That wasn’t the question he’d been expecting. After a moment, he nodded. “Grew up together, we did.”

“In London?”

Fletcher’s smile returned. “Nah — up north. But we’ve been down in London a lot over the years. Lots of jobs there for gentlemen like us.”

She wondered, then decided it wouldn’t hurt to ask, “I don’t suppose you’d consider earning more than your employer is paying you by turning the coach around and taking me home?”

Fletcher shook his head. “No. Much as I wouldn’t say no to extra money, double-crossing an employer is never good for business.”

She frowned. “Is he — your employer — paying you so well then?”

“He’s paying all he needs to get the job done.”

“So he’s wealthy?”

Fletcher hesitated. “I didn’t say that.”

No, but you believe he is. She sat forward. “I’m curious — how does a man like your employer go about hiring men like you? You can’t possibly put a notice in the news sheets advertising your services.”

Fletcher chuckled. Even Cobbins cracked a smile.

“We get business on recommendation,” Fletcher explained. “I don’t know who mentioned us to him, but he sent word to our contact, and we met him in a tavern. He laid the job before us, and we accepted. Simple enough.”

“So you don’t know his name?” It was one step too far, but, she judged, worth the gamble.

Fletcher’s expression closed, but when she continued to look expectantly at him, his slow, taunting smile returned. “It’s no use, Miss Wallace, but if you truly want, I can put my hand on my heart”—he suited action to the words—“and tell you he called himself McKinsey.”

She caught the implication. “That’s not his name.”

“No, it’s not. And before you bother asking, I don’t know his real name — he’s the type wise men don’t question about anything they don’t want to reveal.”

She pulled a face and sat back. And asked nothing more for the moment.

The man who had hired them to kidnap her and deliver her to him was wealthy, lived somewhere in the north, possibly as far north as Glasgow, and was of the caliber to inspire a healthy respect, if not fear, in men like Fletcher.

Despite her curiosity over his identity, she felt increasingly certain she didn’t want to actually meet the man.

They halted for lunch a little after noon in the village of Stretton. As they turned into the forecourt of an inn, Heather noted the sign — the Friar and Keys. She’d been this far on the Great North Road on several trips to visit her cousin Richard and his wife Catriona in Scotland, but she couldn’t say she recognized the village.

Descending from the coach, she eased her cramped limbs, then looked swiftly around. Would Breckenridge notice that they’d stopped?

Assuming, of course, that he was indeed following and wasn’t too far behind.

“Come along.” Martha took her arm and propelled her toward the inn’s main door. “Let’s order that lunch you were asking after before Fletcher changes his mind.”

Heather went docilely enough, but the comment had her glancing back. Fletcher and Cobbins had left the coach, which, thankfully, was being led not deeper into the yard but to one side of the forecourt, where it would be readily visible from the highway. Fletcher and the taciturn Cobbins had walked to the highway’s edge and were looking back along the road, talking, possibly arguing, as they watched.

Allowing herself to be led inside, then steered to a wood-paneled booth in the back corner of the taproom, at Martha’s nod Heather sat, then scooted along the seat so Martha could sit, too, hemming Heather in against the wall. She looked toward the door. Fletcher and Cobbins had yet to come inside.

A serving girl approached. Martha asked what was available, then ordered shepherd’s pie for them all. “And three mugs of ale.” Martha glanced at Heather, then added, “And one of cider.”

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.