The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes (London Highwaymen, #2)(55)
He shook his head. “He may have suspected, but I doubt it.”
“Was that the only time?”
“No, love. When there were people who wanted to hurt us, I dealt with it. And one thing I learned to a certainty is that when you’re busy trying not to starve or freeze, there are plenty of people who want to hurt you in all kinds of interesting ways.”
“You made sure they didn’t, so Kit didn’t have to.”
Now he looked sharply at her. “Don’t make it out to be noble.”
“Fine, then make sure you don’t do that, either.” Their breaths met in white puffs between them. “Am I right, though?”
“He’s a better man than I am. He’d have been eaten up by guilt.”
“And you aren’t?”
“I used to think I was more pragmatic, but really I just didn’t want to see my friend hurt. In any event, it’s been a while since I needed to do anything of the sort. At some point we got better at avoiding trouble, and Kit figured out his own ways of making sure nobody bothered us.”
She remembered what he had told her that first night, when she was still rattled and raw. He had said that it didn’t get any easier. “I’m glad you don’t have to do that anymore.”
He snorted. “You say that as if you’re glad I no longer have to use bad roads or put up with a smoky chimney, rather than that I’ve given up the practice of committing murder.”
Hearing that word spoken aloud sent a chill down her spine, but she supposed she ought to get used to it.
“For what it’s worth,” Rob said, “I don’t think that what you did is murder. He was going to kill somebody. Maybe not that minute, but he was going to. Then again, I’m not exactly an expert on morality, so what do I know.”
“I don’t think it matters, because I’d do it again,” Marian admitted. “So if it’s murder, then I’m a murderer, and so be it. And if that makes me an evil person, then I’m an evil person, because I still wouldn’t change what I did. I’ll do my duty. I’ll do what needs to be done and leave deciding whether it’s right to other people.” Putting it as baldly as that made her feel exposed, but she remembered what Rob had said the previous night about there being comfort in someone knowing the worst you were capable of.
The doors of the church opened and the few congregants who had come to evening services on a cold Christmas night emerged into the darkness, wrapping their coats and cloaks around them. Marian and Rob held still and silent, waiting for the last of them to disappear into the night.
“Would you mind if I stepped inside again?” Marian asked.
It was hardly warmer indoors than without, now that the building was empty. She reminded herself that churches had offered sanctuary to worse than her.
“Who was the patron saint of thieves and vagabonds?” Rob asked in a low voice.
“What a Romish notion,” Marian murmured, amused. “Saint Nicholas, I believe. He has all the interesting people.”
Rob crossed the church, his boots clicking on the stone floor and his cape fluttering behind him, and Marian momentarily lost her breath at the sight of him. Then she saw him reach for a taper and she nearly laughed. Sure enough, he lit a candle.
“I mean, it can’t hurt,” he said, coming back to her.
“Indeed not,” she agreed, and together they left the church.
Chapter 26
As they walked home, they pressed close together to ward off the cold. The sun had long since set, taking with it what little warmth it had brought to the day. Rob couldn’t have said whether he reached for Marian or she reached for him, but her gloved hand wound up in his own, as if it belonged there, as if they would have days and months and years of reaching for one another.
They didn’t, though, and Rob didn’t want to waste a minute of what time they did have. In the distance, he could see a few dim lights in the windows of Marian’s father’s house. He pulled Marian behind a stand of trees. “May I?” he asked, bringing a hand to the small of her back.
She nodded and came close, and he bent down to meet her lips. And, Christ, their faces were cold. If he were any kind of decent person he would have waited until they got back to the house, but Marian wouldn’t let a little thing like frostbite prevent her from doing precisely what she chose, so neither would he. She gripped his shoulders and kissed him hard, and he kissed her back, putting as much intent and honesty into it as he could. There were a thousand things he could say, endearments and promises and more, but he didn’t think she’d believe him, so he wanted to show her instead. He was already trying to show her, with everything he did, but he didn’t know if it was enough, and he doubted this kiss would do a damned thing to help matters, but it felt good anyway.
Marian pulled back long enough to take the fingers of a glove between her teeth and tug it off, and God help him but that shouldn’t have looked half so good, and then her freezing cold hand was at the back of his neck, her fingers threaded in his hair, holding him close, keeping him still. She tasted of the brandy-laced tea they had shared earlier that day and she smelled of the lavender and other herbs her clothes must have been packed away in. In his arms she felt as sharp as a knife and as sure as a promise and he never wanted to take his hands off her.