The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes (London Highwaymen, #2)(74)

“You don’t?”

Marian took a drink from the tankard Rob had before him. “I won’t insult your intelligence by pointing out that the Duke of Clare would have a substantial fortune at his disposal. That’s a lot of innkeepers’ wives and crossing sweeps whose pockets you could fill. Percy’s cousins, or whoever the estate would fall to absent a legitimate son, wouldn’t do anything noble. Of that I can assure you.”

Rob could feel the walls of the room closing in on him. “I can’t spend the rest of my life tied to that—”

Marian’s patience seemed to snap. “You don’t want to be tied to something? You don’t want it simply because you didn’t choose it? What a world we would live in if everyone were able to choose which burdens and duties they were to bear. You are aware, are you not, that most people do what they must, rather than run away?”

“Most people! Marian, how have you lived over twenty years and still believe that?”

“Most people who aren’t cowards and scapegraces, then! You already know this, Rob. You aren’t going to pretend that you’ve spent five and twenty years without ever doing a single thing you didn’t want to do simply because it was your responsibility. You told me about how you went to your mother when Mr. Webb was ill and you needed someone to mind him while you went off and—”

“And murdered two members of a smuggling gang?” He laughed, dry and bitter. “I don’t think that example bolsters your point, darling.”

“Of course it does,” she said, much in the manner of a put-upon schoolmistress. “I imagine that joining a smuggling gang is much like joining an army and that it’s rather a kill or be killed situation. I already know those killings eat up your peace of mind. You did something horrible and which you did not want to do because you decided that your higher duty was to your friend.”

He chose not to engage with what he was certain was faulty logic. She was trying to rile him up and he was annoyed with himself for taking the bait, but, as always, it pleased some inane part of himself to do as Marian wished of him. “I have no duty to the estate of the Duke of Clare.”

“Somebody must! How else will the roads be repaired? Or fences mended? Or disputes settled between neighbors? Who will see to the churches? Who will—”

“I don’t know! I don’t care.”

She was silent for a moment. “I think you do care.”

He drained his tankard, then regarded the woman who sat across the table from him. Her expression was utterly uncompromising, stark and severe and—hopeful. She believed he was a better man than he was, or maybe she had tricked herself into believing as much. Or maybe he somehow was a decent person according to whatever twisted principles Marian held; maybe they both were decent people. She was every bit as ruthless as he was, and he knew her to be the best person he had ever met. He would laugh in the face of anyone who suggested otherwise. “Of course I care. Ugh. Marian. There has to be another way.”

She flashed him a rare smile and all at once whatever lunacy he was about to embark on was worth it. “Naturally there’s another way. We just haven’t come up with it yet. Meanwhile, I wanted to make sure you understood exactly what the stakes are if you simply pretend that you aren’t who you are.”

“Cold-blooded,” he said admiringly. “You don’t blame me for not wanting to inherit?” He took her hand, half expecting her to pull it away, but she didn’t. “My mother thinks I ought to marry you.”

Now she snatched her hand away. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Percy said the same.”

“The theory, as I understand it, is that you’d remain the Duchess of Clare.”

“A role I’ve enjoyed so very much,” she said, her voice dripping with scorn.

“Right. That’s what I thought. I just needed to make sure.”

She stared at him. “Are you saying you’d go through with inheriting if I wanted to remain a duchess, of all things?”

Rob swallowed and felt his face heat. “I’m not saying I’d like it. But I think I might go through with it if that was what it took to keep you happy.”

“Happy,” she scoffed, as if the concept was laughable. “After everything you said, you think I could possibly be happy if you were miserable? I hadn’t realized that I fell in love with a simpleton.”

He wanted to ask her to repeat that, to demand if she meant it, to ask for it in writing. But Marian never said anything she didn’t mean. If she said she loved him, she loved him. She had once said that she didn’t love people the way he did, whatever that meant. Nothing could have mattered less; if Marian loved him, then that was precisely the sort of love he wanted. “I want to be with you more than I want . . .” He didn’t know how to finish the sentence, because the fact was that he could end it with just about anything and it would be true. “I’ve never thought about the future. Hell, I’ve avoided thinking about the future. But now when I look at time stretching out before me, all I can think is that I want you with me.” He brought his hand to the pocket where he still held her letters and he watched her gaze track his movement. “Everything else is secondary.”

She gave him a look that was somehow both warm and knife sharp. “Rob. You idiot. You were so fundamentally opposed to being a duke that when you were in a position to ask me for anything, the one thing you wanted was my assistance in making sure you never inherited. At the time I thought it odd, but now that I know you better, I see that inheriting a title and money would go against everything you stand for. Don’t tell me that you’d put that aside.”