His first stop was the local branch of Child's Bank; once he replenished his supply of cash, he followed the bank manager's directions to the town's premier bootmaker, and was lucky enough to find an excellent pair of riding boots that fit him. His next stop was the best gentleman's outfitters, where he created a small furore by demanding they assemble for him outfits suitable for a groom and for a north country laborer.
The head tailor goggled at him and the assistants simply stared; holding onto his temper, he brusquely explained that the outfits were for a country house party where fancy dress was required.
Then they fell to with appropriate zeal.
It still took longer than he would have liked. The tailor fussed with the fitting until Breckenridge declared, "Damn it, man! There's no prize for being the most perfectly dressed groom in the north!"
The tailor jumped. Pins cascaded from between his lips and scattered on the ground. His assistants rushed in to gather them up.
The tailor swallowed. "No, of course not, sir. If Sir will remain still, I will endeavor to remove the pins...although really, such shoulders...well, I would have thought..."
"Never mind about showing off my damned shoulders-just make sure I have room to move.
I'd expected," Martha continued, "to have to deal with hysterics-bouts of weeping and pleading at the very least."
"Yes,well..." Heather pulled an expressive face. Looking ahead, she went on, "I have to admit I did feel like panicking at first, but...I've been wondering if I shouldn't view this as an adventure." She had to deflect any suspicion, so offered the one explanation that might serve. She gestured dramatically. "A romantical adventure, complete with mysterious villain, who might or might not prove to be devastatingly handsome."
Martha snorted. "So that's the way it is-you're romanticizing this blackguard who's arranged your kidnapping."
"Do you actually know if he's a blackguard?" Heather didn't have to manufacture her concern.
Martha grimaced. "I can't rightly say. I haven't had anything to do with the beggar. Fletcher and Cobbins were the ones that met him. But," she continued, "any blighter who arranges a kidnapping, and one as coolly planned as this, take it from me, handsome or not, you won't want to meet him." Martha glanced at her again. "Sure you won't want to rethink those hysterics?"
Heather arched her brows. "Will they get me any further?"
"Not with me-and Fletcher's more like to slap you than come over all solicitous."
"Well,then." Heather tipped up her face. "I believe I'll just go on romanticizing, at least until I have cause not to. You should be grateful-I'm making your task much easier.
And every mile we go further from London makes the notion of ransom even more unlikely. So we're still no closer to learning what's behind this-neither the who for the why of it." She waited until he swung around again and caught his eye. "I believe we need to consider the wider implications."
His lips twitched-she was almost certain of it-but he didn't stop pacing. "Meanwhile you want to continue on with this"-he gestured-"quest of yours."
She tipped up her head. "Of course. I'm here, already kidnapped, but they've provided me with a maid and are under strict orders to see to my health and safety, orders they're clearly committed to obeying. On top of that"-she waved at him-"you're here. If you continue to follow our party, when it comes to the point where escaping becomes necessary, I'll be able to do so and hide behind you. God knows, you're large enough."
He quirked a black brow.
They'd followed him up and had seen him open the door of a room not far from the head of the stairs. He hadn't so much as glanced their way but had gone in and shut the door. She'd walked on with Martha, past that door, down the corridor and around a corner to their chamber.
Drawing in a tight-faintly excited-breath, she set out, quietly creeping back to the corner, her evening slippers allowing her to tiptoe along with barely a sound.
Nearing the corner, she paused and glanced back along the corridor. Still empty. Reassured, she started to turn, intending to peek around the corner-
A hard body swung around the corner and plowed into her.
She stumbled back. Hard hands grabbed her, holding her upright.
Her heart leapt to her throat. She looked up,saw only darkness.
She opened her mouth-
A palm slapped over her lips. A steely arm locked around her-locked her against a large, adamantine male body; she couldn't even squirm.
Her senses scrambled. Strength, male heat, muscled hardness engulfed her.
Then a virulent curse singed her ears.
And she realized who'd captured her.
Panic and sheer fright had tensed her every muscle; relief washed both away and she felt limp. The temptation to sag in his arms, to sink gratefully against him, was so nearly overwhelming that it shocked her into tensing again.
He lowered his head so he could look into her face. Through clenched teeth, he hissed, "What the hell are you doing?"
His tone very effectively dragged her wits to the fore. He hadn't removed his hand from her lips. She nipped it.
With a muted oath, he pulled the hand away.
She moistened her lips and angrily whispered back, "Coming to see you, of course. What are you doing here?"
"Coming to fetch you-of course."
"You ridiculous man." Her hands had come to rest on his chest. She snatched them back, waved them. "I'm hardly likely to come to grief over the space of a few yards!"
Even to her ears they sounded like squabbling children.
He didn't reply.
Through the dark, he looked at her.
She couldn't see his eyes, but his gaze was so intent, so intense that she could feel...
her heart started thudding, beating heavier, deeper.
Her senses expanded, alert in a wholly unfamiliar way.
he looked at her...looked at her.
Primitive instinct riffled the delicate hairs at her nape.
Abruptly he raised his head, straightened, stepped back. "Come on."
Grabbing her elbow, he bundled her unceremoniously around the corner and on up the corridor before him. Her temper-always close to the surface when he was near-started to simmer. If they hadn't needed to be quiet, she would have told him what she thought of such cavalier treatment.
Breckenridge halted her outside the door to his bedchamber; he would have preferred any other meeting place, but there was no safer place, and regardless of all and everything else, he needed to keep her safe. Reaching around her, he raised the latch and set the door swinging. "In here."
He'd left the lamp burning low. As he followed her in, then reached back and shut the door, he took in what she was wearing. He bit back another curse.
She glanced around, but there was nowhere to sit but on the bed. Quickly he strode past her, stripped off the coverlet, then autocratically pointed at the sheet. "Sit there."
With a narrow-eyed glare, she did, with the haughty grace of a reigning monarch.
Immediately she'd sat, he flicked out the coverlet and swathed her in it.
She cast him a faintly puzzled glance but obligingly held the enveloping drape close about her.
He said nothing; if she wanted to think he was concerned about her catching a chill, so be it. At least the coverlet was long enough to screen her distracting angles and calves.
Which really was ridiculous. Considering how many naked women he'd seen in his life, why the sight of her stockinged ankles and calves should so affect him was beyond his ability to explain.
Come on-I'll see you back to your room and the estimable Martha."
She put her hand in his and let him draw her to her feet.
"Tomorrow...don't worry," he murmured, as he ushered her back through the darker side of the snug. "I'll be waiting in Carlisle to fall in behind the coach when you go past." Through the dimness he met her eyes. "I won't lose you."
Her lips softly curved. "I didn't imagine you would.
I'm going to have a nice little nap in this sun. Don't think to wander off-I'll know if you move. A very light sleeper, I am."
Heather stared, speechless, at the woman who slept so soundly every night that she'd never heard Heather slip out of their room, or back in. Heather managed not to shake her head in disbelief, just in case Martha was watching through her lashes.
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.
He collapsed half on top of her, too wrung out to move, his lungs working like bellows, his heart thundering, pounding.
Gradually, it slowed. Sensation, muted awareness returned, enough to register the gentle stroking of her hand, the soothing touch calming, strangely claiming.
He wanted to find his sophisticated armor and put it back on-before he faced her, before she saw...
Before he could move, she did; turning her head to his, pushing back the damp hair from the side of his face, she touched her lips to his jaw, then, her lips curving sleepily, touched those swollen lips to the corner of his.
"Thank you." The words were a sigh, the softest of feminine exhalations. "That was...thrilling. And...so very fine."
He nearly humphed. Fine? The intensity had damned hear killed him, and she labeled the moment "fine?"
She fell back, fully relaxed on her back in the bed.
After a moment, he turned his head and looked at her. Studied the madonnalike expression that had claimed her face, the bliss that infused her features.
He filled his lungs, then managed to summon sufficient strength to disengage and lift from her. Slumping on his back alongside her, he stared up at the ceiling, but there were no hints or clues written there.
For the first time in his extensive career, he didn't feel, even now, in control. He felt...exposed. Uncertain. Not his usual polished, urbane, somewhat boredly smug self.
Yet he was the one who was supposedly used to this, accustomed to all the nuances. Who knew all the appropriate moves to make, and when to make them.
She...he glanced at her again, at her face.
Hesitated, then gave into impulse and reached for her. Drawing her to him, he pulled the covers over them, then settled her against them, cradled within his arm, her head pillowed on his chest.
She made a humming sound, then her limbs eased against him.
He dipped his head, placed a kiss on her forehead. "Sleep."
He felt her lips curve, but she didn't reply.
Instead she slid her hand up, curling her fingers against the side of his throat, and relaxed into his arms.
Inexplicably satisfied now as well as sated, he closed his eyes. And found slumber waiting, dreamless and deep.
Through the dimness she could just make him out, stretched on his back, his arms crossed behind his head. He might have been silent, but he hadn't been asleep. She could feel his frown as he looked at her.
"What are you doing?"
"Moving closer to you." Dropping her gowns, she shook out her cloak and laid it next to his.
"Why?"
"Mice."
He let a heartbeat pass, then asked, carefully, "You're afraid of mice?"
She nodded. "Rodents. I don't discriminate." Swinging around, she sat on her cloak, then picked up her gowns and wriggled back and closer to him. "If I'm next to you, then either they'll give us both a wide berth, or if they decide to take a nibble, there's at least an even chance they'll nibble you first."
His chest shook. He was struggling not to laugh. But at least he was trying.
"Besides," she said, lying down and snuggling under her massed gowns, "I'm cold."
A moment ticked past, then he sighed.
He shifted in the hay beside her. She didn't know what he did, but suddenly she was sliding the last inches down a slope that hadn't been there before. She fetched up against him, against his side-hard, muscled, and wonderfully warm.
Her senses leapt greedily, pleasantly shocked, delightedly surprised; she caught her breath and slapped them down. Desperately; this was Breckenridge-this was definitely not the time.
His arm shifted and came around her, cradling her shoulders and gathering her against him.
"This doesn't mean anything." The whispered words drifted down to her.
Comfort, safety, warmth-it meant all those things.
"I know," she murmured back. Her senses weren't listening. Her body now lay alongside his. Her breast brushed his side; through various layers her thighs grazed his. Her heartbeat deepened, sped up a little, too. Yet despite the sensual awareness, she could feel reassurance along with his warmth stealing through her, relaxing her tensed muscles bit by bit as, greatly daring, she settled her cheek on his chest.
This doesn't mean anything. She knew what he meant. This was just for now, for this strange moment out of their usual lives in which he and she were just two people finding ways to weather a difficult situation.
She quieted. Listened.
The sound of his heartbeat, steady and sure, blocked out any rustlings.
Thinking of the strange moment, of what made it so, she murmured, "We're fugitives, aren't we?"
"Yes."
"In a strange country, one not really our own, with no way to prove who we are."
"Yes."
"And a stranger, a very likely dangerous highlander, is pursuing us."
"Hmm."
She should feel frightened. She should be seriously worried. Instead, she closed her eyes, and with her cheek pillowed on Breckenridge's chest, his arm like warm steel around her, smoothly and serenely fell asleep.
Breckenridge held her against him, and through senses far more attuned than he wished, followed the incremental falling away of her tension...until she slept.
Softly, silently, in his arms, with the gentle huff of her breathing ruffling his senses, the seductive weight of her slender body stretched out against his the subtlest of tortures.
Why had he done it? She might have slept close to him, but she would never have pushed to sleep in his arms. That had been entirely his doing, and he hadn't even stopped to think.
What worried him most was that even if he had thought, had reasoned and debated, the result would have been the same.
When it came to her, whatever the situation, there never was any question, no doubt in his mind as to what he should do.
Her protection, her safety-caring for her. From the first instant he'd laid eyes on her four years ago, that had been his mind's fixation. Its decision. Nothing he'd done, nothing she'd done, had ever succeeded in altering that.
But as to the why of that, the reason behind it...even now he didn't, was quite certain and absolutely sure he didn't, need to consciously know.
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 have to do-prostrate ourselves at their dainty feet, swear undying love, and mean it.
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