Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue (31 page)

The barman set down two pint pots filled to the brim with frothing ale. Breckenridge turned to accept his with a murmured thanks. He sipped, then cast Richard a glance Richard had been waiting for. Breckenridge grinned and wordlessly toasted Richard. “Your secret?”

The ale was ambrosia.

Richard shrugged, swallowed. “I’ve just never seen the need to mention it at the manor, at least in female hearing.”

The barman returned from carrying the fresh pints Richard had sent to the four older men, all of whom called their thanks and toasted Richard before gratefully drinking.

Henry, the barman, pulled out a cloth and industriously wiped the counter. “So what can I help you with, sir?”

“A large man on a big chestnut gelding rode past yesterday afternoon.” Richard turned to include the four older men. “Did any of you get a good look?”

“Better’n that,” Henry said. “Came in here, he did. Stopped for a pint.”

“Aye,” one of the older men said, “and asked after the manor. Wanted to know what lay down the drive.”

Henry nodded. “That’s right. Good looking gentl’man, he was.”

“Taller than me,” Breckenridge said, “and broader, too?”

Henry and the others gauged Breckenridge, who was a touch taller than Richard.

“Aye, that’d be right,” one of the older crew opined. “Handsome, he was, too, but not as handsome as you.”

Breckenridge good-naturedly lifted his pint at the resulting laughter.

“So was he lowland or highland?” Richard asked.

“Highland, definitely, or me mother’s an Englishwoman,” one of the regulars called.

The others all nodded.

“Never seen him ’round here before,” Henry said, “and he did say he was just passing through.”

“Rode on away to the north,” the old man closest to the window offered. “And that horse of his was something to see. Massive in the chest, and strong, I’d warrant.”

“Close to, what did he look like?” Richard asked Henry.

“Black hair—black like yours. Eyes . . .” Henry paused, then shivered. “To tell the truth, if he hadna been such a personable chap, those eyes woulda given me the willies.”

Breckenridge lowered his pot. “How so?”

“Pale they were—put me in mind of the ice that forms on yon burn in winter. Cold and pale, but with something flowing underneath.”

A moment of silence gave due note to Henry’s poetic turn.

“What about his features?” Richard asked.

Henry grimaced, looked to the others. “Pretty much what you’d expect from a laird, I’d say.”

“Aye—clean-cut, well-shaven. His clothes were quality, too. And his boots.”

No matter how they angled their questions, they learned nothing more.

After draining a second pint each, Breckenridge joined Richard in bidding the five men in the tavern farewell, then walked back out into the rear yard.

Both he and Richard halted in the yard, looking up at the sloping field behind the tavern while they pulled on their riding gloves.

“Not much to go on, beyond confirming he’s a laird—they wouldn’t have got that wrong.”

“And his eyes,” Breckenridge said. “Of everything we’ve learned about him, his eyes are the one thing that’s most distinctive. That, combined with his size, combined with his being a laird . . . it might not be enough for us to identify him, but it should be enough to recognize him if he comes after Heather again, or goes after one of the other girls.”

“True.” Richard caught his horse’s reins and swung up to the saddle.

Breckenridge mounted more slowly, juggling possibilities in his mind. Settling in his saddle, he met Richard’s eyes. “There’s an outside possibility that the man who stopped here was simply what he claimed—a highland laird passing by on his way north. He might have simply been curious about us walking ahead of him.”

“But you don’t believe that.” Richard held his skittish black in.

“No.” Breckenridge turned his bay into the alley back to the road. “Because I can’t deny the similarities between the descriptions Heather and I independently wrung from Fletcher and Cobbins, and what we just heard.”

He rode out and back onto the road. Richard ranged alongside and they cantered south, back toward the Vale.

“So how are the wedding plans progressing?” Richard asked, once they were out of the village.

“They aren’t.” Breckenridge heard his clipped tones, heard the irritation beneath. Didn’t care if Richard did, too. “She’s taken some nitwit notion into her head that I don’t need to marry her, that she’s going to go off and manage an orphanage in the country, or some such thing, so her social ruination doesn’t matter.”

“Ah.” Richard nodded sagely. “She’s playing stubborn.”

“
Playing
?” Breckenridge shot him an irate look. “She’s the definition of the word. I’ve already tried talking her around. Twice.”

“I hate to break it to you, old son, but it won’t be your honeyed words that change her mind.”

Breckenridge snorted. “I’ve tried that, too—so far all that’s gained me is . . .”
An even deeper sense of being irrevocably linked to her.

Richard glanced at him curiously. “What?”

Breckenridge pulled a face, growled, “Damned if I know.”

Richard grinned. “Well, whatever it takes, just console yourself with the thought that the end result will be worth it.”

Breckenridge cast Richard a sharp glance, saw the open contentment in his face. Felt compelled to ask, “So what did you have to do?”

Richard’s smile deepened. “The same thing we’ve all had to do—prostrate ourselves at their dainty feet, swear undying love, and mean it.”

Easy for you.
He didn’t say the words, because even as they formed in his head, he knew they were unlikely to be true. Richard was very like him, even down to the true nature of his birth. Richard had been the scandal that had been no scandal; Helena, Richard’s father’s duchess, had claimed him as her own shortly after his birth and his natural mother’s death in childbed—and no one with a brain in their head argued with Helena.

Breckenridge was a bastard, too, but it had been his father who had opened his arms to him and claimed him, also from birth.

Both he and Richard had grown to manhood in the midst of the ton, with all the wealth and privileges pertaining to those who belonged to the upper circles of the nobility. Yet he suspected that Richard, just like him, had always carried a question buried in the deepest recesses of his brain. A question that had to do with rightful place.

In Richard’s case, he’d had to find one, and he’d patently succeeded here in the Vale. It couldn’t have been easy; even though he’d spent less than a day on the estate, Breckenridge had sensed that it was Catriona who stood at the heart of the place, yet Richard had carved his own place, and had clearly earned it, by her side.

For himself . . . Breckenridge’s question was slightly different. He had a place waiting for him—his father’s shoes. When his father died, he would become the Earl of Brunswick. Even though he already performed many of the duties, did much of the day-to-day work managing the estate, he still wondered if he would measure up when the time came.

For some reason, he knew that if he had Heather by his side, he would.

That if she were there, blithely expecting him to be all he could be, then he would be everything he needed to be, and, possibly, more.

Cantering beside Richard, Breckenridge turned into the Vale drive and rode steadily toward the manor; in the peace and the quiet, broken only by the tattoo of their horses’ hooves, he tried to analyze why he was so convinced he needed her, and only her, to succeed in his future life . . . in the end, decided he had no clue.

But perhaps Richard was right.

Breckenridge had more at stake than Heather knew, than he could ever let her know, but perhaps making some concessions, revealing enough to engage her curiosity and, ultimately, her interest, would serve.

That, and taking a more aggressive, more commanding line in the liaison she apparently imagined he was going to allow to end.

B
reckenridge next met Heather at the luncheon table. The seat beside her was empty; he claimed it, but Richard and Catriona’s older children—their first set of twins, Lucilla and Marcus—had joined the company about the high table and had selected the chairs opposite.

He quickly realized that the eight-year-old twins were determined to do what they saw as their social duty and keep the conversational ball rolling.

The topics they chose ranged from gentlemen’s hair styles—comparing Richard’s with his—to comments about the source of the lamb roast, identified by name, and Algaria’s dandelion wine, to speculation over whether they would have cause to visit London soon.

The pair cheerily discussed the latter at length, all with wide-eyed, innocent curiosity, which fooled him and Heather not at all.

He and she exchanged a glance, then both set themselves to divert attention to any other topic but the one that, transparently, was uppermost in every mind.

A brief glance over the hall confirmed that virtually everyone was living in eager expectation of hearing an engagement announced at any moment. Although the observation only fueled his frustration, the underlying irritation over not yet having secured her agreement to a wedding, in the circumstances, he kept his lips shut.

He did consider using nonverbal means to pursue his objective, but aside from them being too closely watched, he couldn’t, he realized, predict how Heather would react. With any other lady with whom he was engaged in a liaison, he wouldn’t have hesitated, but not with her, not least because his goal wasn’t simply to continue said liaison.

He’d never before wooed a woman. For one of his expertise, the realization that wooing wasn’t as easy as seducing was unsettling.

When the platters were empty and all were satisfyingly replete—and Algaria summoned the terrible twins to their afternoon lessons and shooed them before her from the hall—he reached out and, under the table, tugged Heather’s sleeve. Leaned nearer as she turned to him, captured her gaze and murmured, “We need to talk.”

She studied his eyes for a moment, then nodded. “All right.”

He eased back, considered. “Do you know somewhere we can talk without being interrupted or overheard—and preferably not seen?”

She grimaced. “Not being visible from the house isn’t easy, but if we go into the herb garden we’ll be far enough away. No one will be able to eavesdrop or easily approach, or to see our faces.”

He nodded, rose, and drew back her chair.

She led the way out of the emptying hall; ignoring the questioning glance Richard sent him, as well as Catriona’s serene regard, he strolled in her wake.

The herb garden was, perhaps predictably, large; it filled the wide swath of downward-sloping land that separated the manor’s walls from the banks of the small river. In the irregularly shaped beds, some specimens had only recently shaken free of winter’s hold and were tentatively unfurling green buds, while other plants were bursting forth with new foliage in bountiful profusion. At the bottom of the slope the river rushed along in full spate, gurgling over rocks, splashing against boulders embedded in the banks. The sound was happy, cheery, strangely soothing.

Hands in his pockets, he followed at Heather’s heels further, lower, into the thickly, richly, informally planted garden. Birdsong became drowned by the drone of bees flitting through the lavenders and the many and various other blooms he couldn’t name. The sun was high, its beaming warmth washing over the plants; the tapestry of scents that rose to wreathe around them was enough to make him giddy.

Heather led him toward the river, to a small indentation in the lower side of one bed, a curve carved into the rising bank and walled with stone. Within the curve, more blocks had been laid to create a bench. Walking to one end, with a swish of her skirts, she sat. He halted. When, looking up, she arched a brow at him, he inwardly shrugged and sat alongside her.

The sun shone, a gentle benediction, upon them; the warmed rock surrounding them cocooned them, the fine mist thrown up by the rushing river an occasional refreshing caress.

“Good choice.” Leaning back, he rested his shoulders against the wall’s upper edge and fixed his gaze on her face. Her profile was all he could see. “We need to settle this—and no, don’t tell me it’s already settled, because it’s not.” He paused, making a determined effort to if not eradicate the terse accents from his voice, then at least mute them.

Eyes closed, she tipped up her face in sensual appreciation of the sunshine. “You’ll see it my way soon enough—just give yourself time.”

Not gritting his teeth took effort. “I won’t change my mind, and contrary to your assumption, we don’t have unlimited time. For all we know, your parents might already be on their way—we need to have an agreed position before they arrive.”

At the mention of her parents, Heather turned to stare at him. Then she frowned. “I wrote and told them that I’m perfectly well, and that there’s no need for them to come all this way.”

“That may not convince them, but regardless, we need to discuss, sensibly, rationally, the prospect of a marriage between us. You may have formed an attachment to an imagined future without a wedding ring, but realistically, in our world, that isn’t an option, not for you.”

So Catriona had informed her. The weight of the rose quartz pendant against her skin reminded her of what else Catriona had said; she wasn’t therefore averse to further discussing the subject of a potential union. She faced forward. “Very well—why don’t you make your case?” And perhaps if she listened and closely observed, she might get some hint of what, beneath the words, behind his so often impassive mask, was really going on inside him. “Your case beyond the obvious social imperatives, that is.”

“Difficult given my case is based on the obvious social imperatives.”

“Nevertheless, you might at least
try
to find a broader foundation.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw him look up as if imploring divine aid—or perhaps more prosaically asking
why me?
—and had to hide a smile.