Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue

by Stephanie Laurens

  Smiled at the memory of Breckenridge’s expression when he’d gestured at her to open the window; he hadn’t been his usual impassive self then. Amused, relieved, she closed her eyes and slept.

  Chapter Three

  The next morning, relatively early, Heather found herself back in the coach and heading north once more.

  Martha had woken an hour after dawn and consented to hand Heather the round gown of plain green cambric they’d brought for her to wear. Heather had retrieved her fringed silk shawl, but her amber silk evening gown and her small evening reticule had been packed into Martha’s commodious satchel. Martha’s planning hadn’t extended to footwear. With the woolen cloak about her and her evening slippers on her feet, Heather had been escorted downstairs to a private parlor.

  Over breakfast, taken with Fletcher, Cobbins, and the hatchet-faced Martha, Heather had had no chance to even make eye contact with the busy serving girls. If anyone did come asking after her, she doubted that the overworked girls would even remember her.

  While she’d eaten, she’d thought back over her behavior in the carriage the previous night. Although she’d asked questions, she hadn’t given her captors any reason to believe she was the sort of young lady who might seriously challenge them or disobey their orders. Admittedly she hadn’t burst into tears, or wrung her hands and sobbed pitifully, but they’d been warned she was clever, so they shouldn’t have expected that.

  Although it had gone very much against her grain, by the time they’d risen and she’d been ushered, under close guard, into the waiting coach, she’d decided to play to their apparent perceptions, to appear malleable and relatively helpless despite her supposed intelligence. Her plan, as she’d taken her seat on the forward-facing bench once more, was to lull the trio into viewing her much as a schoolgirl they were escorting home.

  In the few minutes while she, Martha, and Cobbins had waited in the coach for Fletcher to finish with the innkeeper and join them, she’d looked out of the coach window and seen an ostler holding a prancing bay gelding, saddled and waiting for its rider.

  The temptation to open the coach door, jump down, race the few feet to the horse, grab the reins, mount, and thunder back down the road toward London had flared—and just as quickly had died. Not only would the maneuver have been fraught with risk—with no money or possessions, let alone proper clothes, she might have potentially jumped from frying pan into fire—but, successful or not, it would have ensured she got no chance to learn more about what lay behind her abduction.

  She’d decided she would have to rely on Breckenridge, have to count on him following her. She’d wondered if he’d yet risen from his bed. He was one of the foremost rakes of the ton; such gentlemen were assumed to see little of the morning, certainly not during the Season.

  Then Fletcher had climbed in, shut the door, and the coach had jerked, rumbled forward, and turned north—and she’d discovered that trusting in Breckenridge wasn’t all that hard. Some part of her had already decided to.

  She bided her time, lulling her three captors as planned, letting a silent hour pass as the miles slid by. She waited until sufficient time had elapsed to allow her to lean forward, peer out, and somewhat peevishly inquire, “Is it much farther?”

  She looked at Fletcher, but he only grinned. The other two, when she glanced questioningly at them, simply closed their eyes.

  Looking again at Fletcher, she frowned. “You might at least tell me how long I’ll be cooped up in this carriage.”

  “For some time yet.”

  She opened her eyes wide. “But won’t we be stopping for morning tea?”

  “Sorry. That’s not on our schedule.”

  She looked horrified. “But surely we’ll be stopping for lunch?”

  “Lunch, yes, but that won’t be for a while.”

  Adopting a put-upon expression, she subsided, but “stopping for lunch” suggested they would be heading on afterward. She debated, then asked, “How far north are you taking me?” She made her voice small, as if the thought worried her. Which it did.

  Fletcher considered her but volunteered only, “A ways yet.”

  She let another mile or two slide by before restlessly shifting, then asking, “This employer of yours—do you normally work for him?”

  Fletcher shook his head. “We work for hire, me and Cobbins, and as we’ve known Martha forever, she agreed to assist us.”

  “So he approached you?”

  Fletcher nodded.

  “Where did you meet him?”

  Fletcher grinned. “Glasgow.”

  She met Fletcher’s eyes, grimaced, and fell silent again. She’d eat her best bonnet if either Fletcher or Cobbins hailed from north of the border, and from her accent, Martha was definitely a Londoner . . . did that mean the man who’d hired them was Glaswegian?

  Were they actually imagining taking her over the border?

  Heather longed to ask, but Fletcher was watching her with a faintly taunting smile on his face. He knew her questions weren’t idle, which meant he’d tell her nothing useful. At least, not intentionally.

  Yet from what he’d let fall, she had at least until sometime after lunch to quiz him and the others. Folding her arms, she closed her eyes and decided to lull him some more.

  There were really only two answers she needed before she escaped—who had hired them, and why.

  She opened her eyes when the houses of St. Neots closed around the coach. They passed a clock tower, the dial of which confirmed it was only midmorning. Stretching, she surveyed the view outside, then settled back and fixed her gaze on Fletcher. “Have you and Cobbins always worked together?”

  That wasn’t the question he’d been expecting. After a moment, he nodded. “Grew up together, we did.”

  “In London?”

  Fletcher’s smile returned. “Nah—up north. But we’ve been down in London a lot over the years. Lots of jobs there for gentlemen like us.”

  She wondered, then decided it wouldn’t hurt to ask, “I don’t suppose you’d consider earning more than your employer is paying you by turning the coach around and taking me home?”

  Fletcher shook his head. “No. Much as I wouldn’t say no to extra money, double-crossing an employer is never good for business.”

  She frowned. “Is he—your employer—paying you so well then?”

  “He’s paying all he needs to get the job done.”

  “So he’s wealthy?”

  Fletcher hesitated. “I didn’t say that.”

  No, but you believe he is. She sat forward. “I’m curious—how does a man like your employer go about hiring men like you? You can’t possibly put a notice in the news sheets advertising your services.”

  Fletcher chuckled. Even Cobbins cracked a smile.

  “We get business on recommendation,” Fletcher explained. “I don’t know who mentioned us to him, but he sent word to our contact, and we met him in a tavern. He laid the job before us, and we accepted. Simple enough.”

  “So you don’t know his name?” It was one step too far, but, she judged, worth the gamble.

  Fletcher’s expression closed, but when she continued to look expectantly at him, his slow, taunting smile returned. “It’s no use, Miss Wallace, but if you truly want, I can put my hand on my heart”—he suited action to the words—“and tell you he called himself McKinsey.”

  She caught the implication. “That’s not his name.”

  “No, it’s no
t. And before you bother asking, I don’t know his real name—he’s the type wise men don’t question about anything they don’t want to reveal.”

  She pulled a face and sat back. And asked nothing more for the moment.

  The man who had hired them to kidnap her and deliver her to him was wealthy, lived somewhere in the north, possibly as far north as Glasgow, and was of the caliber to inspire a healthy respect, if not fear, in men like Fletcher.

  Despite her curiosity over his identity, she felt increasingly certain she didn’t want to actually meet the man.

  They halted for lunch a little after noon in the village of Stretton. As they turned into the forecourt of an inn, Heather noted the sign—the Friar and Keys. She’d been this far on the Great North Road on several trips to visit her cousin Richard and his wife Catriona in Scotland, but she couldn’t say she recognized the village.

  Descending from the coach, she eased her cramped limbs, then looked swiftly around. Would Breckenridge notice that they’d stopped?

  Assuming, of course, that he was indeed following and wasn’t too far behind.

  “Come along.” Martha took her arm and propelled her toward the inn’s main door. “Let’s order that lunch you were asking after before Fletcher changes his mind.”

  Heather went docilely enough, but the comment had her glancing back. Fletcher and Cobbins had left the coach, which, thankfully, was being led not deeper into the yard but to one side of the forecourt, where it would be readily visible from the highway. Fletcher and the taciturn Cobbins had walked to the highway’s edge and were looking back along the road, talking, possibly arguing, as they watched.

  Allowing herself to be led inside, then steered to a wood-paneled booth in the back corner of the taproom, at Martha’s nod Heather sat, then scooted along the seat so Martha could sit, too, hemming Heather in against the wall. She looked toward the door. Fletcher and Cobbins had yet to come inside.

  A serving girl approached. Martha asked what was available, then ordered shepherd’s pie for them all. “And three mugs of ale.” Martha glanced at Heather, then added, “And one of cider.”

  The serving girl nodded and took herself off.

  “Thank you,” Heather said.

  Martha only grunted.

  Heather let a moment of silence elapse, then, her gaze still on the open door, asked, “What’s Fletcher waiting for?” Could this be where she was to be handed over?

  “He’s just playing cautious. It’s habit with him. He’s making sure no one’s following us along.”

  Heather’s heart sped up. Keeping her tone even, she ventured, “But how could anyone be following? If they’d seen me snatched off the street, they would have caught up long before now, surely?”

  Martha nodded. “So you’d think. But like I said, old Fletcher’s a man of caution. No doubt but that’s why he’s survived for so long.”

  The serving girl arrived with a tray piled with plates. Another came up bearing four mugs. The pair blocked Heather’s view of the main door. By the time they deposited the plates and mugs and drew back, she was ready to suggest that she or Martha, or even the serving girls, should summon Fletcher and Cobbins before their meals grew cold, but then she glanced at the door and saw Cobbins, followed by Fletcher, enter.

  She nearly sighed with relief. Reaching for her cider, she took a calming sip.

  Cobbins sat opposite. Fletcher followed him onto the booth’s bench seat. He met Martha’s eyes. “No one. Looks like we got clean away.”

  Martha, mouth already full, barely looked up from her plate to nod.

  Cobbins lifted his fork and dug into the mound before him. Fletcher followed suit.

  Heather picked up her fork, prodded at the meat topped with potato, then lifted a small bite. She tentatively tried it, then went back for more. The dish was surprisingly tasty.

  She didn’t know what made her look up several minutes later, but glancing at the door she saw Breckenridge standing just inside the room. He was looking at her but immediately shifted his gaze, surveying the tap as if deciding where to sit.

  Pretending to look down at her plate, from beneath her lashes she surreptitiously watched as he stirred, then, surprisingly silently for such a large man, tacked through the tables, heading toward their booth.

  She blinked and lifted her head when he disappeared behind the high panel at Fletcher’s back; he’d slipped into the next booth, behind her male captors.

  Which almost certainly meant he would overhear anything they said.

  Laying down her fork, fixing her gaze on Fletcher, she took a sip of cider, then cleared her throat. “Where are you taking me?” Looking down, she set her mug back down. Carefully, as if she were nervous and tense.

  Fletcher shot her an assessing glance. “We’re taking you further north.”

  She looked up, met his gaze, tried for beseeching. “But how far? Further up the Great North Road? Or somewhere else?” She managed to imbue the last words with an unspecified dread, as if there were something she feared in the north, something other than her abductors’ employer.

  Fletcher frowned. “Like I said—north.”

  “But where in the north?” Histrionically, she spread her arms. “There’s lots of places north of here! Where—” She artistically let her breath catch, swallowed, then went on more quietly, “Where are we stopping for the night?”

  Her tone suggested she was close to panic at the idea they might stop too close to that something.

  Fletcher frowned harder. Leaning forward, he lowered his voice. “I don’t know what bee’s got into your bonnet, but we’re stopping at Carlton-on-Trent overnight.” He searched her face. “Is there any reason we shouldn’t?”

  Breckenridge might not have heard.

  She raised her head, hauled in a breath. “Carlton-on-Trent?” She summoned a weak smile, then shook her head. “No, no . . . there’s no reason we can’t stop at Carlton-on-Trent.”

  “Good.” Fletcher sat back, still frowning, then he glanced at the other two. “Eat and drink up. Let’s get back on the road.”

  The other two grumbled. Heather quickly ate a few more bites of her nearly cold lunch. The others were still clearing their plates; heads down, none of them noticed the large man who rose from the next booth. Without a single glance in their direction, Breckenridge walked out of the inn.

  “Come on.” Fletcher pushed back his plate and stood.

  The others more slowly followed him out of the booth.

  Heather played the obedient abductee and allowed Martha and Cobbins to usher her outside. Stepping into the forecourt, she was just in time to see Breckenridge, in drab, dull clothing quite unlike his usual elegant attire, turn a plain curricle out of the inn yard and set his horses pacing up the highway, heading north.

  She surmised he’d decided to go on ahead of them.

  Fletcher hadn’t taken any notice of the curricle and its driver; he’d gone straight to their own coachman and had started some discussion. She didn’t think Cobbins had noticed Breckenridge either, and Martha had emerged from the inn behind her; at best she would have seen his back, and that at a distance.

  Fletcher opened the coach door and waved her in. She climbed up and settled on the seat, in her now usual position. While the others climbed in, she prayed Fletcher hadn’t realized her ploy, hadn’t realized Breckenridge was following, and had therefore told her a lie.

  If she lost Breckenri
dge’s protective presence . . .

  Even as the thought formed, along with the realization of how very alone she would feel if she didn’t know he was close, how very much more afraid and truly panicked she would be, she couldn’t help but recognize how ironic it was. How strange that her nemesis—he who she habitually avoided and thoroughly disliked—had somehow transformed into her savior.

  Breckenridge, her savior.

  She very nearly snorted. Turning her head, she looked out of the window as the coach lurched, and rumbled out of the yard.

  Breckenridge swept into Newark-on-Trent in the middle of the afternoon. He’d driven like a demon to get far ahead of the coach carrying Heather, and the pair of grays were flagging. He turned in at the first large posting inn and shouted for the ostlers and stableman.

  Despite his unprepossessing attire, they responded to the voice of authority and came running. Stepping to the ground, he tossed the reins to the first ostler, spoke to the stableman. “I need the best pair you have, harnessed and ready to go in . . .” He drew out his fob-watch, checked the time, then snapped it shut. Tucking it back in his pocket, he met the stableman’s eyes. “One hour.”

  “Aye, sir. And the grays?”

  He gave the man the direction of the posting house in High Barnet, then strode out of the inn yard and made for Lombard Street.

  His first stop was the local branch of Child’s Bank; once he replenished his supply of cash, he followed the bank manager’s directions to the town’s premier bootmaker, and was lucky enough to find an excellent pair of riding boots that fit him. His next stop was the best gentlemen’s outfitters, where he created a small furore by demanding they assemble for him outfits suitable for a groom and for a north country laborer.

  The head tailor goggled at him and the assistants simply stared; holding onto his temper, he brusquely explained that the outfits were for a country house party where fancy dress was required.