Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue

She walked back inside five minutes later, only to find him waiting just inside the door. She narrowed her eyes at him, but he didn’t meet her gaze, simply pulled the door closed, then lifted a heavy beam and angled it across the opening.

“If anyone tries to come in, they’ll have to shift that — we’ll hear them.”

She humphed and walked toward the ladder, wondering if he’d thought of the beam before or after he’d followed her down to the ground.

He trailed close behind her, claimed her hand, and helped her onto the ladder. She climbed up, careful not to get her feet tangled in her skirts. Once she stepped free, he followed her up, then turned and, with surprising ease, hauled up the long ladder.

She settled back on her cloak and watched as, bathed in the faint moonlight, he maneuvered the ladder to lay it along the edge of the loft. Even though he was fully clothed, she still got an impression of the play of muscle necessary to achieve such a feat.

There was no denying Breckenridge was one of the ton’s favorite rakes for good reason.

Smiling to herself, she relaxed on her makeshift bed.

He looked at her, then picked up his own cloak, shook it out, and spread it on the hay, not next to her but on the other side of their satchels. She inwardly humphed. While he sat, then lay back and settled, she sat up and pulled her satchel closer. Opening it, she hauled out the other plain gown and her evening gown. The silk, she hoped, would help to keep her warm.

Breckenridge, of course, had simply wrapped his cloak about himself. Given how warm he always seemed to be, he would probably be warm enough. She fussed, laying first the evening gown, then the plain gown over her, then she lay down and wrapped the skirts of her cloak around her.

She was, she told herself, warm enough. She wasn’t likely to freeze.

Breckenridge spoke out of the thickening darkness; the moonlight was starting to fade. “We’ll head for Annan in the morning — see if we can slip into the town, get some breakfast and shoes for you at least.”

“Hmm. I suppose in a town rather than a village we’ll have a better chance of escaping attention.”

He didn’t reply.

“Good night,” he eventually murmured.

“Good night.” Settling her head on one hand, she closed her eyes.

Silence fell.

Whether it was her hearing sharpening once she’d shut her eyes, or that the sounds only began some minutes after she and Breckenridge had become silent and still, rustlings started, at some distance initially, but as the minutes stretched, she could swear the furtive shifting of the hay was growing nearer, and nearer. .

She was suddenly wide awake.

Suddenly in a greater panic than she’d been earlier in the day.

The only thought that occurred to her, the only possible way to secure relief, involved shockingly forward behavior.

To escape mice, she could be shockingly forward.

Rising, all but leaping to her feet, she grabbed up her gowns-cum-covers, swiped up her cloak, and dashed past their mounded satchels to where Breckenridge had stretched out.

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 had 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.

Exhaling slowly, he let his senses expand, checking the barn for any intrusion, then settled to see out the rest of the night.

Chapter Eight