and down. “Good,” he said. Then he took a flask from the satchel and handed it to Percy. “Drink.”
“Are we only speaking in monosyllables today?” Percy asked, and only when he had spoken did he realize that those were the first words to have left his mouth since Kit arrived. He opened the flask and sniffed it, dismayed to discover that it contained gin. It was filled to the very top, so he guessed that Kit must not care much for gin, either. He took a sip, and then took another one. When he made to hand it back to Kit, the man shook his head.
“You keep it.”
“Is my terror that obvious?” Percy asked, pitching his voice low enough that the girl, who was sitting on the ground examining the fletching of her arrows, would not hear.
“No,” Kit said, looking him in the eye. “You always hide it well. Do you remember what I told you about the trick to a good holdup?”
“Not caring whether you live or die,” Percy said immediately, because how could he forget that?
“I lied.”
Percy looked at Kit closely. Kit wasn’t as bad a liar as Percy had once supposed. He was just out of practice and hadn’t quite got control of his tells. Now, for instance, his eyes were opened a bit too wide, as if he were actively trying not to look shifty. And his hands were fisted at his sides, as if he were trying not to fidget.
Percy decided not to call him on this lie. There would be no point to quarreling over it right now. And besides, this was Kit’s way of telling Percy to be careful, which was just another way of Kit saying that he cared.
Instead of answering, he leaned in and kissed Kit on the cheek.
Every time a coach passed, Percy thought he might be sick, even though he knew it wouldn’t be his father’s coach. The plan was for Rob to ride ahead and warn Kit and Percy when the duke had left his last inn.
But the sun set, and still there was no sign of Rob. Hattie climbed a tree and got into position.
“Oi, Kit,” she said after a while. “I can see a coach and six coming up the road. There’s a picture painted on the door.”
“Bugger,” Kit said. “Something must have held Rob up.”
“Do you want to go to the inn and see if he’s all right?” Percy asked.
“No, I want you to go into the road and hold that carriage up.”
“We don’t even know if that’s my father,” Percy protested.
“It’s a coach and six on the right road at the right time.” He spoke with a calm that Percy would have thought impossible in the circumstances. “You have one minute to decide. It’s your choice.”
In the silence, Percy could hear the hoofbeats in the distance, indistinguishable from the beating of his heart.
“All right,” he said, and from his pocket he pulled the kerchief that he meant to use as a mask. “All right,” he repeated.
Kit took the kerchief from him and deftly tied it around the back of his head, then did the same for himself. He handed Percy a pistol and patted him on the shoulder, then Percy walked into the road.
Percy waited, feeling exposed and alone in the middle of the dusty road. As the carriage bore down on him, he saw that he recognized the horses and the coachman. Even though they had gone over this countless times, he was amazed that the carriage actually stopped.
“Your money or your life,” Percy called out, deepening his voice so it wouldn’t be recognized, and trying very hard not to pay attention to the fact that one of the outriders—a man he recognized as one of his father’s enormous guards—had drawn a pistol. “But I’d rather have the money.”
On that signal, Kit cleared his throat and held up his pistol, letting the moonlight glint menacingly off the steel, and Hattie fired an arrow directly over the heads of the horses.
He heard rustling from within the carriage and sauntered over as if he weren’t terrified.
But when he opened the carriage door, what he saw didn’t make sense. Because it wasn’t his father holding out a coin purse. It was Marian.
“Take this and leave,” she said haughtily, her face angled toward him so he could see her plainly in the moonlight, while his father remained half-concealed by shadows.
“I’m a highwayman, not a crossing sweep,” he answered. “I choose what I take and when I leave.