“As you heard, the laird won’t arrive until at least the day after tomorrow. That makes it an odds-on certainty that he’s a highlander, which means his reasons for kidnapping you or one of the others could well be buried in the mists of time. Worse, both Fletcher and Cobbins are very sure, for multiple reasons, that their employer is someone accustomed to wielding power—to giving orders and expecting to be obeyed.” He studied her. “Did you learn anything from Martha?”
She cleared her throat. Breathed back, “A little. From her reading of how Fletcher and Cobbins reacted to the man, she says he, the laird, is, in her words, powerful. Fletcher and Cobbins found him impressive, imposing, and she’s also certain he’s a toff, because only a toff would have thought of hiring a maid to give me countenance.”
Breckenridge’s lips twisted in a grimace. “She’s right.”
After a moment of staring down into her face, he murmured, “We have a problem.”
She certainly did; she was finding it difficult to breathe enough not to feel giddy.
“This laird . . . from all Martha, Fletcher, and Cobbins have said, he’s a laird with a capital L. Almost certainly a noble. He’s not going to be easy to counter, especially not on his home turf.”
Face like hewn rock and eyes like ice.
Breckenridge hadn’t forgotten Fletcher’s description. “By all accounts, he’s not the sort of man we want to find ourselves facing. Not here in Scotland, too far from anyone who can vouch for our identities.”
He watched a frown overtake Heather’s fine features. Until then, they’d been . . . a trifle wide-eyed, a touch arrested. He knew perfectly well why. Her heartbeat . . . he couldn’t exactly feel it, but he’d seduced far too many women not to sense it. To know that she was as attracted to him as he was to her.
That wasn’t something he’d needed to have proof of, but now he did . . . the knowledge kept circling, prodding and pricking at instincts that, where she was concerned, he’d always kept buried and inflexibly contained.
“But there’s no reason to leave yet,” she murmured. “They’ve said the laird won’t arrive for days yet, and we haven’t yet learned of anything we can use to identify him.” Her frown firmed, giving her expression a mulish cast—one with which he was very familiar. “We can’t leave yet.”
He pressed his lips tight against any unwise utterance. Tried to sort through the contradictory impulses pressing on him from all sides. His deepest instinct was to remove her from all danger, yet while he remained with her, he could and would keep her safe—and he was now convinced that she stood in no danger whatever from Fletcher, Cobbins, or Martha. Indeed, it was in their best interests to protect her from all and any threat, at least until the mysterious laird claimed her. For the moment, she was safe.
And he knew her brothers, her cousins, her father, her uncles. They wouldn’t fault him for cutting and running, and hauling her back to London and safety, but at the same time, they, like him, would dearly love to learn just which laird had had the temerity to kidnap one of their darlings.
One couldn’t arrange for justice if one didn’t know at whom to point the sword.
“All right.” The instant he spoke, her expression softened. He hardened his own. “But just for a day. One more day.”
Her lips curved. “All right. We’ll see what we can learn tomorrow.”
Her smile . . . it flirted with the ends of her lips. He blinked, found a frown. “And regardless of whether we learn anything, after tomorrow, we leave. Understood?”
Even whispering, he made the last word a command.
Her smile only deepened. “Yes, of course. But let’s see what tomorrow brings.”
He looked into her face, and time suspended.
Dangerous, he knew, but he couldn’t seem to move, to break the strengthening spell.
Her smile slowly faded; her eyes searched his . . . her breath all but silently caught, hitched. She started to tip closer . . .
Then she dragged in a quick, too-tight breath and rocked back on her heels. “Wound—you said you had a wound.”
He seized the unexpected lifeline. “I made that up to excuse me staying put and not traveling on. As a reason, it’s open ended, especially in this weather.”
“Oh, good. I mean . . . that you’re not injured.” She finally dropped her gaze, eased back.
He lowered his arms, let her free . . . reluctantly.
Too reluctantly for his peace of mind.
She stepped back and let the folds of his cloak slide from her.
“Go up,” he murmured. He tipped his head to the door. “I’ll watch you, then follow.”
With a nod, she turned. Opening the door, she paused for a moment, then slipped out.
He held the door ajar and from the gloom within the cloakroom watched her slip wraithlike up the stairs.
And wondered why he hadn’t kissed her.
She wouldn’t have objected. She might have been a touch flustered, but . . . he would, at last, have learned what she tasted like—a question that had haunted him for the last four years.
They were, after all, destined to marry. After this little escapade, there was no other choice, not for either of them.
But if he’d kissed her . . . she would have known he’d been thinking along the same lines as she, which was something she didn’t at that moment know. He felt certain that to that point she’d gained no inkling of his true view of her. And if they were indeed to marry . . .
She was a Cynster to her toes. Much better she never knew just how deep his fascination with her ran. Just how persistent and intense—intensely irritating—that fascination had proved to be. Just how impossible to eradicate.
He’d tried. Hundreds of times.
No other female had ever been able to supplant her in his mind. At the core of his desires, at the heart of his passions.
And that was definitely something she never needed to know.
So . . . no kisses. Not yet. Not until she’d realized that their wedding was a foregone conclusion. Him initiating a kiss then wouldn’t be so revealing.
Something within him bucked at the restraint, but he’d long ago learned to keep desire and passion on a very tight leash. No unintended revelations for him.
She had to have reached the room she shared with Martha. He moved out of the shadows, silently climbed the stairs, and headed for his bed.
“You can’t be serious?” Heather stood in the middle of the inn’s front hall and stared at Fletcher. “I stayed in that room all day yesterday, and you want me to sit quietly and stare at Martha knitting for another whole day?”
Jaw set, Fletcher nodded. “And tomorrow, too. Until the laird comes for you, I want you under Martha’s eye at all times. Safer for you, anyway.”
Heather narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ll sit quietly after I’ve had a brief walk—just up the lane and back.”
“No.” Fletcher shifted closer, trying to intimidate.
Martha and Cobbins looked on, neither much interested, both simply waiting on an outcome of which they had no doubt.
The four of them and Breckenridge had been the only guests down for breakfast that morning; Breckenridge had just ambled into the tap and was currently out of sight. The innkeeper was busy elsewhere; there was no one about to hear their argument.
Glowering down at her, Fletcher raised an arm and pointed to the parlor door. “You are going to walk in there and remain in there for the rest of the day, until dinnertime. If you need exercise, you can pace in there. If you need distraction, you can look out of the window, or help Martha count her stitches for all I care.”
Heather opened her mouth.
Fletcher pointed at her nose. “You know our story. If you push me, I swear I’ll use it to tie you up and gag you, and sit you in there with Martha.”
She frowned, not just at Fletcher
but at the realization that although she ought to be at least wary of him, if not outright afraid, she wasn’t—simply wasn’t. In her mind he featured merely as a hurdle to be overcome—a source of information to be milked, then left behind when she escaped. With Breckenridge.
Was it because he was close that she didn’t fear Fletcher?
Regardless, it didn’t take much cogitation to see she had no real option at that time. “Oh, very well!” She swung on her heel, marched to the parlor door, shoved it open, and sailed through—reluctantly refraining from slamming the door because Martha would be following.
Sweeping to the window, Heather crossed her arms and stared out at the new day. Spring had already arrived in London, but here it was struggling to break winter’s hold. Other than the conifers, all the trees were still bare. The morning was still chill, the wind still a touch raw, but the clouds had thinned and the drizzle had ceased, and somewhere high above the sun was trying to shine through.
Behind her, the parlor door closed. She heard Martha’s large bulk ease down into the armchair.
Eyes fixed outside, Heather humphed. “The lane’s still muddy, but the verge is drying nicely. It would be perfectly possible to go for a stroll. Perhaps after lunch.”
“Forget it,” Martha advised. “You heard him. No going outside.”
“But why?” Swinging around, Heather spread her arms. “What does he think I’ll do—escape into the wilderness? If I was going to escape, I’d have tried that first night.” She let her shoulders slump. “I’m a young lady of the ton—I can play the pianoforte and waltz with the best of them, but escaping isn’t something I have the vaguest notion how to do!”
Martha eyed her, not without sympathy. After a moment, she said, “Humor him for today. I’ll have a word with him tonight, or perhaps tomorrow morning. If it’s fine, perhaps he’ll let you have your walk then, but mind, I’m making no promises.”
Heather met Martha’s gaze. She felt compelled to incline her head in acceptance of the olive branch. “Thank you.”
Turning back to the window, she grimaced. That still left her with an entire day to waste, with nothing much more she could gain from it. She’d already questioned Martha; she doubted there was any more to learn from her “maid,” and further probing might instead raise suspicions in Martha’s quite sharp mind.
If there was nothing more she could learn, nothing else she could do . . .
The thought that had been haunting her—that had followed her into her dreams last night and been in her mind when she’d awoken that morning—flared again. Last night, in the cloakroom, she’d almost kissed Breckenridge. It hadn’t been an accident, a mistake—she’d known exactly who he was the whole time. But she’d wanted to kiss him, would have, would have welcomed his kiss if he’d been so inclined. If he’d given the slightest sign of welcoming her advance, she would have stretched up and touched her lips to his.
The only thing that had stopped her—that had stopped the kiss from happening—was that she hadn’t been able to read his face, his expression. Hadn’t been able to see his eyes.
She’d searched, but there’d been nothing to tell her what he thought—whether he felt any attraction toward her at all, let alone something similar to what she felt for him. It was, she thought, a latent sensual curiosity—something the enforced closeness of their adventure had caused to grow from their previously strained and prickly interaction. Regardless, she’d definitely wanted to kiss him last night, and would have if she hadn’t suddenly been assailed not by missish sensibility, let alone modesty, but by the horrible thought that he might not want to kiss her.
Which led her back to her persistent fear, nay, entrenched belief, that he saw her as little more than a schoolgirl. A girl child. A female so young and inexperienced that a man of his ilk could never see her as a woman, let alone ever stoop to taking advantage of her.
Much less anything else, any consensual liaison.
Arms tightly folded, frowning unseeing out at the trees, she had to admit her attitude toward him had changed over the last days. Changed . . . or perhaps clarified. Previously she would have been more likely to use her lips to berate him than kiss him, but now . . .
The thought of kissing him—just seizing the moment and doing it, and getting the madness out of her system and satisfying her curiosity—was rapidly becoming an obsession.
An obsession that, for the next hours, she could do nothing about.
She humphed, inwardly pushed the subject aside.
Determinedly focusing on the trees outside, she turned her mind to the only other thing she might accomplish—evaluating ways in which she and Breckenridge could escape, but then keep watch on the inn and get a look at the mysterious laird when he arrived, sufficient to identify him.
Breckenridge spent the morning outside the inn, taking advantage of the brighter weather to avoid Fletcher and Cobbins, the better to ensure they didn’t suspect him of taking too great an interest in their business. If the laird wasn’t expected until at least the following day, then Heather would be safe enough, confined, as she was, to the inn parlor.
After breakfasting late, he strolled to the inn’s stable and checked over the old chestnut he’d hired in Carlisle, along with the ancient pony trap. The horse was faring well; it would carry him and Heather far enough to make good an escape.
But in which direction? He spent the rest of the morning ambling around the hamlet of Gretna Green, taking note of the roads and the cover afforded by the landscape in each direction, then he strode the half mile or so back down the highway to the main village of Gretna, with the Customs and Revenue Offices, and the border itself just beyond.
With clouds blowing up and the wind tending bitter, he returned to the inn at lunchtime. Pausing in the front hall, he glanced at the parlor door, but all was quiet inside.
Turning away, he walked into the tap. And fell in once again with Fletcher and Cobbins. They were joined by the usual band of locals during the meal, but once the platters were cleared and the farmers departed for their fields once more, the three of them gathered about the table by the window.
Fletcher had brought the pack of cards but seemed uninterested in any game. He picked up the pack and let it fall an inch to the table, over and over again.
Breckenridge noted it. “Are you worried about this laird of yours showing?”
“Heh?” Fletcher focused, then shook his head. “No—he’ll be here. I just wish he’d be here sooner.”
“Tomorrow, isn’t it?”
Fletcher shrugged. “Tomorrow, or the next day. He’ll definitely be here by then.” He glanced at Breckenridge. “It’s just that I don’t like sitting in one place, waiting. Sort of like being a sitting duck—it grates on my nerves.”
“Ah. I see.” The only men Breckenridge had previously encountered who chafed at being forced by unavoidable circumstances to remain in one place were felons of one stripe or another. It made them feel trapped. Glancing at Cobbins, more taciturn than Fletcher, he saw a similar edginess growing.
Unless he missed his guess, both men had at some time been very much on the wrong side of the law; they might never have been caught, but both knew what it was like to be hunted.
Which was a fact worth noting, given he intended to filch their latest prize from under their noses. He’d already learned through general conversation that Fletcher was good with knives, and had several on him at any time, while Cobbins was a true bruiser at heart, a heavy man who, once he mowed into something, wasn’t likely to stop until he was the last one standing.
“Tell me.” Relaxing back in his chair, he projected the air of someone seeking to distract the pair from their angst. “How does this sort of caper work? Seems to me it’s a capital lark—you do the job, hand over the package, get paid, and everyone’s happy.” He frowned, as if thinking it through. “But then you have to stump up the wherewithal
to set up the snatch in the first place, and the cost of the travel and all the rest—” He broke off because Fletcher was shaking his head.
Setting aside the cards, Fletcher leaned his arms on the table. “No. It’s better than that. Mind you”—Fletcher sent a sharp glance his way—“it takes years and years to work up a reputation like we have. You don’t get the arrangements we do straight off, first time.”
Cobbins nodded. “Professionals, we are.”
“Exactly.” Fletcher looked back at Breckenridge. “So the way it works for us, us being professionals and well known in this work, is that we get paid wages up front—proper compensation for our time doing the job—and enough to cover all expenses, like our travel down to London and back, staying in the capital, Martha’s wages, and all the rest.”
“All up front?” Breckenridge blinked in genuine surprise. Whoever the laird was, he was not only wealthy but also willing to invest serious money for the chance of seizing one of the Cynster girls.
“Cash in hand, at the start,” Fletcher confirmed. “We don’t take the job without it.”
“But . . .” Breckenridge felt a chill as the question formed in his mind. “What guarantee does your employer have that you’ll actually do the job?”
Fletcher grinned. “Our bonus, of course. There’s two thousand pounds coming our way, along with the laird.”
“Two thousand?” Breckenridge didn’t have to feign his shock.
Smile deepening, Fletcher nodded. “Told you this is a really sweet job.” Fletcher hesitated, studying Breckenridge, then looked at Cobbins and exchanged a glance before turning back and adding, “If you ever get tired of being a clerk, you look us up—you’d be useful. If we brushed you up, with your looks you could pass for a gentleman. Useful, that is, in our line of work.”
Still coping with the discovery of just how much the mysterious highland laird wanted Heather, Breckenridge managed a nod. “I’ll think about it.” He stirred, then shook his head and sat up. “Two thousand! That’s . . . amazing.”
Amazing, and revealing, in the worst possible way.