The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes (London Highwaymen, #2)(44)
He slept for twelve hours, waking only when the morning sun streamed through the uncurtained window. He dressed in a set of clean clothes that he had left behind the last time he stayed at his mother’s, then went immediately to Clare House. A falsified delivery at the kitchen door, a pleasant chat with the cook, an entire plate of biscuits, and he had satisfied himself that Eliza was well. He had seen the child with his own eyes, safe in the arms of a neat-looking nursery maid. Seldom had he beheld an infant as comprehensively fat and rosy and whose cheeks deserved so many pinches as this one. He restrained himself and carried on to his next errand.
Before he left for London, Marian had asked an additional favor from him. “Percy already paid for it,” she had said, giving him an address. “It’s simply a matter of arranging for the portrait to get to him.”
He had agreed as a matter of course. He didn’t much want to see Holland. In addition to not liking the man, which he had always considered reason enough to avoid a person, he also didn’t want to answer any of the questions Holland would undoubtedly have about Marian.
He would do it, though. Here’s your portrait, Marian is well, goodbye. He could manage that much.
He hadn’t expected the portrait to be quite so large, though. Marian and Holland looked out from the canvas, at least as large as life. Marian was done up in silk, her black hair powdered nearly white and her skin a similar shade of alabaster. There was a quantity of rouge in all the usual places. Holland had been done up to much the same effect. Even the baby, in Marian’s arms and looking alarmingly like Holland (and alarmingly like the looking glass, it had to be said), was all pink and white.
He tried to tell himself that he didn’t like the people in this portrait. They were rich and spoiled, entitled and extravagant. There was a mean little twist to Holland’s mouth and something irritated and obstreperous about the set of Marian’s jaw. He tried to tell himself that he knew the real Marian and that it wasn’t this imperious aristocrat. But he had seen that expression on her face a dozen times and he loved it there.
There was something about seeing her dressed like that, Holland at her side, Cheveril Castle in the background, that made Rob realize exactly what he had done. She was the Duchess of Clare and he had fallen in love with her.
As a rule, he avoided thinking too much about the future and this was no exception; he knew he wanted more of Marian but hadn’t considered how to make that happen. They couldn’t simply ride about the countryside indefinitely. But now he saw how it would end: Marian would come back to London and live at Clare House with Holland. He couldn’t imagine how he’d contrive to see her at all, let alone see as much of her as he’d like.
Wrapped in paper and tied in twine, the canvas was unwieldy, and it took some doing to get it through the streets without both it and Rob getting splattered with mud. The sun had set, which only made the operation more awkward, and Rob was treated to a variety of insults, profanity, and oaths from the people he narrowly avoided bludgeoning with the portrait.
Finally, he reached Kit’s coffeehouse. It would have made more sense to bring the blasted canvas to Clare House, but he grit his teeth and decided to do a favor for Kit—and, by extension, Holland. It was obvious that the pair of them were—ugh, there was no word for it but smitten. Kit deserved nothing but happiness, even if he did have the poor choice to attach himself to the likes of Holland. Knowing Kit, he might be in need of an excuse to get in touch with the man, and the painting would provide a handy one.
But when he got to Kit’s, he saw Kit and Holland stepping out of the coffeehouse, their heads bent together, plainly not in need of any kind of excuse to speak to one another. It would be the work of a minute to cross the street and approach them, deliver the parcel and Marian’s note, and take himself off. He could do that.
But he could see Kit’s face, could see the way his friend leaned toward Holland, and he couldn’t interrupt. It had been a decade since he had seen Kit look openly content. It was as if something inside Kit had uncoiled—a tension that Rob hadn’t even known his friend carried. And Holland was no better, looking almost giddy with happiness. It was more than a bit unsettling. Rob didn’t know how to cross the street and interrupt them, because then they would stop being happy and start asking questions that he couldn’t answer.
In his pocket, he carried Marian’s letter for Holland. It could hardly be called a letter, consisting of four words and bearing neither salutation nor signature: “Kiss Eliza for me.” It would satisfy Holland that Marian was alive, at least. But it wasn’t enough, just like Rob failing to cross the street and talk to Kit wasn’t enough. It was all so far from adequate. Kit deserved better. Even that prig Holland probably deserved better. Rob didn’t know why he and Marian had in common this prickly inability to let their closest and best friends see the messier parts of themselves.
He stayed in the shadows and waited for them to leave, waited even longer for the shop to close, stamping his feet to ward off the cold. Then he picked the confounded locks for the second time in less than a day, left the painting and Marian’s note in plain view, and prepared to leave London once again.
Chapter 20
On the third day after Rob left, it began to snow.
Marian and Netley did their best to keep the cart horse warm in the stable as the snow continued to fall throughout the day, gathering in hillocks and waves across the garden and piling high against the kitchen door. It was the sort of wet and clumpy snow that didn’t want to be swept and left sheets of ice in its wake.