, aren't you?" He snatched his smoke from the desk, eying the untouched revolver a moment, debating on whether or not he could get the jump on her to put a bullet in her.
"First off, don't try it, Mr. Van der Linde. Secondly, did you think I wasn't going to notice you dog eared my Burns poetry book? And thirdly, that," she gestured at the fallen chess pieces, "is ivory and onyx. Don't thrash my personal belongings just because your woman irritates you."
"I've been reading Weltschmerz, you goddamn harpy. The Burns book has a little bookmark ribbon. I respect literature, but I have next to zero respect for you." He folded his arms indignantly as she slid the matchbox towards him and puffed on her smoke, putting her heels on the desk.
"Oh, feeling pessimistic are we? I suppose that tracks considering you've got a couple de Sade books in your collection." She produced a glass ashtray from her desk and snapped the drawer shut loudly, practically tossing it between them prompting Dutch to slam it as it wobbled onto the table.
"Reality is a brutal place for a weary lost soul like me." He snarled, picking the matches up and pulling one out, striking it and holding his lit match up for a moment.
"I prefer the Romantic Movement of our forebearers than whatever bullshit you've been absorbing in your bedtime reading."
"Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest." He lit his cigarillo and waved the match out before tossing in the ashtray.
"Byron. I have to say I'm impressed," she leaned forward, tapping her cigarillo against the glass, "who taught you how to read anyway?"
"I'm allowed to have my secrets." Dutch replied with a smile, exhaling a cloud of silver smoke in the young woman's face.
"Who was the aristocrat, your mother or your father, Mr. Van der Linde?" She gently exhaled the cloud of smoke away from her face. She just wasn't going to quit, he realized and he huffed.
"My father was a poor farmer and my mother was some unfortunate girl, a lot like you actually, who opened her legs because she thought she loved him. And I slithered out of her nine months later as the unholy proof of their union. What interest do you have in a lowly peasant like me, anyway, Miss?" He took a long drag and exhaled again.
"Ah, that's why you didn't want to take my innocence back then, huh? A little too close to home for you? You 'tried', but we both know your honeyed words and tender suggestions were bullshit. You don't like me because I remind you of your mother, right?" Annabelle chuckled and Dutch shivered uncomfortably for a moment in his chair.
"Oh, Miss Annabelle. That's vile, even for you. My mother was more than just some blue blooded broodmare, unlike the one that whelped a mangy little bitch sitting across from me. Or perhaps you were hatched, like a snake or a toad, out in the wetlands between Lemoyne and New Hanover? You wanna talk about origins, let's discuss yours." He tapped the cigarillo on the glass ashtray and she giggled, choking a bit on the smoke.
"I'll let you keep the profits from the Atkinson job. A hundred percent. You, Mr, Morgan, Mr. Matthews, Miss Grimshaw, pockets lined with money ready to make a fresh start. Go back to Sherwood Forest, live happily ever after with your Maid Marian and band of Merry Men." She tapped her chest with her hand and leaned forward to ash her cigarette when he grabbed her wrist.
"And if I refuse?" He raised an eyebrow and she switched the smoke to her other hand, resting the item gently in the glass ashtray before touching the top of his hand.
"I know you love the thrill of the chase more than you'd ever love her, or me. There is no happy ending for people like us, Dutch Van der Linde. One day we find our backs against the wall, the empty void of death in front of us, and we make our choice. Either we die free or we die like dogs, swinging from the lasso of justice around our pretty little necks. The world is a cruel and savage place, you're right, but so are we. You and I, we're two sides of the same coin. You detest me but I," she kicked her feet off the desk and leaned across to whisper in his ear for a moment but paused, second guessing herself for a moment.
"That's sweet and all but–" He half closed his eyes and she leaned down and kissed him, but he didn't pull away. He loosened his grip on her wrist and they pushed their palms together, locking their fingers tightly. He raised his other hand and went to brush her braid back, gripping the back of her neck and pulling her closer to him. He smiled behind the kiss, he knew it wouldn't be long before she revealed her true colors. She had been taunting him, teasing him, and irritating him just to steal a tender kiss. It tasted like sweet victory. He would have to leverage this to his advantage, now that he knew for certain that what he had suspected since she dragged her sorry ass out of hiding was exactly what he had suspected.
"Dutch," she pulled away, pressing her forehead to his, "you could be an enigma if just stopped being so fucking arrogant and tempermental. Let me help you, we could be the only two major players if you would just let go of your petty bullshit. I do care about you. I shouldn't but I do."
"I have a woman, Annabelle." He sighed, retreating to his chair as the young woman sat back in hers.
"I know," she retrieved her cigarillo as Dutch rubbed his face with his hands, "who dog ears my fucking books."
"Mmmmm." Dutch inhaled deeply, he hadn't expected the young woman to ever admit she still had a soft spot for him, as though she were a lonely woman like Bessie Matthews, tending the heartfire for a wild man. He tried to swallow the feeling in his chest, that feeling she gave him when she finally admitted what he had suspected all along. He closed his eyes and inhaled sharply again, as the memory of their one night stand briefly flashed in his mind and he tried to suppress it. He was not a tender man, he never had been. But that night, he had acted the way a gentle lover would. He had gotten so engrossed with the act that he had sometimes forgotten who Dutch Van der Linde was supposed to be, the personality he had shrouded himself in long before he met Hosea Matthews or Arthur Morgan. It would not happen again, not this time.
"Dutch?" Annabelle asked, propping her elbow on the table and resting her head in the palm of one of her hands.
"I think you mean Thomas de Jong." He slowly opened his eyes again and she smirked back at him.
"Does Mr. de Jong have a woman?" She took a drag off her cigarette as Dutch chuckled.
"No." He set his cigarillo down, "He is a free man." He could work this to his advantage, playing on her soft and squishy heart for him. Love was not something that would ever catch him, though a part of him wanted to feel that sort of wild and unbridled passion that great authors felt for their partners. But he was a sinner, a con man, and a liar. This tryst was just another act in the play about his life. He just had to play along for a while.
—-
She was going to be infuriated with him, he knew, as the brunette kissed him under the security of the blankets. He shuddered a bit as she had him in her mouth, resting his arms behind his head as he tried not to let the pleasant sensation overwhelm him entirely.
"Robin Hood?" She stopped, pulling her mouth off of him and calling out to him from under the blankets. He pushed the covers back a bit to uncover her face, those bright brown hazel eyes staring up at him as she wiped the corners of her mouth with her fingers.
"De Jong." He whispered back, cupping the side of her face with the palm of his hand.
"Right. Of course." She wriggled up onto his chest, pushing her braid behind her as she wrapped herself around him. He smirked, running his thumb over her lips a moment. She'd be eating out of the palm of his hand. The girl had taken a risk and he needed to try to pander to whatever tender fantasies she thought was happening in his mind. He almost felt bad for her as she looked up at him so sweetly, but he knew eventually the feeling would pass. It always did.
"I'm going to read a bit, not that I don't like what you're doing," he smirked, "but I ought to exercise my mind a little while we recover our physical bodies." He moved his arm to hold her close to him and kissed the top of her head.
"More German pessimism?" She asked, taking her hand away from his navel and rolling over away from him for a moment.
"I thought I might revisit a classic," He propped himself up and retrieved the book he had been reading with Susan the night before, showing the young woman the title, "Homer."
"I prefer the Iliad over the Odyssey myself, but I suppose it'll do, Mr. de Jong." She rolled back, lifting herself up with an elbow and adjusting the covers around her.
"You really are a little warlord, aren't you?" Dutch raised an eyebrow and they both laughed for a moment as he thumbed through the pages to find where he had left the piece of string he used as a bookmark. "See, I don't dog ear pages."
"Are you going to tell her about this?" Annabelle asked, seeming slightly distressed as Dutch found the right page. She felt guilty for coming onto Dutch knowing he was already spoken for by another woman, even if that woman wanted nothing more than to put a hole through her. Arthur and Hosea had told her about the way Dutch had begun to treat Miss Grimshaw behind closed doors when they had first arrived. She had expected Dutch to put up more resistance than he did when she came onto him. She had begun to feel dirty, as though she had betrayed the older woman somehow.
"Eventually I have to. I admit I'm not looking forward to it, but it's an honorable thing to do. She's a strong woman, she knows sometimes a man needs options." He opened the book and carefully tucked his thumb to mark the page as he tried to sit up against the pillows.
"You don't even care about her, do you?" Annabelle sighed, rolling over and sliding out from under the covers to retrieve her clothes bitterly.
"Of course I care about her. She's like a mother to Mr. Morgan. To my son. Together we're a perfect little family. She knows I'm not a good man or an honest one, she had to realize that one day I was going to find some other warm and wet hole to crawl into. She's used to this sort of thing. That's reality, darlin'." Dutch opened the book and started to read as Annabelle put her breeches back on, hopping a bit to get the tight material to fit over her hips again.
"That's fucked up, even for you. She'd jump off a bridge if you asked her to, but you're just using her to satisfy yourself. Unbelievable." Annabelle looked over her shoulder as Dutch snapped the book shut and set it on his chest, carefully tucking his thumb in so he knew where he was in the book.
"Like you didn't just use me to satisfy yourself." He snorted, turning his head towards her.
"I used Mr. de Jong to satisfy myself. We are not the same, Dutch Van der Linde." Annabelle retrieved her shirt from the floor and pulled it over her head as he rolled onto his side, still holding the book by the spine.
"You keep telling yourself that, sweetheart. You let me know when I can be of service again." He smirked and reopened the book as Annabelle went back to her desk and retrieved her things and slammed the door shut.
—-
Susan paused outside of a dress shop, her eyes fixated on a white wedding dress in the window as people brushed past her. She stepped a little closer to the window to eye it in greater detail. It was gorgeous, made of lace and silk with little pearls stitched into it in floral patterns.
"He won't be tied down, you know." Susan's face immediately flushed and she snarled as she realized Annabelle was standing next to her. Though her braid had been undone and she was busy brushing out her hair with her hands. Her body language seemed odd somehow, as though she seemed anxious about something.
"I won't let you sink your teeth into him again, you little viper." She hissed, clutching her purse tightly as she debated whether or not to pull out the small pistol she had stashed in her bag. But the younger woman closed her eyes and seemed to have a pained expression on her face for a moment.
"It's not me you need to worry about, Miss Grimshaw." Her voice trembled a bit, she swallowed hard and inhaled deeply through her nose trying to calm down.
"You continually try to get in between us. You don't think I see the way you look at him sometimes? You think I don't know you want him. Oh he's a man, and he can take you if he pleases, but he won't. He hates you with every fiber of his being, you little skank. You're upset by his brilliance, whining that you can't get that man to eat out of the palm of your hand." Susan snarled, her color changing slightly as she flushed bright red.
"Susan, I don't want to see you get hurt the way I…am. I came onto him, after you and the others left, and he took me on the desk. And well, a few more times after that...Miss Grimshaw, I'm a pathetic girl. I know that. He is brilliant, Ms. Grimshaw. Too fucking brilliant for his own good." Annabelle bit her lip, her eyes watering slightly as she turned to look at her. "I'm sorry."
Annabelle broke down crying and Susan wasn't sure how to respond or react. She figured that Dutch would eventually give into the young girl's charms but she certainly had not anticipated for the girl to completely come undone as a result. She was closer to Dutch's age than Annabelle, knowing from experience that men were fickle creatures and bound to whisper sweet nothings in some other woman's ear, but it was Annabelle's reaction to it that surprised her. It was the first time another woman had actually given a shit about how she would feel. Grimshaw realized it wasn't because of Van der Linde that the girl was crying, but that she thought had done some kind of horrible thing to Susan.
"It's…alright." Susan gently touched Annabelle's shoulder, as the girl turned and sobbed.
"I-I-I'm s-so s-s-sorry." Annabelle wrapped her arms around Susan, burying her face in her neck as tears streamed down her face.
"That you got conned into fucking Van der Linde or what?" Susan grumbled bitterly, putting her own arms around the young woman.
"Y-y-you." Annabelle gritted her teeth and wiped her eyes on the back of her long sleeves, sniffing as people started to sort of give them odd looks. She swallowed and tried to regain control of her breathing, slowly regaining her usual calm and cool demeanor as she sniffed and dried her eyes angrily. "You love him, don't you?"
"In my own way, I guess. I'm not afraid of him by the way, you don't need to put an iron to his head for getting testy with me. I can handle myself. But I appreciate it." Susan brushed her dress, avoiding the woman's gaze as Annabelle exhaled loudly.
"I want us to be friends, Miss Grimshaw. That man, if you can even call him that, is cruel. He was hiding money from Arthur and Hosea, stashed away in a box in his things at camp. Forty thousand dollars. Do you know what you can do with that kind of money, Miss Grimshaw? I paid him six ten ounce gold bars for doing in Macguire, I take it he hasn't let that little fact slip, has he?" Annabelle raised an eyebrow and Susan frowned, folding her arms.
"He would've told us. I don't know what kind of game you think you're playing but he's an honorable man."
"Jesus Christ." Annabelle scowled, snorting derisively and folding her arms. This is exactly why she hadn't told Hosea and Arthur about their leader holding onto a stash of cash, they would've never believed her either. Well, Hosea might but he had been having suspicions about Dutch for a long while now. She ran her tongue over her teeth as she tried to think for a while. There were too many pawns in the game now, too many innocent people like Grimshaw, Hosea, Bessie, Arthur, and Mary.
"You don't believe me?" Susan raised her eyebrow and pulled her purse closer to her.
"I'm not the one eying a wedding dress for a wedding that ain't happening. You know it, I know it. That man is the wind, flitting from one thing to another. But you believe he can change, don't you? That he just needs a gentle but firm touch. That man is a cancer, Miss Grimshaw. How did he win you over to his little crusade? What sort of things did he promise you?" Annabelle slid her teeth back and forth a bit before turning towards the street again and stepping off the curb.
—-
"Perhaps," Dutch eyed his knight, carefully putting a hand on it as Annabelle sat across from him lighting a cigarette, "we just need to embarrass Mr. Atkinson. Ruin his reputation by having him caught in the act of debauchery."
"Short of tying him up and having your woman tickle his balls, how do you propose to accomplish that?" Annabelle snorted, exhaling a small puff of silver smoke from her nostrils as Dutch finally made a move and she studied the board for a while.
"If that's what it takes. I've been meeting him at church on Sunday's since the soirée , somehow failing to burst into flames every time I set foot in the house of the Lord." He watched as she touched a couple pieces before settling on a pawn in front of her queen and moving it forward two squares.
"What?" She looked up, noticing him staring at her in her powder blue and white dress, she took a drag and exhaled audibly.
"Leaving your bishop, queen, and king open like that? Are you sure you know how to play?" He raised an eyebrow, grabbing a cigarette from the silver case beside them and pulling one out for himself.
"I guess we'll see." She replied coldly and he feigned being hurt for a moment before he took one of her pawns with his knight. He moved the cigarette into his mouth and lit it, puffing on it as she gingerly tapped hers against the glass ashtray.
"You're getting sloppy." Dutch chuckled as she took one of his pawns with hers, setting it gently in the space above his knight.
"You can test that hypothesis at your leisure." She replied, setting the white pawn off to the side and crossing her legs.
"You're angry with me about Susan. I know you confessed our little secret to her. She's a grown woman, Annabelle, she knows all about the wild and untamed hearts of men." He moved his bishop to C5 and she responded by quickly moving her queen to G4 before he had even taken his hand off of his piece. He shot her an irritated look but her eyes were cold, he grimaced a bit. He hated when she looked like that, like he was a writhing little maggot under her boots.
"Do you actually care about any of them, Mr. Van der Linde? Or just yourself?" She took a long drag off her cigarette as he looked down at the board for a moment, biting his lip as he thought about the next move.
"You asked me how I would feel," he picked up his knight and pushed her pawn on F2 out of the way, carefully picking it up and studying it, "when you crushed them like ants in front of me."
"And?" She put her cigarette in the ashtray and took another of his pawns on G7.
"Are you trying to rob me of my pawns or what?" He set his elbows on the table, putting the cigarette in his mouth and puffing on it for a moment as he wrung his hands together. He slid his rook over to protect his king.
"Van der Linde." Annabelle stamped out her cigarette and stood up from the table, sliding her bishop up to G5 and turning her back to him.
"I am responsible, Annabelle. Of course I would be destroyed if I lost Mr. Morgan, Mr. and Mrs. Matthews, or Ms. Grimshaw. But," he pushed a pawn at F7 forward, "they were aware of the dangers of this alternative lifestyle. They understand the law of the jungle, sweetheart. I thought you did too."
"O'Shea, Johnson, Riggs, Diego, and Abby are my family Dutch. Loyalty and love protect you from the rules of the jungle. You sound no different than Ming or Juan when you talk like that, talk about your people like they're just just a means to an end. But, that's your whole bit, isn't it?" She turned around and leaned across the board as he took the cigarette out of his mouth and exhaled through his nose and smothered it in the ashtray.
"It's your move." He grumbled, gesturing with his fingers at the board and she sank back down into her seat, she drummed her fingers against the table for a bit before she decided to check her pocket watch.
"Another time. My cousin will kill me if I'm late for tea." She snapped it shut and rose again and he stood up as well, making a grab for her arm as she went to tuck her watch back into a hidden pocket on her dress. He chuckled, pulling her back into him as he swept her hair from her neck and leaned his head in between her shoulder and neck.
"You shouldn't get attached to things that aren't permanent, Annabelle. Love and Loyalty? Childish fantasies. I thought you were smarter than that." He kissed the side of her head and she seethed a bit, pushing his hands off of her waist and sticking her pocket watch back. The sentiment burned in her mind as she stepped away from him and headed towards the door.
"I'll take your pawn at F6. I'll see you at Ming's tomorrow." She opened the door and he smirked as he moved her black pawn to take his white one and set it down with the other trophies she had taken.