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.
Searching for distraction, he looked around.
“Get down.” His hand on her back, he pressed her down into a low crouch. Hunkering down beside her, he looked into her startled face. “Riders on the road.” They were walking parallel to the road to Annan, but a good two hundred yards to the south, using hedges and coppices to screen them from roadbound travelers.
After a moment, he grimaced. “Stay down.”
Leaving his hand on her back to ensure she did, he swiveled and raised his head. Looked, then relaxed a trifle. “They didn’t see us. They’re riding steadily on.”
She straightened her back. “Constables?”
Removing his hand, he nodded, looked again, then rose and gave her his hand. Gripping her fingers, he drew her to her feet.
She straightened, sighed, and looked down. “My evening slippers aren’t holding up too well.”
When he looked down, she slipped her fingers from his and lifted her hems enough for him to see the poor, bedraggled excuse for footwear she had protecting her small feet.
He bit back the curse that leapt to his lips. “Holes?”
“Not so much holes as they’re not waterproof. They aren’t designed for hiking through soggy fields.”
He hadn’t thought. . and clearly neither had Fletcher, Cobbins, or Martha. He looked ahead. “We’ll have to get you proper walking shoes. Perhaps in Annan.”
She started walking again. “They’re all right, at least for the moment.”
Falling in beside her, he let the subject lie and put his mind to considering the more immediate details of their flight. He — they — had planned on driving to Richard and Catriona’s estate, but now. .
It was some time later — two miles or so later — when she spoke again. “It’s a pity we can’t slip back toward Gretna. I was hoping to hide somewhere close — close enough to get a glimpse of this mysterious laird when he arrives.”
He grunted. “I’d flirted with the notion myself, but with the authorities as well as him looking for you, it’s too dangerous.” He glanced at her, then added, “I scouted around, looking for cover, but there wasn’t anywhere we could have hidden and in safety watched the inn.”
Heather met his eyes briefly, then nodded and marched on. She was starting to accept that he wasn’t as arrogantly high-handed as she’d always thought — witness his scouting, trying to find a way to give her what she’d wanted even though he himself had never been that keen, never convinced that a glimpse would be worth the effort. He was probably right, yet he’d tried to find a way to accommodate her wishes.
Despite not getting what she’d wanted, the knowledge made her feel more content.
They walked into a sunset muted by churning clouds. Before the encroaching darkness deepened, Breckenridge paused to check the map.
“We should be nearly at Dornock.” He looked ahead, squinted. “I can see roofs ahead — that must be the village.”
“We can’t just walk up and ask for shelter, can we?” She’d thought through the ramifications. “Those riders would have stopped and warned the villagers about us — about me, at least.”
He grunted an assent. He surveyed the still largely flat fields, then touched her arm, pointed a little way further south. “There’s a barn there, close enough to reach before the light fails. Let’s see what it’s like.”
She didn’t reply, merely started walking.
Tucked in one corner of a field, isolated and at least three fields from the nearest farmhouse, the barn proved sound and filled with hay. Much of it was loose, and the fragrance that surrounded them when they climbed to the loft was redolent with the memory of summer.
Breckenridge looked around. “We’ll be warm enough up here, and safe enough.” He glanced down at the ladder they’d climbed up. “The ladder isn’t fixed — I’ll pull it up for the night.”
So she’d feel safe. Heather hid a grin; for a man whose expression she could still rarely read, he was becoming quite predictable in some ways.
Setting down her satchel, she slipped off her cloak, flicked it out, and spread it over a wide, deep pile of hay, then turned and sat, wriggling her hips to create a comfortable hollow. Reaching down, she eased off her poor slippers, studied them in the fading light. “I don’t suppose we can risk a fire.”
Looking up, she met Breckenridge’s shadowed eyes.
After a moment, he shook his head. “No. Too risky.”
But he’d thought of it. She nodded and set the slippers aside, used her cloak to rub her feet dry, then stretched out her toes, flexed her ankles, and reached beneath her skirts to massage her calves.
He cleared his throat. “We haven’t any food, either.”
She glanced up, faintly smiled. “I don’t think going without food for one night is going to hurt either of us.”
He held her gaze, after a moment said, “You’re being very accommodating. I was expecting something rather closer to hysterics.”
She snorted. “And what good would they do?” She raised a shoulder. “We’re in this together, and doing the best we can. I don’t expect you to perform miracles.” Lying back on her makeshift pallet, she looked up at him. “And as long as you don’t expect miracles from me, I daresay we’ll manage well enough.”
He stared at her, his expression, as usual, impenetrable. Of all the men she’d ever met, he kept his features under the most rigid control. Then he shrugged off the satchels he’d carried, set them near hers, and turned back toward the ladder. “I’m going to check around the building. I won’t go far, and I won’t be long.”
Heather lay back, let her muscles relax, and tracked him by sound. He moved around within the barn, then went outside.
While she waited, she held onto a mental vision of him — imagined him walking around the structure, assessing it. Her brothers, her cousins, were protective men; she was accustomed to the foibles of the species. Breckenridge, however, although every bit as protective, if not more so, hid it better. She considered, then murmured, “No, that’s not right.” He didn’t so much hide his proclivities as mute them, negotiate around them. Make them seem reasonable and sensible and justifiable.
His was a more subtle, but also more effective, approach.
If he’d been one of her brothers, or even one of her cousins, she’d have felt smothered by now — and she’d have been sniping and resisting his orders and restrictions for all she was worth, on principle if nothing else. But because he was reasonable and listened — or at least seemed to listen — to her wishes, then she could be reasonable, too.
Given her previous view of him, that she’d come to the point of regarding him as “reasonable” struck her as exquisitely ironic.
By the time he returned, darkness had fallen, but the moon was half full, shedding sufficient light to make out shapes even inside the barn. When he reached the top of the ladder, she slid her feet back into her slippers, stood, and shook out her skirts. “I need to go outside. I won’t go far, and I won’t be long.”
He froze. She smiled sunnily at him, even if he probably couldn’t see well enough to appreciate the effect. She’d given him back his own words. She’d trusted him, now he had to trust her.
With obvious reluctance, he shifted, allowing her to reach the head of the ladder. “It’s dark.”
“I’ll be careful.” She started down the ladder, then glanced up at him. “Just stay there.”
Reaching the ground, she walked to the barn door, lit by light slanting down through a window high in one side wall. Pulling open the door, she glanced out, then slipped around the corner of the barn to attend to the call of nature.
