Chapter Five
Heather had spent a restless night. She’d risen before dawn and had stood at the window, looking east over the inn’s rear yard. As the sky had softened to a pearly gray streaked with faint streamers of gold and pink, she’d seen Breckenridge come out, get into his curricle, and, with a flourish of his whip, drive away.
Several hours later, she climbed back into the coach in no good mood. As they rumbled out of Barnard Castle, she looked out of the window and acknowledged a trepidatious uncertainty that they might turn north along some other road, and Breckenridge would miss their trail. She couldn’t discount the possibility, but, determined not to let it unnerve her more than it already had, she shoved it to the back of her mind and concentrated instead on what more she might learn about her captors’ employer — the mysterious laird. Reviewing Fletcher’s answers of the day before, she sensed that she was nearing the limit of his knowledge regarding the man. Recalling Breckenridge’s question, she considered, then fixed Fletcher — once again sitting opposite — with a direct look.
She openly studied him, until, shifting under her gaze, he arched a grumpy brow.
“What?”
“I was just wondering. . I presume we’re heading over the border, that the place we’re to meet this laird will be in Scotland. You said you’d met him in Glasgow. Although I’ve been to Edinburgh, I’ve never been to Glasgow before — what’s it like?”
Fletcher shrugged. “Much like any other city with a big port.” He considered, then said, “More like London — no, more like Liverpool, I’d say.”
“I take it you live there.”
“On and off.” Fletcher met her gaze, then smiled knowingly. “We’ve moved about over the years, going wherever business was best. We’ve been quartered in Glasgow for the last several years, but I’m thinking, once we hand you over, it might be time to relocate.”
As if his plans were of no interest to her, which they weren’t, Heather shrugged and looked out of the window again. She had the answer Breckenridge had wanted, but she’d have to wait until she saw him again to understand its portent.
Cobbins sat forward and drew her attention to a castle on a nearby hill.
She looked, and exchanged observations on the structure with Cobbins and Martha. Sitting back again, she felt rather more confident that they’d interpreted Cobbins’s comments of the day before correctly. They were currently on the road to Penrith — the one with several castles and Roman forts flanking it.
What else could she ask? What else might she learn?
Fletcher responded better to short bursts of questions, and to tangential approaches. Yet no matter how she wracked her brains, she couldn’t think of any other way to ask, “Where are we to meet this laird? I can’t see why you won’t tell me.”
“Well, now.” Fletcher exchanged a glance with Martha, one heavy with some unspoken communication.
From the corner of her eye, Heather saw Martha shake her head.
Fletcher shifted his gaze to Heather. “No need for you to know that I can see. You’ll find out when we get there.”
“But—”
She pushed, pressed, badgered, and pestered, all to no avail. From Fletcher’s thin-lipped smile, she got the distinct impression they were playing with her.
Finding Fletcher immovable, she appealed to Martha. “Surely you understand — knowing would help.”
Martha snorted. She resettled her voluminous cloak, then folded her arms and shut her eyes. “No point in carrying on so. You’ll learn where we’re taking you soon enough. No reason for you to know ahead of time — it won’t make any difference to you.”
Martha lapsed into silence. When Heather turned her gaze back to Fletcher, she discovered he, too, had closed his eyes.
With every appearance of high dudgeon, she slumped back against the seat, crossed her arms, and settled in her corner.
Cobbins still had his eyes open, idly watching over her. The trio had, she realized, been unobtrusively vigilant; one or more of them was always watching against her escaping, even in moments like this. Only when they believed she was secured, either because she was hemmed in by them at some table, or shut in a room with Martha during the night with no outer clothing to hand, did they take their eyes off her.
They rolled past another two castles, which Cobbins took pains to point out. A few miles later, she saw a sign declaring Penrith to be seven miles on. Relief flooded her, easing some of her building tension. If they were going through Penrith, and intended to take her over the border into Scotland, then they were certain to pass through Carlisle, where Breckenridge would be waiting.
She’d definitely changed how she viewed her “nemesis.” Indeed, she doubted she’d ever think of him as that again. To her mind, he now represented safety, security, and regardless of all else he might be, she knew he was a man she could rely on.
Confidence of a sort returned, buoying her.
With nothing else to do, she reviewed all she knew about the lands over the border. It was already late morning, nearing noon. Traveling at this rate, they had to be planning to halt for the night somewhere not too far over the border; there was no chance they could reach Glasgow that day.
That much she knew, but not much else. On all her previous journeys into Scotland she’d veered west soon after Carlisle, turning off the highway at Gretna onto the road to Dumfries and so on to New Galloway, and from there north to the Vale of Casphairn, Richard and Catriona’s home. She knew those roads, those towns, that landscape, but beyond that, and Edinburgh, which she’d visited once with Richard and Catriona, Scotland remained a mist-shrouded, mizzle-veiled, damp and cold unknown.
In the circumstances, the prospect of seeing Glasgow, or even traveling further north into the highlands, didn’t fill her with eager excitement.
Meeting with a mysterious laird who had arranged to have her kidnapped was, she felt, something she truly didn’t need to do.
Learning who he was would be quite sufficient.
The coach rolled into Penrith, turned north onto the main highway toward Carlisle, and rattled on.
She was feeling faintly light-headed, definitely in need of sustenance, when, after several more ponderous miles, the coach rolled into the village of Plumpton Wall and, at last, slowed. The coachman turned into the yard of a small inn and halted his horses.
Descending into the cool sunshine, Heather drew in a deep breath, then glanced around. Martha appeared by her shoulder and urged her on, into the inn. As Heather climbed the shallow steps and followed Fletcher into a tiny taproom, she thought back over their halts, inwardly acknowledging how quietly careful her captors had been.
Believing her to be too lacking in resolution and too inhibited by their well-thought-out charade to attempt any scene in public, they’d treated her reasonably, yet they hadn’t taken any chances, either. Everywhere they’d stopped — Knebworth, Stretton, Carlton-on-Trent, Bramham, Barnard Castle, and now Plumpton Wall — had been either a very small town or an out-of-the-way place, the sort where it had been highly unlikely they would have encountered anyone who would have known her well enough to have recognized her. That was the only real weakness in their plan, and they’d taken steps to reduce the threat.
In reality, with the ton busy in London with the Season just commencing, the risk of a chance encounter with anyone she knew was as near to nonexistent as made no odds.
She preserved a tight-lipped silence while they ate; she saw no reason to even try to extract more information, at least not at present.
When, an hour later, she climbed back into the coach and sat in her usual corner, she was conscious of a sharpening edge of tension, of trepidatious expectation welling once more. She waited until they were back on the road, rolling steadily north, then reassessed her captors, only to realize that her sharpening anticipation was merely a reflection of theirs.
Fletcher was no longer slouching, but sitting upright and alert, his gaze trained mostly outside, a frown on his face, as if he were calculating. Cobbins sat with his hands on his thighs, eyes staring across the carriage, but,
