Stephanie Laurens - Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue

The serving girl nodded and took herself off.

“Thank you,” Heather said.

Martha only grunted.

Heather let a moment of silence elapse, then, her gaze still on the open door, asked, “What’s Fletcher waiting for?” Could this be where she was to be handed over?

“He’s just playing cautious. It’s habit with him. He’s making sure no one’s following us along.”

Heather’s heart sped up. Keeping her tone even, she ventured, “But how could anyone be following? If they’d seen me snatched off the street, they would have caught up long before now, surely?”

Martha nodded. “So you’d think. But like I said, old Fletcher’s a man of caution. No doubt but that’s why he’s survived for so long.”

The serving girl arrived with a tray piled with plates. Another came up bearing four mugs. The pair blocked Heather’s view of the main door. By the time they deposited the plates and mugs and drew back, she was ready to suggest that she or Martha, or even the serving girls, should summon Fletcher and Cobbins before their meals grew cold, but then she glanced at the door and saw Cobbins, followed by Fletcher, enter.

She nearly sighed with relief. Reaching for her cider, she took a calming sip.

Cobbins sat opposite. Fletcher followed him onto the booth’s bench seat. He met Martha’s eyes. “No one. Looks like we got clean away.”

Martha, mouth already full, barely looked up from her plate to nod.

Cobbins lifted his fork and dug into the mound before him. Fletcher followed suit.

Heather picked up her fork, prodded at the meat topped with potato, then lifted a small bite. She tentatively tried it, then went back for more. The dish was surprisingly tasty.

She didn’t know what made her look up several minutes later, but glancing at the door she saw Breckenridge standing just inside the room. He was looking at her but immediately shifted his gaze, surveying the tap as if deciding where to sit.

Pretending to look down at her plate, from beneath her lashes she surreptitiously watched as he stirred, then, surprisingly silently for such a large man, tacked through the tables, heading toward their booth.

She blinked and lifted her head when he disappeared behind the high panel at Fletcher’s back; he’d slipped into the next booth, behind her male captors.

Which almost certainly meant he would overhear anything they said.

Laying down her fork, fixing her gaze on Fletcher, she took a sip of cider, then cleared her throat. “Where are you taking me?” Looking down, she set her mug back down. Carefully, as if she were nervous and tense.

Fletcher shot her an assessing glance. “We’re taking you further north.”

She looked up, met his gaze, tried for beseeching. “But how far? Further up the Great North Road? Or somewhere else?” She managed to imbue the last words with an unspecified dread, as if there were something she feared in the north, something other than her abductors’ employer.

Fletcher frowned. “Like I said-north.”

“But where in the north?” Histrionically, she spread her arms. “There’s lots of places north of here! Where-” She artistically let her breath catch, swallowed, then went on more quietly, “Where are we stopping for the night?”

Her tone suggested she was close to panic at the idea they might stop too close to that something.

Fletcher frowned harder. Leaning forward, he lowered his voice. “I don’t know what bee’s got into your bonnet, but we’re stopping at Carlton-on-Trent overnight.” He searched her face. “Is there any reason we shouldn’t?”

Breckenridge might not have heard.

She raised her head, hauled in a breath. “Carlton-on-Trent?” She summoned a weak smile, then shook her head. “No, no… there’s no reason we can’t stop at Carlton-on-Trent.”

“Good.” Fletcher sat back, still frowning, then he glanced at the other two. “Eat and drink up. Let’s get back on the road.”

The other two grumbled. Heather quickly ate a few more bites of her nearly cold lunch. The others were still clearing their plates; heads down, none of them noticed the large man who rose from the next booth. Without a single glance in their direction, Breckenridge walked out of the inn.

“Come on.” Fletcher pushed back his plate and stood.

The others more slowly followed him out of the booth.

Heather played the obedient abductee and allowed Martha and Cobbins to usher her outside. Stepping into the forecourt, she was just in time to see Breckenridge, in drab, dull clothing quite unlike his usual elegant attire, turn a plain curricle out of the inn yard and set his horses pacing up the highway, heading north.

She surmised he’d decided to go on ahead of them.

Fletcher hadn’t taken any notice of the curricle and its driver; he’d gone straight to their own coachman and had started some discussion. She didn’t think Cobbins had noticed Breckenridge either, and Martha had emerged from the inn behind her; at best she would have seen his back, and that at a distance.

Fletcher opened the coach door and waved her in. She climbed up and settled on the seat, in her now usual position. While the others climbed in, she prayed Fletcher hadn’t realized her ploy, hadn’t realized Breckenridge was following, and had therefore told her a lie.

If she lost Breckenridge’s protective presence…

Even as the thought formed, along with the realization of how very alone she would feel if she didn’t know he was close, how very much more afraid and truly panicked she would be, she couldn’t help but recognize how ironic it was. How strange that her nemesis-he who she habitually avoided and thoroughly disliked-had somehow transformed into her savior.

Breckenridge, her savior.

She very nearly snorted. Turning her head, she looked out of the window as the coach lurched, and rumbled out of the yard.

B reckenridge swept into Newark-on-Trent in the middle of the afternoon. He’d driven like a demon to get far ahead of the coach carrying Heather, and the pair of grays were flagging. He turned in at the first large posting inn and shouted for the ostlers and stableman.

Despite his unprepossessing attire, they responded to the voice of authority and came running. Stepping to the ground, he tossed the reins to the first ostler, spoke to the stableman. “I need the best pair you have, harnessed and ready to go in…” He drew out his fob-watch, checked the time, then snapped it shut. Tucking it back in his pocket, he met the stableman’s eyes. “One hour.”

“Aye, sir. And the grays?”

He gave the man the direction of the posting house in High Barnet, then strode out of the inn yard and made for Lombard Street.

His first stop was the local branch of Child’s Bank; once he replenished his supply of cash, he followed the bank manager’s directions to the town’s premier bootmaker, and was lucky enough to find an excellent pair of riding boots that fit him. His next stop was the best gentlemen’s outfitters, where he created a small furore by demanding they assemble for him outfits suitable for a groom and for a north country laborer.

The head tailor goggled at him and the assistants simply stared; holding onto his temper, he brusquely explained that the outfits were for a country house party where fancy dress was required.

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…”