The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes (London Highwaymen, #2)(47)

“True. But at some point I—I don’t know. I started keeping secrets.”

She thought about what he had said about wanting her to know his worst self. “And you want me to know all your secrets?”

“I wish you did, without my having to go to the trouble of telling them to you.”

That was always the trouble, wasn’t it? The act of confession took private shame and guilt and made them irrevocable. Once one gave voice to one’s more sordid truths, there was no ignoring them anymore. Perhaps that was why the Catholics thought it was a sacrament; perhaps it really was a sacred mystery, or perhaps it was just the horror of having one’s worst parts exposed.

“You already know my worst secrets,” she said. Maybe that was one explanation, at least, for why she felt so bound to him. He knew the worst and he was still there. He would probably always be there, by her side, if that was what she wanted. That was terrifying—it felt like more responsibility being shoved in her direction, as if she didn’t already have enough. There wasn’t going to be an always between them and she didn’t want his—devotion, or whatever it was—if instead he could bestow it on someone more worthy and less troublesome.

“I also know your best secrets,” he answered.

When she took hold of his collar and pulled him down for a kiss, she told herself she was doing it to stop him from saying anything even worse.





Chapter 21




Rob had returned at breakneck speed, spending the night in the godforsaken stagecoach, all while telling himself that he was in a hurry only because he owed Marian information, and that his urgency had nothing to do with how much he wanted to see her.

But he had thought of her the entire time he was gone, and now that he finally had her in arm’s reach he didn’t want to let her out of his sight. And she had been thinking of him as well—she had brought him up to a sparsely furnished but large bedchamber that was a vast improvement over the tiny room by the kitchen.

“Thank you,” he said, dropping his satchel onto the carpet.

She made an impatient noise and waved her hand dismissively.

He began removing items from his coat pockets so he could assess the worst of any damage the snow might have inflicted. The knives would need to be cleaned to prevent rust, but when he patted the pocket that held Marian’s letters, he found that they were dry. “I brought you intelligence about Sir John Fanshawe.”

“Oh? From your mother, I suppose.”

He looked up from the knife that he was polishing with a soft piece of chamois leather and raised his eyebrows. “What do you know about my mother?” He didn’t think he had mentioned much about his mother to her.

For a moment, Marian looked caught out, but she recovered herself. Probably she felt guilty about snooping. “I didn’t follow you about for two weeks without gathering that your mother is who she is.”

“Are you fishing for information or are you too delicate to say ‘brothelkeeper’?”

“I wasn’t certain if ‘brothelkeeper’ was disparaging,” Marian said primly. “What did you learn about him?”

“He’s the usual sort of bastard. Stingy with his servants, late with his bills, a trial for the women in his household. She doesn’t know of anything especially horrible about him but doubts that anyone would shed a tear if he parted ways with some of his coin.” Before leaving London, Rob had asked his mother to collect a bit more information, just the usual sort of details anyone might want if they planned on a bit of burglary. But that information would concern the Fanshawes’ London house—if Marian wanted to steal anything from Fanshawe’s house in Kent, they would need their own intelligence.

He took the final weapon, the pistol, out of his coat pocket, meaning to clean it along with the rest of his weapons. This was the weapon Marian had taken from Lord Holland’s hand and used to shoot the duke, and he hadn’t paid it much attention beyond making sure it was safely stowed in his coat pocket. But now he regarded it in the firelight. He might have expected Holland to have a fancier pistol than this one, probably one of those jeweled dueling pistols that gentlemen bought in pairs. This was an old sea service pistol with a walnut stock and a twelve-inch barrel, very much like one he bought off a sailor a few years ago and gave to Kit. In fact—he held up the pistol to catch the light. And there it was, a scratch near the trigger guard that he’d have known anywhere and a faint W carved into the stock.

That meant Kit had given Holland his own pistol to use during the robbery, trusting that Holland wouldn’t drop it or leave it behind and effectively cast a trail of breadcrumbs from the duke’s carriage back to Kit. And Holland had left it behind—not on purpose, but he had left it nonetheless.

Christ, but Kit should have known better than to get mixed up with Holland. He could have been hanged for this, for this scheme Holland and Marian had cooked up between them. It was reckless and dangerous, and here Rob was doing the exact same thing: walking headlong into danger in an asinine attempt to be of service to a person he shouldn’t care for half as much as he did.

And yet, that night he was probably going to have the first uninterrupted night’s sleep he had managed in ages, all because Marian had seen to it that his room was large and airy. Because she had not only remembered that his poor lunatic mind required a constant reminder that he was not imprisoned, but she had also made sure that he would feel safe.