Free Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue by Stephanie Laurens

Heather had learned yesterday, he had to admit it was a most peculiar puzzle.
    A pair of horses appeared beneath the Red Lion’s arch, followed by a second pair, then the kidnappers’ coach. The coach turned ponderously out of the inn yard, still heading north.
    Breckenridge watched it lumber on, then drained his pint, set the mug down, rose, and headed for the side yard of the White Horse where he’d left his hired curricle.
    Five minutes later, bowling along the highway once more, he glimpsed the coach ahead and slowed the bays he currently had between the shafts. He rolled slowly on in the coach’s wake, far enough back that they’d be unlikely to spot him even on a long straight stretch. Not that they’d shown any signs of searching for pursuers. They might have looked back once or twice, but since he’d caught up with them at Knebworth, they’d seemed unconcerned about pursuit.
    Of course, as far as they knew there had been no immediate chase given from Lady Herford’s house; no doubt they assumed they’d got clean away. And indeed, if he hadn’t seen them seize Heather, any pursuit the Cynsters would have mounted would have been days behind. It most likely wouldn’t have even started yet, because her family would have had to search extensively to determine in which direction she’d been taken—even that she’d been taken out of London at all. As she’d pointed out, if she’d been kidnapped for ransom, then it would have been assumed her kidnappers would keep her in the metropolis; so much easier to hide a woman among the teeming hordes, in the crowded tenements, where no one would ask awkward questions.
    The miles slid by. Initially he kept pace with the coach, but the further north they rolled he gradually closed the distance. Their steady push north was making him increasingly nervous about where they were headed and, especially, why.
    H eather forced herself to wait until they’d been traveling north for at least an hour after their luncheon halt before recommencing her interrogation of her captors.
    She’d been acquiescent, and had made no fuss through the morning. Other than casting a quick glance around the inn where they’d stopped for lunch, searching for Breckenridge—but they hadn’t known that—she’d played the part of gently bred and, therefore, relatively helpless kidnappee.
    Although she hadn’t sighted Breckenridge, she felt reasonably confident that he’d be somewhere near. Leaving him to his self-appointed but now gratefully accepted role of watching over her, she’d applied herself to encouraging her captors to relax and, she hoped, grow less careful and more talkative.
    By way of introduction, she heaved a huge sigh and glanced out of the window.
    Fletcher, seated opposite as usual, looked at her consideringly. Assessingly.
    Facing him again, she caught his eye, grimaced. “If you won’t tell me where we’re going, or your employer’s name, can you at least tell me what he looks like? Seeing I’ll be meeting him, I presume sometime soon, then you’ll hardly be revealing anything vital, and it would certainly help my nerves to know what sort of man you’ll be handing me to.”
    Fletcher’s lips curved a little. “Not sure how knowing what he looks like is going to help you, but . . .” He glanced at Cobbins, who shrugged. Looking back at her, Fletcher asked, “What do you want to know?”
    Everything you can tell me. She widened her eyes. “Hair color?”
    “Black.”
    “Eyes?”
    Fletcher hesitated, then said, “Not sure about the color, but . . . cold.”
    Black-haired, cold-eyed. “How old, and handsome or not?”
    Fletcher pursed his lips. “I’d say in his thirties, but exactly where I couldn’t guess. And as for handsome”—Fletcher grinned—“you’d probably think so. Bit rugged for my taste, though, and with a blade of a nose.”
    She frowned, not entirely liking the image.
    Fletcher continued, his tone tending teasing, “One thing I do