By main force suppressing a shiver, she told herself he couldn’t help it; that was probably how he always whispered to women he held in his arms.

She waited for him to release her.

After several moments, she felt the battle-ready tension that had invested his muscles, his entire frame, slowly, gradually, ease.

But he didn’t entirely relax.

He didn’t let her go, either. He did rearrange the cloak so it enveloped her completely, cocooning her within the contained warmth.

“We can’t risk a light,” he murmured.

His deep voice at such close quarters all but frazzled her nerves.

She tipped her face up, trying to make out his features in the gloom. All she could see was a pale outline, cheeks shaded with black beard, eyes too shadowed for her to even glimpse, and the lines of his lips and chin, both presently uncompromisingly grim.

“We’ll have to make this quick.”

She nodded. They would. Or else she might do something unutterably stupid. She made a mental note never to let him ever again seize her in the dark.

“As you heard, the laird won’t arrive until at least the day after tomorrow. That makes it an odds-on certainty that he’s a highlander, which means his reasons for kidnapping you or one of the others could well be buried in the mists of time. Worse, both Fletcher and Cobbins are very sure, for multiple reasons, that their employer is someone accustomed to wielding power — to giving orders and expecting to be obeyed.” He studied her. “Did you learn anything from Martha?”

She cleared her throat. Breathed back, “A little. From her reading of how Fletcher and Cobbins reacted to the man, she says he, the laird, is, in her words, powerful. Fletcher and Cobbins found him impressive, imposing, and she’s also certain he’s a toff, because only a toff would have thought of hiring a maid to give me countenance.”

Breckenridge’s lips twisted in a grimace. “She’s right.”

After a moment of staring down into her face, he murmured, “We have a problem.”

She certainly did; she was finding it difficult to breathe enough not to feel giddy.

“This laird. . from all Martha, Fletcher, and Cobbins have said, he’s a laird with a capital L. Almost certainly a noble. He’s not going to be easy to counter, especially not on his home turf.”

Face like hewn rock and eyes like ice.

Breckenridge hadn’t forgotten Fletcher’s description. “By all accounts, he’s not the sort of man we want to find ourselves facing. Not here in Scotland, too far from anyone who can vouch for our identities.”

He watched a frown overtake Heather’s fine features. Until then, they’d been. . a trifle wide-eyed, a touch arrested. He knew perfectly well why. Her heartbeat. . he couldn’t exactly feel it, but he’d seduced far too many women not to sense it. To know that she was as attracted to him as he was to her.

That wasn’t something he’d needed to have proof of, but now he did. . the knowledge kept circling, prodding and pricking at instincts that, where she was concerned, he’d always kept buried and inflexibly contained.

“But there’s no reason to leave yet,” she murmured. “They’ve said the laird won’t arrive for days yet, and we haven’t yet learned of anything we can use to identify him.” Her frown firmed, giving her expression a mulish cast — one with which he was very familiar. “We can’t leave yet.”

He pressed his lips tight against any unwise utterance. Tried to sort through the contradictory impulses pressing on him from all sides. His deepest instinct was to remove her from all danger, yet while he remained with her, he could and would keep her safe — and he was now convinced that she stood in no danger whatever from Fletcher, Cobbins, or Martha. Indeed, it was in their best interests to protect her from all and any threat, at least until the mysterious laird claimed her. For the moment, she was safe.

And he knew her brothers, her cousins, her father, her uncles. They wouldn’t fault him for cutting and running, and hauling her back to London and safety, but at the same time, they, like him, would dearly love to learn just which laird had had the temerity to kidnap one of their darlings.

One couldn’t arrange for justice if one didn’t know at whom to point the sword.

“All right.” The instant he spoke, her expression softened. He hardened his own. “But just for a day. One more day.”

Her lips curved. “All right. We’ll see what we can learn tomorrow.”

Her smile. . it flirted with the ends of her lips. He blinked, found a frown. “And regardless of whether we learn anything, after tomorrow, we leave. Understood?”

Even whispering, he made the last word a command.

Her smile only deepened. “Yes, of course. But let’s see what tomorrow brings.”

He looked into her face, and time suspended.

Dangerous, he knew, but he couldn’t seem to move, to break the strengthening spell.

Her smile slowly faded; her eyes searched his. . her breath all but silently caught, hitched. She started to tip closer. .

Then she dragged in a quick, too-tight breath and rocked back on her heels. “Wound — you said you had a wound.”

He seized the unexpected lifeline. “I made that up to excuse me staying put and not traveling on. As a reason, it’s open ended, especially in this weather.”

“Oh, good. I mean. . that you’re not injured.” She finally dropped her gaze, eased back.

He lowered his arms, let her free. . reluctantly.

Too reluctantly for his peace of mind.

She stepped back and let the folds of his cloak slide from her.

“Go up,” he murmured. He tipped his head to the door. “I’ll watch you, then follow.”

With a nod, she turned. Opening the door, she paused for a moment, then slipped out.

He held the door ajar and from the gloom within the cloakroom watched her slip wraithlike up the stairs.

And wondered why he hadn’t kissed her.

She wouldn’t have objected. She might have been a touch flustered, but. . he would, at last, have learned what she tasted like — a question that had haunted him for the last four years.

They were, after all, destined to marry. After this little escapade, there was no other choice, not for either of them.

But if he’d kissed her. . she would have known he’d been thinking along the same lines as she, which was something she didn’t at that moment know. He felt certain that to that point she’d gained no inkling of his true view of her. And if they were indeed to marry. .

She was a Cynster to her toes. Much better she never knew just how deep his fascination with her ran. Just how persistent and intense — intensely irritating — that fascination had proved to be. Just how impossible to eradicate.

He’d tried. Hundreds of times.

No other female had ever been able to supplant her in his mind. At the core of his desires, at the heart of his passions.

And that was definitely something she never needed to know.

So. . no kisses. Not yet. Not until she’d realized that their wedding was a foregone conclusion. Him initiating a kiss then wouldn’t be so revealing.

Something within him bucked at the restraint, but he’d long ago learned to keep desire and passion on a very tight leash. No unintended revelations for him.

She had to have reached the room she shared with Martha. He moved out of the shadows, silently climbed the stairs, and headed for his bed.

“You can’t be serious?” Heather stood in the middle of the inn’s front hall and stared at Fletcher. “I stayed in that room all day yesterday, and you want me to sit quietly and stare at Martha knitting for another whole day?”

Jaw set, Fletcher nodded. “And tomorrow, too. Until the laird comes for you, I want you under Martha’s eye at all times. Safer for you, anyway.”

Heather narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ll sit quietly after I’ve had a brief walk — just up the lane and back.”

“No.” Fletcher shifted closer, trying to intimidate.

Martha and Cobbins looked on, neither much interested, both simply waiting on an outcome of which they had no doubt.

The four of them and Breckenridge had been the only guests down for breakfast that morning; Breckenridge had just ambled into the tap and was currently out of sight. The innkeeper was busy elsewhere; there was no one about to hear their argument.

Glowering down at her, Fletcher raised an arm and pointed to the parlor door. “You are going to walk in there and remain in there for the rest of the day, until dinnertime. If you need exercise, you can pace in there. If you need distraction, you can look out of the window, or help Martha count her stitches for all I care.”

Heather opened her mouth.

Fletcher pointed at her nose. “You know our story. If you push me, I swear I’ll use it to tie you up and gag you, and sit you in there with Martha.”

She frowned, not just at Fletcher but at the realization that although she ought to be at least wary of him, if not outright afraid, she wasn’t — simply wasn’t. In her mind he featured merely as a hurdle to be overcome — a source of information to be milked, then left behind when she escaped. With Breckenridge.

Was it because he was close that she didn’t fear Fletcher?

Regardless, it didn’t take much cogitation to see she had no real option at that time. “Oh, very well!” She swung on her heel, marched to the parlor door, shoved it open, and sailed through — reluctantly refraining from slamming the door because Martha would be following.

Sweeping to the window, Heather crossed her arms and stared out at the new day. Spring had already arrived in London, but here it was struggling to break winter’s hold. Other than the conifers, all the trees were still bare. The morning was still chill, the wind still a touch raw, but the clouds had thinned and the drizzle had ceased, and somewhere high above the sun was trying to shine through.