The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes (London Highwaymen, #2)(12)

“Of course I do,” she said. She retrieved a coin purse from the pile of garments on the floor and tucked it into her pocket. He followed it with his eyes. It was always good to know where the money was.

“Excellent, then,” he said, getting to his feet and folding his newspaper. He watched as she ransacked a chest of drawers that he had hardly noticed.

“I need to leave a note for my friend, to let her know what happened.”

“Christ, no. Don’t leave it here. If you absolutely must, you can write a note at the first inn we pass and send it in the post.”

“I’m not leaving a signed confession, you ridiculous man. I’m letting her know that I’m alive and so are you, so she doesn’t spend the next week worrying about getting arrested for murder. I feel keenly the unpleasantness of that position.”

“Have it your way.” He rummaged through his haversack until he turned up a scrap of paper and a pencil. She scribbled something on the paper and tossed it on the bed.

He picked it up, of course, ignoring anything he might be tempted to feel at the sight of that familiar handwriting. Both of us are well. Change of plans. No signature, no initial. He put it back where he had found it. “Now, gather up your clothes and the pistol.”

She picked up a cloak but nudged the remainder of the pile with her boot. “I don’t need any of that. We can leave it behind.”

“The point, my dear lady, is to leave as little evidence as possible connecting you with this place. Your story is going to be that you were in a state of extreme shock after your husband was viciously struck down by brigands, and in that vulnerable state you sought the protection and comfort of your father. You’ve never been to this place and neither have I.”

She looked at him for a moment and seemed on the verge of arguing. Then she nodded and stooped to gather her clothes in a bundle.

“The pistol as well,” he said. “Actually, give the pistol to me.”

“I’m not giving you a weapon,” she scoffed.

“Marian, darling,” he said. “Don’t be daft.” He opened his coat. He wasn’t sure whether she’d be able to see his own pistol in the dark but trusted that the candlelight at least illuminated the hilts of his knives. Her eyes went wide.

“Naturally,” she said. “You needed to equip yourself to walk your dog.”

“I thought we decided it was a cat. Now, give me the pistol. Unless you somehow managed to reload it, it won’t do you any good anyway. You said it was Lord Holland’s?”

She handed him the pistol with obvious reluctance. He made sure it wasn’t loaded and tucked it into the waistband of his breeches.

“After you,” he said, opening the door into the stairwell, and watched her sail out, the hood of her cloak up over her head, not sparing the room a backward glance over her shoulder.





Chapter 5




During her previous nighttime forays into the streets of London, Marian had primarily relied on stealth and shadow to keep safe.

Tonight, this man attempted neither. He walked briskly down the middle of the street, boot heels clicking on cobblestone, his cape flying behind him. Marian was tall, but he was taller, and she had to strain to keep pace with him.

They proceeded south and east, passing through narrow lanes lined with crooked houses out into wide avenues boasting great guildhalls, and then back again to narrow passages. The rank smell of the river met her nose, and when she looked around she was surprised to find that she knew where she was. Before her stood the monument to the Great Fire and beyond it the clock tower of St. Magnus. This was a part of town Marian knew only from having tailed the man who now led her, but it seemed that she had learned it well enough.

When London Bridge came into view, the man barely broke stride as he stooped to pick up what appeared to be a brick. She supposed that she ought to worry that she was about to be bludgeoned and summarily cast into the river, but he would hardly need a brick to do away with her when he was armed to the teeth with weapons that were more suited to the purpose. Come to that, he wouldn’t need any weapons at all if he simply pushed her into the Thames.

She decided that at some point in the distant, unimaginable future she would think about why she was worried about none of those things. For now, she crossed the bridge.

There was only one roadway along the bridge, hemmed in by looming houses. For all it was the middle of the night, it was far from quiet—there was the steady hum of the river below and muffled nighttime sounds from the buildings that surrounded them: a hissing cat, a crying baby, not to mention the usual rustling and scurrying that came from all darkened corners of London.

At the sound of the baby she clenched her teeth. There was no sense in thinking about it. Eliza had a nice warm house and people to look after her. Marian’s feelings on the subject were of no consequence. What mattered was that Eliza was safe. In a few days, Marian would ensure that her father was safe, as well. She ought to have checked in on him months ago, but during her confinement she had been in no state to go so far as the dining room, let alone Canterbury. Surely, the housekeeper or nurse would have written if the earl’s condition had worsened. She couldn’t quite imagine what worse would look like: a year ago, he was unable to remember the names of most people around him, or whether he was at Chiltern Hall or Little Hinton. That was why, when she needed to get her father away from the gaze of her eldest brother, Richard, who boasted that he would send their father off to an institution at the slightest provocation, Marian seized on Little Hinton, the house where her father had spent the first fifty years of his life, as the solution to their problems. She ought to have asked her other brother, Marcus, to check on their father, but Marcus had been busy both with his own affairs and with investigating the duke’s bigamy. And, really, did it always have to fall to her to tell people what they ought to be doing?