The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes (London Highwaymen, #2)(29)

But right now they were on the edge of what felt to Rob like something terribly fragile and terribly important, proof that they really had become friends over the course of all those letters. He didn’t want to spoil it.

They drank until the flask was empty and the kittens had tired of playing with their boots and fallen asleep in a fluffy heap. Then they made their way inside and up the stairs, occasionally leaning against one another when the room began to spin.

Once the door was shut, Marian flung herself across the bed. “I’ve never been this inebriated. This is why they warn against gin.”

“It’s an efficient means to an end,” he agreed, lying beside her.

“What odds would you give me that I get my boots off before falling asleep?”

The incongruity of Marian, who usually spoke like somebody’s persnickety grandmother, now adopting the argot of a bookmaker, made Rob laugh. He rolled over to bury his face in the pillow. “Four to one. But I know you too well to bet against you, even when you’re as drunk as a lord,” he said when he had collected himself.

She sat up and promptly fell off the bed.

“The mattress was right there a minute ago,” she said, regarding the floor in some bewilderment.

“Get back up here,” he said, extending his hand. “You’re in shark-infested waters and this is the only raft.” She let out a sound that might have been a laugh—he wouldn’t know, as he had never heard her laugh and hardly even seen her smile. She grabbed his hand and hauled herself up, then he tugged her onto the bed. She landed on top of him, which hadn’t been his goal but wasn’t something he was going to complain about either. When his hands came to rest on her hips, she looked down at him with a slightly unfocused gaze.

So far, he had avoided touching her unnecessarily, primarily because not everyone found touch comforting, but also he was afraid that all it would take would be a squeeze of her fingers and he’d tumble from admiring her to adoring her, or from adoring her to whatever was even worse. But by now he knew that if she didn’t want him to touch her, she’d move her hand away, and if he didn’t want to fall in love with her, he was already fucked.

He was lost, and he had been from about the first time she sent him a scathing letter—what kind of person did that to a man who held her future in the palm of his hand?—and followed it up with trivia about that Italian fellow and his peculiarly organized version of hell. The die was cast long before she showed up in that little room, covered in blood. And now, after two days together, his fate was sealed.

He reminded himself that this was the Duchess of Clare, that anything he started with her would only end in heartbreak. But he had never paid much attention to warnings.

“You were a terrible blackmailer,” she said, poking him in the sternum. As she had been using both hands to prop herself up, this gesture caused her to fall fully onto his chest.

“It was a humbling experience,” he agreed.

“Given another fortnight, I could have worn you down. I’d have had you paying me a few pounds just for the favor of praying for your soul.” Her words were muffled, both by the alcohol and the fact that she was speaking the words directly into the fabric of his shirt. “You didn’t even seem to be having any fun at all. This afternoon, when you stole from those dreadful young men, you enjoyed yourself. So why did you blackmail me?”

“It was the principle of the thing, darling. When I came into possession of a secret like that, I had to use it to wrangle money from the duke.”

“But you didn’t go after the duke. You went after me.”

“It would have been worse to go behind your back,” he countered, aware that this likely did not make any sense to her, seeing as it no longer made much sense to him, either. “I regret it. I regret a good many things, but that’s near the top of the list.”

“I don’t regret it. I needed to know the truth, and following you did get me some exercise.”

“Some exercise,” he repeated faintly.

“And I’ve never been much use at making friends in the ordinary way, so that was a pleasant surprise.”

“Making friends.”

She raised her head, seemingly with great effort, and scowled at him. “Do you mean to repeat everything I say?”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Quite,” she said imperiously. “I still think you were a lunatic to respond to my letters.”

“Everybody who loves me says that. Truly, you should hear my mother and Kit on the topic of my lunacy. Besides, maybe I was after a bit of exercise and some new friends, too.”

“Not some new friends. One new friend. Just me. You and me.”

“You and me, Marian.”

She studied him, a little bleary-eyed but warm and intent. “Your eyes are pretty,” she said, and Rob felt a flush spread from his chest to his neck to the tips of his ears.

“Pretty,” he repeated.

“Like honey. Or brandy, maybe. Or cinnamon.”

“Those are all good things,” he said idiotically. But, really, he had always just thought his eyes were brown.

She nodded very seriously. “And you have a lot of freckles.”

“They’re all over me,” he said and then froze, as if he hadn’t been half naked in front of her just a few hours earlier. Her eyes were wide now, as if she had the same thought.