They commenced by playing vingt-et-un, progressed to speculation, then as the morning waned, turned to euchre. Breckenridge took care not to win too often. Lunchtime saw several locals amble in. Play was suspended while the three of them chatted with the farmers and two travelers on their way to Glasgow. Then the serving girl came out of the kitchen and announced a simple menu—mutton stew or mutton pie. While the men debated the offering, Fletcher sent the girl to take two servings of the stew to the women in the parlor. The girl complied, then returned to ferry plates of mutton pie out to the hungry males.
Breckenridge bided his time and made sure both Fletcher and Cobbins had three pints of ale with their meal. When the locals rose and went forth into the increasingly dismal day, and the travelers wrapped themselves in their cloaks and departed, both Fletcher and Cobbins had mellowed.
Settling back at the table near the window, Breckenridge picked up the pack of cards but let them idly drop, one by one, from his fingers. Fletcher, sitting opposite, watched the cards fall, as if mesmerized.
“So,” Breckenridge said, “how long do you have to sit in this thrillingly exciting atmosphere and wait?”
Fletcher’s grin was a trifle lopsided. “Don’t rightly know. Two days at least until the laird—the girl’s guardian’s man—gets here, but it might be longer than that. Depends.”
“Laird, heh?” Breckenridge stifled a fabricated yawn, then blinked sleepily. “A real laird? Or just someone calling himself that?”
“Oh, he’s a laird, right enough.” Cobbins leaned both elbows on the table and propped his chin in his palms. “Not that he said so, o’course, but you could tell.”
“Oh?” Breckenridge frowned as if having trouble focusing. “How?” He looked at Cobbins. “How can you tell a man is a laird just by looking?”
Fletcher chuckled. “Not just by looking, for one thing. His voice, the way he spoke. He was one for giving orders and having them obeyed, right enough. There’s that attitude the nobs have about them, as if the world and all in it ought to know well enough to get out of their way.”
“And there were signs to see, too.” Cobbins slumped lower on the table, cradling his head on one arm. “He’s a big bastard.” Cobbins squinted across the table at Breckenridge. “You’re tall, but he’s taller. Broader, too. Heavier. And he doesn’t walk—he strides.”
Breckenridge snorted. “He could just be full of himself.”
“Nah.” Fletcher slumped back in his chair, stretched his legs out under the table, and closed his eyes. “Face like hewn rock and eyes like ice.” He shivered dramatically. “Like Cobbins says, there’s something about them—the nobs—that you just know.”
Breckenridge watched the pair. Both had their eyes closed. Then Cobbins uttered a soft snore.
Fletcher cracked open an eyelid, glanced at his companion, then sighed and closed his eye again. “Think I’ll just have a little nap, too. We can play cards later.”
Breckenridge stayed where he was until he was sure the pair were both asleep, then, pushing back his chair, he slowly rose, and walked—not strode—silently from the room.
In light of her captors’ sudden insistence on keeping her under close guard, Heather felt forced to devote most of the day to shoring up her façade of a typical, and therefore harmless and helpless, young lady of the ton.
By the exercise of considerable willpower, she managed to hold back the need to interrogate Martha until after she’d badgered the older woman into ringing and requesting afternoon tea, and the little serving girl had arrived with the tray and departed again.
Finally quitting her position by the window, where she’d been standing literally for hours gazing out at the dripping day, Heather crossed to sit on the sofa and pour.
Ensconced in an armchair, Martha, fingers flashing with her incessant knitting, watched her, not openly suspicious but as if there was something about her she couldn’t quite reconcile.
Heather poured Martha a cup, too, then held it out.
Martha softly grunted, settled her needles in her capacious lap, and accepted the cup.
Heather sipped, sighed, then relaxed back against the sofa. “Tell me—how did you fall in with Fletcher and Cobbins? I know you’ve known them for years, but this particular time?”
Setting her cup on her saucer, Martha shrugged. “I take jobs nursing most times. I’d just finished with one of my patients—the old biddy upped and died—so I was at home when Fletcher came calling. Hadn’t seen him in two years or more, not since he’d headed up north to Glasgow. He told me about this laird who wanted you taken north, with a maid for countenance. Seemed a nice, easy lark—see a bit of the country, all expenses paid, and the money was good.”
Heather sipped, let a moment go by, then asked, “What do you know about this laird?” She met Martha’s sharpening gaze. “Seeing I’ll be meeting him soon, and he’s going to take me away, surely there can’t be any harm in telling me.”
Martha studied her for a moment, then her lips kicked up. “If it’ll make you cease your pacing and staring, I can tell you he’s definitely handsome—Fletcher wouldn’t have thought of the word else. And not that old—younger thirties would be my guess.”
Heather looked her interest, looked encouraging.
“I didn’t meet him, don’t forget.” Draining her cup, Martha leaned forward and placed cup and saucer on the low table between them. “But I know Fletcher and Cobbins, so this laird is . . .” Martha pursed her lips, then stated, “Powerful. Fletcher and Cobbins, they don’t scare easily. Been around for quite a while, those two, but this laird made quite an impression on them both.”
“You make him sound dangerous.”
“P’raps, but not simple dangerous—a bully boy might be dangerous, but he wouldn’t impress the likes of Fletcher and Cobbins.”
Studying Martha’s face, Heather tried to divine just what her “maid” was trying to convey. “They . . . what? Found him imposing?”
Lifting her needles, Martha nodded. “That’s closer to the mark. Not fright, not exactly awe. They were impressed, and wary. Regardless, they’re very sure they don’t want to disappoint him, and it’s not simple fear driving that.”
Heather pondered that unwelcome insight.
“A toff he is, no question.” Martha set her needles clicking again.
Heather frowned. “Do they know he is, or is that just”—she waved a hand—“conjecture? A guess?”
Eyes on her knitting, Martha snorted. “No guess.” She glanced up, met Heather’s eyes. “Stands to reason. Take it from me, only a toff would have thought of hiring a maid as part of his kidnap plans.”
That, Heather realized, was perfectly true.
Which meant the man who had ordered her kidnapping was almost certainly one of her own class. Which made him even more dangerous to her.
“You just behave yourself, you hear me?”
Heather glanced in surprise at Fletcher. She and Martha had just walked into the taproom for dinner. Fletcher had seen them; leaving the table of local men he’d been drinking with—which group included a certain viscount who not even his sisters would recognize—he’d come over to join her and Martha as they took their seats at the table in the room’s front corner.
Fletcher’s diction, normally precise, was a trifle slurred, especially as he’d hissed the words beneath his breath.
Heather frowned. “Why?” Realizing her tone wasn’t quite in keeping with her helpless and harmless—gormless—persona, she sniffed and added, “And anyway, when haven’t I behaved?” With a flounce, she sat and looked up at Fletcher with petulant irritation, as if he didn’t appreciate her as he ought.
Fletcher frowned back. “Just sit there, keep your head down, and eat. Don’t think to say anything. He’s just an out-of-work solicitor’s clerk—don’t go imagining he might help you escape.”
He look
ed back at the other table.
Following his gaze, Heather saw Cobbins lumbering to his feet—along with Breckenridge. Deciding her alter ego would inquire, she asked with innocent interest, “Who’s he? Is he coming to join us?”
“Yes, he is, but you don’t need to know his name.” Fletcher turned back to her. “This isn’t some society dining room—you’re not going to be introduced. Like I said”—he leaned closer, lowered his voice as Cobbins and Breckenridge neared—“just sit and eat, and keep your mouth shut.”
Heather glared, but then Martha heaved herself onto the bench alongside her, and Fletcher turned away to greet Breckenridge.
Fletcher waved Breckenridge to the seat he normally occupied, opposite Martha, and drew up another chair to the head of the table, between Martha and Breckenridge. Cobbins settled into the chair opposite Heather.
“This here’s Martha.” Fletcher waved to Martha, who nodded across the table. “This is our friend, Timms, who’s on his way to Glasgow to find himself a new job.”
Head dutifully bowed, hands clasped in her lap, through her lashes Heather saw Breckenridge nod to Martha, then look at her, then he arched a brow at Fletcher.
“I think,” Fletcher said, “that the less you know about our charge, the better her guardian would like it, if you take my meaning.”
“Ah, yes. Of course.” Breckenridge amiably turned his gaze from her. He looked past Fletcher at the serving girl hurrying up. “So what’s on the menu tonight?”
Haddock and turnips, or mutton again.
When asked, Heather glanced at the girl and whispered, “Haddock. And a glass of water, please.” The other four had opted for ale.
As she’d been bid, Heather sat with eyes downcast and listened to the conversation, occasionally glancing up through her lashes at her companions.
Mostly at Breckenridge.
She knew it was him—despite the dark roughness of his beard, his tousled hair, and his less-than-kempt appearance, she could see it was him—but his voice was quite different, which unsettled her. She was used to his fashionable drawl, and equally accustomed to his clipped and incisive, unaffected speech—the voice he used when ordering her about—but listening to him now . . . if she didn’t look, she could almost believe he was indeed some clerk one step away from the slums of the capital.
As for his choice of subject matter fit for the dinner table . . .
Pushing pieces of overcooked haddock around her plate, she listened in fascinated horror as he bandied details of cockfights he’d witnessed with Fletcher and Cobbins. Glancing at Martha, Heather saw that even she was following the often gruesome details. Suppressing a shudder—describing chickens decapitated or ripped to shreds by spurs fixed to other chickens’ talons wasn’t her notion of uplifting discourse—she tried to focus on something else, but the haddock was uninspiring.
Her mind drifted . . . to the peculiar fact that despite Breckenridge not sounding or appearing like himself, she still felt enveloped by the aura of comfort, of security, that she now associated with being near him. And even in his currently rumpled, distinctly unelegant state, she was still aware of the underlying attraction. . . . which was strange. She’d always assumed it was his handsomeness that so effortlessly held her interest. But if not that, then what?
For long moments—in the taproom of a tiny inn at Gretna Green—she tried to puzzle it out, tried to solve the riddle of what it was in Breckenridge that had always commanded that particular, intense, oh-so-feminine awareness.
Then Fletcher grunted and she jerked back to the present.
She hadn’t heard how Breckenridge had managed to redirect the conversation, but Fletcher readily volunteered, “We’ll definitely be here all tomorrow, and most likely the day after that, too. I thought I’d counted the days right, but I did another reckoning this morning, and seems I was a day out.”
Fletcher focused, rather blearily, on Breckenridge, who was looking increasingly disreputable. “What about you, then? You well enough to drive on tomorrow?”
Staring at the ale mug he held clasped between his hands, Breckenridge seemed to think, then slowly shook his head from side to side. “Nope. Wound’s still aching something fierce.” His lips curved in what appeared to be an intoxicated smile. He raised his glass to Fletcher. “But this helps.”
“Good excuse.” Fletcher lifted the pitcher the girl had left on the table. “Here—never let it be said I denied an injured man his medicine.”
Breckenridge grinned in a thoroughly idiotic male way, and when Fletcher filled the mug, raised it and saluted him. “You’re a scholar and a gentleman, sir.”
Fletcher grinned. Cobbins guffawed.
They were all well-flown. Even Martha’s head was nodding, lower and lower.
Fletcher noticed. He poked Martha’s arm. “Here—you and the young miss ought to get upstairs.”
Martha snorted and shook herself, then glanced at Heather. “You’re right. I’m for bed.” Hauling her bulk up, she jerked her head, signaling Heather to follow suit.
Stifling a sigh, she slid along the bench and rose. As she did, she glanced at Breckenridge, but he was looking at Martha and nodding a vacuous farewell.
With an inward sniff, she followed her “maid” from the table. Without a backward glance, she left the room in Martha’s wake.
The inn quieted early that night. Heather made her way cautiously down the stairs as soon as the silence grew thick; waiting in the tiny cloakroom for Breckenridge to appear was better than listening to Martha’s snores.
Her gusty, inebriated snores.
Reaching the hall, she slipped around the counter and cautiously opened the cloakroom door. Inside, the confined space was dark and gloomy, but her eyes were well enough adjusted to the night to be sure there was no one inside.
It wasn’t only her eyesight that informed her Breckenridge wasn’t there waiting.
Tense, she hesitated, not liking the idea of stepping into the dark alone. He might be another hour; he might be as intoxicated as Martha. They hadn’t agreed on any specific time—
A sound cut across her senses; silently whirling, she saw candlelight wavering in the taproom, the bearer still out of her sight, heard heavy footsteps plodding her way.
A dark shadow swooped down the stairs, straight to her.
She opened her lips—
A hard palm slapped over them. A steely arm wrapped around her.
Breckenridge lifted her from her feet and, holding her against him, slipped them both into the cloakroom and nudged the door closed . . . almost shut.
Removing his hand from her lips, he lowered his head and whispered, ghostlike, in her ear, “Be quiet.”
She wasn’t about to say anything; she wasn’t sure she could manage a single word—not a coherent one. From his crisp tone, she surmised he wasn’t at all inebriated. He hadn’t, however, let her go.
Her heart was thudding; she couldn’t see properly, but sensed he was listening intently to movement beyond the door. She swallowed, strained to listen, too. Eventually, over the beating of her heart she heard mumbling grumbles from just beyond the door . . . the innkeeper. He must have come to check something at the counter.
A thin line of light delineated the edge of the almost-closed door.
They waited, silent and still, for the innkeeper to finish his business and leave. She worked on simply breathing, on slowing her racing pulse, on telling herself she was safe—safe. Safe in Breckenridge’s arms.
One part of her mind reeled.
The rest was too busy absorbing the warmth, the alluring masculine heat that seeped through the layers of cloth between them and stroked over her skin.
She was wearing her customary nighttime garb, her coverlet wrapped over her filmy chemise and cinched at her waist with her silk shawl. He was wearing his cloak; it had swept about her and now half envelope
d her, shielding her from the chill night air.
As her pulse slowed, she struggled to draw air into lungs inexplicably constricted. She’d tensed with terror in the instant before he’d touched her, then had all but slumped, limp with relief, when his touch, his nearness, had impinged on her senses and she’d known who had seized her. Almost immediately, however, her nerves had started to tense again, steadily drawing taut with every second she remained clasped against him—every second his hard, undeniably male body remained flush against her much softer form.
He was protecting her, shielding her. She kept telling herself that, yet her senses remained giddy, distracted.
She’d managed to regain some hold on her composure when the innkeeper uttered a distinct, “Aha!”
The sounds of a drawer shutting reached them. Seconds later, the light seeping past the door flickered, then steadily faded.
“Don’t move.”
The warning was less than a breath stirring errant wisps of her hair, brushing tantalizingly past her ear.
By main force suppressing a shiver, she told herself he couldn’t help it; that was probably how he always whispered to women he held in his arms.
She waited for him to release her.
After several moments, she felt the battle-ready tension that had invested his muscles, his entire frame, slowly, gradually, ease.
But he didn’t entirely relax.
He didn’t let her go, either. He did rearrange the cloak so it enveloped her completely, cocooning her within the contained warmth.
“We can’t risk a light,” he murmured.
His deep voice at such close quarters all but frazzled her nerves.
She tipped her face up, trying to make out his features in the gloom. All she could see was a pale outline, cheeks shaded with black beard, eyes too shadowed for her to even glimpse, and the lines of his lips and chin, both presently uncompromisingly grim.
“We’ll have to make this quick.”
She nodded. They would. Or else she might do something unutterably stupid. She made a mental note never to let him ever again seize her in the dark.