Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue (14 page)

“That’s Carsphairn village.” Her words reached him on a thread of sound. “The road to the Vale heads west, less than a mile south of the village.”

He nodded and drew the map closer. He studied the area she’d indicated, then checked the roads between Dumfries to that point. He glanced at Martha, then murmured, “Even though my trap is old and rickety, I should make it in a day.”

She nodded. “Assuming the way is clear.”

He flicked her a glance. “I believe it will be. But I’ll need to get a good night’s sleep.”

She frowned, then turned her head away from Martha and mouthed, “Tonight?”

Certain no one could snore that deeply without being asleep, he risked murmuring, “No meeting. I’m working on our distraction. Be ready tomorrow—I’m not sure exactly when.”

Gathering the map, he stood and refolded it. Sliding it into his pocket, he nodded politely, then turned and walked back to the inn.

Heather didn’t immediately turn and watch him, but when she judged he would be most of the way back, she shifted and looked, and saw him striding along, nearing the stables.

When he disappeared into the inn, she stifled a sigh and faced forward once more. What was he up to? And why was there to be no secret meeting in the cloakroom to look forward to, and to reassure her, that night?

T
he following twenty-four hours were the longest Heather had ever endured. She slept fitfully, tossing and turning and wondering what Breckenridge was doing. The only reason he would have cancelled their nightly meeting was that he wasn’t going to be in the inn. And if he wasn’t, where the devil was he?

From the moment the new day dawned, she was tense, on pins. This was the day Fletcher expected the laird to arrive—the dangerous, mysterious, highland nobleman who had ordered her kidnapped and brought to Gretna Green. Both Fletcher and Cobbins had taken pains with their ablutions and attire. Even Martha had spruced herself up. Heather felt thoroughly rumpled in comparison, in her dull round gown and clashing shawl, but her appearance didn’t even feature on her list of concerns.

Breckenridge was playing least in sight. He hadn’t been in the tap for breakfast, at least not while she and Martha had been there. Of course Fletcher had insisted they retire to the parlor and remain in seclusion there, so she had no idea if Breckenridge appeared later, but he didn’t join the company for lunch, either. She didn’t dare inquire directly, but to her relief Martha asked Cobbins where their friend was. Cobbins replied that Timms was preparing to leave, to drive on to Glasgow in easy stages.

The information settled her. The Glasgow road wasn’t the one they would take. Laying a false trail was a sound, very Breckenridgelike idea.

The weather had turned bleak, the wind biting. When a group of sailors came into the tap, closely followed by three farmhands, Fletcher ordered her and Martha back to the parlor.

With ill-grace, she went.

An hour later, she was standing before the parlor window and staring across the inn’s graveled forecourt, tempted to bite a nail although she’d broken the habit years ago, when three men came striding swiftly and purposefully down the lane.

They turned into the inn’s forecourt and headed without pause for the front door.

Their uniforms stated they were from the local constabulary.

Their pugnacious expressions declared they were on the trail of some villain.

The first reached the door, opened it, and strode in. His companions followed on his heels.

Heather headed for the parlor door, risks and options colliding in her mind.

Martha looked up at her, frowned warningly.

Reaching the door, Heather signaled her to silence, then mouthed, “Police.”

Martha dropped her knitting. She paled, then leapt up, grabbed the knitting, and shoved it into her cloth bag.

At the door, Heather carefully cracked it open a sliver. She’d already jettisoned the idea of flinging herself on the constables’ mercy; Fletcher and his story, backed up by Cobbins and Martha, were simply too believable. But what the devil was going on?

Martha joined her at the door, locking large, strong fingers around one of Heather’s wrists.

Heather didn’t look at her, just breathed, “Sssh.”

Through the narrow gap, she peeked into the inn’s front hall. Alongside her, Martha crouched and peeked, too.

The man who’d led the charge into the inn was standing at the bottom of the stairs, talking rapidly, but quietly, with the innkeeper. The two clearly knew each other—hardly surprising in such a small village. The other two constables had taken up positions with their backs to the front door.

A crowd of patrons from the taproom, Fletcher and Cobbins among them, had left their pints and come to cluster in the archway separating the front hall from the tap.

The innkeeper nodded to the first policeman, then came hurrying across to his counter, a little to the side of the parlor door.

Heather couldn’t see what he was doing, but from the sound of pages flipping, she could tell he was consulting his register.

The senior constable turned to scowl at the men crowding the tap’s entrance. “You lot just sit yourselves back down. We want no bother from you.”

Several brows were raised, but the men slowly turned and went back into the tap. After sending intense, searching glances toward the parlor, Fletcher and Cobbins retreated with the pack.

The constable by the stairs, the one who seemed to be in charge, turned to the other two stationed before the door. “Keep an eye on them.” With his head, he indicated the tap. “No one goes in or out.”

The pair nodded briefly. “Aye, Sergeant.”

The innkeeper left his counter and returned to the sergeant, still waiting at the foot of the stairs. The innkeeper said something; Heather couldn’t hear what. But the sergeant turned and reached for the balustrade. “You’d best come with me.”

With that, he headed up the stairs three steps at a time. The innkeeper hurried up in his wake.

After a moment, Heather whispered, “Do you have any idea what this is about?”

“No,” Martha growled back. “But I don’t like it.”

They didn’t have long to wait for the next act in the drama. Within minutes, the sound of heavy footsteps pounding down the stairs heralded the return of the sergeant. He reappeared at the bottom of the stairs with a long silver candlestick in each hand. Halting on the last step, he glanced at the innkeeper as he joined him. With his head, the sergeant urged the innkeeper on. “Go show them which ones.”

The innkeeper nodded. The constables moved from the door, following him to the tap’s entrance. Pausing under the archway, the innkeeper pointed. “Him, and him.”

Pushing past the innkeeper, the constables moved into the tap.

Straining her ears, Heather heard one say, “If you’ll come with us, sir, we have a question or two.”

Someone replied, but she couldn’t catch the words, or make out the voice. But. . .

“Won’t take but a minute, sir. The rest of you just remain where you are.”

She glanced at Martha. Whispered, “Were there any other guests staying in the inn last night?”

Eyes glued to the crack between the door and the jamb, Martha didn’t reply.

Heather looked out again, just as her suspicion was proved correct. Fletcher and Cobbins, closely escorted by the two constables, walked reluctantly out of the tap.

The sergeant was still standing at the foot of the stairs, hefting the pair of candlesticks, one in each hand. Fletcher took note but merely raised his brows and met the sergeant’s gaze. “What seems to be the problem?”

“These.” The sergeant brandished the long candlesticks. “Disappeared from Sir Kenneth Baxter’s house last night. Not a good place to pick to burgle, him being the local magistrate an’ all.”

Fletcher frowned. “So it would seem. But why are you talking to us? We know nothing of any burglary.”

The sergeant made a scoffing sound. “Don’t come the innocent with us, m’lad. Were you or were you not occupying the room at the head of the stairs, first one to the south—room number five?”

Fletcher’s gaze remained level, but even from across the room, Heather could sense his sudden comprehension, see the equally instinctive tensing, the assessing of his chances. . . .

The sergeant and the constables saw the latter, too. Both constables’ hands drifted to the grips of the truncheons hanging at their sides.

“Now, now,” the sergeant reproved. “No sense in making this harder on yourselves than it has to be. You come along quietly, and—”

Fletcher held up a hand. “Just so we’re clear, we had nothing to do with the theft of those candlesticks. Someone must have put them in our room—”

“That’s what they all say.”

“But our employer—”

“You just come along and you can tell your story to the magistrate—Sir Kenneth. Sure an’ he’ll be keen to hear it.”

Before Fletcher could say more, the constables pulled his and Cobbins’s hands back, manacled them, then turned them toward the front door. Just before he passed through it, Fletcher sent a scorching look at the parlor door, then he was bundled outside.

Cobbins followed, led by the second constable. After pausing for a last word with the innkeeper, the sergeant, carrying the candlesticks, brought up the rear.

Heather eased the parlor door shut, then straightened and stared at the wooden panel.

Beside her, Martha jerked upright, turned to agitatedly look over the parlor, then pinned Heather with a narrow-eyed look. “How the devil did you manage it? You’ve been under our eyes all the time.”

Heather blinked, met Martha’s eyes. “I didn’t.” But she knew who had.

This had to be Breckenridge’s diversion. He’d been out stealing candlesticks last night. And of course he’d stolen them from the magistrate—the one local guaranteed to be able to get instant police attention.

But what was she supposed to do now? Wait for Breckenridge to reappear? Or should she perhaps go to the police station and through them contact the magistrate . . . ? “No.”

She could imagine the sensation when she explained she’d been kidnapped and held, through days of traveling, by the likes of Fletcher and Cobbins; despite Martha’s presence, the scandal would be immense. Very likely of the sort she would never live down, Cynster or not.

So back to their plan of making a dash to the Vale and the safety of Richard and Catriona’s household. Breckenridge had removed Fletcher and Cobbins. All she had to do was get free of Martha and she and Breckenridge could be on their way.

Refocusing on her erstwhile “maid,” she discovered Martha clutching her bag of knitting to her ample middle, finishing a last visual survey of the room and inching toward the door.

Turning, Martha reached for the door latch. “I’m getting out of here.”

Heather frowned.

Before she could respond, Martha eased the door open, looked out, then slipped out, leaving the door swinging.

Puzzled, Heather followed, pausing only to close the door after her.

The innkeeper had retreated to the tap; she could hear him regaling his remaining customers with the details of where they’d found the candlesticks—in the bottom of Fletcher’s and Cobbins’s bags in the wardrobe in their room.

Surprisingly silent despite her bulk, Martha tiptoed to the stairs and climbed quickly up.

Still mystified, Heather followed, all the way to the room they’d shared.

Martha dropped her knitting bag on her bed, then crossed to the wardrobe, hauled it open, and pulled out her capacious traveling satchel. Dumping it on the bed, she proceeded to toss Heather’s clothes out of it. “You can have these back. No good to me, to be found with such fripperies.”

Crossing to the other side of the bed, Heather reclaimed her evening gown, her reticule, and the second plain gown they’d given her, gathering them to her. The soft silk of the evening gown felt odd beneath her palms after days of rougher clothing.

Muttering imprecations, Martha dragged her own clothes from the wardrobe and crammed them haphazardly into the satchel. “Thank God I insisted they paid me my wages before we set out on this caper. Knew it sounded too easy to be true.”

Shoving her knitting bag on top of the bundled clothes, then pulling the satchel shut, she paused to look at Heather, still standing, uncomprehendingly, on the other side of the bed. “Don’t know about you—you can stay and meet this laird for all I care—but I’m leaving. Now.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m heading back across the border as fast as I can, for a start, then in Carlisle I’ll get the mail coach to London—tonight’s if possible.” Martha glanced at the door. “The sooner I get shot of this place, and out of Scotland altogether, the better. Before any of that lot downstairs decides to tell those flatfoots that we—you and I, missy—were here with Fletcher and Cobbins.” Martha cinched her satchel closed. “They’ll take us up as accomplices as fast as you can spit.”

“Accomplices?” Heather froze.

“Aye—accomplices.” Martha paused, eyes narrowed, then added in a growl, “And I’m thinking I wouldn’t put it past Fletcher himself to tell the plods that, just to make sure he keeps us close, so he can still give you to this laird when he shows.”

Hefting the satchel off the bed, Martha looked at Heather. “You didn’t screech once, so I’ll tell you this—if I were you, I’d get myself gone from here right quick.” Martha glanced around the room one last time. “As for me, I’m off.”

With that, she barreled toward the open door, paused to peek out around the jamb, then whisked out.

Heather listened to her footsteps fade . . . then she rushed to the door, closed it. Raced to the wardrobe and pulled out the satchel her captors had provided for her “luggage.”

Tossing it on the bed, she rapidly gathered the few clothes she had, both her own and those her captors had provided, the brush and comb they’d given her. She shoved the few articles willy-nilly into the satchel, swiftly did up the buckles. “Where the hell is Breckenridge?”

Swinging the satchel to her shoulder, she swiped up her cloak, swung it around her shoulders, and whirled to face the door—just as it started to open.