Through the dark, he looked at her.
She couldn’t see his eyes, but his gaze was so intent, so intense that she could feel . . .
Her heart started thudding, beating heavier, deeper.
Her senses expanded, alert in a wholly unfamiliar way.
He looked at her . . . looked at her.
Primitive instinct riffled the delicate hairs at her nape.
Abruptly he raised his head, straightened, stepped back. “Come on.”
Grabbing her elbow, he bundled her unceremoniously around the corner and on up the corridor before him. Her temper—always close to the surface when he was near—started to simmer. If they hadn’t needed to be quiet, she would have told him what she thought of such cavalier treatment.
Breckenridge halted her outside the door to his bedchamber; he would have preferred any other meeting place, but there was no safer place, and regardless of all and everything else, he needed to keep her safe. Reaching around her, he raised the latch and set the door swinging. “In here.”
He’d left the lamp burning low. As he followed her in, then reached back and shut the door, he took in what she was wearing. He bit back another curse.
She glanced around, but there was nowhere to sit but on the bed. Quickly he strode past her, stripped off the coverlet, then autocratically pointed to the sheet. “Sit there.”
With a narrow-eyed glare, she did, with the haughty grace of a reigning monarch.
Immediately she’d sat, he flicked out the coverlet and swathed her in it.
She cast him a faintly puzzled glance but obligingly held the enveloping drape close about her.
He said nothing; if she wanted to think he was concerned about her catching a chill, so be it. At least the coverlet was long enough to screen her distracting ankles and calves.
Which really was ridiculous. Considering how many naked women he’d seen in his life, why the sight of her stockinged ankles and calves should so affect him was beyond his ability to explain.
Turning, he sat alongside her, with a good foot of clear space between them. “So what have you learned?”
She studied him for a moment, then said, “Not as much as I would have liked, but they did let fall that their employer hired them in Glasgow, that he’s paying for everything, and they seem happy with the financial arrangements, suggesting that he’s at least reasonably wealthy, but as yet I haven’t been able to drag from them any further detail about where they’re taking me.” Huddling into the coverlet, she frowned across the room. “The only other thing I dragged from them was more by way of an impression.”
When she didn’t go on, he prompted, “What impression?”
The line between her brows deepened. “They—Fletcher and Cobbins, at least, they’re the ones who met him—view him, their employer, with a certain . . . I suppose you’d say wariness.”
“Respect?”
Her lips twisted. “Yes, but more in the physical sense. He might simply be a nasty, dangerous sort.”
Breckenridge thought for a moment. “Where in Glasgow did they meet him?”
“In some tavern. Apparently they do work like this for others, for hire. He heard of them from someone else they’d worked for, and approached them through some contact they have in place.”
“So they don’t necessarily know much about him?”
“I gathered not—they gave me a name, but before you get excited, Fletcher made it clear that they’re certain it’s not his real name.”
“What was it?”
“McKinsey.”
“Scottish—so he’s most likely a Scot.” Still far too aware of her perched on the bed—his bed—beside him, Breckenridge stood. He started to pace back and forth.
Heather looked up at him. “I’m not sure we can assume that. It might be that the reason Fletcher’s so certain McKinsey isn’t his real name is because he—their employer—is English.”
Breckenridge grimaced. “True. And there are Englishmen aplenty in Glasgow.”
Beneath the coverlet, she straightened. “Regardless, it’s clear I need to learn more.”
The dark look Breckenridge slanted her wasn’t encouraging. “We’re already a long way from London, and we’re still on the Great North Road. We have no notion how far north they intend taking you, but every mile takes you further from your family, further from safety.”
Her lips tightened, but she held to her composure. So far he’d been reasonable and supportive. For once she’d try reason with him and see where it got her. “As to that, strange though it seems, they have orders—strict orders—to keep me safe. Safe, unharmed, and healthy. I used those orders to insist on being allowed to walk by the river, so it seems they’re taking them seriously.”
Somewhat reluctantly, Breckenridge nodded. “I was in the tap, on the other side of the partition separating it from the foyer. I heard it all.” He kept slowly pacing, his face set in its usual impassive mien, then shot her glance. “I admit that this is decidedly strange.”
She nodded. “Indeed. And every mile we go further from London makes the notion of ransom even more unlikely. So we’re still no closer to learning what’s behind this—neither the who nor the why of it.” She waited until he swung around again and caught his eye. “I believe we need to consider the wider implications.”
His lips twitched—she was almost certain of it—but he didn’t stop pacing. “Meaning you want to continue on with this”—he gestured—“quest of yours.”
She tipped up her head. “Of course. I’m here, already kidnapped, but they’ve provided me with a maid and are under strict orders to see to my health and safety, orders they’re clearly committed to obeying. On top of that”—she waved at him—“you’re here. If you continue to follow our party, when it comes to the point where escaping becomes necessary, I’ll be able to do so and hide behind you. God knows, you’re large enough.”
He quirked a black brow.
Before he could respond verbally she went on, “Given the threat extends beyond me to my sisters, and possibly even to my cousins, and that as yet we have insufficient information with which to counter or nullify that threat, then while remaining with Fletcher and the other two exposes me to no additional danger, it’s patently my duty to stay with them at least until we learn enough to identify who’s behind this, and, if possible, his motives.”
Fixing her eyes on Breckenridge’s, she concluded, “In my estimation, the reasons against continuing on with my captors are outweighed by the reasons that I should.”
Breckenridge studied her as he paced. He wanted to inform her that she was wrong, that in his estimation the imperative of keeping her totally and absolutely safe—which to his mind meant taking her back to London and depositing her under her father’s roof—by far outweighed every other consideration. And for him, it did. But for her . . . the damned thing was he could understand her stance. And he could hardly accuse her of being a headstrong, willful, heedlessly selfish female when she was driven by such a selfless, family-duty-derived motive.
One he would feel were he in her shoes.
Halting, he raked a hand through his hair, then realized what he was doing and lowered his arm. He glanced at her, sitting on his bed wrapped in his coverlet, her head high, chin tilted upward, but the angle was not yet an outright challenge.
He knew that challenge would come if he didn’t agree with her direction and tried to pull her from it. He could, very easily—h
e was Viscount Breckenridge after all—but she would fight him every step of the way and hate him forever after. All of which he would accept without a qualm if he could only be certain that he was, indeed, acting in the best interests of her and her family.
As things stood . . .
“Very well.” Halting, he met her eyes, a darker gray in the lamplight. “If you’re stubbornly determined on this?”
Up went her chin. “I am.”
“In that case, we’ll continue on, more or less as we have been, at least for tomorrow.” He frowned. “We’ll have to play it by ear.” He’d have to trust her to do so. “If you’ll give me your promise that the instant you learn either the employer’s name or his direction—or even the place where they plan to hand you over—you’ll tell me, give me some sign at least so I can arrange to whisk you out of their clutches . . . if you promise that, we’ll go on as we have been.”
She smiled, pleased. “I promise. As soon as I learn anything useful, I’ll give you some sign so we can meet and discuss it.”
He noted the difference between what he’d asked and what she’d promised, but that, he suspected, was the best he could hope for. He nodded in acceptance, then waved her to the door.
She rose, slid the coverlet from her shoulders and laid it back on his bed, then walked to the door.
Keeping his gaze on her face, he waved her to a halt. He opened the door and looked out. The corridor was empty. Reaching back, he took her arm and drew her through the door. He escorted her quickly and silently back to her room.
She opened the door, and the sound of robust snoring issued forth. She turned to him, grinned, and mouthed, “Good night.”
Slipping through the door, she quietly closed it behind her.
He stepped back, put his back to the corridor wall opposite the door, and waited, listened. After enough time had elapsed for her to have slipped back into bed, and the sonorous snoring hadn’t ceased, he pushed away from the wall and headed back to his room.
Inside, he stripped and slid beneath the covers—and was immediately enveloped in a subtle scent he had no difficulty identifying.
It was hers, the scent that clung to her hair and had transferred to the coverlet. The airy, delicate, vibrantly female scent instantly evoked the vision of her stockinged ankles, the way the sheer silk had sheened over the curves . . .
He groaned and closed his eyes. Clearly he wasn’t destined to get much sleep.
Accepting that, dampening his reaction as well as he could, he sought distraction in the pragmatic details of the adventure they’d somehow embarked on. He was going to have to devise ways of staying close to her while remaining invisible to her captors. Appearing inconspicuous wasn’t a skill he’d had much cause to develop.
No more than he’d had cause to learn the ways of dealing with her on a rational basis.
Keeping her safe on her quest was a task that looked set to tax his ingenuity in ways it had never before been challenged, yet no matter how he turned the puzzle of her kidnapping over in his mind, no matter what perspective he took, in one respect she was incontestably correct.
This was no ordinary, run-of-the-mill abduction.
Chapter Four
At one o’clock the following afternoon, Breckenridge sat at one of the trestles set up outside the White Horse Inn in the small town of Bramham. Leaning his shoulders against the inn’s stone wall, he sipped a pint of ale and watched the archway leading into the yard of the Red Lion Inn further up the road.
The coach carrying Heather and her captors had turned into the yard more than an hour ago. After scouting the place and confirming that there was only one exit from the Red Lion’s yard, namely under the archway, he’d retreated here to keep watch while simultaneously keeping his distance and, he hoped, staying out of Fletcher and company’s sight. He was fairly certain they hadn’t yet seen him, or if they had, hadn’t noticed him enough to recognize him again, especially given he was varying his disguise.
Today he’d reverted to the outfit he’d acquired in Knebworth. The ill-fitting jacket and loose cloth breeches made him look like a down-on-his-luck salesman; as long as he remembered to modify his posture, he’d pass a cursory inspection.
He took another sip of ale. He increasingly misliked how far north they were heading. They’d traveled all morning further up the Great North Road. Bramham was nearly as far north as York. Yet despite his misgivings, he, too, was finding this abduction and the challenge of learning who and what was behind it increasingly intriguing. Now he’d had time to digest all Heather had learned yesterday, he had to admit it was a most peculiar puzzle.
A pair of horses appeared beneath the Red Lion’s arch, followed by a second pair, then the kidnappers’ coach. The coach turned ponderously out of the inn yard, still heading north.
Breckenridge watched it lumber on, then drained his pint, set the mug down, rose, and headed for the side yard of the White Horse where he’d left his hired curricle.
Five minutes later, bowling along the highway once more, he glimpsed the coach ahead and slowed the bays he currently had between the shafts. He rolled slowly on in the coach’s wake, far enough back that they’d be unlikely to spot him even on a long straight stretch. Not that they’d shown any signs of searching for pursuers. They might have looked back once or twice, but since he’d caught up with them at Knebworth, they’d seemed unconcerned about pursuit.
Of course, as far as they knew there had been no immediate chase given from Lady Herford’s house; no doubt they assumed they’d got clean away. And indeed, if he hadn’t seen them seize Heather, any pursuit the Cynsters would have mounted would have been days behind. It most likely wouldn’t have even started yet, because her family would have had to search extensively to determine in which direction she’d been taken—even that she’d been taken out of London at all. As she’d pointed out, if she’d been kidnapped for ransom, then it would have been assumed her kidnappers would keep her in the metropolis; so much easier to hide a woman among the teeming hordes, in the crowded tenements, where no one would ask awkward questions.
The miles slid by. Initially he kept pace with the coach, but the further north they rolled he gradually closed the distance. Their steady push north was making him increasingly nervous about where they were headed and, especially, why.
Heather forced herself to wait until they’d been traveling north for at least an hour after their luncheon halt before recommencing her interrogation of her captors.
She’d been acquiescent, and had made no fuss through the morning. Other than casting a quick glance around the inn where they’d stopped for lunch, searching for Breckenridge—but they hadn’t known that—she’d played the part of gently bred and, therefore, relatively helpless kidnappee.
Although she hadn’t sighted Breckenridge, she felt reasonably confident that he’d be somewhere near. Leaving him to his self-appointed but now gratefully accepted role of watching over her, she’d applied herself to encouraging her captors to relax and, she hoped, grow less careful and more talkative.
By way of introduction, she heaved a huge sigh and glanced out of the window.
Fletcher, seated opposite as usual, looked at her consideringly. Assessingly.
Facing him again, she caught his eye, grimaced. “If you won’t tell me where we’re going, or your employer’s name, can you at least tell me what he looks like? Seeing I’ll be meeting him, I presume sometime soon, then you’ll hardly be revealing anything vital, and it would certainly help my nerves to know what sort of man you’ll be handing me to.”
Fletcher’s lips curved a little. “Not sure how knowing what he looks like is going to help you, but . . .” He glanced at Cobbins, who shrugged. Lookin
g back at her, Fletcher asked, “What do you want to know?”
Everything you can tell me. She widened her eyes. “Hair color?”
“Black.”
“Eyes?”
Fletcher hesitated, then said, “Not sure about the color, but . . . cold.”
Black-haired, cold-eyed. “How old, and handsome or not?”
Fletcher pursed his lips. “I’d say in his thirties, but exactly where I couldn’t guess. And as for handsome”—Fletcher grinned—“you’d probably think so. Bit rugged for my taste, though, and with a blade of a nose.”
She frowned, not entirely liking the image.
Fletcher continued, his tone tending teasing, “One thing I do remember—he had a black frown. Devilish, it was. Not the sort of man to get on the wrong side of.”
“How tall was he?”
“Big bloke. Large all around. Lots of Scottish brawn.”
“So he’s Scottish?”
Fletcher hesitated, then shrugged. “Like you said, you’ll meet him soon enough. We took him for some laird—lord knows, they’ve plenty of those—but where exactly he hailed from, lowlands or highlands or anywhere in between, we couldn’t say.”
She was even more puzzled, but she didn’t want to waste Fletcher’s attack of loquaciousness. “Is there anything physically that sets him apart—a scar, a particular ring, a gammy leg?” Anything to identify him.
Fletcher met her eyes. A moment passed, then he said, “Think I’ve told you enough to settle your nerves.”
She looked at him, then sighed and subsided back against the seat. “Oh, all right.” One step at a time.
Contrary to Fletcher’s belief, her nerves were distinctly unsettled, indeed, decidedly jangling, when, in the fading light of late afternoon, the coach drew up outside the King’s Head Hotel in Barnard Castle.
They were no longer on the Great North Road. They’d turned west off the highway in Darlington, and there’d been no way she’d been able to think of to ensure Breckenridge noted the change in direction.
The possibility that he was no longer there, at her back to save her, had blossomed and burgeoned in her mind. By the time the coach rocked to a halt, trepidation danced along her nerves and her stomach was tied in knots.