Then they fell to with appropriate zeal.
It still took longer than he would have liked. The tailor fussed with the fitting until Breckenridge declared, “Damn it, man! There’s no prize for being the most perfectly dressed groom in the north!”
The tailor jumped. Pins cascaded from between his lips and scattered on the ground. His assistants rushed in to gather them up.
The tailor swallowed. “No, of course not, sir. If Sir will remain still, I will endeavor to remove the pins . . . although really, such shoulders . . . well, I would have thought . . .”
“Never mind about showing off my damned shoulders—just make sure I have room to move.” The instant the dapper little tailor stepped back, Breckenridge swung his arms up, then forward. Neither jacket nor shirt ripped. “Good—these will do.”
He nodded at the other outfit and the jacket and breeches he’d traded his evening coat for back in the Knebworth tavern. “Just parcel those up. I’ll wear what I have on. I have to get back on the road.”
The tailor and his assistants scurried to obey.
Breckenridge paid and tipped them well, grateful they hadn’t led him to lose his temper, which seemed to be riding on a distinctly frayed rein.
The parcel of clothes under one arm, he strode quickly back to the posting inn. A pair of decent-looking blacks had been harnessed to the curricle he’d hired in Baldock to replace the too-showy phaeton. He inspected both horses, then paid the stableman, stowed his parcel beneath the seat, climbed up, sat, and, after testing the reins, nodded to the ostlers. “Release them.”
The ostlers let go. Both horses lunged but immediately felt a firm hand on the reins. They tossed their heads but quickly settled. With a flick of his wrist, Breckenridge sent them pacing neatly to the street, then turned out and headed briskly on, up the Great North Road.
He was in position in the tap of the Old Bell Inn in Carlton-on-Trent when the coach carrying Heather turned in under the inn’s arch and drew up in the forecourt. Seated at a table in the front corner of the tap, he sipped a pint of ale and watched the group descend from the coach. As before, Heather was closely guarded and ushered toward the inn’s front door, which opened to the inn’s foyer.
The foyer, most helpfully, was separated from the tap by a wooden partition. From where he sat, he could hear every word uttered, even muttered, in the foyer, but no one in the foyer could see him. Of course, he couldn’t see them either, but he hoped Heather would have noticed that there was only one inn in the small village, and would assume he’d be somewhere near.
He heard the front door open, followed by the usual sounds of arrival, then someone rang the bell on the counter. He sipped and listened as the innkeeper arrived and quickly set about the business of welcoming his guests and getting them settled. Breckenridge paid particular attention to the room allocations, both the women’s and Fletcher and Cobbins’s. Like the women, the men would share a room, but their room would be in another wing.
Breckenridge listened as Fletcher tried to change the innkeeper’s mind and get a room closer to the women’s. The innkeeper insisted that he only had the two rooms still available, many others being closed due to rain damage during a recent storm. Fletcher grumbled, but reluctantly conceded that he and his friend would take the offered room.
“Good,” Breckenridge murmured. He’d paid the innkeeper to ensure that both Heather’s male captors would be far distant from her room that night. He sincerely hoped that by this evening she would be ready to quit their company and return to London. The further they went . . . yet, as attested to by the extra disguises he’d bought, he wasn’t placing any wagers on her coming to her senses, especially not because he thought she should.
The abduction party fussed over their luggage, then Heather spoke, her voice carrying clearly into the tap. “I’m unaccustomed to being cooped up all day—I really must insist that you permit me to enjoy a short walk.”
“Not on your life,” Fletcher growled.
From the sound, Breckenridge realized the group had moved closer to the tap.
“You don’t need to think you’re going to give us the slip so easily.” Fletcher again.
“My dear good man”—Heather with her nose in the air; Breckenridge could tell by her tone—“just where in this landscape of empty fields do you imagine I’m going to slip to?”
Cobbins opined that she might try to steal a horse and ride off.
“Oh, yes—in a round gown and evening slippers,” Heather jeered. “But I wasn’t suggesting you let me ramble on my own—Martha can come with me.”
That was Martha’s cue to enter the fray, but Heather stuck to her guns, refusing to back down through the ensuing, increasingly heated verbal stoush.
Until Fletcher intervened, aggravated frustration resonating in his voice. “Look you—we’re under strict orders to keep you safe, not to let you wander off to fall prey to the first shiftless rake who rides past and takes a fancy to you.”
Silence reigned for half a minute, then Heather audibly sniffed. “I’ll have you know that shiftless rakes know better than to take a fancy to me.”
Not true, Breckenridge thought, but that wasn’t the startling information contained in Fletcher’s outburst. “Come on, Heather—follow up.”
As if she’d heard his muttered exhortation, she blithely swept on, “But if rather than standing there arguing, you instead treated me like a sensible adult and told me what your so strict orders with respect to me were, I might see my way to complying—or at least to helping you comply with them.”
Breckenridge blinked as he sorted through that pronouncement; he could almost feel for Fletcher when he hissed out a sigh.
“All right.” Fletcher’s frustration had reached breaking point. “If you must know, we’re to keep you safe from all harm. We’re not to let a bloody pigeon pluck so much as a hair from your head. We’re to deliver you up in prime condition, exactly as you were when we grabbed you.”
From the change in Fletcher’s tone, Breckenridge could visualize him moving closer to tower over Heather to intimidate her into backing down; he could have told him it wouldn’t work.
“So now you see,” Fletcher went on, voice low and forceful, “that it’s entirely out of the question for you to go out for any ramble.”
“Hmm.” Heather’s tone was tellingly mild.
Fletcher was about to get floored by an uppercut. For once not being on the receiving end, Breckenridge grinned and waited for it to land.
“If, as you say, your orders are to—do correct me if I’m wrong—keep me in my customary excellent health until you hand me over to your employer, then, my dear Fletcher, that will absolutely necessitate me going for a walk. Being cooped up all day in a carriage has never agreed with me—if you don’t wish me to weaken or develop some unhealthy affliction, I will require fresh air and gentle exercise to recoup.” She paused, then went on, her tone one of utmost reasonableness, “A short excursion along the river at the rear of the inn, and back, should restore my constitution.”
Breckenridge was certain he could hear Fletcher breathing in and out through clenched teeth.
A fraught moment passed, then, “Oh, very well! Martha—go with her. Twenty minutes, do you hear? Not a minute more.”
“Thank you, Fletcher. Come, Martha—we don’t want to waste the light.”
Breckenridge heard Heather, with the rather slower Martha, leave the inn by the main do
or. He sipped his ale, waited. Eventually, Fletcher and Cobbins climbed the stairs, Cobbins grumbling, Fletcher ominously silent.
The instant they passed out of hearing, Breckenridge stood, stretched, then walked out of the tap and into the foyer. Seconds later, he slipped out of the front door.
The river Trent flowed peacefully along, a mere hundred yards from the rear of the inn. A well-beaten path wended along the bank. Heather ambled down it, genuinely glad to have the chance to stretch her legs, to breathe fresh air, but her principal reason for insisting on the walk was to gain some inkling of whether Breckenridge was there.
Until she saw him, she had no way of knowing if he was—whether he’d arrived ahead of them or was still on his way.
One thing she did feel certain about was that he would materialize and hover close. He’d said they would have to meet every night. She was under no illusion; if he thought she was in real danger, he would intervene and rescue her, regardless of what he might have to do to accomplish that. By the same token, when they met that night—however they managed it—he would most likely try to bully her into giving up her quest and returning to London with him.
So while she walked, she reviewed all she’d learned—not enough, but a few telling facts, enough to justify persisting, and learning more if she could. She ordered the points in her mind.
She was mentally far away, absentmindedly strolling, when Martha, plodding heavily alongside, said, “You’re taking this awfully well.”
Heather glanced at her, met Martha’s shrewd gaze.
“I’d expected,” Martha continued, “to have to deal with hysterics—bouts of weeping and pleading at the very least.”
“Yes, well . . .” Heather pulled an expressive face. Looking ahead, she went on, “I have to admit I did feel like panicking at first, but . . . I’ve been wondering if I shouldn’t view this as an adventure.” She had to deflect any suspicion, so offered the one explanation that might serve. She gestured dramatically. “A romantical adventure, complete with mysterious villain, who might or might not prove to be devastatingly handsome.”
Martha snorted. “So that’s the way it is—you’re romanticizing this blackguard who’s arranged your kidnapping.”
“Do you actually know if he’s a blackguard?” Heather didn’t have to manufacture her concern.
Martha grimaced. “I can’t rightly say. I haven’t had anything to do with the beggar. Fletcher and Cobbins were the ones that met him. But,” she continued, “any blighter who arranges a kidnapping, and one as coolly planned as this, take it from me, handsome or not, you won’t want to meet him.” Martha glanced at her again. “Sure you don’t want to rethink those hysterics?”
Heather arched her brows. “Will they get me any further?”
“Not with me—and Fletcher’s more like to slap you than come over all solicitous.”
“Well, then.” Heather tipped up her face. “I believe I’ll just go on romanticizing, at least until I have cause not to. You should be grateful—I’m making your task much easier.”
Martha snorted. “Speaking of which.” She halted. “This is far enough. You may need the exercise, but I don’t—we head back from here.”
Heather halted, filled her lungs full, then exhaled on a sigh. “Oh, very well.” Swinging around, she fell in beside Martha’s large, darkly garbed figure, and they started back toward the inn.
The “maid” was an inch or so taller than Heather, and at least two of her in girth, yet despite her size and usual plodding gait, Martha could move fast enough if she wished, and Heather had seen the size of the arms concealed by her voluminous black sleeves. Martha might be large, but she was mostly muscle. If Heather had to escape the woman, she’d need to ensure Martha was incapacitated first.
They walked slowly back to the inn—Martha because that was the speed at which she walked, Heather because she saw no reason to cut short her time in the crisp, late afternoon air.
Reaching the narrow path they’d taken from the inn to the river, they left the river path and, with the Trent at their backs, climbed the shallow slope toward the inn.
Raising her head, Heather looked at the gray stone building—and saw the tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired man who’d paused in the shadows by one corner.
Earlier, in Stretton, he’d worn the clothes of a country townsman, the sort who might own a local business. Now he was garbed more like one of his own grooms. Regardless, she recognized him instantly. Her heart lightened considerably; she started to smile, only just remembering to suppress the reaction.
Glancing sideways at Martha, toiling beside her, she was relieved to see that the maid hadn’t noticed.
She looked at the inn again . . .
Breckenridge had vanished.
Not that it mattered. Now she knew he was near, they would meet tonight somehow. She turned her mind to rehearsing her report, to listing all she’d learned in the manner most likely to convince him to agree to her continuing on with her captors.
The Old Bell Inn was in truth a very old inn. Its bedchambers possessed latches, with hooks on the doors to secure them, but no locks. Heather blessed the innkeeper for not modernizing; once the inn had settled for the night and every two-legged occupant had retired to their beds, with Martha snoring fit to drown out any creaking boards, Heather lifted the latch on their chamber door and slipped out into the chill darkness of the corridor.
She hadn’t dared light a candle, but her eyes had adjusted to the night; she could see well enough to, with one quick glance, confirm the corridor was empty. Once again she’d been deprived of her outer clothes, but she’d complained about the cold and had used the excuse that they wouldn’t want her to take a chill to persuade Martha to allow her to keep her silk shawl and to spread her cloak over her bed for extra warmth.
The cloak was wrapped about her now, and cinched at her waist with the silk shawl. Although the makeshift gown left her ankles and lower calves exposed, at least her skin there was screened by silk stocking, and the gown otherwise was a significant improvement over the previous night’s coverlet; it didn’t rely on her holding it in place to remain decent.
Which was a pertinent consideration given she was off to meet Breckenridge. He’d more or less made it a condition for his agreeing to allow her to continue traveling on with her captors, and she knew him well enough not to call his bluff, because it would be no bluff. Besides, she wanted to share what she’d learned, and see if he might have any further insights. His knowledge of their world, especially beyond the confines of the ton, was significantly greater than hers.
Silently closing the door behind her, carefully easing the latch back into place, she turned in the direction of the stairs. For several moments, she held still, straining her ears for any sound, allowing her vision to better adjust to the deeper darkness of the corridor, and reminding herself of the way.
When she and Martha had risen from the table they’d shared with Fletcher and Cobbins in the tap through the evening, Breckenridge, seated across the room and closer to the door, had anticipated them; he’d risen and left the tap ahead of them. He’d been climbing the stairs when she and Martha had reached the foyer.
They’d followed him up and had seen him open the door of a room not far from the head of the stairs. He hadn’t so much as glanced their way but had gone in and shut the door. She’d walked on with Martha, past that door, down the corridor and around a corner to their chamber.
Drawing in a tight—faintly excited—breath, she set out, quietly creeping back to the corner, her evening slippers allowing her to tiptoe along with barely a sound.
Nearing the corner, she paused and glanced back along the corridor. Still empty. Reassured, she started to turn, intending to peek around the corner—
A hard body swung around the corner and plowed into her.
She stumbled back. Hard hands grabbed her, holding her upright.
Her heart leapt to her throat. She looked up, saw only darkness.
She opened her mouth—
A palm slapped over her lips. A steely arm locked around her—locked her against a large, adamantine male body; she couldn’t even squirm.
Her senses scrambled. Strength, male heat, muscled hardness engulfed her.
Then a virulent curse singed her ears.
And she realized who’d captured her.
Panic and sheer fright had tensed her every muscle; relief washed both away and she felt limp. The temptation to sag in his arms, to sink gratefully against him, was so nearly overwhelming that it shocked her into tensing again.
He lowered his head so he could look into her face. Through clenched teeth, he hissed, “What the devil are you doing?”
His tone very effectively dragged her wits to the fore. He hadn’t removed his hand from her lips. She nipped it.
With a muted oath, he pulled the hand away.
She moistened her lips and angrily whispered back, “Coming to see you, of course. What are you doing here?”
“Coming to fetch you—of course.”
“You ridiculous man.” Her hands had come to rest on his chest. She snatched them back, waved them. “I’m hardly likely to come to grief over the space of a few yards!”
Even to her ears they sounded like squabbling children.
He didn’t reply.