December 1751
The day before the incident
As soon as the man passed outâvery anticlimactically, Marian was disappointed to note, just like falling asleepâMarian pulled
the silk cord from her pocket and set to work binding his wrists. Things were going remarkably well, for once; perhaps she
was finally reaping the benefits of meticulous planning. Downstairs in the decidedly seedy public house that the man was wont
to frequent, she had slipped the laudanum in his drink and then lured him upstairs before he showed signs of being the worse
for wear. When she suggested a hand of cards, he had very obligingly collapsed before she had even finished dealing them out.
âHe didnât even finish his beer,â Dinah observed when she entered the hired room, bolting the door behind her. âHow much did
you put in there?â
âIt was the same amount you gave me to take after Eliza was born.â Marian had measured it out very carefully, making sure not to include a drop more or a drop less. The goal, after all, was only to knock the man out long enough to bind him. Marian did not fancy herself a murderer.
Dinah frowned skeptically and nudged the man with the toe of her boot.
Marian finished tying the knot and got to her feet. âCome, you can kick him all you like later on, but first letâs get him
into bed.â
âWhy?â
âI beg your pardon?â
âWhy donât we just leave him there?â
They both looked at the recumbent form of the blackmailer. His wrists were secured, and he looked comfortable enough, not
that Marian particularly cared about whether the swine was comfortable, even if he was bound to wake up mightily sore after
spending the night on the cold, bare floor.
âHe needs to be in the bed so I can tie him to the bedposts,â Marian decided.
Dinah shrugged a sort of pro forma acquiescence. Marian supposed that she was not paying Dinah nearly enough to pretend that anything happening in this room made sense or was a good idea. Marian had parted company with good ideas some while ago. The very next day Percy was going to hold up his fatherâs carriage in order to steal a book the dukeâwhich was to say Percyâs father, of courseâwould pay handsomely to have returned to him. This, they hoped, would give Percy, Marian, and Marianâs daughter enough to live on. A year ago, Marian would have been appalled by the recklessness of this scheme, but a year ago Marian hadnât been worn down by a run of catastrophes. A year ago Marian hadnât known what it meant to be desperate.
Right now, her principal concern was making sure that Rob was hors de combat during tomorrowâs hold up. Percyâs highwayman friend trusted Rob, but probably a lot of people who ought to know better trusted
Rob.
With his wrists bound together, it was impossible to get a purchase on his arms. He kept flopping about like a rag dollâexcept
a rag doll who was considerably larger than either of the women.
âYou need to untie the knot,â Dinah said.
âI donât want to. If he wakes up, heâll kill us.â
âHeâs not going to kill us. Youâre worth five hundred pounds to him.â
That was about as comforting a thought as she was likely to have in these circumstances. âAll right,â Marian said, and knelt
to untie the knot. âQuick, now.â They each grabbed an arm and hauled him across the room, the heels of his boots dragging
on the bare wood floor. As soon as he was on the bed, Marian tied one of his wrists to the bedpost and breathed a sigh of
relief. She took another cord from her pocketâshe had come prepared with enough cords to tie up a squidâand set to work on
the other arm.
Only when he was secured did she let herself look at him. The scant light in the shabby room came from a branch of candles that sat on the card table beside two abandoned hands of Mariage and a pair of pewter tankards containing ale laced with laudanum. She retrieved the candle branch and held it over the manâs unconscious form. She had seen him before, of course, but only from a distance and under cover of night, and she had been more concerned with following his movements than in studying his features.
He had reddish hair, which he wore unpowdered and in a queue. He was about her own age, give or take a year or two. There
was a scar bisecting one eyebrow, and another on his cheek. Stubble grew in faint and ruddy along his jaw.
Disconcertingly, a bridge of freckles crossed his nose and then scattered all over the rest of his face. She felt certain
that blackmailers shouldnât have freckles. It seemed a decidedly unvillainous characteristic. Then again, she supposed she
didnât much look like a kidnapper or poisoner; she had always thought her profile sadly lacking in panache.
She moved to put the candles back on the table, but Dinah stayed her, clamping a hand on Marianâs wrist. Marian watched in
some chagrin as Dinah cast what appeared to be an appreciative eye over the blackmailer.
Marian snatched her hand away, plunging the recumbent figure into shadows. âYouâll have plenty of time to admire him when
you check on him throughout the day.â
âUnless thereâs a baby,â Dinah said, because she had a life outside aiding and abetting felonies, alas.
âIâll come back as soon as I can.â With any luck, by then she and Percy would have what they needed from the duke and wouldnât need to worry about the blackmailer anymore. All she needed to do was ensure that when Percy held up the dukeâs carriage, this man was far away and therefore couldnât interfere. He was precisely the sort of man who did interfere, who made an absolute sacrament of sticking his nose where it didnât belong, and she couldnât afford any of that. Tomorrow night she would let him go and never have to think about him again.
She didnât know why, after a year of relentlessly dismal luck, she thought things could possibly start to go her way now.
Rob knew he had been drugged before he was quite conscious. He was hardly inexperienced with opium; God knew he had had enough of it poured down his throat before having bones shoved back into place or wounds sewn shut to know how it made his mouth dry, his thoughts clouded.
Then he remembered who had drugged him, and his eyes flew open. Only then did he realize that his wrists were tied and that he was alone.
Rob didnât 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 couldnât 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 couldâhe tugged one of his wristsâyes, he could. These werenât proper ropes and they certainly werenât 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 wasnât 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 wouldnât 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 heavenâs sake. She had done remarkably well, though, for an amateur. He hadnât 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 wrongâsomething other than having been kidnapped and held prisoner, that was. He untied his other wrist and shook out his hands, the...
