“Hmm—I’ve a suspicion that if either of your brothers thought there was the least threat to you or your sisters, you’d already know of it.”
She smiled. “True. There would have been blood on the floor in Dover Street when they tried to hem us in.”
They sat quietly for a moment, both thinking their separate thoughts, then he reached for the map. Refolding it, he stored it in his coat pocket, then rose and held out his hand. “Come on—I’ll see you back to your room and the estimable Martha.”
She put her hand in his and let him draw her to her feet.
“Tomorrow . . . don’t worry,” he murmured, as he ushered her back through the darker side of the snug. “I’ll be waiting in Carlisle to fall in behind the coach when you go past.” Through the dimness he met her eyes. “I won’t lose you.”
Her lips softly curved. “I didn’t imagine you would.”
Chapter Five
Heather had spent a restless night. She’d risen before dawn and had stood at the window, looking east over the inn’s rear yard. As the sky had softened to a pearly gray streaked with faint streamers of gold and pink, she’d seen Breckenridge come out, get into his curricle, and, with a flourish of his whip, drive away.
Several hours later, she climbed back into the coach in no good mood. As they rumbled out of Barnard Castle, she looked out of the window and acknowledged a trepidatious uncertainty that they might turn north along some other road, and Breckenridge would miss their trail. She couldn’t discount the possibility, but, determined not to let it unnerve her more than it already had, she shoved it to the back of her mind and concentrated instead on what more she might learn about her captors’ employer—the mysterious laird. Reviewing Fletcher’s answers of the day before, she sensed that she was nearing the limit of his knowledge regarding the man. Recalling Breckenridge’s question, she considered, then fixed Fletcher—once again sitting opposite—with a direct look.
She openly studied him, until, shifting under her gaze, he arched a grumpy brow.
“What?”
“I was just wondering . . . I presume we’re heading over the border, that the place we’re to meet this laird will be in Scotland. You said you’d met him in Glasgow. Although I’ve been to Edinburgh, I’ve never been to Glasgow before—what’s it like?”
Fletcher shrugged. “Much like any other city with a big port.” He considered, then said, “More like London—no, more like Liverpool, I’d say.”
“I take it you live there.”
“On and off.” Fletcher met her gaze, then smiled knowingly. “We’ve moved about over the years, going wherever business was best. We’ve been quartered in Glasgow for the last several years, but I’m thinking, once we hand you over, it might be time to relocate.”
As if his plans were of no interest to her, which they weren’t, Heather shrugged and looked out of the window again. She had the answer Breckenridge had wanted, but she’d have to wait until she saw him again to understand its portent.
Cobbins sat forward and drew her attention to a castle on a nearby hill.
She looked, and exchanged observations on the structure with Cobbins and Martha. Sitting back again, she felt rather more confident that they’d interpreted Cobbins’s comments of the day before correctly. They were currently on the road to Penrith—the one with several castles and Roman forts flanking it.
What else could she ask? What else might she learn?
Fletcher responded better to short bursts of questions, and to tangential approaches. Yet no matter how she wracked her brains, she couldn’t think of any other way to ask, “Where are we to meet this laird? I can’t see why you won’t tell me.”
“Well, now.” Fletcher exchanged a glance with Martha, one heavy with some unspoken communication.
From the corner of her eye, Heather saw Martha shake her head.
Fletcher shifted his gaze to Heather. “No need for you to know that I can see. You’ll find out when we get there.”
“But—”
She pushed, pressed, badgered, and pestered, all to no avail. From Fletcher’s thin-lipped smile, she got the distinct impression they were playing with her.
Finding Fletcher immovable, she appealed to Martha. “Surely you understand—knowing would help.”
Martha snorted. She resettled her voluminous cloak, then folded her arms and shut her eyes. “No point in carrying on so. You’ll learn where we’re taking you soon enough. No reason for you to know ahead of time—it won’t make any difference to you.”
Martha lapsed into silence. When Heather turned her gaze back to Fletcher, she discovered he, too, had closed his eyes.
With every appearance of high dudgeon, she slumped back against the seat, crossed her arms, and settled in her corner.
Cobbins still had his eyes open, idly watching over her. The trio had, she realized, been unobtrusively vigilant; one or more of them was always watching against her escaping, even in moments like this. Only when they believed she was secured, either because she was hemmed in by them at some table, or shut in a room with Martha during the night with no outer clothing to hand, did they take their eyes off her.
They rolled past another two castles, which Cobbins took pains to point out. A few miles later, she saw a sign declaring Penrith to be seven miles on. Relief flooded her, easing some of her building tension. If they were going through Penrith, and intended to take her over the border into Scotland, then they were certain to pass through Carlisle, where Breckenridge would be waiting.
She’d definitely changed how she viewed her “nemesis.” Indeed, she doubted she’d ever think of him as that again. To her mind, he now represented safety, security, and regardless of all else he might be, she knew he was a man she could rely on.
Confidence of a sort returned, buoying her.
With nothing else to do, she reviewed all she knew about the lands over the border. It was already late morning, nearing noon. Traveling at this rate, they had to be planning to halt for the night somewhere not too far over the border; there was no chance they could reach Glasgow that day.
That much she knew, but not much else. On all her previous journeys into Scotland she’d veered west soon after Carlisle, turning off the highway at Gretna onto the road to Dumfries and so on to New Galloway, and from there north to the Vale of Casphairn, Richard and Catriona’s home. She knew those roads, those towns, that landscape, but beyond that, and Edinburgh, which she’d visited once with Richard and Catriona, Scotland remained a mist-shrouded, mizzle-veiled, damp and cold unknown.
In the circumstances, the prospect of seeing Glasgow, or even traveling further north into the highlands, didn’t fill her with eager excitement.
Meeting with a mysterious laird who had arranged to have her kidnapped was, she felt, something she truly didn’t need to do.
Learning who he was would be quite sufficient.
The coach rolled into Penrith, turned north onto the main highway toward Carlisle, and rattled on.
She was feeling faintly light-headed, definitely in need of sustenance, when, after several more ponderous miles, the coach rolled into the village of Plumpton Wall and, at last, slowed. The coachman turned into the yard of a small inn and halted his horses.
Descending into the cool sunshine, Heather drew in a deep breath, then glanced around. Martha appeared by her shoulder and urged her on, into the inn. As Heather climbed the shallow steps and followed Fletcher into a tiny taproom, she thought back over their halts, inwardly acknowledging how quietly careful her captors had been.
Believing her to be too lacking in resolution and too inhibited by their well-thought-out charade to attempt any scene in public, they’d treated her reasonably, yet they hadn’t taken any chances, either. Everywhere they’d stopped—Knebworth, Stretton, Carlton-on-Trent, Bramham, Barnard Castle, and now Plumpton Wall—had been either a very small town or an out
-of-the-way place, the sort where it had been highly unlikely they would have encountered anyone who would have known her well enough to have recognized her. That was the only real weakness in their plan, and they’d taken steps to reduce the threat.
In reality, with the ton busy in London with the Season just commencing, the risk of a chance encounter with anyone she knew was as near to nonexistent as made no odds.
She preserved a tight-lipped silence while they ate; she saw no reason to even try to extract more information, at least not at present.
When, an hour later, she climbed back into the coach and sat in her usual corner, she was conscious of a sharpening edge of tension, of trepidatious expectation welling once more. She waited until they were back on the road, rolling steadily north, then reassessed her captors, only to realize that her sharpening anticipation was merely a reflection of theirs.
Fletcher was no longer slouching, but sitting upright and alert, his gaze trained mostly outside, a frown on his face, as if he were calculating. Cobbins sat with his hands on his thighs, eyes staring across the carriage, but, Heather would swear, not seeing. He was thinking, imagining; until now he’d shown little sign of indulging in either activity.
A sideways glance showed that Martha, too, was wide awake.
Heather tried to imagine what might be causing all three to remain so watchful. The border itself lay beyond Carlisle . . . perhaps it was simply that the border town was by far the largest they’d passed through since London, and was usually awash with soldiers and officials, Customs and Revenue agents, and the like.
Perhaps her captors’ vigilance was merely reaching new heights.
She looked away, staring out of the window at the spring fields rolling past. Despite the tension, she felt inwardly settled. Calm and ready to meet whatever lay ahead.
Because, regardless of all else, they were definitely going through Carlisle.
Breckenridge stood in the shadow where the curved outer wall of one of the towers of Carlisle Castle met one of the straight side walls. The red stone at his back, he watched the carriages coming north along the highway from Penrith. To enter Carlisle proper, all conveyances had to pass his position. Cloaked as he was in deepening shadows, no passenger in any of the passing parade of coaches was likely to see him, not unless they peered specifically at him.
He was satisfied with all he’d accomplished by way of preparation for whatever dangers lay beyond the border. His first purchase had been a pair of pistols, short-barreled and silver-mounted, small enough to fit in a coat pocket. The coat and breeches, plain shirt and waistcoat, had come next. He’d had to visit more than one tailor to find garments already made up in his size, especially as he was so adamant on appearing faintly shabby. His latest disguise of a solicitor’s clerk, down on his luck and presently unemployed, was expressly designed to allow him to draw closer, openly so, to Heather’s three captors.
Although he’d purchased a shaving kit in Newark, he’d omitted to shave that morning. His beard now darkened his cheeks and jaw, making him appear rougher, less polished, more disreputable. With the scarred and well-used writing desk and implements he’d subsequently found in a secondhand shop, with the ink he’d worked into his right middle finger and the pad of his right thumb, he was intent on appearing as one with Fletcher, Cobbins, and Martha—an equal, someone for whom they would feel no instant, instinctive distrust.
If the lack of attention he’d subsequently garnered when, making an effort to suppress his innate, born-to-the-purple arrogance and demeanor, he’d walked through the town was any guide at all, he’d succeeded. He’d been able to purchase a rackety old trap with a close to broken-down horse without having to insist that yes, he really did want that horse, that trap.
If any of his friends could see his new equipage, they’d laugh themselves into stitches.
Shifting against the wall, pleasantly warm with the heat retained from the earlier sunshine, he continued to watch the carriages, outwardly the soul of patience, inwardly increasingly restless.
He’d considered sending another missive south to the Cynsters. Had debated it for more than an hour, but in the end, he hadn’t. For a start, if Heather’s cousins reacted and charged north, as they were very likely to do, they would almost certainly achieve the opposite of what he’d striven thus far to do, namely keep Heather’s presence with her captors a secret.
If the ton ever learned that she’d been in the hands of Fletcher and Cobbins for even one night, her reputation would be irretrievably shredded, Martha’s presence notwithstanding. Nothing he could say or do afterward would serve to rectify that, not in the censorious eyes of the ton. Those close to her, and him, would accept the truth; society at large would not.
On top of that, it was too hard to explain the situation simply to someone who didn’t know the full story, to convey that Heather was still in the hands of the kidnappers, but that she was safe. That he would ensure she continued to be safe.
It was that last that was most difficult to communicate, especially when placed alongside the information that they were on the brink of crossing into Scotland. No matter what words he devised, what glib explanation, the result read as a thinly veiled acknowledgment that he would marry her.
But what if she refused? Until he knew what direction she would take, making any statement would be unwise.
Of course, given the situation, compounded by his reputation as one of London’s most notable rakes, and hers as a well-connected, well-bred, and largely well-protected young lady, there was no other option. Especially as both their families moved within the most rarefied circle of the ton. And while one part of him felt he should rail at such a socially dictated fate, the larger part was surprisingly acquiescent. He suspected that was at least partly due to her being “the devil he knew.”
Even as the appellation crossed his mind, he was recalling all the things he hadn’t known about her but had learned courtesy of the past days.
She’d proved surprisingly quick-witted. She’d been resolute and loyal. She’d observed and acted where many other ladies would have sunk into a helpless funk. Weak she wasn’t, neither in will nor in character.
He could do a lot worse for his bride.
Neither of their families would raise a fuss; while it might not be a love-match, currently all the rage, after the last days he was reasonably certain that, should they agree to, he and she could rub along well enough.
Which was more than he could say of any other lady of his acquaintance.
Love-matches might have currently been the vogue, but he, personally, had given up on love long ago. Fifteen years ago, to be precise. And while he suspected Heather would prefer a love-match, she was twenty-five, and at this Season’s close would be formally considered on the shelf. Clearly her Prince Charming hadn’t appeared to sweep her off her feet. Given what he’d seen of her pragmatism recently, he suspected that, when he offered for her hand, once she thought the matter through, she would accept.
But if she didn’t . . .
He frowned, straightened, then shook aside the notion. She was a sane and sensible woman; she’d accept the necessity.
Yet if she didn’t . . . there was that spark that had always flared between them, that he could, if he wished, fan into a compelling blaze, one fierce and fiery enough to raze her objections.
Convincing her might even be fun.
His imagination was engaged in assessing the possibilities when a familiar coach loomed out of the thronging traffic, immediately claiming his attention. Hanging back in the concealing shadows, he waited until the coach rumbled past, watched it ponderously veer away from another large road and continue on, north.
It was midafternoon, and the border was only ten miles up the road. Clearly, her captors intended to carry Heather into Scotland that day.
Straightening from the wall, Breckenridge watched the coach for a moment mor
e, then strode off to retrieve his trap from a nearby stable.
Heather felt a moment of simple panic as the coach rolled slowly across the bridge spanning the river Sark and rumbled into Scotland.
She told herself that Breckenridge would be close behind, that she wasn’t alone. That when the time came, he would help her escape. That helped.
Some miles back, the coach had passed a major road that led to Edinburgh via Hawick and Selkirk; they were, it seemed, definitely heading for Glasgow.
For the next few miles, the way was familiar to her. The village of Gretna lay just beyond the border, cottages spread haphazardly to the left of the highway. A minute later, also to the left, they passed the turn into the road she was accustomed to taking to Dumfries and ultimately to the Vale.
Sitting back, resting her head against the squabs, she reflected that she was now, for her, traveling into uncharted territory. She wondered how much further they would go that day. She’d asked multiple times, but all Fletcher or Martha would say was that she “would learn soon enough.”
She inwardly humphed and settled back, hugging the cloak Martha had provided closer; although it was spring, Scotland was distinctly cooler than southern England.
The coach slowed.
Glancing out of the window, she saw the cottages of the hamlet just north of Gretna. Gretna Green was notorious for the runaway marriages performed over the anvil of the blacksmith’s forge.
The coach slowed almost to a stop, then turned ponderously left.
Martha, looking out of the other window, said, “Is that it, then? The famous smithy?”
Fletcher flicked a glance that way. “Yes—that’s it.” He looked back and met Heather’s eyes. “We’re stopping at a little inn just down this lane.”
It was just one of their usual halts. Heather told herself that the proximity to the famous anvil was incidental. While they’d passed a number of inns in Gretna, the small country inn before which the coach pulled up was definitely more Fletcher’s style.