The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes (London Highwaymen, #2)(66)

When he and Kit were alone at the table, Rob went and fetched another pair of pints from the publican, perversely wanting to delay whatever would happen when he was alone with Kit. Kit had always had a way of seeing through him and Rob shuddered to think of what Kit would be able to see now.

“You really all right?” was all Kit asked, though.

“Not really, but I’ll do, all things considered. What about you?”

“Percy’s buying the house next door to the coffeehouse,” he said, as if this were an answer to Rob’s question. And Rob supposed it was, in a way.

“I hope he’ll be very happy in it while I’m dragged kicking and screaming into a Chancery suit that’ll no doubt take the rest of my life to be resolved.”

“I think you should talk to Percy,” Kit said.

“I’m sure we’ll have plenty of opportunities to talk when we start spending all our time in court,” Rob grumbled. “I’m not going along with it. You might as well tell him that. I’ll deny it with my last breath.”

Kit didn’t ask any more questions, and they settled into an old and familiar rhythm of pointless conversation until finally Kit sighed. “I’d better help Betty close up.”

“I’ll stay and finish my beer. And probably get another one, if we’re honest.” And probably another one after that, but nobody needed to be that honest. “Do you wish he had been a commoner?”

Kit raised his eyebrows. “Percy? At first, maybe. But I—I love him, and I wouldn’t want to change anything that made him the person I love.” He scowled and got to his feet, leaning heavily on his walking stick. “To hell with you for making me say that aloud.”

“It was worse for me,” Rob said with feeling.

Kit squeezed Rob’s shoulder. “You’ve always been brave. You can find a way to be brave about this.”

Rob looked up at his friend. “I’ve never been brave. I’m just reckless.”

Something sad passed over Kit’s face. “No. You find a way to be brave for everyone but yourself. When I think of the things you did for me when you were a child, Rob.”

It probably said something that Rob couldn’t immediately tell whether Kit was referring to Rob helping him bury his family or Rob killing those smugglers in Rye—the latter of which Kit definitely wasn’t supposed to know about. But Kit had always been more observant than Rob gave him credit for. “I want to take care of my—of the people—of my family, I suppose. That’s all.”

“Well, you’re my family, too, and I’d love it if you could find a way to take care of yourself in the same way that you’ve always taken care of me.”

Rob wanted to point out that there was nobody to threaten, nobody to hurt, just one future he couldn’t have, and one he didn’t want.

Instead he watched his friend head out into the cold.





Chapter 31




Marian shouldn’t have been surprised to find that Clare House was quiet and somber with mourning. But she hadn’t been expecting the black crepe, the drawn curtains, the closed-in feeling that comes from too little light and too much silence.

And there was no sign of Percy.

“His Grace has business that often lasts until late at night,” lamented Percy’s valet. “Sometimes even until the next morning,” he added, for all the world as if he and Marian didn’t both know perfectly well what sort of things were keeping Percy occupied until all hours.

Marian wrote a note to Percy announcing her arrival in London and sent it with a footman, instructing him to check for His Grace at Mr. Webb’s coffeehouse as well as the solicitors’ chambers and anywhere else that seemed a likely destination. Next she wrote a similar note for Marcus.

And then she went upstairs.

“I just got her to sleep, Your Grace,” Alice said, dropping into the hybrid curtsey and bow that she seemed to think appropriate for greeting her charge’s mother. “She’s working on a new tooth and is ever so displeased about it. But I can wake her if you like.”

“No, no,” Marian said, watching her daughter sleep. Her hands were balled into little fists and the remnants of an imperious tantrum were still on her face. She looked remarkably like Percy, and the resemblance only increased the crankier she became.

“I’m glad to see that you’re well, Your Grace. We were worried, ma’am, if you’ll forgive me for saying so. I thought you might have been injured by the villains who killed His Grace.”

“I ought to have left word, but I needed to—” Marian broke off. She had nearly repeated the line she had been formulating as her official excuse, that she was so distressed by witnessing her husband’s injury that she sought comfort in the home of her father. But anyone who knew her, and anyone who had spent months in the duke’s household certainly knew her at least slightly, would know that she wasn’t prone to fits of nerves. “The truth is that I needed to see to my father in Kent. He’s old and unwell.”

Eliza grumbled in her sleep, rolling from her back to her belly with an air of great suffering. Marian and Alice remained perfectly still and silent until the baby’s deep breathing resumed.

“Is that a new trick she has?” Marian asked. “Rolling over onto her belly?” She had seen Eliza roll onto her back, but not the other way around. But perhaps she had always done this and Marian had failed to notice.