The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes (London Highwaymen, #2)(7)

Rob didn’t much care for being restrained. He supposed few people did, but he had spent enough time imprisoned to have an especially dim view of the practice. He was decidedly against it and would make sure Marian had a piece of his mind when she got back. If she got back.

Of course she would come back. She couldn’t mean to let him rot alone in a tiny room. If she wanted to murder him she would have done precisely that; she was not a woman who did things by halves or who balked at taking decisive action. This was a comforting thought. Besides, he could hear people in the street below; he could always scream, he supposed.

Or he could—he tugged one of his wrists—yes, he could. These weren’t proper ropes and they certainly weren’t shackles. They were scarcely stronger than hair ribbons and conveniently silky. His neck was predictably stiff but he was able to turn his head far enough to the side to see what he was doing. Yes, if he moved his thumb, and . . . all right, that hurt quite a bit, and a broken finger wasn’t going to do him any good right now. He took a deep breath and forced himself to ignore his rising panic and instead work slowly.

With a great deal of fidgeting, he managed to get his index finger and thumb onto the knot, and from there it was simply a matter of time before he was able to loosen it. He shut his eyes so he wouldn’t sense the nearness of the walls or imagine that they were drawing closer and worked by touch alone. And then, just like that, he had his hand out.

He was absolutely going to tell Marian that the next time she saw fit to attempt any abductions, she must first practice her knots. And she was never ever again to use what appeared to be the sash to a dressing gown, for heaven’s sake. She had done remarkably well, though, for an amateur. He hadn’t recognized her until he had downed enough laudanum to put him out for half the night.

His head still felt full of cotton wool, but he had the uneasy sense that something was wrong—something other than having been kidnapped and held prisoner, that was. He untied his other wrist and shook out his hands, then got shakily to his feet. He felt at his hip for his dagger, only to find that it was missing. That was sensible; he should have expected nothing less of Marian. He reached into his boot and found that the smaller dagger he hid in the lining was still present and accounted for. That was convenient for him, but clearly Marian needed to be educated in the art of concealed weaponry.

Then, his heart in his throat, he traced a finger along the inner lining of his coat, felt the familiar crinkle of papers, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Judging by the light that made its way through the grimy windowpane, it was already midmorning, which meant—dammit to hell. Today was the day of the robbery. He ought to already be at the inn in Oxfordshire, making sure the duke’s outriders were appropriately liquored up and their pistols conveniently missing. Now it would be too late to get there in time, and Kit would think Rob had left him high and dry.

He rapidly went through what he knew, willing the laudanum haze to clear from his mind. The duke’s son—the one who had, until about a month ago, believed himself to be the duke’s legitimate heir—had enlisted the help of Rob’s oldest friend, Kit, in holding up his father’s carriage. Rob had no idea what the devil the fellow thought he was going to get in this robbery, and he certainly didn’t know how the Duke of bloody Clare’s son had got his hands on Kit’s name as someone who might commit highway robbery for hire.

He also didn’t know what had possessed Kit to (1) agree to this madness and (2) fall in love with the man. Rob was the one who fell in love indiscriminately; Kit was the one who told him he was an idiot and grimly patted his shoulder when things fell apart. Rob was entirely unsure how to operate now that the boot was on the other foot.

Rob had agreed to help with the robbery but decided not to tell Kit his own relation to the Duke of Clare or that he had been engaged in a bit of light blackmail.

But now Rob regretted his silence. If Marian had decided to put Rob out of commission for the robbery—and there could be no other explanation for her actions—that meant that she knew not only that he was blackmailing her, but that he was Kit’s partner in crime. And so she had, apparently, done what she had to in order to make sure Kit had to go through with the robbery without Rob’s help. That was not good. It almost made him mistrustful of her motives.

There would be time later on to think about that. Right now he had to get out before Marian returned.





Chapter 3




There had been a time when Marian would have described herself as an intelligent woman, or at least not an idiot. Or, if an idiot, certainly not the most benighted fool in the kingdom. Now she was quite certain that even the greatest simpleton in all the world could not have bungled things to the extent that she had done. She was coming to believe that she had an unprecedented talent for catastrophe, a rare and legendary gift.

When she and her daughter found themselves destitute and friendless, perhaps Marian could earn her living by penning her memoirs, a cautionary tale for young ladies who might think themselves clever enough to solve all their family’s problems through the simple expedient of marrying up in the world. Marriage: Far More Trouble Than You Might Think would be the title of her treatise. Although, even that probably wouldn’t be of much use to anybody, as she had to believe that marrying bigamous dukes was not a problem that afflicted too many women. At least, she hoped it wasn’t, because she wouldn’t wish it on her worst enemy. Not that she knew who her worst enemy was anymore—at this point one could people a village with contenders to that title.