Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue

The others all nodded.

“Never seen him ’round here before,” Henry said, “and he did say he was just passing through.”

“Rode on away to the north,” the old man closest to the window offered. “And that horse of his was something to see. Massive in the chest, and strong, I’d warrant.”

“Close to, what did he look like?” Richard asked Henry.

“Black hair — black like yours. Eyes. .” Henry paused, then shivered. “To tell the truth, if he hadna been such a personable chap, those eyes woulda given me the willies.”

Breckenridge lowered his pot. “How so?”

“Pale they were — put me in mind of the ice that forms on yon burn in winter. Cold and pale, but with something flowing underneath.”

A moment of silence gave due note to Henry’s poetic turn.

“What about his features?” Richard asked.

Henry grimaced, looked to the others. “Pretty much what you’d expect from a laird, I’d say.”

“Aye — clean-cut, well-shaven. His clothes were quality, too. And his boots.”

No matter how they angled their questions, they learned nothing more.

After draining a second pint each, Breckenridge joined Richard in bidding the five men in the tavern farewell, then walked back out into the rear yard.

Both he and Richard halted in the yard, looking up at the sloping field behind the tavern while they pulled on their riding gloves.

“Not much to go on, beyond confirming he’s a laird — they wouldn’t have got that wrong.”

“And his eyes,” Breckenridge said. “Of everything we’ve learned about him, his eyes are the one thing that’s most distinctive. That, combined with his size, combined with his being a laird. . it might not be enough for us to identify him, but it should be enough to recognize him if he comes after Heather again, or goes after one of the other girls.”

“True.” Richard caught his horse’s reins and swung up to the saddle.

Breckenridge mounted more slowly, juggling possibilities in his mind. Settling in his saddle, he met Richard’s eyes. “There’s an outside possibility that the man who stopped here was simply what he claimed — a highland laird passing by on his way north. He might have simply been curious about us walking ahead of him.”

“But you don’t believe that.” Richard held his skittish black in.

“No.” Breckenridge turned his bay into the alley back to the road. “Because I can’t deny the similarities between the descriptions Heather and I independently wrung from Fletcher and Cobbins, and what we just heard.”

He rode out and back onto the road. Richard ranged alongside and they cantered south, back toward the Vale.

“So how are the wedding plans progressing?” Richard asked, once they were out of the village.

“They aren’t.” Breckenridge heard his clipped tones, heard the irritation beneath. Didn’t care if Richard did, too. “She’s taken some nitwit notion into her head that I don’t need to marry her, that she’s going to go off and manage an orphanage in the country, or some such thing, so her social ruination doesn’t matter.”

“Ah.” Richard nodded sagely. “She’s playing stubborn.”

“Playing?” Breckenridge shot him an irate look. “She’s the definition of the word. I’ve already tried talking her around. Twice.”

“I hate to break it to you, old son, but it won’t be your honeyed words that change her mind.”

Breckenridge snorted. “I’ve tried that, too — so far all that’s gained me is. .” An even deeper sense of being irrevocably linked to her.

Richard glanced at him curiously. “What?”

Breckenridge pulled a face, growled, “Damned if I know.”

Richard grinned. “Well, whatever it takes, just console yourself with the thought that the end result will be worth it.”

Breckenridge cast Richard a sharp glance, saw the open contentment in his face. Felt compelled to ask, “So what did you have to do?”

Richard’s smile deepened. “The same thing we’ve all had to do — prostrate ourselves at their dainty feet, swear undying love, and mean it.”

Easy for you. He didn’t say the words, because even as they formed in his head, he knew they were unlikely to be true. Richard was very like him, even down to the true nature of his birth. Richard had been the scandal that had been no scandal; Helena, Richard’s father’s duchess, had claimed him as her own shortly after his birth and his natural mother’s death in childbed — and no one with a brain in their head argued with Helena.

Breckenridge was a bastard, too, but it had been his father who had opened his arms to him and claimed him, also from birth.

Both he and Richard had grown to manhood in the midst of the ton, with all the wealth and privileges pertaining to those who belonged to the upper circles of the nobility. Yet he suspected that Richard, just like him, had always carried a question buried in the deepest recesses of his brain. A question that had to do with rightful place.

In Richard’s case, he’d had to find one, and he’d patently succeeded here in the Vale. It couldn’t have been easy; even though he’d spent less than a day on the estate, Breckenridge had sensed that it was Catriona who stood at the heart of the place, yet Richard had carved his own place, and had clearly earned it, by her side.

For himself. . Breckenridge’s question was slightly different. He had a place waiting for him — his father’s shoes. When his father died, he would become the Earl of Brunswick. Even though he already performed many of the duties, did much of the day-to-day work managing the estate, he still wondered if he would measure up when the time came.

For some reason, he knew that if he had Heather by his side, he would.

That if she were there, blithely expecting him to be all he could be, then he would be everything he needed to be, and, possibly, more.

Cantering beside Richard, Breckenridge turned into the Vale drive and rode steadily toward the manor; in the peace and the quiet, broken only by the tattoo of their horses’ hooves, he tried to analyze why he was so convinced he needed her, and only her, to succeed in his future life. . in the end, decided he had no clue.

But perhaps Richard was right.

Breckenridge had more at stake than Heather knew, than he could ever let her know, but perhaps making some concessions, revealing enough to engage her curiosity and, ultimately, her interest, would serve.

That, and taking a more aggressive, more commanding line in the liaison she apparently imagined he was going to allow to end.

Breckenridge next met Heather at the luncheon table. The seat beside her was empty; he claimed it, but Richard and Catriona’s older children — their first set of twins, Lucilla and Marcus — had joined the company about the high table and had selected the chairs opposite.

He quickly realized that the eight-year-old twins were determined to do what they saw as their social duty and keep the conversational ball rolling.

The topics they chose ranged from gentlemen’s hair styles — comparing Richard’s with his — to comments about the source of the lamb roast, identified by name, and Algaria’s dandelion wine, to speculation over whether they would have cause to visit London soon.

The pair cheerily discussed the latter at length, all with wide-eyed, innocent curiosity, which fooled him and Heather not at all.

He and she exchanged a glance, then both set themselves to divert attention to any other topic but the one that, transparently, was uppermost in every mind.

A brief glance over the hall confirmed that virtually everyone was living in eager expectation of hearing an engagement announced at any moment. Although the observation only fueled his frustration, the underlying irritation over not yet having secured her agreement to a wedding, in the circumstances, he kept his lips shut.

He did consider using nonverbal means to pursue his objective, but aside from them being too closely watched, he couldn’t, he realized, predict how Heather would react. With any other lady with whom he was engaged in a liaison, he wouldn’t have hesitated, but not with her, not least because his goal wasn’t simply to