description.
He was learning to respect Timms’s intelligence.
Thanking the stableman, saying he’d be back for Hercules in a few minutes, he walked out of the stable and paused, looking back at the inn.
Then he turned and surveyed the land around about. Flat fields. With his height, he could even see a glimmer of light off the firth a mile or so south.
If Timms had been clever enough to have foreseen the danger in using the trap, then he would also have realized that if they’d walked away across the fields in almost any direction they would have been easily spotted from the inn, if not from the ground floor, then certainly from the upper floor.
In any direction but one.
Turning back, he viewed the stable, with its high roof above the hayloft. It effectively blocked the view of the fields directly behind it.
He walked around the stable, to the short stretch of grass at the rear.
To the stile that gave access into the field beyond.
He was a highlander born and bred; he could track most things over rocky ground.
Tracking a man and a woman over soft, damp earth was insultingly easy.
But the boot print he found by the stile bothered him. He stared at it for a time before he realized why. Then he stamped his own boot print close by and compared the two.
And felt grimness as well as puzzlement steal through him.
Timms — whoever he was, and he was increasingly certain the man was no unemployed solicitor’s clerk — was wearing extremely well-made riding boots.
The girl, in contrast, was still shod in dancing slippers.
Straightening, he looked across the field. They’d made for the trees cresting a rise, just over a mile away. Once past those. . given they’d avoided all the police patrols, they must have kept to the fields.
Easy enough for him to track, given he now had a direction. And with the firth to the south, with just a narrow strip of land between the road and the shore, he could make good time along the road, and just periodically check to confirm their direction.
Finding them wouldn’t be hard.
Lips setting, he turned and strode back to the stable. Nearing the door, he called for his horse.
Chapter Nine
Breckenridge, with Heather beside him, walked into Dumfries in the early afternoon.
The first thing he saw as, still walking comfortably hand in hand they headed toward the main street of shops, was two constables loitering on the corner of one of the main intersections.
Avoiding them wasn’t difficult, but the sight reminded him just how careful they needed to be. Reemerging from an alley between two shops, they joined the crowds thronging the main thoroughfare.
“Just as well we waited until Dumfries.” Heather drew her cloak closer. “Annan wouldn’t have been crowded enough to risk being on the main street.”
Breckenridge grunted.
She glanced up at him. “Are there others close?”
He could see over the heads of the bustling hordes. “I can’t see any along the street, but I suspect there’ll be more at the big intersection up ahead.” He glanced down at her. “We’ll be safe enough if we stay among the crowds. If we see any uniforms getting close, we’ll nip down a side street.” Dumfries was thankfully well supplied with those. He raised his head, scanned again.
“Speaking of which.” Using his hold on her hand, he drew her out of the crowd and down a narrow cobbled alley to where a small sign swinging above a door proclaimed the place within to be the Old Wall Tavern. Halting before the door, he met her gaze. “We need food first, then some shoes for you.”
She peered through the thick glass in the window beside the door. “This looks all right.”
He opened the door and, remembering that they weren’t gentry for the moment, walked in, towing her behind him. He chose a table around a corner, out of sight of anyone looking in.
The serving girl came bustling up. “You can ’ave your choice of the last of lunchtime’s shepherd’s pie, or there’s venison pie for dinner that’s just come out of the oven.”
They both opted for the venison pie. Breckenridge ordered ale for himself and watered ale for Heather. When the serving girl left them, he murmured, “No tea, much less wine in places like this.”
Heather shrugged; her lips curved as she looked around. “Truth be told, I’m rather curious. I’ve never had watered ale before.”
He grunted again, saw her shoot him a look that suggested his communication skills needed polishing. He pretended not to notice. He couldn’t have told her what he felt about her comment, much less what he felt at that moment — had felt increasingly over the last hours.
Her feet hurt. Not that she was limping, but especially once they’d hit the cobbles and stone paving of the town, she’d been placing her feet carefully. Of course she’d said nothing, had complained not at all, but that only made him feel even more. . whatever it was he felt. And no matter what she’d said, she had to be feeling faint from lack of nourishment. Females couldn’t go without food for as long as men, especially females who had no fat to speak of stored about their person.
He told himself the concern he felt over her not eating — over not being able to feed her — was simply residual terror that she would fall at his feet in a faint. . but he knew very well it wasn’t that. Or not simply that. He’d actually felt torn over which of her ills to attend to first — her feet or her stomach. Feeding her had won out purely because he’d spotted the little tavern and it had looked safe.
Safety — hers — remained his principal concern.
The venison pie proved surprisingly tasty.
Breckenridge’s conversational abilities — Heather knew he had them — remained in abeyance, absent, but she’d seen behavior like his before, in her brothers and her cousins, when they were absorbed with protecting females they, for whatever reason, considered in their care. Why grunts should so predominate she had no idea, but if anything she found his inability to engage his customary glib tongue amusing.
Admittedly, she was grateful, too. Grateful for his protection, which was something she’d never thought to be.
When they’d cleaned their plates and drained their ales — she’d found her watered ale unexpectedly refreshing — he left coins on the table, then escorted her outside. Immediately they stepped out of the door, he reclaimed her hand, as if by some right. She settled her fingers within the reassuring clasp of his and decided not to dwell on it.
They rejoined the crowds in the High Street, ambling along, searching for the cobbler’s shop the serving girl had told them of. Breckenridge walked close beside her, by his sheer bulk protecting her from the bustling shoppers. If he’d done such a thing in Bond Street, she would have been incensed. Here, far from home, she found his nearness — even his hovering when she paused outside the cobbler’s shop to study the wares displayed in the window — comforting, reassuring, simply soothing.
She knew all too well that in men like him, protectiveness had a bad habit of converting to snarling possessiveness, but in the circumstances, she would accept the risk.
“Those boots might do.” She pointed to a pair of half boots, heavier than any she owned, but they were the only pair that looked anywhere near small enough for her feet. “Let’s go in.”
She opened the door and, to the tinkle of a bell, walked into the shop. Breckenridge glanced around outside before following her in; he had to duck to pass through the doorway.
At the rear of the small shop, the cobbler, a small, wiry man with a pair of pince-nez perched on his nose, looked up from the shoe he was mending.
Heather smiled. “I need a pair of walking boots.” She gestured to the window. “I wonder if I might try on that pair?”
