Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue by Stephanie Laurens Read Free Book Online Page B

reins, nodded to the
ostlers. “Release them.”
    The ostlers let go. Both horses lunged but
immediately felt a firm hand on the reins. They tossed their heads but quickly
settled. With a flick of his wrist, Breckenridge sent them pacing neatly to the
street, then turned out and headed briskly on, up the Great North Road.
    H e was
in position in the tap of the Old Bell Inn in Carlton-on-Trent when the coach
carrying Heather turned in under the inn’s arch and drew up in the forecourt.
Seated at a table in the front corner of the tap, he sipped a pint of ale and
watched the group descend from the coach. As before, Heather was closely guarded
and ushered toward the inn’s front door, which opened to the inn’s foyer.
    The foyer, most helpfully, was separated from the
tap by a wooden partition. From where he sat, he could hear every word uttered,
even muttered, in the foyer, but no one in the foyer could see him. Of course,
he couldn’t see them either, but he hoped Heather would have noticed that there
was only one inn in the small village, and would assume he’d be somewhere
near.
    He heard the front door open, followed by the usual
sounds of arrival, then someone rang the bell on the counter. He sipped and
listened as the innkeeper arrived and quickly set about the business of
welcoming his guests and getting them settled. Breckenridge paid particular
attention to the room allocations, both the women’s and Fletcher and Cobbins’s.
Like the women, the men would share a room, but their room would be in another
wing.
    Breckenridge listened as Fletcher tried to change
the innkeeper’s mind and get a room closer to the women’s. The innkeeper
insisted that he only had the two rooms still available, many others being
closed due to rain damage during a recent storm. Fletcher grumbled, but
reluctantly conceded that he and his friend would take the offered room.
    “Good,” Breckenridge murmured. He’d paid the
innkeeper to ensure that both Heather’s male captors would be far distant from
her room that night. He sincerely hoped that by this evening she would be ready
to quit their company and return to London. The further they went
. . . yet, as attested to by the extra disguises he’d bought, he
wasn’t placing any wagers on her coming to her senses, especially not because he
thought she should.
    The abduction party fussed over their luggage, then
Heather spoke, her voice carrying clearly into the tap. “I’m unaccustomed to
being cooped up all day—I really must insist that you permit me to enjoy a short
walk.”
    “Not on your life,” Fletcher growled.
    From the sound, Breckenridge realized the group had
moved closer to the tap.
    “You don’t need to think you’re going to give us
the slip so easily.” Fletcher again.
    “My dear good man”—Heather with her nose in the
air; Breckenridge could tell by her tone—“just where in this landscape of empty
fields do you imagine I’m going to slip to?”
    Cobbins opined that she might try to steal a horse
and ride off.
    “Oh, yes—in a round gown and evening slippers,”
Heather jeered. “But I wasn’t suggesting you let me ramble on my own—Martha can
come with me.”
    That was Martha’s cue to enter the fray, but
Heather stuck to her guns, refusing to back down through the ensuing,
increasingly heated verbal stoush.
    Until Fletcher intervened, aggravated frustration
resonating in his voice. “Look you—we’re under strict orders to keep you safe,
not to let you wander off to fall prey to the first shiftless rake who rides
past and takes a fancy to you.”
    Silence reigned for half a minute, then Heather
audibly sniffed. “I’ll have you know that shiftless rakes know better than to
take a fancy to me.”
    Not true, Breckenridge
thought, but that wasn’t the startling information contained in Fletcher’s
outburst. “Come on, Heather—follow up.”
    As if she’d heard his muttered exhortation, she
blithely swept on, “But if rather than