Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue (27 page)

Reaching Heather, Catriona enveloped the younger woman in a warm embrace, kissing her cheek.

Beaming, Heather returned the hug and kiss. “We had to come here—I knew you wouldn’t mind.”

“Mind? Of course not! We’re simply thankful you’ve arrived safe and sound.” Catriona’s eyes, vibrant green flecked with gold, shifted to Breckenridge. She looked at him for a moment—truly looked as few others ever did, deeply enough to make him wonder what the devil she was seeing—then her radiant smile lit her face and she extended her hand. “Breckenridge. If Richard hasn’t already said so, we’re indebted to you for rescuing Heather and conducting her to us in safety.”

There was a certain satisfaction in Catriona’s voice. Ignoring it, Breckenridge took her fingers and—for the first time in too many days—called up his usual persona and bowed over the delicate digits. “Catriona. A pleasure, although I might wish it was in different circumstances.”

Her lips quirked. “Indeed, I imagine you might. However”—turning, she held out her arms and waved, effortlessly gathering her brood, Heather and Breckenridge, and her husband, and directing them all back toward the house—“you’re here now, so let’s get you inside before the light fails and the wind blows cold.”

Falling in beside Richard at the rear of the small company, with the children dancing ahead and shooting questions one on top of the other at Heather, Breckenridge seized the opportunity to say, “We had to walk from Gretna, which is one reason it’s taken us so long to reach here.”

Richard briefly met his eyes, his own gaze hard. “I’ll be interested in hearing the full tale.”

They reached the door and followed the others in—into a welcome of a sort Breckenridge had never before weathered. People came from everywhere. A motherly woman swept up, all concern and warmth—the housekeeper, a Mrs. Broom. After greeting Heather, she literally patted his cheek in delight, thanking him effusively for his gallant rescue.

A much older man, wizened and worn, hobbling along with a cane, directed a young footman to close the door, then beamed as Heather, turning and seeing him, smiled, seized his gnarled hand, and pressed it.

“McArdle—it’s good to see you again. Are you keeping well?”

“As well as can be expected, miss. So kind of you to ask.”

The swirl of greetings and people passing into and through the hall continued, a warm, engaging, welcoming tide that gradually shifted them on. Richard paused to speak with a dour, rather hatchet-faced man called Henderson about sending word south to the rest of the family. Catriona meanwhile was issuing orders to McArdle and Mrs. Broom regarding rooms. Amid the rising cacophony, Cook, a jovial rotund woman who was a testament to her trade, assured Breckenridge that she’d have just what he and Heather would like ready for dinner, and suggested they might want scones in the interim.

He gave silent thanks when Catriona, overhearing, agreed.

A tall, queenly woman with gray-streaked dark hair came down a curving stair shepherding two black-haired little boys. Without the slightest hesitation, the instant their chubby feet found the floor, the toddlers made a beeline, first to Heather, who picked each up and bussed their cheeks soundly, then the pair swept past their mother, tugging briefly at Catriona’s skirts before, launching themselves at their older siblings, they noisily insisted on their right to join in whatever game was developing.

Suddenly realizing that the older woman who had accompanied the black-haired demons downstairs had halted on the last stair, her steady gaze fixed on him, Breckenridge turned his head and met her eyes.

Like Catriona, she studied him for a moment, then she smiled—with a touch of the same smug self-satisfaction Catriona had displayed.

“That’s Algaria,” Richard informed him, reappearing by his side.

“Is she a witch, too?”

Richard nodded. “She was Catriona’s mentor. Now she watches over the children, and when she thinks Catriona’s not looking, mentors Lucilla.”

Breckenridge switched his gaze to the copper-haired young girl. “She’s . . . ?”

“The next Lady of the Vale, apparently—that’s how it works.” Richard eyed his offspring, loosely gathered around his wife, with poorly concealed pride. “According to Algaria, the reason we had twins was so that Catriona would have a girl to be the next Lady, and I would have a boy to train to be the next Guardian of the Lady, which is apparently my role. Mind you, given Lucilla is a Cynster through and through, as is Marcus, I don’t know how well she’s going to take to having her brother as her guard.”

Reminded of the willfulness of Cynster females, Breckenridge glanced at Richard. “Before you send off that note, I should tell you our tale.”

“Indeed.” Organizing complete, Catriona had turned in time to hear his words. “But let’s adjourn to . . .” She met her husband’s eyes. “The library, I think.”

Richard nodded. Catriona dismissed the children, sending them upstairs with Algaria, with the promise of scones, clotted cream, and jam to sweeten the banishment. Together with Heather, Catriona, and Richard, Breckenridge repaired to a comfortable room at one side of the manor. The ladies claimed the sofa, facing the fireplace in which a cheery fire crackled. Sinking into a large armchair angled beside the hearth, Breckenridge took in the masculine decor. The library was, presumably, Richard’s domain.

As Richard sat in the other armchair, a maid bustled in, ferrying a large tray with the promised sustenance. Catriona poured as Heather and Breckenridge fell on the fare—scones, clotted cream, and, if he wasn’t mistaken, damson jam, plus sandwiches stuffed with ham.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Catriona shake her head at Richard, plainly signaling him to hold off his inquisition until Breckenridge and Heather had at least taken the edge from their appetites.

Silence reigned for several minutes, then Heather set down her plate, picked up her cup and saucer, and sat back with a contented sigh. “We haven’t really had that much to eat, not since we left Gretna Green.”

Catriona blinked and fixed her gaze on Heather. “Gretna Green?”

Heather nodded. “That’s where the kidnappers took me. But I should start at the beginning.”

She promptly did.

After a moment’s consideration, Breckenridge sat back and let her tell their tale in her own way, in her own words, from the moment she walked into Lady Herford’s salon.

For which Heather was sincerely grateful. She knew her cousins—knew Richard—too well not to recognize what was behind his unusually stiff reception, not so much of her but of Breckenridge. She was determined that no whisper of blame should attach to him; she was all too conscious of just how understanding and supportive he had been, even to the extent of reigning in the overprotective impulses that beat in him just as much as in her cousins.

She felt beholden to him, immensely grateful for his steady, unwavering support. She seriously doubted many other men would have done as he had—accepted and bowed to her wish to learn what she could of the truth of the kidnappings in order to better protect her sisters and cousins.

Instead of arguing, he’d done what he’d been able to do to keep her safe, which in turn had allowed her to continue with her role as kidnapee with confidence, in the sure knowledge that if anything had threatened her, he’d stood in the shadows, close, ready, willing, and able to haul her to safety.

Everything he’d done, all the rules he’d broken, he’d broken for her, and she would not hear of him being held to blame.

To his continued credit, he interrupted only to add those details she hadn’t known, such as how he’d come to locate her at the inn at Knebworth. Her refusal to escape with him that night made Richard frown, but her reason for doing so forced him to bite his tongue.

Between them, she and Breckenridge told the story of her kidnapping and his subsequent pursuit in concise but accurate detail.

Breckenridge was impressed by how clear and open Heather was; one glance at Catriona’s face, then Richard’s, reassured him that they, too, had realized that, for all the attendant drama, Heather had sailed through the ordeal with no real damage—no lasting fear. Not just from her words but also from her tone and irritated expression as she recounted their failure to find any real clue to the identity of the mysterious laird, it was clear she was more exercised by the need to learn what lay behind the kidnapping than anything else.

Of course, she’d skated, very neatly, over the small matter of their intimacy. She’d remembered to return his signet ring as they’d approached the manor, so not even that detail remained to raise awkward speculation. Nevertheless, Breckenridge felt, sensed, Richard’s suspicious glance, but he pretended not to so he wouldn’t have to meet it. He fully intended to speak with Richard as soon as he could and make a clean breast of the situation, but not with the ladies present.

Not with Heather present, and until Breckenridge was sure which way Catriona would lean, he wasn’t inclined to include her in his confidence, either.

Regardless, he knew that Richard’s initial stance—the battle-ready tension that had thrummed through his large frame when he’d met them in the forecourt—had faded, steadily receding as Heather recounted all that he, Breckenridge, had done in order to protect her.

Heather didn’t see the half of it, but Richard did. The occasional, increasingly understanding glances Richard threw him bore witness to that.

Reaching the end of her recital, Heather concluded, “And so we walked down and into the Vale.”

Breckenridge stirred, finally met Richard’s eyes. “The horseman—he followed us to the edge of the Vale.”

“What?” Heather stared at him. “I didn’t see him.”

“He halted at the top of the lane down from the last village—Knockgray?” When Richard nodded curtly, Breckenridge went on, “I glanced back before walking around the bend—the one where you lose sight of the lane down. He was there, calmly sitting a huge horse—a prime piece of horseflesh. I waited, but he didn’t make any move to follow. Eventually, I rejoined Heather and we came on. Clearly he didn’t follow.”

Catriona’s eyes grew distant, but then she shook her head and refocused. “He didn’t set foot on Vale land—I would know.”

Breckenridge hesitated, then said, “That suggests he knew the place.”

Richard grimaced. “Not necessarily. People often feel an aversion to entering the Vale if they intend to do harm.”

Heather, still absorbing the fact that Breckenridge hadn’t mentioned the horseman, felt grateful for Catriona’s power. If the horseman had decided to run them down . . . but then Breckenridge had had a pistol in his pocket, so most likely he would have been safe.

Richard smoothly rose. “I’d best send a courier south, posthaste.”

Heather looked up. “Can I send a note, too? To Mama and Papa?”

“That,” Richard said, “would no doubt be best.” He waved her to the desk that sat at the far end of the room, before the velvet curtains drawn against the evening gloom.

While Richard and Heather sat at the desk and composed their respective notes—Heather’s to her parents, Richard’s to Devil, his half brother and head of the family—Breckenridge sat by the fire and asked Catriona about the Vale. He was curious, and she was happy to indulge him, educating his ignorance, as he suspected she saw it. He didn’t mind; he felt strangely comfortable, more relaxed than he’d expected to be.

More relieved.

The irony in that occurred to him when, the letters dispatched with a rider, Catriona swept Heather off upstairs to find clothes and luxuriate in a bath, leaving him at last alone with Richard; given the necessity of leg-shackling himself to Heather, his relief was surely misplaced.

Before he had a chance to assemble his wits enough to find the right words to broach the subject, Richard, returning to stand before the fire after closing the door on the women, then detouring to pour them each a glass of much-need whisky, looked down at him as he handed him a glass, caught his gaze, and stated, “I appreciate and accept that you had to do everything you’ve done. I know Heather well enough to realize that she left you with no real choice. That said, given the circumstances, given who you are and who she is, what now?”

Breckenridge appreciated Richard’s directness. Holding Richard’s gaze, he succinctly stated, “I’d rather assumed a wedding was in order.”

Richard studied his face, then blew out a breath. “You’ll agree to marry her?”

He would
fight
to marry her, but he saw no need to admit that. “It seems to me that our principal goal in this has to be to protect her reputation. The way I see it, given she’s to be my bride, that’s of paramount importance—without her reputation intact, she won’t be able to fulfill the social position that should be her due.”

Richard nodded. “You’ll get no argument from any Cynster on that.”

“Just so.” Breckenridge paused to sip the whisky; it was a seriously fine malt, too good to gulp. “The reality as far as the ton is concerned is this: I have to marry and reasonably soon, and Heather is already twenty-five. After this Season, if she doesn’t marry, she’ll be considered to be on the shelf. The tale I suggest we tell is that, as we already knew each other, some kind soul—Lady Osbaldestone springs to mind—suggested that we would suit, or rather that both our situations could be resolved with one ceremony. Consequently, in lieu of Heather and her parents visiting Baraclough, it was agreed that we should meet privately here, under your and Catriona’s eyes, to decide if we could agree on a wedding.”

“Why aren’t Martin, or at least Celia, here, too?’

“Because Celia has two other daughters to chaperon through the balls and parties, and her sudden disappearance from the social round, together with Heather, would have occasioned considerable speculation, which both families were keen, given the true circumstances, to avoid.”

Richard considered. Head tipping, he said, “From what we’ve heard, the family’s managed thus far to keep Heather’s disappearance a secret. Celia and the ladies have put about some tale that Heather’s taken ill and might have something catching, so none of her friends and their mothers are falling over themselves to call.”