Stephanie Laurens - Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue

“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.

H e 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 door. 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.

T he 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.