The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes (London Highwaymen, #2)(31)

Rob hesitated. “He’s quite violent, as you’ve seen.”

She held out her hands. “Give him over,” she said, in the tone of voice she had noticed made him go quiet.

She promptly wrapped the animal snugly in her cloak and then tucked it under her arm as if it were a loaf of bread. As boys, both Marcus and Percy had been softhearted fools, forever attempting to rescue wounded animals, but lacking the stomach to deal with such matters as blood and bone. Marian had learned quickly how to spirit those poor creatures to safety.

“If I get fleas, it’s your fault,” she called out, cantering off. “It’s for your own good,” she told the cat a mile or so later. “Nobody expects you to understand this, and you have every right to be displeased with him for kidnapping you, but he couldn’t leave you to starve.”

“You know I can hear you,” Rob pointed out.

“And he’s rude,” she told the cat.

“How come you talk to the cat but never the horses?”

She looked at him as if he were a lost cause. “Because horses don’t speak English.”

“And cats do?” he asked.

Instead of answering, she nudged Gwen into a gallop.

The day warmed a little as the sun rose higher, which Marian would have found promising if the improved weather hadn’t also brought with it some ominous-looking clouds. Before long, she could almost taste the incoming rain.

“How much farther to your father’s house?” Rob asked.

“An hour, at most.”

The storm was closer than that, though. They both looked at the darkening sky.

“There’s a barn up ahead.” Rob pointed to a stone building not far from the path. Marian wanted to protest, and perhaps Rob could tell, because he forestalled her arguments. “There are two horses, a cat, and a man who would rather not get drenched,” he said. “Let’s go to the barn, and you can figure out some other way to be stoic about the elements later on.”

She shot him a glare, but her heart wasn’t in it, and they rode off in the direction of the barn.

The first raindrops fell, and before long the drizzle became a steady patter of rain. With no warning, a clap of thunder banged overhead, and Marian’s horse startled and began to rear up. Marian immediately bent low over the mare’s neck and held on with her thighs. This wasn’t the first time a horse had reared on her and she doubted it would be the last. For what felt like minutes but was likely no more than the space of a few heartbeats, the horse danced about, frantic and mad, before finally settling on all fours.

“Well then,” Marian said, a bit out of breath. “Just when we were about to get bored. Thank you, Gwen.” Then she turned to Rob, who was staring at her. “Shall we?” she asked.

“You should have dismounted,” Rob said.

“She would have bolted, and I’m not losing a horse that isn’t mine. Besides, think how frightened she would have been, all alone and cold and hungry in a part of the country she doesn’t know.”

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered.

Marian looked at the bundle of cat that she still held under her arm. “As for you, don’t even think about complaining.”

“You kept hold of the bloody cat?”

“Tell me, Rob. How would the situation have been improved by dropping him?”

Rob shook his head and cantered off ahead of her.

When they reached the barn, they found it empty. In the roof was a hole so large that they had to put the horses on one end and then confine themselves to another corner, the cat in a dejected bundle at their feet.

It was only natural, she supposed, that they leaned into one another’s space. It didn’t have to mean anything other than that they were both cold and didn’t have much room. They had spent the night even closer.

“Marian,” he said, looking down at her with an expression that was far too earnest.

“Don’t be stupid,” she said, not hoping that he’d listen. “If you mean to kiss me, just do it. There’s no need for all this.” Had he not noticed her behavior the previous night?

He snorted, but his expression was no less fond. “I’m gone on you.”

She refrained from rolling her eyes. “You just think you are because you’re used to being surrounded by friends and now I’m all you have.”

“Bollocks.”

She was right, of course, but she had never seen the point of arguing with men when they got emotional. “Very well, then,” she said. “You’re gone on me. I can’t imagine what you hope to achieve by saying so.”

This was evidently yet another instance of her being inadvertently hilarious, because he laughed. But his laugh was soft and—heaven help the poor man—it was terribly fond and tender. He brought a hand up to her jaw.

“I’ll let you puzzle that one out on your own, Marian.”

For a moment they stood like that, barely a hair’s breadth between them, and Marian let herself believe that nothing mattered except the little space in the world that their two bodies took up together.

She leaned forward, closing the small gap between them. It had been so long since she’d kissed anyone, and for a moment she hesitated, not sure which way to tilt her head. Rob paused as she did and she knew that he always would, that he’d let her take the lead, that he’d never take more than she gave. A rush of warm and soft feelings threatened to engulf her, but she was made of sterner stuff than Rob, so she ignored all that silliness and kissed him.