Keeping her safe on her quest was a task that looked set to tax his ingenuity in ways it had never before been challenged, yet no matter how he turned the puzzle of her kidnapping over in his mind, no matter what perspective he took, in one respect she was incontestably correct.

This was no ordinary, run-of-the-mill abduction.

Chapter Four

At one o’clock the following afternoon, Breckenridge sat at one of the trestles set up outside the White Horse Inn in the small town of Bramham. Leaning his shoulders against the inn’s stone wall, he sipped a pint of ale and watched the archway leading into the yard of the Red Lion Inn further up the road.

The coach carrying Heather and her captors had turned into the yard more than an hour ago. After scouting the place and confirming that there was only one exit from the Red Lion’s yard, namely under the archway, he’d retreated here to keep watch while simultaneously keeping his distance and, he hoped, staying out of Fletcher and company’s sight. He was fairly certain they hadn’t yet seen him, or if they had, hadn’t noticed him enough to recognize him again, especially given he was varying his disguise.

Today he’d reverted to the outfit he’d acquired in Knebworth. The ill-fitting jacket and loose cloth breeches made him look like a down-on-his-luck salesman; as long as he remembered to modify his posture, he’d pass a cursory inspection.

He took another sip of ale. He increasingly misliked how far north they were heading. They’d traveled all morning further up the Great North Road. Bramham was nearly as far north as York. Yet despite his misgivings, he, too, was finding this abduction and the challenge of learning who and what was behind it increasingly intriguing. Now he’d had time to digest all Heather had learned yesterday, he had to admit it was a most peculiar puzzle.

A pair of horses appeared beneath the Red Lion’s arch, followed by a second pair, then the kidnappers’ coach. The coach turned ponderously out of the inn yard, still heading north.

Breckenridge watched it lumber on, then drained his pint, set the mug down, rose, and headed for the side yard of the White Horse where he’d left his hired curricle.

Five minutes later, bowling along the highway once more, he glimpsed the coach ahead and slowed the bays he currently had between the shafts. He rolled slowly on in the coach’s wake, far enough back that they’d be unlikely to spot him even on a long straight stretch. Not that they’d shown any signs of searching for pursuers. They might have looked back once or twice, but since he’d caught up with them at Knebworth, they’d seemed unconcerned about pursuit.

Of course, as far as they knew there had been no immediate chase given from Lady Herford’s house; no doubt they assumed they’d got clean away. And indeed, if he hadn’t seen them seize Heather, any pursuit the Cynsters would have mounted would have been days behind. It most likely wouldn’t have even started yet, because her family would have had to search extensively to determine in which direction she’d been taken — even that she’d been taken out of London at all. As she’d pointed out, if she’d been kidnapped for ransom, then it would have been assumed her kidnappers would keep her in the metropolis; so much easier to hide a woman among the teeming hordes, in the crowded tenements, where no one would ask awkward questions.

The miles slid by. Initially he kept pace with the coach, but the further north they rolled he gradually closed the distance. Their steady push north was making him increasingly nervous about where they were headed and, especially, why.

Heather forced herself to wait until they’d been traveling north for at least an hour after their luncheon halt before recommencing her interrogation of her captors.

She’d been acquiescent, and had made no fuss through the morning. Other than casting a quick glance around the inn where they’d stopped for lunch, searching for Breckenridge — but they hadn’t known that — she’d played the part of gently bred and, therefore, relatively helpless kidnappee.

Although she hadn’t sighted Breckenridge, she felt reasonably confident that he’d be somewhere near. Leaving him to his self-appointed but now gratefully accepted role of watching over her, she’d applied herself to encouraging her captors to relax and, she hoped, grow less careful and more talkative.

By way of introduction, she heaved a huge sigh and glanced out of the window.

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.

Contrary 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.

She 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.