The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes (London Highwaymen, #2)(10)

There was an ewer of water on the washstand, but no cloth. She was going to have to rummage through her filthy clothes for a scrap of linen that was clean enough to wash herself, but she doubted there were three square inches of unbloodied fabric in that entire mess.

The man held out a kerchief, almost absently, still not looking up from his cards.

She took it and used it to clean herself as best as she could without a looking glass. Every swipe of the smooth linen against her skin was a relief, as if by scrubbing hard enough she might make it so this day had never happened.





Chapter 4




Rob had spent the evening watching the coffeehouse. The plan had been for Kit to return there after the robbery, but instead of Kit, the hired scout returned alone and in an obviously flustered state.

Before that, Rob hadn’t borne Marian any ill will. He had been ready to let bygones be bygones. He blackmailed her; she kidnapped him. The slate was clean.

But if she had kidnapped him in order to do something that harmed Kit, all bets were off. So he had gone back to that ghastly little room with the aim of lying in wait.

And now, well, Rob knew what it looked like when a person was in shock. He had been there often enough for it to be as familiar as home. The only tried and true method of dealing with shock was time: you had to let it run its course, and then your mind settled over its new and troubling set of facts like a clean sheet draped over a body.

This woman—covered in blood but still straight-backed and acid-tongued—was the same person who had written him all those letters. All his abominable instincts told him to get her a blanket and some tea. But first he had to take advantage of the way the shock had loosened her tongue and see what information he could extract from her.

“Is your plan to have Kit hang for the duke’s murder?” Rob asked when Marian had finished washing and had on a layer of clothing.

He wasn’t expecting an honest answer but he also wasn’t expecting her to look at him as if highly disappointed to discover how very stupid he was. “If you think I have a plan right now, you’ve badly misread this situation. I didn’t mean for the duke to be shot either by me or anybody else. My plan was for him to live and to give me money. Now that he’s dead, he can’t very well do that, can he? At the moment, all I want is for neither Percy nor myself to hang for it. And I’d rather your idiot friend not be hanged, either, as that would make Percy cross.”

Well. That all aligned nicely with Rob’s own interests, if she were being honest, which was very much an open question. “Did anyone see you shoot the duke?”

“No,” she said, but with a thread of doubt in her voice. “We were inside the carriage, so nobody ought to have been able to see, but I can’t be certain. I told everyone—the coachman and the outriders and so forth—that the highwayman shot the duke, and I think they believed me. I also told them that the duke shot the highwayman, and I think they believed that, too, but that’s no credit to me, as it’s only the truth.”

Rob took a moment to untangle this. “Who did the duke shoot?”

“Percy. It was only his leg, and he was able to walk afterward. I must say, one does not enjoy seeing one’s friends shot, however minor the injury.”

Rob could not disagree. If Lord Holland had been hurt, that would explain both Kit’s failure to return to London and the scout’s flustered state. “The duke shot Lord Holland first, and then you shot the duke?”

“Precisely.”

So far, she was answering questions rather more coherently than he might have expected. Most people found that being recently doused in blood was not compatible with retaining one’s faculties. “Did the duke keep two pistols?” She wouldn’t have had the opportunity to reload the pistol.

She hesitated at that. “I used Percy’s pistol. I took it from his hand and shot the duke with it.”

“Where is it now?”

She gestured at the pile of dirty clothes. “In my pocket, somewhere in there.”

Now, that was very good. It wouldn’t do for a strange pistol to be found in the carriage. He reached into his coat and produced a flask, which he offered to her. She looked like she could use a drink.

She looked skeptically at the flask, which was mighty rich. He took a drink himself, made an expression that he hoped conveyed that he, at least, didn’t go about poisoning people, and again offered it to her. This time she drank, wincing at what he could only assume was the unfamiliar taste of gin.

“What will you do now?” he asked.

“My—” She narrowed her eyes, as if suddenly realizing who she was talking to. “What business is it of yours?”

He could have told her that everything she did was his business until he knew that Kit wasn’t in danger. Instead he shrugged. “Call me a Good Samaritan.”

She made a noise that told him precisely what she thought of that suggestion. “I mean to go to my father’s house in Kent.”

He knew that her father was the Earl of Eynsham. Perhaps she thought that her father would be able to protect her from arrest. “It makes far more sense for you to go home, play the grieving widow, and repeat your tale about the highwayman to anyone who asks. Fleeing only looks suspicious.”

Her gaze shifted from withering to glacial. He was impressed. “This is none of your concern,” she said, crisply enunciating each syllable.