Breckenridge swiftly tacked and, cursing at the tightness, swung the town carriage into the road. The instant the conveyance was free of the line, he whipped up the horses. “Keep your eyes peeled — I have no idea which way they might go.”

“Aye, sir — my lord. . ”

Briefly meeting the coachman’s sideways glance, Breckenridge stated, “Viscount Breckenridge. I know Devil and Gabriel.” And the others, but those names would do.

The coachman nodded. “Aye, my lord.” Turning, he called back to the groom, hanging on behind. “James — you watch left and I’ll watch right. If we miss seeing them, you’ll need to hop down at the next corner and look.”

Breckenridge concentrated on the horses. Luckily there was little other traffic. He made the turn into the same street the coach had taken. All three of them immediately looked ahead. Light from numerous street flares garishly illuminated an odd-angled four-way intersection ahead.

“There!” came a call from behind. “That’s them — turning left into the bigger street.”

Breckenridge gave thanks for James’s sharp eyes; he’d only just glimpsed the back of the coach himself. Urging the horses on as quickly as he dared, they reached the intersection and made the turn — just in time to see the coach turn right at the next intersection.

“Oh,” the coachman said.

Breckenridge flicked a glance his way. “What?”

“That’s Avenue Road they’ve just turned into — it merges into Finchley Road just a bit along.”

And Finchley Road became the Great North Road, and the coach was heading north. “They might be heading for some house out that way.” Breckenridge told himself that could be the case. . but they were following a traveling coach, not a town carriage.

He steered the pair of blacks he was managing into Avenue Road. Both the coachman and James peered ahead.

“Yep — that’s them,” the coachman said. “But they’re a way ahead of us now.”

Given the blacks were Cynster horses, Breckenridge wasn’t worried about how far ahead their quarry got. “Just as long as we keep them in sight.”

As it transpired, that was easier said than done. It wasn’t the blacks that slowed them but the plodding beasts drawing the seven conveyances that got between them and the traveling coach. While rolling along the narrow carriageways through the outskirts of the sprawling metropolis, past Cricklewood through to Golders Green there was nowhere Breckenridge could pass. They managed to keep the coach in sight long enough to feel certain that it was, indeed, heading up the Great North Road, but by the time they reached High Barnet with the long stretch of Barnet Hill beyond, they’d lost sight of it.

Inwardly cursing, Breckenridge turned into the yard of the Barnet Arms, a major posting inn and one at which he was well known. Halting the carriage, to the coachman and James he said, “Ask up and down the road — see if you can find anyone who saw the coach, if they changed horses, any information.”

Both men scrambled down and went. Breckenridge turned to the ostlers who’d come hurrying to hold the horses’ heads. “I need a curricle and your best pair — where’s your master?”

Half an hour later, he parted from the coachman and James. They’d found several people who’d seen the coach, which had stopped briefly to change horses at the Scepter and Crown. The coach had continued north along the highway.

“Here.” Breckenridge handed the coachman a note he’d scribbled while he’d waited for them to return. “Give that to Lord Martin as soon as you can.” Lord Martin Cynster was Heather’s father. “If for any reason he’s not available, get it to one of Miss Cynster’s brothers, or, failing them, to St. Ives.” Breckenridge knew Devil was in town, but he was less certain of the others’ whereabouts.

“Aye, my lord.” The coachman took the note, raised a hand in salute. “And good luck to you, sir. Hope you catch up with those blackguards right quick.”

Breckenridge hoped so, too. He watched the pair climb up to the box seat of the town carriage. The instant they’d turned it out of the yard, heading back to London, he strode to the sleek phaeton waiting to one side. A pair of grays the innkeeper rarely allowed to be hired by anyone danced between the shafts. Two nervous ostlers held the horses’ heads.

“Right frisky, they are, m’lord.” The head ostler followed him over. “They haven’t been out in an age. Keep telling the boss he’d be better off letting them out for a run now and then.”

“I’ll manage.” Breckenridge swung up to the phaeton’s high box seat. He needed speed, and the combination of phaeton and high-bred horses promised that. Taking the reins, he tensioned them, tested the horses’ mouths, then nodded to the ostlers. “Let ’em go.”

The ostlers did, leaping back as the horses surged.

Breckenridge reined the pair in only enough to take the turn out of the yard, then he let them have their heads up Barnet Hill and on along the Great North Road.

For a while, managing the horses absorbed all of his attention, but once they’d settled and were bowling along, the steady rhythm of their hooves eating the miles with little other traffic to get in their way, he could spare sufficient attention to think.

To give thanks the night wasn’t freezing given he was still in his evening clothes.

To grapple with the realization that if he hadn’t insisted Heather leave Lady Herford’s villa — hadn’t allowed her to walk the twenty-cum-fifty yards along the pavement to her carriage alone — she wouldn’t have been in the hands of unknown assailants, wouldn’t have been subjected to whatever indignities they’d already visited on her.

They would pay, of course; he’d ensure that. But that in no way mitigated the sense of horror and overwhelming guilt that it was due to his actions that she was now in danger.

He’d intended to protect her. Instead. .

Jaw clenched, teeth gritted, he kept his eyes on the road and raced on.

Her captors left Heather trussed and gagged until they were some way out of Barnet and bowling along an empty stretch of road.

The instant they’d bundled her into the carriage outside Lady Herford’s, they’d wrapped a strip of linen about her face, efficiently gagging her, and had swiftly tied her hands, then her feet when she’d tried to kick them.

There hadn’t been just the two men. A woman, large and strong, had been waiting in the carriage with the gag held ready. Once Heather had been silenced and her limbs secured, they’d sat her on the forward-facing seat, next to the woman, and both men had sat opposite. One had told her to calm herself and just wait quietly, and all would soon be revealed.

That promise, and the fact they’d made no attempt whatever to harm her — indeed, they hadn’t even threatened her in any way — had given her pause. Enough to realize that she had no real choice, so she might as well do as they’d asked.

That hadn’t stopped her thinking. Or imagining. But neither activity had got her very far. She knew so little. Nothing beyond that there were three of them plus the coachman on the box, and they were taking her north out of London. She had glimpsed enough landmarks along the way, recognized enough to be sure they were heading north.

They were on the Great North Road when the thinner of the men, at the taller end of medium height and decidedly wiry, with curly, mousy-brown hair and a sharp-featured face, said, “If you’re willing to be reasonable and behave, we’ll untie you. We’re on a long, lonely stretch and won’t be slowing for a good long while — no one about to hear you if you yell and scream, and if you manage to get out of the door, at this speed you’ll likely break a leg, if not your neck. So if you’re willing to be quiet and just sit and listen, we can untie you and explain what’s going on — how things are and how things are going to be. So.” He raised his brows at her. “What’s it to be?”

In the dimness within the carriage, she couldn’t truly see his eyes, but she looked in that direction and nodded.

“Smart girl,” the wiry one said. The comment held no sarcasm. “He did say you’d be clever.”

He, who? She watched as the wiry man, seated opposite, bent, reaching for her feet, then stopped.

He flicked a glance at the woman beside her. “Best you untie her feet.” Straightening, he reached for the cords binding Heather’s wrists.

Puzzled, she glanced at the woman, who huffed, then lumbered off the seat and crouched between the benches. She reached beneath Heather’s silk skirts to the linen strip wound about her ankles.

While they worked to loosen the bonds, Heather realized they’d been mindful of her modesty — as mindful as she’d allowed them to be. She hadn’t imagined kidnappers would be so. . gentlemanly.

Once her feet were free, the woman settled back beside her. “The gag, too?” the woman asked the wiry one.

His gaze on Heather, he nodded. “We’re to allow her as much comfort as possible, so unless she’s sillier than we all think, no need to keep it on.”

Heather turned her head, allowing the woman access to the knot at the back of her skull. When the linen fell from her face, she moistened her lips, worked her jaw, and felt a great deal better.

She looked at the wiry one. “Who are you, and who sent you?”

He grinned — a flash of white teeth in the shadows. “Ah, now, you’re getting a trifle ahead of us there, miss. I think perhaps I’d better first explain that we were sent to fetch one of the Cynster sisters — you or one of the others. We’ve been watching you all for more than a week, but none of you go anywhere without others about. Not until tonight, that is.” Wiry — Heather decided to call him that — half bowed. “We’re obliged to you for that. We’d started thinking we’d have to arrange something drastic to get one of you on your lonesome. Howsoever, now we have you, it’s best you realize that no attempt to escape us is likely to succeed — no one will help you, because we’ve a story that accounts for us taking you, and whatever you do or say, whatever protests you make, are only going to make our story seem more real and truthful to others.”