Apparently idly, Breckenridge glanced up in time to see Fletcher nod in the direction of the closed door on the other side of the inn’s front hall.

He looked down again as Fletcher continued, “You and Martha can just sit tight in there until your guardian’s man comes to collect you.”

From beneath his lashes, Breckenridge saw Heather lean across the table toward Fletcher. Voice lowered, she hissed, “We both know there’s no guardian, and—”

“We also both know that there’s nothing you can do.” Fletcher’s voice had hardened. “If you make a scene, I’ll tell the innkeeper our story, and I swear we’ll tie you up and sit you in the parlor. Your choice.”

Even though he was no longer watching, Breckenridge could sense Heather’s fulminating glare.

When silence reigned, heavy but unbroken, he felt a moment’s admiration for Fletcher; he’d succeeded in standing fast against Heather’s wheedling, which was more than he’d been able to do, and she hadn’t even wheedled at him.

The serving girl returned with their breakfasts.

Breckenridge called for more coffee and pretended to read the front page of the news sheet for the third time.

Eventually, breakfasts consumed, Heather, prodded by Martha, rose and, nose in the air, swept huffily out of the tap. He couldn’t see her cross the hall, but he tracked her by her footsteps; she marched past the stairs, paused, presumably to open the parlor door, then went on. Martha’s heavier, shuffling footsteps followed in her wake. A second later, the parlor door softly shut.

Fletcher and Cobbins resettled in their seats to savor their coffee.

After ten minutes of desultory talk between the pair, Fletcher straightened, glanced around the empty tap, then turned to face Breckenridge.

Breckenridge looked up, met Fletcher’s gaze.

“Are you heading off, then?” Fletcher asked.

Breckenridge shook his head. “Not for a few days.” He grimaced. “Getting back into that trap of mine would be torture. I’ll need a few days at least before the pain eases off.” He glanced toward the window. “Not that this weather’s helping, but it’d be worse if I was out driving in that.”

“So you’re at loose ends?” Fletcher asked.

“Until I can drive on again.”

Fletcher grinned. “In that case, can I interest you in a game of cards?”

Breckenridge smiled. “Why not?”

They commenced by playing vingt-et-un, progressed to speculation, then as the morning waned, turned to euchre. Breckenridge took care not to win too often. Lunchtime saw several locals amble in. Play was suspended while the three of them chatted with the farmers and two travelers on their way to Glasgow. Then the serving girl came out of the kitchen and announced a simple menu — mutton stew or mutton pie. While the men debated the offering, Fletcher sent the girl to take two servings of the stew to the women in the parlor. The girl complied, then returned to ferry plates of mutton pie out to the hungry males.

Breckenridge bided his time and made sure both Fletcher and Cobbins had three pints of ale with their meal. When the locals rose and went forth into the increasingly dismal day, and the travelers wrapped themselves in their cloaks and departed, both Fletcher and Cobbins had mellowed.

Settling back at the table near the window, Breckenridge picked up the pack of cards but let them idly drop, one by one, from his fingers. Fletcher, sitting opposite, watched the cards fall, as if mesmerized.

“So,” Breckenridge said, “how long do you have to sit in this thrillingly exciting atmosphere and wait?”

Fletcher’s grin was a trifle lopsided. “Don’t rightly know. Two days at least until the laird — the girl’s guardian’s man — gets here, but it might be longer than that. Depends.”

“Laird, heh?” Breckenridge stifled a fabricated yawn, then blinked sleepily. “A real laird? Or just someone calling himself that?”

“Oh, he’s a laird, right enough.” Cobbins leaned both elbows on the table and propped his chin in his palms. “Not that he said so, o’course, but you could tell.”

“Oh?” Breckenridge frowned as if having trouble focusing. “How?” He looked at Cobbins. “How can you tell a man is a laird just by looking?”

Fletcher chuckled. “Not just by looking, for one thing. His voice, the way he spoke. He was one for giving orders and having them obeyed, right enough. There’s that attitude the nobs have about them, as if the world and all in it ought to know well enough to get out of their way.”

“And there were signs to see, too.” Cobbins slumped lower on the table, cradling his head on one arm. “He’s a big bastard.” Cobbins squinted across the table at Breckenridge. “You’re tall, but he’s taller. Broader, too. Heavier. And he doesn’t walk — he strides.”

Breckenridge snorted. “He could just be full of himself.”

“Nah.” Fletcher slumped back in his chair, stretched his legs out under the table, and closed his eyes. “Face like hewn rock and eyes like ice.” He shivered dramatically. “Like Cobbins says, there’s something about them — the nobs — that you just know.”

Breckenridge watched the pair. Both had their eyes closed. Then Cobbins uttered a soft snore.

Fletcher cracked open an eyelid, glanced at his companion, then sighed and closed his eye again. “Think I’ll just have a little nap, too. We can play cards later.”

Breckenridge stayed where he was until he was sure the pair were both asleep, then, pushing back his chair, he slowly rose, and walked — not strode — silently from the room.

In light of her captors’ sudden insistence on keeping her under close guard, Heather felt forced to devote most of the day to shoring up her façade of a typical, and therefore harmless and helpless, young lady of the ton.

By the exercise of considerable willpower, she managed to hold back the need to interrogate Martha until after she’d badgered the older woman into ringing and requesting afternoon tea, and the little serving girl had arrived with the tray and departed again.

Finally quitting her position by the window, where she’d been standing literally for hours gazing out at the dripping day, Heather crossed to sit on the sofa and pour.

Ensconced in an armchair, Martha, fingers flashing with her incessant knitting, watched her, not openly suspicious but as if there was something about her she couldn’t quite reconcile.

Heather poured Martha a cup, too, then held it out.

Martha softly grunted, settled her needles in her capacious lap, and accepted the cup.

Heather sipped, sighed, then relaxed back against the sofa. “Tell me — how did you fall in with Fletcher and Cobbins? I know you’ve known them for years, but this particular time?”

Setting her cup on her saucer, Martha shrugged. “I take jobs nursing most times. I’d just finished with one of my patients — the old biddy upped and died — so I was at home when Fletcher came calling. Hadn’t seen him in two years or more, not since he’d headed up north to Glasgow. He told me about this laird who wanted you taken north, with a maid for countenance. Seemed a nice, easy lark — see a bit of the country, all expenses paid, and the money was good.”

Heather sipped, let a moment go by, then asked, “What do you know about this laird?” She met Martha’s sharpening gaze. “Seeing I’ll be meeting him soon, and he’s going to take me away, surely there can’t be any harm in telling me.”

Martha studied her for a moment, then her lips kicked up. “If it’ll make you cease your pacing and staring, I can tell you he’s definitely handsome — Fletcher wouldn’t have thought of the word else. And not that old — younger thirties would be my guess.”

Heather looked her interest, looked encouraging.

“I didn’t meet him, don’t forget.” Draining her cup, Martha leaned forward and placed cup and saucer on the low table between them. “But I know Fletcher and Cobbins, so this laird is. .” Martha pursed her lips, then stated, “Powerful. Fletcher and Cobbins, they don’t scare easily. Been around for quite a while, those two, but this laird made quite an impression on them both.”

“You make him sound dangerous.”

“P’raps, but not simple dangerous — a bully boy might be dangerous, but he wouldn’t impress the likes of Fletcher and Cobbins.”

Studying Martha’s face, Heather tried to divine just what her “maid” was trying to convey. “They. . what? Found him imposing?”

Lifting her needles, Martha nodded. “That’s closer to the mark. Not fright, not exactly awe. They were impressed, and wary. Regardless, they’re very sure they don’t want to disappoint him, and it’s not simple fear driving that.”

Heather pondered that unwelcome insight.

“A toff he is, no question.” Martha set her needles clicking again.

Heather frowned. “Do they know he is, or is that just”—she waved a hand—“conjecture? A guess?”

Eyes on her knitting, Martha snorted. “No guess.” She glanced up, met Heather’s eyes. “Stands to reason. Take it from me, only a toff would have thought of hiring a maid as part of his kidnap plans.”

That, Heather realized, was perfectly true.

Which meant the man who had ordered her kidnapping was almost certainly one of her own class. Which made him even more dangerous to her.

“You just behave yourself, you hear me?”

Heather glanced in surprise at Fletcher. She and Martha had just walked into the taproom for dinner. Fletcher had seen them; leaving the table of local men he’d been drinking with — which group included a certain viscount who not even his sisters would recognize — he’d come over to join her and Martha as they took their seats at the table in the room’s front corner.