He held the door ajar and from the gloom within the cloakroom watched her slip wraithlike up the stairs.
And wondered why he hadn’t kissed her.
She wouldn’t have objected. She might have been a touch flustered, but. . he would, at last, have learned what she tasted like — a question that had haunted him for the last four years.
They were, after all, destined to marry. After this little escapade, there was no other choice, not for either of them.
But if he’d kissed her. . she would have known he’d been thinking along the same lines as she, which was something she didn’t at that moment know. He felt certain that to that point she’d gained no inkling of his true view of her. And if they were indeed to marry. .
She was a Cynster to her toes. Much better she never knew just how deep his fascination with her ran. Just how persistent and intense — intensely irritating — that fascination had proved to be. Just how impossible to eradicate.
He’d tried. Hundreds of times.
No other female had ever been able to supplant her in his mind. At the core of his desires, at the heart of his passions.
And that was definitely something she never needed to know.
So. . no kisses. Not yet. Not until she’d realized that their wedding was a foregone conclusion. Him initiating a kiss then wouldn’t be so revealing.
Something within him bucked at the restraint, but he’d long ago learned to keep desire and passion on a very tight leash. No unintended revelations for him.
She had to have reached the room she shared with Martha. He moved out of the shadows, silently climbed the stairs, and headed for his bed.
“You can’t be serious?” Heather stood in the middle of the inn’s front hall and stared at Fletcher. “I stayed in that room all day yesterday, and you want me to sit quietly and stare at Martha knitting for another whole day?”
Jaw set, Fletcher nodded. “And tomorrow, too. Until the laird comes for you, I want you under Martha’s eye at all times. Safer for you, anyway.”
Heather narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ll sit quietly after I’ve had a brief walk — just up the lane and back.”
“No.” Fletcher shifted closer, trying to intimidate.
Martha and Cobbins looked on, neither much interested, both simply waiting on an outcome of which they had no doubt.
The four of them and Breckenridge had been the only guests down for breakfast that morning; Breckenridge had just ambled into the tap and was currently out of sight. The innkeeper was busy elsewhere; there was no one about to hear their argument.
Glowering down at her, Fletcher raised an arm and pointed to the parlor door. “You are going to walk in there and remain in there for the rest of the day, until dinnertime. If you need exercise, you can pace in there. If you need distraction, you can look out of the window, or help Martha count her stitches for all I care.”
Heather opened her mouth.
Fletcher pointed at her nose. “You know our story. If you push me, I swear I’ll use it to tie you up and gag you, and sit you in there with Martha.”
She frowned, not just at Fletcher but at the realization that although she ought to be at least wary of him, if not outright afraid, she wasn’t — simply wasn’t. In her mind he featured merely as a hurdle to be overcome — a source of information to be milked, then left behind when she escaped. With Breckenridge.
Was it because he was close that she didn’t fear Fletcher?
Regardless, it didn’t take much cogitation to see she had no real option at that time. “Oh, very well!” She swung on her heel, marched to the parlor door, shoved it open, and sailed through — reluctantly refraining from slamming the door because Martha would be following.
Sweeping to the window, Heather crossed her arms and stared out at the new day. Spring had already arrived in London, but here it was struggling to break winter’s hold. Other than the conifers, all the trees were still bare. The morning was still chill, the wind still a touch raw, but the clouds had thinned and the drizzle had ceased, and somewhere high above the sun was trying to shine through.
Behind her, the parlor door closed. She heard Martha’s large bulk ease down into the armchair.
Eyes fixed outside, Heather humphed. “The lane’s still muddy, but the verge is drying nicely. It would be perfectly possible to go for a stroll. Perhaps after lunch.”
“Forget it,” Martha advised. “You heard him. No going outside.”
“But why?” Swinging around, Heather spread her arms. “What does he think I’ll do — escape into the wilderness? If I was going to escape, I’d have tried that first night.” She let her shoulders slump. “I’m a young lady of the ton — I can play the pianoforte and waltz with the best of them, but escaping isn’t something I have the vaguest notion how to do!”
Martha eyed her, not without sympathy. After a moment, she said, “Humor him for today. I’ll have a word with him tonight, or perhaps tomorrow morning. If it’s fine, perhaps he’ll let you have your walk then, but mind, I’m making no promises.”
Heather met Martha’s gaze. She felt compelled to incline her head in acceptance of the olive branch. “Thank you.”
Turning back to the window, she grimaced. That still left her with an entire day to waste, with nothing much more she could gain from it. She’d already questioned Martha; she doubted there was any more to learn from her “maid,” and further probing might instead raise suspicions in Martha’s quite sharp mind.
If there was nothing more she could learn, nothing else she could do. .
The thought that had been haunting her — that had followed her into her dreams last night and been in her mind when she’d awoken that morning — flared again. Last night, in the cloakroom, she’d almost kissed Breckenridge. It hadn’t been an accident, a mistake — she’d known exactly who he was the whole time. But she’d wanted to kiss him, would have, would have welcomed his kiss if he’d been so inclined. If he’d given the slightest sign of welcoming her advance, she would have stretched up and touched her lips to his.
The only thing that had stopped her — that had stopped the kiss from happening — was that she hadn’t been able to read his face, his expression. Hadn’t been able to see his eyes.
She’d searched, but there’d been nothing to tell her what he thought — whether he felt any attraction toward her at all, let alone something similar to what she felt for him. It was, she thought, a latent sensual curiosity — something the enforced closeness of their adventure had caused to grow from their previously strained and prickly interaction. Regardless, she’d definitely wanted to kiss him last night, and would have if she hadn’t suddenly been assailed not by missish sensibility, let alone modesty, but by the horrible thought that he might not want to kiss her.
Which led her back to her persistent fear, nay, entrenched belief, that he saw her as little more than a schoolgirl. A girl child. A female so young and inexperienced that a man of his ilk could never see her as a woman, let alone ever stoop to taking advantage of her.
Much less anything else, any consensual liaison.
Arms tightly folded, frowning unseeing out at the trees, she had to admit her attitude toward him had changed over the last days. Changed. . or perhaps clarified. Previously she would have been more likely to use her lips to berate him than kiss him, but now. .
The thought of kissing him — just seizing the moment and doing it, and getting the madness out of her system and satisfying her curiosity — was rapidly becoming an obsession.
An obsession that, for the next hours, she could do nothing about.
She humphed, inwardly pushed the subject aside.
Determinedly focusing on the trees outside, she turned her mind to the only other thing she might accomplish — evaluating ways in which she and Breckenridge could escape, but then keep watch on the inn and get a look at the mysterious laird when he arrived, sufficient to identify him.
Breckenridge spent the morning outside the inn, taking advantage of the brighter weather to avoid Fletcher and Cobbins, the better to ensure they didn’t suspect him of taking too great an interest
