move to follow. Eventually, I rejoined Heather and we came on. Clearly he didn’t follow.”
Catriona’s eyes grew distant, but then she shook her head and refocused. “He didn’t set foot on Vale land — I would know.”
Breckenridge hesitated, then said, “That suggests he knew the place.”
Richard grimaced. “Not necessarily. People often feel an aversion to entering the Vale if they intend to do harm.”
Heather, still absorbing the fact that Breckenridge hadn’t mentioned the horseman, felt grateful for Catriona’s power. If the horseman had decided to run them down. . but then Breckenridge had had a pistol in his pocket, so most likely he would have been safe.
Richard smoothly rose. “I’d best send a courier south, posthaste.”
Heather looked up. “Can I send a note, too? To Mama and Papa?”
“That,” Richard said, “would no doubt be best.” He waved her to the desk that sat at the far end of the room, before the velvet curtains drawn against the evening gloom.
While Richard and Heather sat at the desk and composed their respective notes — Heather’s to her parents, Richard’s to Devil, his half brother and head of the family — Breckenridge sat by the fire and asked Catriona about the Vale. He was curious, and she was happy to indulge him, educating his ignorance, as he suspected she saw it. He didn’t mind; he felt strangely comfortable, more relaxed than he’d expected to be.
More relieved.
The irony in that occurred to him when, the letters dispatched with a rider, Catriona swept Heather off upstairs to find clothes and luxuriate in a bath, leaving him at last alone with Richard; given the necessity of leg- shackling himself to Heather, his relief was surely misplaced.
Before he had a chance to assemble his wits enough to find the right words to broach the subject, Richard, returning to stand before the fire after closing the door on the women, then detouring to pour them each a glass of much-need whisky, looked down at him as he handed him a glass, caught his gaze, and stated, “I appreciate and accept that you had to do everything you’ve done. I know Heather well enough to realize that she left you with no real choice. That said, given the circumstances, given who you are and who she is, what now?”
Breckenridge appreciated Richard’s directness. Holding Richard’s gaze, he succinctly stated, “I’d rather assumed a wedding was in order.”
Richard studied his face, then blew out a breath. “You’ll agree to marry her?”
He would
Richard nodded. “You’ll get no argument from any Cynster on that.”
“Just so.” Breckenridge paused to sip the whisky; it was a seriously fine malt, too good to gulp. “The reality as far as the ton is concerned is this: I have to marry and reasonably soon, and Heather is already twenty-five. After this Season, if she doesn’t marry, she’ll be considered to be on the shelf. The tale I suggest we tell is that, as we already knew each other, some kind soul — Lady Osbaldestone springs to mind — suggested that we would suit, or rather that both our situations could be resolved with one ceremony. Consequently, in lieu of Heather and her parents visiting Baraclough, it was agreed that we should meet privately here, under your and Catriona’s eyes, to decide if we could agree on a wedding.”
“Why aren’t Martin, or at least Celia, here, too?’
“Because Celia has two other daughters to chaperon through the balls and parties, and her sudden disappearance from the social round, together with Heather, would have occasioned considerable speculation, which both families were keen, given the true circumstances, to avoid.”
Richard considered. Head tipping, he said, “From what we’ve heard, the family’s managed thus far to keep Heather’s disappearance a secret. Celia and the ladies have put about some tale that Heather’s taken ill and might have something catching, so none of her friends and their mothers are falling over themselves to call.”
Breckenridge inclined his head. “That will work. When our truth becomes known, they’ll no doubt dub the tale romantic.”
Richard snorted. He sipped, then glanced at Breckenridge. “Two quibbles. First, it’s a commonly held axiom that Cynsters marry for love.”
Breckenridge shrugged. “It simply didn’t happen in this case, and with Heather having reached the age of twenty-five without tripping over her one true love, she decided a viscountess’s coronet, with a countess’s tiara to come, was preferable to remaining a spinster.”
Richard nodded. “Fair enough. The other quibble is why meet here, rather than at Baraclough?”
Breckenridge smiled cynically. “That’s easy. Because Baraclough’s a short drive from London, and anyone might have dropped by to see m’father while we were there. The Vale, on the other hand, is a very long way from the curious ton.”
Richard grinned. “Ah — I see.” After a moment of thought, he nodded. “That just might work.”
“What might work?”
They both glanced up to see Catriona closing the door behind her.
She came forward, brows arching in query.
Richard explained, not the need for a wedding — that, Breckenridge realized, Richard and Catriona had already discussed — but that he, Breckenridge, was willing to marry Heather, and the story they would tell to cloak her absence from London, thus protecting her reputation from the censorious ton.
At the end of Richard’s exposition, Catriona remained silent for a heartbeat, then looked at Breckenridge. “Have you discussed this with Heather?”
He felt his lips thin, disguised the reaction by raising his glass. “No. Not yet.”
“Well.” Her brows rose. “I suggest you do. However, in the meantime, you had better repair to the room Henderson’s prepared for you, and restore yourself to your customary sartorial state.” Her eyes scanned both pairs of shoulders before her. “Richard can lend you some clothes.” She rose.
Breckenridge perforce rose, too. As he set down his glass, Catriona continued, “It’ll be dinnertime soon. All else can wait until later.”
She somehow succeeded in shooing both him and Richard from the room. In the hall, she instructed Richard to find Breckenridge some clothes and dispatched her husband up one turret stair, then she handed Breckenridge into the care of Henderson, to be led up another winding stone stairway to his room and an awaiting bath.
Hands on her hips, Catriona stood at the bottom of the spiral stairs and watched Breckenridge ascend. When he passed beyond her sight, she continued to stare, then she slowly smiled, shook her head, and with that faintly patronizing smile still flirting about her lips, swanned off to attend to her other duties.
Returning from Breckenridge’s room, having escorted thereto and introduced Worboys, his terribly correct gentleman’s gentleman, who naturally had insisted that only he could adequately clothe a gentleman of Breckenridge’s caliber and had therefore usurped the task of selecting and carrying a selection of garments drawn from Richard’s wardrobe to Breckenridge, Richard reentered the large chamber he shared with his witchy wife to discover her already gowned for dinner. Seated before her dressing table, she was brushing out her long hair.
Firelight danced along the gilded red strands.
Dragging his eyes from a sight he still found mesmerizing, he closed the door, shook off the distraction, and remembered what he’d meant to ask. Catching her eyes in the mirror, he let a frown color his. “What was all that about?”
He didn’t need to elaborate — she knew what he meant. Her “all else” that was to wait until later. He wasn’t at all sure what tack she was taking, but he was perfectly clear on where he stood.
At least, he thought he was.
She refocused on the lock of hair through which she was drawing her brush. “Did you notice how eager Heather was, how intent she was, on ensuring you, I, and, by extension, the family, understood that Breckenridge was in no way to blame for the length of time she’s been away?”
Halting behind her, watching her face in the mirror, Richard slid his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “Understandable enough. She’s never been one for lying, or even gilding the truth, so she’d feel horrendously guilty if we rained fury on Breckenridge’s head for an outcome that was, in fact, her fault.”
