The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes (London Highwaymen, #2)(43)

“Ha! If I had a penny for every man who said that,” his mother said, exasperated. “See that you don’t. Dinah’s fond of her—”

At the name of the midwife, he remembered that he had a couple of choice words picked out on the topic of his mother’s indiscretion. “About Dinah—”

“Well, are you going to marry the duchess? That’ll tidy everything up, nice as ninepence. It turns out her marriage to one duke was no good, so she marries another.”

He ignored this, because the alternative was a descent into whatever mad world his mother was currently inhabiting. “I came to find out what news there is of the duke.”

“He’s dead, shot by highwaymen.” She looked at him curiously. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that?”

“I swear on my honor that I was in London that entire day.”

“Of course you were. Tied to a bed over a shabby public house near Charing Cross, you were.”

He stared at her. “Tell me you didn’t arrange for that.” He could imagine his mother dropping a hint in Dinah’s ear, who in turn passed the suggestion to Marian.

“A happy coincidence,” she said with a wave of her hand.

“Wait. You knew I was being held prisoner and you left me there?”

“I thought it might discourage you from blackmailing helpless young women in the future. You always did have to learn your lessons the hard way. Besides, it was a very nice alibi, was it not? You can thank me later. But where was Kit?”

“Kit couldn’t hold up a pram these days, let alone a coach and six. I take it the highwayman remains at large?”

“Nobody got a good look at the man, it seems. The duke lingered a couple of days after being shot, which is a marvel I can only explain by the devil looking after his own.”

“You should have been a spymaster, Mother.”

“Who says I’m not?”

“I’d like to think a spymaster wouldn’t share her friends’ secrets with midwives.”

“Would you, now? What if the midwife were also a friend? What if she herself had a friend in a desperate situation? What if I thought I could bring together a handful of people with a common enemy? An enemy I happen to share. I have a notion that this is precisely what spymasters do.” She sighed. “Honestly, you are so young, Robert. A veritable baby.”

Before he could protest, they were interrupted by the arrival of a maid with a tray of buns and a bottle of wine, and remained silent until the girl left.

“Lord Holland—or I suppose I should say the new Duke of Clare—has been making life very difficult for a good number of solicitors,” his mother said. “The duke’s body was hardly cold before he started bolloxing up investments and divesting the estate of property.”

Rob didn’t think any topic could interest him less than the Duke of Clare’s investments, but he thought it might interest Marian. “Any other news? How’s Kit?” Rob asked.

“He’s well.” She narrowed her eyes. “Why shouldn’t he be?”

“No reason.”

His mother sighed. “I don’t suppose there’s any point in requesting that the next time you vanish, you send a note. Poor Kit can’t take the suspense of you flitting in and out of his life. He has delicate nerves.”

Rob stored that away to mock Kit about for the rest of their lives. “I was gone less than a week. And I don’t think I’ll be vanishing again any time soon.”

“Is that so? Any particular reason?”

“My advancing years.”

“I think you are going to marry her.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Enough of this, Mother.”

“It’ll be a little odd, what with her daughter being your sister.”

“We’ve been through this. I don’t accept that this is even the case.”

“That’s because you don’t spend nearly enough time in front of a looking glass.”

“You’ve said yourself that someone else could have been my father.”

“Any number of men could have been, but I was only married to one of them, and the law is what it is, whether you like it or not. You do look like him. There’s no explaining that away.”

“Don’t be tedious.” Rob looked like his mother. Reddish hair, tendency to freckle. It was true that his mother was plump and rather short, with a round face and none of the cheekbones that Marian had mentioned, but surely there were many tall, lean men who found their way into his mother’s bed in 1725. “Holland seems content to take up his coronet, and I’m more than happy for him to do so.”

“To think that you could have spared yourself all the trouble of blackmailing that poor girl.”

Rob decided that he would sooner die than let Marian know that anyone had described her as a poor girl. “One more thing. Do you happen to know anything about a Sir John Fanshawe?”

She raised her eyebrows. “I’ll find what I can. See me before you leave tomorrow.”

“I don’t suppose there’s a room you might let me have for the night.”

“At the end of the corridor on the top floor. Ring for a bath before you even think about getting into bed.”

He got to his feet and crossed the room, stopping only to press a kiss onto his mother’s head. “Thank you.”