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

by Cat Sebastian

There was also something else she had to do: she had left a man tied to a bed, and she needed to make sure he was . . . well might not be entirely accurate. But if Dinah had been called away or something had happened to prevent her from checking on him, then he might be left there indefinitely, and Marian wasn’t going to be responsible for a man starving to death. Being responsible for one death a day was quite sufficiently iniquitous. In breeches and sensible boots, it was a fifteen-minute walk to the room she had hired to keep the blackmailer. In a traveling gown and dainty ankle boots, it took far longer. She was out of breath, more from nerves than exertion, when she climbed the final set of stairs, but her hands were almost steady when she removed the key from above the door frame and turned it in the lock. The room was empty and dark and the window stood wide open. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the shadows and another moment still for her thoughts to catch up to her eyes. The bed was empty. The man was gone. Well, it hardly mattered now, did it. She had only wanted to ensure that he was out of the way and didn’t jeopardize the robbery, but the robbery had already gone about as badly as it could have done. Good riddance, then. One less thing to worry about. Marian tried to rummage through the buzzing chaos in her mind and figure out what to do. She was covered in blood, standing in a room she had hired for the express purpose of imprisoning a man, and she...