Stephanie Laurens - Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue

Fletcher, seated opposite as usual, looked at her consideringly. Assessingly.

Facing him again, she caught his eye, grimaced. “If you won’t tell me where we’re going, or your employer’s name, can you at least tell me what he looks like? Seeing I’ll be meeting him, I presume sometime soon, then you’ll hardly be revealing anything vital, and it would certainly help my nerves to know what sort of man you’ll be handing me to.”

Fletcher’s lips curved a little. “Not sure how knowing what he looks like is going to help you, but…” He glanced at Cobbins, who shrugged. Looking back at her, Fletcher asked, “What do you want to know?”

Everything you can tell me. She widened her eyes. “Hair color?”

“Black.”

“Eyes?”

Fletcher hesitated, then said, “Not sure about the color, but… cold.”

Black-haired, cold-eyed. “How old, and handsome or not?”

Fletcher pursed his lips. “I’d say in his thirties, but exactly where I couldn’t guess. And as for handsome”-Fletcher grinned-“you’d probably think so. Bit rugged for my taste, though, and with a blade of a nose.”

She frowned, not entirely liking the image.

Fletcher continued, his tone tending teasing, “One thing I do remember-he had a black frown. Devilish, it was. Not the sort of man to get on the wrong side of.”

“How tall was he?”

“Big bloke. Large all around. Lots of Scottish brawn.”

“So he’s Scottish?”

Fletcher hesitated, then shrugged. “Like you said, you’ll meet him soon enough. We took him for some laird-lord knows, they’ve plenty of those-but where exactly he hailed from, lowlands or highlands or anywhere in between, we couldn’t say.”

She was even more puzzled, but she didn’t want to waste Fletcher’s attack of loquaciousness. “Is there anything physically that sets him apart-a scar, a particular ring, a gammy leg?” Anything to identify him.

Fletcher met her eyes. A moment passed, then he said, “Think I’ve told you enough to settle your nerves.”

She looked at him, then sighed and subsided back against the seat. “Oh, all right.” One step at a time.

C ontrary to Fletcher’s belief, her nerves were distinctly unsettled, indeed, decidedly jangling, when, in the fading light of late afternoon, the coach drew up outside the King’s Head Hotel in Barnard Castle.

They were no longer on the Great North Road. They’d turned west off the highway in Darlington, and there’d been no way she’d been able to think of to ensure Breckenridge noted the change in direction.

The possibility that he was no longer there, at her back to save her, had blossomed and burgeoned in her mind. By the time the coach rocked to a halt, trepidation danced along her nerves and her stomach was tied in knots.

Handed down to the pavement by Cobbins, she glanced, inwardly desperate, about.

“Come along.” Martha prodded her on. “Let’s get inside, out of this chill.”

Heather climbed the hotel’s front steps slowly. Increasingly reluctantly. Then over the bustle caused by their arrival, the sound of hooves ringing on the cobbles reached her. Gaining the raised porch, she quickly turned and looked-and saw Breckenridge, looking like a lowly traveler, driving a curricle along the main street. He didn’t look her way. She quickly turned toward the hotel’s door so Martha, toiling up the steps behind her, wouldn’t see her relief.

But oh, what relief.

Walking a great deal more calmly into the hotel foyer, she couldn’t help but acknowledge it. Couldn’t help but admit that her nemesis had indeed lost that hat. While she might not truly view him as her savior, she knew she could rely on him, could have faith that he would in all circumstances do the very best he could to keep her safe.

She trusted him explicitly and implicitly; despite their previous history, that had never been in question.

Raising her head, drawing in a revivifying breath, feeling immeasurably more confident, she swept toward the reception counter where Fletcher was discussing their accommodations. The more she knew of where they’d all be that night, the more readily she’d be able to meet with Breckenridge.

S he next saw Breckenridge when, preceded by Fletcher and flanked by Martha, with Cobbins bringing up the rear, she walked into the hotel’s dining room that evening.

He was seated at a table in the corner by one window, head down, his attention apparently fixed on a news sheet. He evinced not the slightest interest in their party.

For their part, neither Fletcher nor Cobbins, both of whom surveyed the room, seemed to truly notice him. They saw him but instantly dismissed him.

Heather was frankly amazed. Breckenridge might be wearing yet another disguise, this one making him appear less scruffy and more like a gentleman traveler, yet how anyone could miss the steely strength in those broad shoulders, let alone the arrogance in the set of his head, she had no idea.

To her he always appeared as he truly was. Dangerous and unpredictable. Not the sort of man one should ever take for granted, let alone dismiss.

Shown to a table for four across the room, she deftly claimed the chair that would allow her to keep Breckenridge in sight from the corner of her eye. Martha, the least observant of her captors, sat alongside her. Fletcher and Cobbins sat opposite, from where they could see the door and through it part of the hotel foyer.

Unbeknown to them, the real danger lay behind them.

Increasingly assured, increasingly buoyed, she set herself to winkle further details that might shed some light on the identity of the mysterious laird from her dinner companions.

“Did you dine with this laird-the one who hired you?” She widened her eyes at Fletcher.

He gave her a look. “We met him in a tavern, and food wasn’t on any of our minds. It wasn’t a social meeting.”

“Hmm… how did he arrive at the tavern?”

Fletcher blinked.

Cobbins, frowning, answered. “Don’t know-we were there when he walked in the door, and he left before we did.” He glanced down as the serving girl placed a plate piled with pie and steamed parsnip before him. “We stayed for a pint, to celebrate like.”

Heather held her tongue while they all started to eat.

A minute later, Fletcher looked up from his plate, a frown in his eyes. “I don’t know why you want to know more about the man-seems like you’ll know all you’ll want to once we hand you over to him.”

“But when will that be?” When no answer was forthcoming, she pointed the tines of her fork at Fletcher. “See? That’s why I’m asking. If you’ll simply tell me what to expect, I won’t be so curious.”

Fletcher grunted. “You’ll learn all soon enough. Until then, you’d do best to let it be.”

Heather subsided and gave her attention to her plate. To assembling all she’d dragged from her unwilling sources during that day into a cogent report. Breckenridge would want to know all, of course, and she was keen to share her discoveries.

Working her way steadily through her baked fish, she thought of Fletcher’s response, his tone. Cobbins’s words. She had to wonder just how much they knew of their employer.

From beneath her lashes, she studied Fletcher. His expression was tightly closed, almost pinched. She doubted he’d tell her any more that night. It would, she sensed, be better not to ask. He was more likely to be forthcoming tomorrow if she let the matter slide for now.

Breckenridge was sitting too far away, and the dining room was too noisy, for him to have overhead even the most recent exchange. Indeed, he wasn’t making the smallest effort to eavesdrop; he was leaving the interrogation completely to her, trusting that she would report later. So… where to meet with him?