Stephanie Laurens - Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue

In the few minutes while she, Martha, and Cobbins had waited in the coach for Fletcher to finish with the innkeeper and join them, she’d looked out of the coach window and seen an ostler holding a prancing bay gelding, saddled and waiting for its rider.

The temptation to open the coach door, jump down, race the few feet to the horse, grab the reins, mount, and thunder back down the road toward London had flared-and just as quickly had died. Not only would the maneuver have been fraught with risk-with no money or possessions, let alone proper clothes, she might have potentially jumped from frying pan into fire-but, successful or not, it would have ensured she got no chance to learn more about what lay behind her abduction.

She’d decided she would have to rely on Breckenridge, have to count on him following her. She’d wondered if he’d yet risen from his bed. He was one of the foremost rakes of the ton; such gentlemen were assumed to see little of the morning, certainly not during the Season.

Then Fletcher had climbed in, shut the door, and the coach had jerked, rumbled forward, and turned north-and she’d discovered that trusting in Breckenridge wasn’t all that hard. Some part of her had already decided to.

She bided her time, lulling her three captors as planned, letting a silent hour pass as the miles slid by. She waited until sufficient time had elapsed to allow her to lean forward, peer out, and somewhat peevishly inquire, “Is it much farther?”

She looked at Fletcher, but he only grinned. The other two, when she glanced questioningly at them, simply closed their eyes.

Looking again at Fletcher, she frowned. “You might at least tell me how long I’ll be cooped up in this carriage.”

“For some time yet.”

She opened her eyes wide. “But won’t we be stopping for morning tea?”

“Sorry. That’s not on our schedule.”

She looked horrified. “But surely we’ll be stopping for lunch?”

“Lunch, yes, but that won’t be for a while.”

Adopting a put-upon expression, she subsided, but “stopping for lunch” suggested they would be heading on afterward. She debated, then asked, “How far north are you taking me?” She made her voice small, as if the thought worried her. Which it did.

Fletcher considered her but volunteered only, “A ways yet.”

She let another mile or two slide by before restlessly shifting, then asking, “This employer of yours-do you normally work for him?”

Fletcher shook his head. “We work for hire, me and Cobbins, and as we’ve known Martha forever, she agreed to assist us.”

“So he approached you?”

Fletcher nodded.

“Where did you meet him?”

Fletcher grinned. “Glasgow.”

She met Fletcher’s eyes, grimaced, and fell silent again. She’d eat her best bonnet if either Fletcher or Cobbins hailed from north of the border, and from her accent, Martha was definitely a Londoner… did that mean the man who’d hired them was Glaswegian?

Were they actually imagining taking her over the border?

Heather longed to ask, but Fletcher was watching her with a faintly taunting smile on his face. He knew her questions weren’t idle, which meant he’d tell her nothing useful. At least, not intentionally.

Yet from what he’d let fall, she had at least until sometime after lunch to quiz him and the others. Folding her arms, she closed her eyes and decided to lull him some more.

There were really only two answers she needed before she escaped-who had hired them, and why.

She opened her eyes when the houses of St. Neots closed around the coach. They passed a clock tower, the dial of which confirmed it was only midmorning. Stretching, she surveyed the view outside, then settled back and fixed her gaze on Fletcher. “Have you and Cobbins always worked together?”

That wasn’t the question he’d been expecting. After a moment, he nodded. “Grew up together, we did.”

“In London?”

Fletcher’s smile returned. “Nah-up north. But we’ve been down in London a lot over the years. Lots of jobs there for gentlemen like us.”

She wondered, then decided it wouldn’t hurt to ask, “I don’t suppose you’d consider earning more than your employer is paying you by turning the coach around and taking me home?”

Fletcher shook his head. “No. Much as I wouldn’t say no to extra money, double-crossing an employer is never good for business.”

She frowned. “Is he-your employer-paying you so well then?”

“He’s paying all he needs to get the job done.”

“So he’s wealthy?”

Fletcher hesitated. “I didn’t say that.”

No, but you believe he is. She sat forward. “I’m curious-how does a man like your employer go about hiring men like you? You can’t possibly put a notice in the news sheets advertising your services.”

Fletcher chuckled. Even Cobbins cracked a smile.

“We get business on recommendation,” Fletcher explained. “I don’t know who mentioned us to him, but he sent word to our contact, and we met him in a tavern. He laid the job before us, and we accepted. Simple enough.”

“So you don’t know his name?” It was one step too far, but, she judged, worth the gamble.

Fletcher’s expression closed, but when she continued to look expectantly at him, his slow, taunting smile returned. “It’s no use, Miss Wallace, but if you truly want, I can put my hand on my heart”-he suited action to the words-“and tell you he called himself McKinsey.”

She caught the implication. “That’s not his name.”

“No, it’s not. And before you bother asking, I don’t know his real name-he’s the type wise men don’t question about anything they don’t want to reveal.”

She pulled a face and sat back. And asked nothing more for the moment.

The man who had hired them to kidnap her and deliver her to him was wealthy, lived somewhere in the north, possibly as far north as Glasgow, and was of the caliber to inspire a healthy respect, if not fear, in men like Fletcher.

Despite her curiosity over his identity, she felt increasingly certain she didn’t want to actually meet the man.

T hey halted for lunch a little after noon in the village of Stretton. As they turned into the forecourt of an inn, Heather noted the sign-the Friar and Keys. She’d been this far on the Great North Road on several trips to visit her cousin Richard and his wife Catriona in Scotland, but she couldn’t say she recognized the village.

Descending from the coach, she eased her cramped limbs, then looked swiftly around. Would Breckenridge notice that they’d stopped?

Assuming, of course, that he was indeed following and wasn’t too far behind.

“Come along.” Martha took her arm and propelled her toward the inn’s main door. “Let’s order that lunch you were asking after before Fletcher changes his mind.”

Heather went docilely enough, but the comment had her glancing back. Fletcher and Cobbins had left the coach, which, thankfully, was being led not deeper into the yard but to one side of the forecourt, where it would be readily visible from the highway. Fletcher and the taciturn Cobbins had walked to the highway’s edge and were looking back along the road, talking, possibly arguing, as they watched.

Allowing herself to be led inside, then steered to a wood-paneled booth in the back corner of the taproom, at Martha’s nod Heather sat, then scooted along the seat so Martha could sit, too, hemming Heather in against the wall. She looked toward the door. Fletcher and Cobbins had yet to come inside.

A serving girl approached. Martha asked what was available, then ordered shepherd’s pie for them all. “And three mugs of ale.” Martha glanced at Heather, then added, “And one of cider.”