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

direction—or even the place
where they plan to hand you over—you’ll tell me, give me some sign at least so I
can arrange to whisk you out of their clutches . . . if you promise
that, we’ll go on as we have been.”
    She smiled, pleased. “I promise. As soon as I learn
anything useful, I’ll give you some sign so we can meet and discuss it.”
    He noted the difference between what he’d asked and
what she’d promised, but that, he suspected, was the best he could hope for. He
nodded in acceptance, then waved her to the door.
    She rose, slid the coverlet from her shoulders and
laid it back on his bed, then walked to the door.
    Keeping his gaze on her face, he waved her to a
halt. He opened the door and looked out. The corridor was empty. Reaching back,
he took her arm and drew her through the door. He escorted her quickly and
silently back to her room.
    She opened the door, and the sound of robust
snoring issued forth. She turned to him, grinned, and mouthed, “Good night.”
    Slipping through the door, she quietly closed it
behind her.
    He stepped back, put his back to the corridor wall
opposite the door, and waited, listened. After enough time had elapsed for her
to have slipped back into bed, and the sonorous snoring hadn’t ceased, he pushed
away from the wall and headed back to his room.
    Inside, he stripped and slid beneath the covers—and
was immediately enveloped in a subtle scent he had no difficulty
identifying.
    It was hers, the scent that clung to her hair and
had transferred to the coverlet. The airy, delicate, vibrantly female scent
instantly evoked the vision of her stockinged ankles, the way the sheer silk had
sheened over the curves . . .
    He groaned and closed his eyes. Clearly he wasn’t
destined to get much sleep.
    Accepting that, dampening his reaction as well as
he could, he sought distraction in the pragmatic details of the adventure they’d
somehow embarked on. He was going to have to devise ways of staying close to her
while remaining invisible to her captors. Appearing inconspicuous wasn’t a skill
he’d had much cause to develop.
    No more than he’d had cause to learn the ways of
dealing with her on a rational basis.
    Keeping her safe on her quest was a task that
looked set to tax his ingenuity in ways it had never before been challenged, yet
no matter how he turned the puzzle of her kidnapping over in his mind, no matter
what perspective he took, in one respect she was incontestably correct.
    This was no ordinary, run-of-the-mill
abduction.

Chapter Four
    A t one o’clock the following afternoon, Breckenridge sat at one of the trestles set up outside the White Horse Inn in the small town of Bramham. Leaning his shoulders against the inn’s stone wall, he sipped a pint of ale and watched the archway leading into the yard of the Red Lion Inn further up the road.
    The coach carrying Heather and her captors had turned into the yard more than an hour ago. After scouting the place and confirming that there was only one exit from the Red Lion’s yard, namely under the archway, he’d retreated here to keep watch while simultaneously keeping his distance and, he hoped, staying out of Fletcher and company’s sight. He was fairly certain they hadn’t yet seen him, or if they had, hadn’t noticed him enough to recognize him again, especially given he was varying his disguise.
    Today he’d reverted to the outfit he’d acquired in Knebworth. The ill-fitting jacket and loose cloth breeches made him look like a down-on-his-luck salesman; as long as he remembered to modify his posture, he’d pass a cursory inspection.
    He took another sip of ale. He increasingly misliked how far north they were heading. They’d traveled all morning further up the Great North Road. Bramham was nearly as far north as York. Yet despite his misgivings, he, too, was finding this abduction and the challenge of learning who and what was behind it increasingly intriguing. Now he’d had time to digest all