The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes (London Highwaymen, #2)(24)

“Have you ever been caught?”

She was evidently being hilarious again, because he let out a loud shout of a laugh. “Have I been caught? Marian,” he said, looking at her with an expression she couldn’t quite decipher. “Yes, darling, I’ve been caught.”

“Doesn’t that make you want to stop?” The mere prospect of being discovered as the duke’s murderer made her nearly frantic with worry, which was why she was refusing to let herself think about it.

“Not in the least. It makes me want to figure out ways to avoid being caught.”

“Wait,” she said, remembering something he had said a moment earlier, when she had been too busy not looking at his profile to quite pay attention to his words. “Mr. Webb was ready to burn down Cheveril Castle? What did the duke have to do with anything?”

Now he was staring at her. “You don’t know? You didn’t know about Kit’s history with the duke when you and Lord Holland tried to hire him to hold up the duke’s carriage?”

“No,” Marian said, her heart now beating nervously. “Why should I have?”

“How did you get his name?”

“Dinah got it for me.”

“And who is Dinah?”

“My midwife. She asked a friend of hers, a woman she says knows everything about everybody.” Marian did not know what she expected, but Rob letting loose a torrent of laughter mixed with profanity was not it.

“When they say it’s a small world, they really aren’t exaggerating,” he said, and then trotted off ahead of her without another word.





Chapter 10




His mother? His mother, of all people, had identified Kit as a highwayman? And Rob even knew who this midwife was—a fair-haired woman in her forties who looked after the girls who worked for his mother. Why his mother had seen fit to confide in her was a mystery to him. They were absolutely going to have words when he returned home.

Unfortunately, those words would probably consist of his mother reminding him that for over a year he let her believe he was dead and that he had absolutely no moral high ground to reproach her. And then he’d apologize. Again.

“If you ever contemplate letting your friends and family believe that you’re dead, Marian, let me tell you that it’s not as good an idea as you might think.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” she said. He could hear the smile in her voice and didn’t dare turn his head in case he chased it away.

The sun was beginning to set, casting long shadows on the path before them and stripping the countryside of what little color it had. “Would you mind walking the horses for a while?” he asked.

By way of an answer, she dismounted. He noticed that she came to walk between the horses and so he did the same. The path was narrow and their shoulders almost touched.

“So,” she said in the tone people use right before they’re about to say something better left unsaid. “Are you and Mr. Webb very good friends?”

He huffed out a short laugh and saw the air cloud before his face. “I hope so. He seems to have forgiven me.”

“That isn’t what I meant. I watched you stare at his coffeehouse night after night before you got up the courage to go inside, and I know that you slept there every night afterward until we left London.”

Rob tried to determine what, exactly, she was getting at. “Kit and I grew up together. He’s my oldest and best friend.”

“Is that all he is?”

“All? Good God, isn’t it enough?” Kit had been the one constant in his life, the one thing he could depend on. And Rob was altogether too conscious of having nearly thrown that away.

“Are you always this dense? I’m asking if you and Mr. Webb are lovers. Or if you’re in love with him or he with you. How infuriating that you make me spell it out when I hoped to be discreet.”

Well, Rob supposed, it stood to reason that any friend of Lord Holland’s would have to be broad-minded in that regard. “Ah, no. None of those things. Are you trying to figure out whether Kit is spoken for?”

“Now why would I want to do that.”

“Lord Holland has nothing to worry about in that quarter, either from me or from anyone else.”

“I can’t imagine what Percy has to do with this,” she said lightly, in the way people did when the truth couldn’t be spoken aloud, so an unconvincing lie was a serviceable second best.

“I think we can both imagine precisely what Lord Holland has to do with it, more’s the pity. Kit’s a lovely man, you know.”

“So is Percy—well, no, Percy is a good many things, but not lovely. He’s the most loyal person I’ve ever known. He would do anything for the people he cares about. He’s also clever and funny, and the past few months have been hard on him.”

As far as Rob could tell, Lord Holland was an extravagant popinjay who had never been burdened by a single thought for another human being in his entire life, but he was willing to concede that he might be biased against anyone who put Kit in harm’s way. “Whereas they’ve been a balmy springtime day for you?”

“Percy had expectations. I never did. If I can get my father sorted, then I’m no worse off now than I was a year ago. There’s Eliza to think of, but she’ll never know that she’s missed out on being a fine lady.”