Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue (15 page)

Slowly.

Her heart was thudding. Frantically looking around for some weapon, she spotted the poker leaning against the side of the stone hearth. Carefully picking it up, she tiptoed to stand behind the door. Raised the poker high as the door swung wider.

Drew in a breath, steeled herself . . .

Recognized the dark head, the height, the profile.

Her pent-up breath escaped in a wheeze. Exasperation flooded her. “For God’s sake—knock!”

Breckenridge swung to face her, took in the poker as she lowered it and set it down.

Took in her satchel and cloak.

He started to come around the door, started to close it.

With both hands, she pushed him back. Hissed, “We have to go! Now!”

In typical male fashion, he stopped, rooted to the spot. “Why?” He glanced around as if searching for something to explain her panic. “There’s no rush.” Looking back at her, he smiled, the epitome of self-satisfied male. “The magistrate wasn’t amused. Fletcher and Cobbins will be tied up for at least a few days, possibly more. ”

“Yes! And as their accomplice, so will I!”

“Accomplice?”

She saw the instant it struck him. The transformation from self-satisfied smug to fully alert warrior took no longer than a blink.

His face all sharp angles, not a soft curve in sight, hazel eyes hard, he glanced around the room. “Where’s Martha?”

“Heading to London as fast as her legs will take her.”

“Right.” He met her eyes. “Just let me get my things—the map, my pistols.”

Using both hands, she pushed him again; this time he consented to move. “Your room. If anyone downstairs decides to help the police by catching me, this is the first place they’ll look.”

He didn’t reply, merely grasped her arm, hauled her out of the room, and shut the door. Releasing her, he steered her before him down the corridor, past the head of the stairs and into the other wing. Halting her before the last door before the narrow servants’ stairs at the wing’s end, he opened the door and urged her inside. Following on her heels, he quietly shut the door.

Heather stood to one side, out of his way, as he pulled two satchels from the wardrobe and swiftly, remarkably efficiently, packed clothes, then two pistols, powder, and shot, packed more clothes around them, tossed in a brush, stowed a pair of shoes in the second bag, then the rest of his clothes.

He was buckling the satchels’ straps when he swore. Virulently.

She narrowed her eyes at his downbent dark head. “Don’t you dare swear at me!”

He didn’t look up, but she saw his lips tighten even more than they already were. “I wasn’t swearing at you. I was swearing at the fact that we can’t take the trap.”

She blinked. “We can’t?”

He glanced up at her. “You’re right—they’ll come after you, any time now. Fletcher will send them—it’s the only way he can make sure you’re held here, too. If we take the trap, we’ll have to stick to the roads. When they find you gone, they’ll search the inn—and within minutes they’ll discover I’ve disappeared, too, along with my trap.”

Her mind was racing again. “But they’ll think you’ve gone to Glasgow. Cobbins thought that.”

He shook his head. “I only told Cobbins and Fletcher that. I told the innkeeper I’d probably stay on for a few more nights.” He swung his cloak around his shoulders, tied the ties loosely about his neck. “If the trap disappears, they’ll guess you’re with me and send riders out along all the roads. Even if they don’t make the connection, they’ll still send riders to all the nearby towns. And the horse . . . even if I stole one of the inn’s stronger nags, riders would still catch us before Annan.”

Grabbing up his satchels, swinging both over one shoulder, he beckoned her to him. Taking her arm, he led her to the door.

She put her hand on the panel to stop him from opening it. Looked up at him. “So we flee on foot?”

He looked down at her. “To begin with. We can hire a carriage or a gig further on. We can look at the map later and see what our options are, but for now we need to leave—we’ll go out across the fields toward Annan. We’ll go as far as we can before dark, then take stock.”

She absorbed the grim resolution in his face and nodded.

Removing her hand, she waited while he opened the door and checked that the corridor was safe, then she slipped past him and, obeying his guiding push, went quickly to the head of the servants’ stairs. He moved past her and led the way down.

The stairs ended in a small hall between the kitchen and the back door. At that hour, with dinner being prepared, the kitchen was a hive of activity, with the ovens roaring and the cook screeching. They slipped out of the back door without anyone having any notion they’d been there.

Breckenridge closed the door behind them, then grasped her hand. He set off, striding quickly past the inn’s stable. She hurried to keep up. Pausing behind the stable to help her over a stile into the field beyond, he murmured, “The fields are so flat, we’ll need to keep the stable and barns between us and the inn for as long as we can.”

Heather looked ahead. A line of trees marched along a slight rise a mile or so on.

From beside her, Breckenridge softly said, “If we can get that far without being seen, we stand a good chance of getting away.”

T
hey couldn’t afford to be caught by the authorities. Even less could they risk being captured by Fletcher’s laird.

When they reached the line of trees without any sign or sound of a hue and cry being raised behind them, Breckenridge felt only the very slightest soupçon of relief. The tension gripping him eased not at all. If he was taken up along with Heather, for aiding and abetting an accomplice to a crime who was fleeing from justice, then once the laird arrived in Gretna and was alerted by Fletcher, it was all too likely that said laird would be able to arrange for Heather to be released into his—the laird’s—keeping. Then, while he—Breckenridge—remained locked in some cell, unable to do anything, the laird would disappear into the highlands with Heather as his recaptured ward.

If they were caught, nothing he could say, nothing she could say, would hold any power to alter that scenario.

That nightmare.

They trudged on across the fields. He glanced at Heather, took in her stoic expression. Despite the rigors of their flight, she’d uttered not one word of complaint.

Most ladies of the ton would be filling his ears with recriminations and petty griping.

Then again, he’d always heard that Cynster ladies had spines of steel.

She was also, he judged, in significantly better physical condition than many of her contemporaries.

“Do you ride?” The question was out of his mouth before he’d thought.

She glanced at him, surprised by the comment coming out of nowhere, but then she nodded and looked ahead. “I love to ride. I don’t get as much opportunity as I’d like what with being in London so much, but whenever I can manage it, I’ll get on a horse.” Her lips twitched and she glanced up at him. “Preferably one of Demon’s.”

He grinned. “His are the best.”

“Do you have any?”

He nodded. “One definite benefit of being connected to the family.”

“I love the exhilaration one gets when pounding along—I think that’s what I enjoy the most.”

He blinked. Decided hard riding wasn’t the best choice of conversational topics. At least not for him. Especially not with her. “What about dancing?”

“I love to waltz. I even enjoy the older forms, the quadrilles and cotillions. They might be less fashionable now, but there’s a certain . . . reined power in them, don’t you think?”

“Hmm.” Where was an innocent topic when he needed one?

“Have you ever danced the gavotte?”

“Years ago.” And he still remembered it. And of course the thought of dancing that particular measure with her, in full flight, instantly filled his mind.

Searching for distraction, he looked around.

“Get down.” His hand on her back, he pressed her down into a low crouch. Hunkering down beside her, he looked into her startled face. “Riders on the road.” They were walking parallel to the road to Annan, but a good two hundred yards to the south, using hedges and coppices to screen them from roadbound travelers.

After a moment, he grimaced. “Stay down.”

Leaving his hand on her back to ensure she did, he swiveled and raised his head. Looked, then relaxed a trifle. “They didn’t see us. They’re riding steadily on.”

She straightened her back. “Constables?”

Removing his hand, he nodded, looked again, then rose and gave her his hand. Gripping her fingers, he drew her to her feet.

She straightened, sighed, and looked down. “My evening slippers aren’t holding up too well.”

When he looked down, she slipped her fingers from his and lifted her hems enough for him to see the poor, bedraggled excuse for footwear she had protecting her small feet.

He bit back the curse that leapt to his lips. “Holes?”

“Not so much holes as they’re not waterproof. They aren’t designed for hiking through soggy fields.”

He hadn’t thought . . . and clearly neither had Fletcher, Cobbins, or Martha. He looked ahead. “We’ll have to get you proper walking shoes. Perhaps in Annan.”

She started walking again. “They’re all right, at least for the moment.”

Falling in beside her, he let the subject lie and put his mind to considering the more immediate details of their flight. He—they—had planned on driving to Richard and Catriona’s estate, but now . . .

It was some time later—two miles or so later—when she spoke again. “It’s a pity we can’t slip back toward Gretna. I was hoping to hide somewhere close—close enough to get a glimpse of this mysterious laird when he arrives.”

He grunted. “I’d flirted with the notion myself, but with the authorities as well as him looking for you, it’s too dangerous.” He glanced at her, then added, “I scouted around, looking for cover, but there wasn’t anywhere we could have hidden and in safety watched the inn.”

Heather met his eyes briefly, then nodded and marched on. She was starting to accept that he wasn’t as arrogantly high-handed as she’d always thought—witness his scouting, trying to find a way to give her what she’d wanted even though he himself had never been that keen, never convinced that a glimpse would be worth the effort. He was probably right, yet he’d tried to find a way to accommodate her wishes.

Despite not getting what she’d wanted, the knowledge made her feel more content.

They walked into a sunset muted by churning clouds. Before the encroaching darkness deepened, Breckenridge paused to check the map.

“We should be nearly at Dornock.” He looked ahead, squinted. “I can see roofs ahead—that must be the village.”

“We can’t just walk up and ask for shelter, can we?” She’d thought through the ramifications. “Those riders would have stopped and warned the villagers about us—about me, at least.”

He grunted an assent. He surveyed the still largely flat fields, then touched her arm, pointed a little way further south. “There’s a barn there, close enough to reach before the light fails. Let’s see what it’s like.”

She didn’t reply, merely started walking.

Tucked in one corner of a field, isolated and at least three fields from the nearest farmhouse, the barn proved sound and filled with hay. Much of it was loose, and the fragrance that surrounded them when they climbed to the loft was redolent with the memory of summer.

Breckenridge looked around. “We’ll be warm enough up here, and safe enough.” He glanced down at the ladder they’d climbed up. “The ladder isn’t fixed—I’ll pull it up for the night.”

So she’d feel safe. Heather hid a grin; for a man whose expression she could still rarely read, he was becoming quite predictable in some ways.

Setting down her satchel, she slipped off her cloak, flicked it out, and spread it over a wide, deep pile of hay, then turned and sat, wriggling her hips to create a comfortable hollow. Reaching down, she eased off her poor slippers, studied them in the fading light. “I don’t suppose we can risk a fire.”

Looking up, she met Breckenridge’s shadowed eyes.

After a moment, he shook his head. “No. Too risky.”

But he’d thought of it. She nodded and set the slippers aside, used her cloak to rub her feet dry, then stretched out her toes, flexed her ankles, and reached beneath her skirts to massage her calves.

He cleared his throat. “We haven’t any food, either.”

She glanced up, faintly smiled. “I don’t think going without food for one night is going to hurt either of us.”

He held her gaze, after a moment said, “You’re being very accommodating. I was expecting something rather closer to hysterics.”

She snorted. “And what good would they do?” She raised a shoulder. “We’re in this together, and doing the best we can. I don’t expect you to perform miracles.” Lying back on her makeshift pallet, she looked up at him. “And as long as you don’t expect miracles from me, I daresay we’ll manage well enough.”

He stared at her, his expression, as usual, impenetrable. Of all the men she’d ever met, he kept his features under the most rigid control. Then he shrugged off the satchels he’d carried, set them near hers, and turned back toward the ladder. “I’m going to check around the building. I won’t go far, and I won’t be long.”

Heather lay back, let her muscles relax, and tracked him by sound. He moved around within the barn, then went outside.

While she waited, she held onto a mental vision of him—imagined him walking around the structure, assessing it. Her brothers, her cousins, were protective men; she was accustomed to the foibles of the species. Breckenridge, however, although every bit as protective, if not more so, hid it better. She considered, then murmured, “No, that’s not right.” He didn’t so much hide his proclivities as mute them, negotiate around them. Make them seem reasonable and sensible and justifiable.

His was a more subtle, but also more effective, approach.

If he’d been one of her brothers, or even one of her cousins, she’d have felt smothered by now—and she’d have been sniping and resisting his orders and restrictions for all she was worth, on principle if nothing else. But because he was reasonable and listened—or at least seemed to listen—to her wishes, then she could be reasonable, too.