Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue (17 page)

“What about at night?”

“Martha’s good at what she does,” Fletcher said. “She always took all their clothes, hers and the girl’s, and slept on them, so if the girl tried to escape, she’d have to do so all but naked. And they always shared a room.”

“Hmm.” After a moment, McKinsey nodded. “All right. Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll speak to the magistrate and explain that you’d been south to collect a package for me, that you had it at the inn, but then someone—we have no idea who—stole his candlesticks, put them in your room, and alerted the constables. Once you were taken up, my package disappeared.” His wintry eyes met Fletcher’s. “I’m confident the magistrate will understand—especially as he has his candlesticks back, and no real evidence to say you two actually took them and it didn’t instead happen as I’ll claim. Indeed, my missing package can be taken as proof of your innocence of the theft.”

Fletcher and Cobbins both nodded. Neither ventured any comment.

McKinsey smiled coldly. “Indeed. In return for my assistance in gaining your release, gentlemen, and for the payment I’ll leave waiting for you at the inn—not, sadly, the payment you would have received had you handed over my package as arranged, but enough to satisfy you in the circumstances—in return for both those things, you will oblige me by leaving Gretna and heading back over the border, and forgetting all you ever knew about this episode. Forgetfulness would definitely be in your best interests. I don’t care which town you make for, but I do ask that you remain out of Scotland for . . . shall we say the next year?”

There was enough refined menace in McKinsey’s eyes to have both Fletcher and Cobbins nodding. Fletcher cleared his throat. “Seems fair.”

“Indeed—it is. Eminently fair.”

“But what about the package—the girl?”

McKinsey’s icy gaze fixed on Fletcher. A heartbeat ticked past, then McKinsey softly said, “I will hunt down my package. I don’t believe I will require any help.”

Fletcher swallowed, nodded. “Right. Of course.”

McKinsey held his gaze for an instant more, then turned away. “I bid you farewell, gentlemen. I’ll arrange for your freedom, but it won’t happen immediately. Sit quiet, say nothing, and you’ll be free by this evening.”

Fletcher and Cobbins listened to his footsteps retreat, heard the door to the cells groan open, then shut again.

When silence returned, Fletcher glanced at Cobbins. “That’s one scary bugger.”

Cobbins nodded and sank back on the bunk. “Don’t know about you, but I’m glad we won’t be meeting him again.”

T
he man who Fletcher and Cobbins knew as McKinsey was very glad he’d decided to use an alias.

After speaking with the magistrate, who, while he might not be able to place him, had recognized his true station well enough to readily acquiesce to his request that his hirelings be released without charge, McKinsey returned to “reward” the constables, then recruit them in searching for his missing package, and arrange for Fletcher and Cobbins to be held until evening before being released.

By then he would be on his way, whichever way that was.

Mounted on his favorite chestnut gelding, he rode back up the highway to Gretna Green, and the Nutberry Moss Inn. The constables, vocal cords loosened by the largesse he’d distributed, had volunteered that the older woman they’d assumed to be one of Fletcher and Cobbins’s accomplices had fled back over the border into England the previous evening; they hadn’t bothered giving further chase. Of the girl, however, they’d had no sign.

That the girl must have fled, either alone or, more likely and very possibly worse, in the company of some bounder passing himself off as a solicitor’s clerk, preyed on his mind. That definitely wasn’t how his plan was supposed to have played out.

But he’d long ago learned the need to flow with fate, to take whatever clouts she sent him and survive. Manage and make the best of things had long been his creed.

In this case, that meant learning where the girl had gone, then following her and rescuing her. Getting his plan back on track and making restitution in whatever way he could, to her at least. Her family would be something else again, but that was too far in the future for him to worry about now.

First, find the girl. Second, get rid of the bounder.

Drawing rein in the Nutberry Moss forecourt, he smiled easily at the young lad who came running to take his horse. He dismounted and handed over the reins. “I’ll be maybe an hour, no more. Just walk him a little, then rest him.”

Eyes round with awe, the lad tugged his forelock, and reverently led Hercules away. The big gelding had come by the name through having to carry the weight of him on his back.

He walked into the inn. Fletcher and Cobbins would have been surprised to witness the persona he deployed with the innkeeper. He didn’t need to frighten the man, so he didn’t.

“Timms?” The innkeeper consulted his register. “Aye, m’ lord. He came in later on the day your men arrived.”

“And when did he leave?”

The innkeeper scratched his ear. “Can’t rightly say that he has left, m’lord. His bags and clothes are gone, the girls tell me—all his personal things—but his writing desk is still there, and his trap and his horse are still in the stable. He didn’t say anything to me about moving on just yet—said his wound was still playing up. He’s paid up for another two nights.”

“I see.” He thought, then said, “Fletcher and Cobbins will be released later today—they’ll be back to claim their luggage.” He withdrew a sealed packet from his inside pocket. “I told them I’d leave this for them—if you could make sure they receive it?” The innkeeper nodded and took the packet, stowing it under the counter. “In the meantime, however, if I could see their rooms—the two Fletcher hired, and if I could just look into Timms’s room. No harm if there’s nothing personal in there.”

“Indeed not, m’lord. The room the women used was number one, at the end of the corridor to the left. Fletcher and Cobbins were in room five, that’s just by the top of the stairs, and Timms was in room eight—end of the corridor to the right.”

He smiled. “Thank you. I’ll just have a look around—I won’t trouble you further.”

“No trouble at all, m’lord. Just call if you want anything.”

He climbed the stairs and checked the women’s room first. There was nothing left, no belongings of any kind, not even hairpins on the dressing table. Presumably the girl had at least had time to pack, then.

Moving to Fletcher and Cobbins’s room, he noted their bags had been left in the wardrobe. Passing on to Timms’s room, he stuck his head in, saw, as he’d been told, that the wardrobe, gaping open, was empty. Other than an ancient traveling writing desk on the side table by the bed, there was no sign of any belongings anywhere.

Crossing to the writing desk, he raised the lid. A few sheets of yellowing parchment, an assortment of old nibs and pens, and a small bottle of ink nestled inside. None of the sheets bore any helpful name or address, or, indeed, any mark at all. There was nothing to suggest any of the implements had been used in years; even the piece of blotting paper was blank. Releasing the lid, he raked the room one last time, then walked out.

Stepping into the corridor, he pulled the door shut—and looked consideringly at the narrow servants’ stair in the shadows at the corridor’s end. When he’d called at the inn earlier, the innkeeper had related the sequence of events that had culminated in Fletcher and Cobbins’s arrests. The two women had remained in the parlor, as far as anyone had known. Only much later, when one of the serving girls had thought to look in, surprised that the women hadn’t rung for afternoon tea, had their absence been discovered.

The parlor door had been open when he’d come in. Assuming the two women had been inside when the constables had arrived, they would have heard, quite possibly seen, all that had transpired. Martha, certainly, had seen the implications. That explained her rapid and effective flight. And, of course, Martha had left the girl to fend for herself. But if Timms was behind the scheme of the candlesticks, then where had he been? Neither the innkeeper nor his staff had sighted him after breakfast that day.

Looking back down the corridor all the way to the women’s room, he felt sure Timms had been there, in his room, playing least in sight while the constables had removed Fletcher and Cobbins. Then . . . he looked again at the stair. If it led to where he thought it did . . .

He went silently down it.

As he’d suspected, the stair debouched into a tiny hall between the kitchen and the inn’s back door. He wasn’t easily overlooked, yet even he managed to slip past the open doorway of the kitchen and slide out of the back door without being seen.

“So that’s how Timms got in and out without being seen by the innkeeper or anyone else.”

Stepping off the single step outside the back door, he looked across the inn’s stable yard, which was at the side of the inn, on the west, rather than at the rear. If Timms had taken the girl and come out this way . . . why hadn’t he taken his trap and driven off?

He walked across the yard and into the stable. The young lad, the stableman, and two helpers were all gathered about a stall admiring Hercules. The lad saw him and jumped to attention. “Do you want him, then, m’lord?”

He smiled. “No, not just yet.” He let his smile flow on to the stableman. “I wanted to take a look at Mr. Timms’s trap.”

The stableman was happy to oblige.

While answering eager questions about Hercules’ pedigree, he examined the trap; it was indeed as rickety as Cobbins had made out. As for the nag that went with it . . . if Timms and the girl had taken to the road in the trap, they would have been caught by the constables, who, he’d been told, had ridden out along all the roads in an attempt to capture Fletcher and Cobbins’s accomplices.

He’d told Fletcher and Cobbins that he would attend to the matter of the girl himself, but he’d seen no reason not to make use of the constables. He’d used the same story he’d given Fletcher to explain the girl’s captivity, and had enlisted the aid of the police in keeping watch on the roads and taking the girl up if they happened to find her.

Thus far, all reports from the riders who had, he’d been assured, been sent out along all the major roads leading out of Gretna Green had been negative. No one had sighted the girl, and the constables had a fair description.

He was learning to respect Timms’s intelligence.

Thanking the stableman, saying he’d be back for Hercules in a few minutes, he walked out of the stable and paused, looking back at the inn.

Then he turned and surveyed the land around about. Flat fields. With his height, he could even see a glimmer of light off the firth a mile or so south.

If Timms had been clever enough to have foreseen the danger in using the trap, then he would also have realized that if they’d walked away across the fields in almost any direction they would have been easily spotted from the inn, if not from the ground floor, then certainly from the upper floor.

In any direction but one.

Turning back, he viewed the stable, with its high roof above the hayloft. It effectively blocked the view of the fields directly behind it.

He walked around the stable, to the short stretch of grass at the rear.

To the stile that gave access into the field beyond.

He was a highlander born and bred; he could track most things over rocky ground.

Tracking a man and a woman over soft, damp earth was insultingly easy.

But the boot print he found by the stile bothered him. He stared at it for a time before he realized why. Then he stamped his own boot print close by and compared the two.

And felt grimness as well as puzzlement steal through him.

Timms—whoever he was, and he was increasingly certain the man was no unemployed solicitor’s clerk—was wearing extremely well-made riding boots.

The girl, in contrast, was still shod in dancing slippers.

Straightening, he looked across the field. They’d made for the trees cresting a rise, just over a mile away. Once past those . . . given they’d avoided all the police patrols, they must have kept to the fields.

Easy enough for him to track, given he now had a direction. And with the firth to the south, with just a narrow strip of land between the road and the shore, he could make good time along the road, and just periodically check to confirm their direction.

Finding them wouldn’t be hard.

Lips setting, he turned and strode back to the stable. Nearing the door, he called for his horse.

Chapter Nine

B
reckenridge, with Heather beside him, walked into Dumfries in the early afternoon.

The first thing he saw as, still walking comfortably hand in hand they headed toward the main street of shops, was two constables loitering on the corner of one of the main intersections.

Avoiding them wasn’t difficult, but the sight reminded him just how careful they needed to be. Reemerging from an alley between two shops, they joined the crowds thronging the main thoroughfare.

“Just as well we waited until Dumfries.” Heather drew her cloak closer. “Annan wouldn’t have been crowded enough to risk being on the main street.”

Breckenridge grunted.

She glanced up at him. “Are there others close?”

He could see over the heads of the bustling hordes. “I can’t see any along the street, but I suspect there’ll be more at the big intersection up ahead.” He glanced down at her. “We’ll be safe enough if we stay among the crowds. If we see any uniforms getting close, we’ll nip down a side street.” Dumfries was thankfully well supplied with those. He raised his head, scanned again.

“Speaking of which.” Using his hold on her hand, he drew her out of the crowd and down a narrow cobbled alley to where a small sign swinging above a door proclaimed the place within to be the Old Wall Tavern. Halting before the door, he met her gaze. “We need food first, then some shoes for you.”

She peered through the thick glass in the window beside the door. “This looks all right.”

He opened the door and, remembering that they weren’t gentry for the moment, walked in, towing her behind him. He chose a table around a corner, out of sight of anyone looking in.

The serving girl came bustling up. “You can ’ave your choice of the last of lunchtime’s shepherd’s pie, or there’s venison pie for dinner that’s just come out of the oven.”

They both opted for the venison pie. Breckenridge ordered ale for himself and watered ale for Heather. When the serving girl left them, he murmured, “No tea, much less wine in places like this.”

Heather shrugged; her lips curved as she looked around. “Truth be told, I’m rather curious. I’ve never had watered ale before.”

He grunted again, saw her shoot him a look that suggested his communication skills needed polishing. He pretended not to notice. He couldn’t have told her what he felt about her comment, much less what he felt at that moment—had felt increasingly over the last hours.

Her feet hurt. Not that she was limping, but especially once they’d hit the cobbles and stone paving of the town, she’d been placing her feet carefully. Of course she’d said nothing, had complained not at all, but that only made him feel even more . . . whatever it was he felt. And no matter what she’d said, she had to be feeling faint from lack of nourishment. Females couldn’t go without food for as long as men, especially females who had no fat to speak of stored about their person.

He told himself the concern he felt over her not eating—over not being able to feed her—was simply residual terror that she would fall at his feet in a faint . . . but he knew very well it wasn’t that. Or not simply that. He’d actually felt torn over which of her ills to attend to first—her feet or her stomach. Feeding her had won out purely because he’d spotted the little tavern and it had looked safe.

Safety—hers—remained his principal concern.

The venison pie proved surprisingly tasty.

Breckenridge’s conversational abilities—Heather knew he had them—remained in abeyance, absent, but she’d seen behavior like his before, in her brothers and her cousins, when they were absorbed with protecting females they, for whatever reason, considered in their care. Why grunts should so predominate she had no idea, but if anything she found his inability to engage his customary glib tongue amusing.

Admittedly, she was grateful, too. Grateful for his protection, which was something she’d never thought to be.

When they’d cleaned their plates and drained their ales—she’d found her watered ale unexpectedly refreshing—he left coins on the table, then escorted her outside. Immediately they stepped out of the door, he reclaimed her hand, as if by some right. She settled her fingers within the reassuring clasp of his and decided not to dwell on it.

They rejoined the crowds in the High Street, ambling along, searching for the cobbler’s shop the serving girl had told them of. Breckenridge walked close beside her, by his sheer bulk protecting her from the bustling shoppers. If he’d done such a thing in Bond Street, she would have been incensed. Here, far from home, she found his nearness—even his hovering when she paused outside the cobbler’s shop to study the wares displayed in the window—comforting, reassuring, simply soothing.

She knew all too well that in men like him, protectiveness had a bad habit of converting to snarling possessiveness, but in the circumstances, she would accept the risk.

“Those boots might do.” She pointed to a pair of half boots, heavier than any she owned, but they were the only pair that looked anywhere near small enough for her feet. “Let’s go in.”

She opened the door and, to the tinkle of a bell, walked into the shop. Breckenridge glanced around outside before following her in; he had to duck to pass through the doorway.

At the rear of the small shop, the cobbler, a small, wiry man with a pair of pince-nez perched on his nose, looked up from the shoe he was mending.

Heather smiled. “I need a pair of walking boots.” She gestured to the window. “I wonder if I might try on that pair?”

The cobbler looked pleased. He came out from behind his counter. Wiping his hands on a rag, he nodded to Breckenridge, then eased past them to reach into the window. “Good eye, you have.” He turned with the boots in his hand. “These are a fine pair. Did all the work myself, so I know.”

“It’s the size that concerns me.” Heather turned to look for somewhere to sit.

“Have a seat on the bench there, mistress.” The cobbler pointed to a narrow bench along part of the side wall. “And we’ll see if these will do for you.”

Heather sat and slipped off her evening slippers, quickly pushing them back behind her stockinged feet and her skirts the better to hide them. If the cobbler saw . . . she doubted many ladies came walking into his shop in all-but-destroyed London ballroom slippers.

Breckenridge saw. Realized. He reached out and lifted the walking boots from the cobbler’s hands. “I’ll help her.”

Going down on one knee, letting his back and shoulders shield Heather’s legs and feet from the cobbler, he set one boot down, took the other in one hand, and with his free hand reached for her foot.

Found it—closed his hand around a slender arch encased in the sheerest of silk stockings.

She jumped at the contact.

A part of him did, too.

A blush rising to her cheeks, she somewhat breathlessly said, “Don’t forget I’m ticklish.”

He glanced at her, met her gaze, and knew she was lying. She wasn’t ticklish, but she was sensitive, especially when he was touching, cradling, all but stroking her as-close-to-naked-as-made-no-difference foot.

One part of him cursed; the rest was fascinated.

Looking down, he steeled himself and slipped the boot he held onto her foot, braced the sole as she pushed her foot in and settled her toes. He glanced at her face. “All right?”

Holding his gaze, she moistened her lips, then nodded. “Yes. Let’s try the other.”

They managed getting her other foot shod with rather less sensual drama. He got her to stand and hold her hems up a trifle so he could lace the boots. Then, swiping up her discarded slippers, surreptitiously crushing them in one hand, he rose and stepped back.

She walked the three paces across the small shop.

While the cobbler was distracted, Breckenridge shoved the slippers into one of his satchels. Heather turned, saw, paused until he reclosed the satchel, then walked back.

He met her gaze. “How are they?”

She nodded. “They’ll do.”

The cobbler, initially put out at having his role in fitting a young lady usurped, rediscovered his smile.

While Breckenridge negotiated the price, then paid, Heather walked back and forth, ostensibly to break the boots in as best she could, in reality to try to calm the surging tide of sensual awareness that had, at Breckenridge’s touch, all but swamped her.

Even now, she could feel the seductive warmth of his large, hard palm, the reined strength that had sent shards of thrilling sensation lancing through her.

Ridiculous in a way, but who would have thought her foot could be so sensitive? So sensitive in such a very improper way?

She was still dwelling on the revelation when he escorted her from the shop, back into the midafternoon bustle.

As they started along again, merging with the shoppers, he lowered his head and grumbled, “Didn’t Martha have the sense to provide you with thicker hose?”

She nodded. “But they were so coarse I couldn’t bear to wear them—they scratched.”

Breckenridge fleetingly closed his eyes. The image her words conjured—of the finest, most delicate silken skin lining sleek, feminine inner thighs—wasn’t one he needed to dwell on.

Opening his eyes, he looked ahead, then nudged her toward another alley. “There’s two constables wandering slowly this way. We’ll have to go around.”

The street they came out on was lined with market stalls selling all manner of fresh produce. They exchanged a glance, then he stood watch while she selected and bargained for apples, some dried fruits, a loaf of seed bread, and a large bag of nuts. He saw a stall selling water skins and added one to their haul. Satchels bulging, they continued on, keeping a wary eye out for ambling constabulary.

They eventually found themselves on Buccleuch Street. “We should get off the pavements.” He nodded toward the window of a coffeehouse opposite. “Let’s go in there and check the map, and work out our best way forward.”

Crossing the street, they entered the coffeehouse, which proved to be quite large and helpfully ill lit. Heather led the way to a table in the shadows along one wall and toward the rear.

A girl came bustling up. He ordered coffee, and after some discussion, Heather ordered a pot of tea and two large plates of scones.

He arched a brow as the girl departed. “Still hungry?”

Heather shrugged. “I’m sure their jam and scones will be lovely—country-made usually are.” She suddenly looked conscious, then fixed her eyes on his. “We have enough money, don’t we? I mean, don’t you?”

He nearly laughed at her look, then waved. “Plenty. I got more when I stopped in Carlisle. Money isn’t on our list of concerns.”

“Good.” She propped her chin in one palm and met his eyes across the table. “We have concerns enough as it is.”

He nodded. “How are the boots?”

“Quite good. He was right, the cobbler. They are well made.”

“All right. So . . .” He pulled the map from his coat pocket, unfolded, then refolded it so the section they needed was exposed. He set it against the wall between them, so they could both see it. “We’re here.” He pointed to Dumfries. “And Carsphairn—the village—is there. How to get from here to there is what we need to decide.”

The girl returned with his coffee, Heather’s tea, and two plates piled high with buttery scones. For ten minutes, they were silent, but after polishing off his second scone loaded with blackberry jam and cream, he picked up his coffee mug, sipped, and returned his attention to the map. “Nice scones.”

“Hmm.”

The sound made his lips twitch. It was one of the things he was learning to like about her; she appreciated the small pleasures.

How she would react to larger, more intense pleasures . . .

He blinked, and forced himself to refocus on the map. “Let’s list all our options first. We could hire a gig and drive—the most obvious way to get from here to there.”

Heather poked a bit of jam-laden scone past her lips. “Or we could hire horses and ride—and if we did that, we could go cross-country, not by the major roads. We could take this route.” With one fingertip she traced a minor road—more like a country lane—that went across and over the hills.

He considered it. “That route looks shorter, but it’ll almost certainly take longer because of the climbing and switching back and forth through the passes. Against that, it will almost certainly be free of patrolling constables, and at this time of year, there’s little likelihood of the passes being blocked—the way should be clear.”

Heather took a long, revivifying sip of her tea, then sighed and set down the cup. “But we can’t risk hiring a gig or any carriage, not even horses, can we?”

Breckenridge met her eyes, then grimaced. “I’ve been toying with the notion, but I can’t see how to do it without leaving some trace. The constabulary isn’t foolish—they’ll have alerted all the stables. And we have to assume we have the mysterious laird on our heels, too. He must have arrived in Gretna by now. We can’t afford to assume we’re free of him, and he’ll certainly check every possible place we might try to hire from.”

Heather nodded briskly. “If we can’t hire horses, then we’ll have to walk.”

Breckenridge hesitated, his eyes on hers, then quietly asked, “Are you up for that?”

Not, she noted, could she manage that; he really was remarkably attuned to women.

Suppressing a smile, she nodded. “I walk quite a lot when at home. These hills may be higher than the Quantocks, but they’re not horribly mountainous, either. I’ll manage.”

He looked at her, then said, “If you can, then I’d prefer to play safe—to do everything we possibly can to avoid both the constables and the laird if he’s searching. How long it takes us to get to the Vale is less important than that we reach there safely.”

She nodded again. “I agree. For us, the less-traveled way, the least likely way, is the best option.”

He reached for the map. “The country lanes, then.” He consulted the map, then said, “We need to head out on the main road to Glasgow. The road we want gives off that a mile or two out of town.”

She looked past him, out through the front window of the coffee shop. “The light’s starting to wane. We should go.”