In Pursuit Of Eliza Cynster

by Stephanie Laurens

  Still, it paid to be thorough. “Other than that incident, was there any point at all where Miss Cynster could have come to the attention of a gentleman, English or Scottish or of any other stripe. Whether you saw it happen, or don’t think it did — think. Could she have been recognized at any point after the incident with the curricle? While walking up South Bridge, for instance?”

  Scrope replied coldly, defensively, “No. There was no other incident of any possible relevance, and when we walked her here, we kept her hemmed between us with her hood over her head and pulled low. It was crowded. No one took the slightest notice.”

  McKinsey stared levelly at Scrope. Had it been the curricle driver or some chance sighting in Edinburgh that had led to Eliza’s escape?

  Before he could decide if there was any sense in further interrogating the increasingly hostile Scrope, a heavy knock landed on the front door.

  “Taylor.” The nurse rose and hurried out into the hall.

  A second later, McKinsey heard his alias being whispered as Taylor was warned that he was there. A silent moment passed, then a large man in coachman’s garb filled the doorway, his hat in his hands. Seeing McKinsey, he bobbed, then glanced at Scrope.

  Scrope waved him in and somewhat peevishly demanded, “Well? Did you find her?”

  Taylor halted, squared his shoulders. “I found the gentleman in the curricle that passed us yesterday, down the other side of the Cheviots.”

  Scrope came to his feet, his face paling. “He was here?”

  “Apparently. After I left here, I checked down South Bridge Street — didn’t have to go further than the smaller inn just down from the coaching inn we used. The ostlers said the gentleman had come in yesterday late morning, and he left at first light, along with an English lady with fair hair and a gold gown. Sounded like our package, so I sent that message back to you and gave chase.”

  “And?” Scrope demanded.

  “I ran them to earth this side of Dalkeith — that nice-looking black had gone lame and the pair of them were walking him on.”

  “Never mind the damned horse!” Scrope yelled. “What about the woman — and the man, this Englishman?”

  Taylor studied Scrope, then went on, “Looked like the same fellow we passed yesterday, far as I could make out — but I recognized that horse and the curricle right enough, so it had to be him.” Taylor transferred his gaze to McKinsey. “But the lady definitely wasn’t Miss Cynster. Soon as I saw her — the lady with the Englishman — I came racing back. I checked up and down the coaching inns along South Bridge Street — all those that service the Great North Road. No one’s seen any other fair-haired English lady. She definitely didn’t go out in any of the public coaches, nor yet the private ones that set out this morning.” He paused, then ventured, “She might still be in Edinburgh.”

  McKinsey didn’t reply. Although he was tempted to ask why anyone would go to the trouble of arranging a demonstrably excellent decoy if not to deflect attention from a flight in a different direction, he had better things to do. That the English gentleman and the lady in the gold gown that Taylor had run down constituted a decoy was beyond question; how many fair-haired ladies in gold gowns were likely to leave Edinburgh on the Great North Road in an Englishman’s curricle on one morning?

  The Englishman Eliza Cynster had recognized driving his curricle down the Jedburgh Road had rescued her. McKinsey didn’t know how he’d accomplished the whole, only that he had. And it was therefore now McKinsey’s role to hunt the pair down.

  His present position was very much an unwelcome case of déjà vu. Just as had happened with Heather Cynster, he now found himself in the ridiculous position of being cast as a Cynster chit’s protector. He would have to find her, determine whether she was in danger or not, whether he needed to step in and rescue her or not, or whether he could with honor intact withdraw and turn his mind to what next he would have to do.

  Scrope and his two assistants had been watching him, waiting for his verdict, to see what orders he would give.

  He focused on Scrope. “A word.”

  With a jerk of his head, Scrope sent the other two out of the room. Both bobbed courtesies to McKinsey before obeying; Taylor shut the door behind them.

  “She has to still be here.” Scrope wheeled and started pacing. “We’ll scour the city —”

  “She’s already left.”

  Halting, Scrope stared at him. “You can’t know that.”

  McKinsey looked up at him. “Ah, but I do.” Reaching into his coat, he drew out a purse and tossed it at Scrope.

  Scrope caught it, knew from the weight that it wasn’t the reward he’d hoped for. “What’s this? My work for you isn’t finished.”

  “Sadly, it is. I’m paying you off and dismissing you. You no longer have any role to play in this game.”

  Scrope’s dark eyes flared. “No!” He stepped closer, standing over McKinsey. “I won’t —”

  McKinsey rose, fluidly, gracefully. Fully upright, he looked down at Scrope. Asked, quite quietly, “What was that?”

  Scrope was tall, but McKinsey towered over him. Where Scrope was well built, McKinsey was huge, all heavy bone and solid muscle.

  Scrope didn’t swallow and back away, as most men would have; he was, apparently, made of sterner stuff. He did, however, moderate his tone. “This was my assignment, my undertaking. Until it’s finished, until I deliver Miss Cynster into your hands, it’s still mine to carry out.”

  “So you believe, but I say otherwise, and, you might recall, I’m your client in this.”

  Scrope nearly ground his teeth. “You don’t understand — this is my work, my profession. I don’t fail.”

  “You have this time, but rest assured I’m unlikely to spread the word.”

  “That’s not the point!” Scrope’s hands fisted, as if physically holding back his welling rage. He was all but erupting; when next he spoke, the words came through clenched teeth. “I will not be bested by a silly chit, even with some gentleman to help her. If I walk away from this, my reputation will be shredded. I will not let it — let her — go.”

  McKinsey didn’t bat an eyelash. He studied Scrope’s eyes, his face; he could understand professional pride, but there was more than that at work here. “This is not about you, Scrope. It never was. Let me make myself clear. Obey me in this, and no one will ever hear of your failure. Pursue Miss Cynster further, and I’ll ensure you will never work in this town, or any other, for the rest of your days.”

  He couldn’t tell from Scrope’s eyes, now so dark they seemed to burn blackly, whether the man was even taking his words in. “Do you understand?”

  The answer took a moment to come. “Perfectly.”

  “Excellent.” McKinsey held Scrope’s gaze for a moment more, then stepped around him and walked to the door.

  Scrope’s gaze burnt a hole between McKinsey’s shoulder blades. Reaching the door, and foreseeing an eventuality he hadn’t yet countered, McKinsey grasped the knob, then glanced back and met Scrope’s gaze. “I’d wager Miss Cynster is long gone from Edinburgh, but if fate proves me wrong and you should find her in the town, I would counsel you to remember that my injunction against any harm befalling her still applies. One scratch, one bruise, and I will come for you, and I will not be merciful. If she falls into your hands, treat her like porcelain, and send word to me in the usual fashion. If you succeed in that, I’ll double the reward we previously agreed on.”

  McKinsey considered Scrope for a long moment more, then evenly said, “You believe Miss Cynster is still within the town. I believe otherwise, so let’s put it to the test. You look for her here, I’ll look elsewhere. If you prove correct, as I said, I’ll double the reward.”

  Lips pinched, his gaze burning darkly, Scrope offered nothing in reply.

  McKinsey opened the door, stepped into the hall, and shut the parlor door softly behind him.

  Seconds later, he was striding up Niddery Street.

  Crossing High Street,
he plunged into the warren of closes and wynds, ducked through passages and alleys so narrow he had to turn sideways to pass through. The erratic path ensured that no one — Scrope, for instance — followed him.

  Once he was striding along more genteel streets, his mind meandered back to Scrope. Could he trust the man to desist in his pursuit of Eliza Cynster?

  While he was reasonably certain Scrope had circumvented his instructions regarding Eliza’s treatment on the long journey north, by and large the man had stuck to the letter of the orders he’d been given.

  Now McKinsey had not just challenged him but he’d also made it very much worth his while to remain in Edinburgh and search for Eliza Cynster there.

  While McKinsey was sure she’d already quit the town — there was no point in sending out a decoy if one wasn’t going to act at the same time — the chance that she hadn’t, Scrope’s own conviction that she hadn’t, plus the sizeable potential reward should serve to keep the man safely tethered.

  McKinsey had to admit he hadn’t liked the odd, almost fanatical look in Scrope’s eyes, but on balance, he felt that Scrope now had sufficient incentive to remain in Edinburgh — not least the prospect of proving him, Mc Kinsey, wrong.

  McKinsey turned up the street in which his own house stood.

  He’d done enough, dangled bait enough, to ensure that Scrope toed his line.

  Chapter Seven

  eremy’s respect for his brother-in-law and his Bastion Club colleagues was increasing by the minute. How did one remain outwardly calm when disaster was looming nearer and nearer?

  It was nearly noon and they’d only just reached Kingsknowe.

  A wheel on the cart they’d been riding in had split, tipping the cart sideways, almost into the ditch. Quite aside from disentangling themselves and recovering from the shock — and, on his part, subduing the unruly impulses evoked by being tossed on top of Eliza — they’d felt obliged to dally to help the poor farmer get the cart horizontal again. Then the farmer had taken his horse and ridden off to find a blacksmith, leaving the pair of them to walk on.

  Worse, on reaching Kingsknowe they’d inquired at both the small town’s inns, only to discover that while each had had a gig for hire, both conveyances had already been in use. Neither inn had had any other suitable equipage available. Nothing that would have traveled faster than an unladen farm cart.

  That, once again, had been their only option. That, or hiring horses again, but one look at Eliza’s apprehensive expression had put paid to that idea.

  They’d been directed by the stableman at the second inn to a farmer who would soon be traveling on. The farmer had just ordered an early lunch in the inn’s tap; he was going as far as Currie and had readily agreed to let them ride in the back of his dray.

  Although they’d had food in their saddlebags, Jeremy, starting to think ahead, had suggested that, as they had to wait for the farmer to finish his meal, they might as well let the inn feed them, too.

  Which was how they came to be sitting at a corner table in the small tap, plates bearing the remains of a decent game pie pushed to one side, with the map Cobby had given them spread out between them … and carefully not talking about the single issue that unquestionably loomed largest in both their minds.

  Tracing their path thus far — more than five hours gone and so few miles covered — Jeremy tried to find the right words to address the near certainty that, given their slow progress, they would be forced to spend at least one night on the road, together, alone … but his mind simply balked.

  After trying for several minutes and advancing not at all, he abandoned that subject and concentrated instead on getting on. “We’ll have to replan — that’s all there is to it.”

  Eliza grasped the straw of distraction. “This was the way we were going to go, wasn’t it?” She traced the route to Carnwath, then east across to Melrose and Jedburgh before turning south across the Cheviots. “Perhaps we can shorten the journey by heading east earlier? Perhaps taking this road here.”

  Jeremy followed the tip of her finger, grimaced when it reached the Great North Road. “No — we can’t do that. All that will accomplish is to take us in a wide sweep around Edinburgh and put us on the Great North Road only a few miles out of the town — more or less in exactly the spot where Scrope and company will search.”

  Eliza wrinkled her nose. She peered more closely at the map. “There are so few other roads east.”

  “It’s the Pentland Hills. Once they rise on the left of the road, which follows the western flank of the hills, there’s no road that crosses them, not until we reach Carnwath.”

  “So we have to stay on this road until then.”

  “Unfortunately, yes.” Another aspect of their original plan that, in hindsight, could have been improved. Given the possibility of pursuit, it would have been helpful to have had useful alternative routes sooner, closer to Edinburgh, than later. As it was, the first viable alternative way forward didn’t eventuate until Carnwath. Jeremy tried to sound positive. “So Carnwath it is. We’ll just have to be especially careful until then, but on the bright side, we’ll definitely be able to hire a carriage there. We can check in the villages we pass on the way, too.”

  Eliza looked into his brown eyes, plain brown but warm, a color she associated with rich caramel, or perhaps expensive, well-aged brandy. At the pace they were going, even if they managed to find a faster cart, they still had no hope of reaching even Carnwath that night. Which meant they would have to find shelter, and that might prove problematical in more ways than one.

  Another apology hovered on her tongue, but rather than utter the useless words she resolved instead not to make his life harder. They didn’t need to discuss how they would spend the night until they knew what their choices might be. Sufficient unto the hour the problems — and they had problems enough to deal with as it was.

  Noticing the farmer rising from his table and looking their way, she raised her hand in a manly salute and reached for the map to fold it away. “Also on the bright side,” she said, determined to do her part to keep their mutual spirits up, “we haven’t yet had Scrope on our heels.”

  “Or the mysterious laird.” Having seen her salute and repacked his saddlebag, Jeremy stood.

  She rose, too. He started to extend a hand to help her, then remembered and let his arm fall.

  Catching his eye, she smiled.

  His lips curved lightly in response, then he tipped his head toward the door. “Our carriage awaits.”

  She led the way and he followed. Minutes later, they were seated side by side in the back of the dray, boots swinging over the rear edge, the road unraveling like a ribbon beneath their feet as the farmer’s cart rumbled along, down the road to Carnwath.

  The city’s bells had just rung the noontime peal when the laird presently calling himself McKinsey walked into the third of the string of stables located below the Grassmarket.

  The decoy Taylor had discovered along the Great North Road strongly suggested that Eliza Cynster and her gentleman-rescuer had left town by another route that morning. Given that their ultimate destination was unlikely to lie deeper in Scotland, the laird had dismissed the roads to the north or northwest. Likewise, he felt certain they wouldn’t have headed east or southeast; those roads lay too close to the Great North Road; indeed, some even branched off it.

  That left the road directly south, or those to the southwest. From either initial direction, the fleeing pair could circle around and pick up the Jedburgh Road. If it had been him, he would have tried for that border crossing; given they’d elected to avoid the Great North Road and its crossing north of Berwick, the Carter Bar crossing south of Jedburgh offered the nearest, most open, and uncrowded route into En gland.

  The prospect of remaining unobserved by hordes of other travelers would, he imagined, appeal to his fugitives.

  He’d toyed with the idea of trusting to his instincts, riding south to Jedburgh, waiting there for his quarry to come past, then
falling in on their heels. However, there was an outside chance the pair had decided to make for the Vale of Casphairn, to the far southwest in Galloway, to — as Heather Cynster and her rescuer, Breckenridge, had done — seek refuge with Richard Cynster and his wife there.

  Given he needed to observe Eliza Cynster and her rescuer, to determine what manner of man said rescuer was and what the relationship between the pair might be in order to decide his own next move, he couldn’t afford to risk losing them. Hence, he had to follow them, whichever way they’d gone.

  The stableman saw him darkening his doorway and came forward. “Good day, my lord. Can I help you with a horse?”

  The laird smiled. “No, not a horse. Two travelers. I’m looking for an English gentleman and a young lady, also English. They left town this morning, most likely early. They were going to hire transport — a fast carriage or horses — but I’m not sure which road they intended to take. Did you see them, or better yet hire to them?”

  Wiping his hands on a rag, the stableman shook his head. “No lady and gentleman, not English, least ways. Two of my regular couples came in midmorning, locals wanting gigs for the day, but no other ladies.”

  The laird inclined his head. “Thank you. I’ll continue searching.”

  He was turning away when the stableman said, “Funny, though — I did have two English here at the crack o’dawn, but it wasn’t any young lady.”

  “Oh?” The laird turned back, one black brow rising.

  “A young gentleman and his tutor. They hired two fast horses and headed for Carnwath.”

  “Did you speak to the younger man?”

  The stableman shook his head. “Didn’t even get a good sighting of him, now I think of it. It was the tutor came in and selected the mounts and tack, and saddled up both horses. The younger one hung about out there”— with his chin, the stableman indicated the narrow yard at the front of the stables —“holding one of the saddlebags, until the tutor took the mounts out to him, then they mounted up and trotted off down the road. Mind you, I don’t know how fast they’ll go — the young one was that stiff in the saddle. No horseman, that one. I remember thinking that perhaps that was the reason the tutor had them up so early — just to reach Carnwath will likely take them the whole day.”