Free In Pursuit of Eliza Cynster by Stephanie Laurens Page B

that even handing a sealed missive addressed to the Cynsters into the garrison commander’s hands would be in Eliza’s best interests.
    Once he reached Edinburgh, he’d send word south — perhaps via Royce — as soon as he knew where they intended to hold Eliza. Jeremy was confident the Cynsters would understand his tardiness in doing so; no matter how worry might be eating at them, they would expect him to put Eliza’s safety first.
    Holding Jasper to their steady pace, he bowled along in the coach’s wake.
     
     
    As she couldn’t avoid keeping Scrope and Genevieve company in the coach, Eliza decided to make the minutes count.
    She ransacked her memory for every last fact gleaned from Heather’s kidnapping and rescue, and picked the one she hoped would have the best chance of unsettling Scrope. As usual, he was sitting opposite her — close enough to seize her. She fixed her gaze on his face, waited until he cast her a glance to ask, “Is the Scotsman who hired you still using the name McKinsey?”
    Scrope blinked. His hesitation suggested her supposition was correct. Eventually, he replied, “Why do you ask?”
    “I was just wondering what name I should use to address him.”
    Scrope’s lips curved slightly and he relaxed against the seat.
    Eliza arched her brows, faintly patronizing. “I do know that’s not his real name.” Satisfied by the frown that flitted over Scrope’s face, she asked, “What did he tell you about me and my family?”
    Scrope considered, then replied, “He didn’t have to tell me much about your family. The Cynsters are rather well known. As to you …” He shrugged. “All he told me was that he wanted you seized and brought to him in Edinburgh, and that you’d be ripe for the picking at your sister’s engagement ball.”
    Eliza suppressed a frown; she didn’t want Scrope to know how important her next question was. She kept her tone airy, as if vaguely flattered. “He asked specifically for me?”
    Scrope’s dark gaze grew more intent. A moment passed before he nodded. “Yes — you. Why?”
    She saw no reason not to reply. “When my sister, Heather, was seized, he’d asked for one of us — a ‘Cynster sister’— which could have meant Heather, me, Angelica, Henrietta, or Mary. It was just luck that Heather was the one taken.”
    Scrope’s brows rose; his gaze shifted, grew distant as he leaned back into the shadows of the opposite corner. Softly, he said, “Well, this time, he wanted you — just you.” After a moment, his gaze flicked back to Eliza; she could read nothing in his eyes as he said, “He specifically stipulated you.”
    His tone did nothing for her peace of mind. She racked her brain for pertinent questions, but before she could even formulate the first, Scrope, his gaze on her face, spoke again.
    “Don’t bother. I run a far tighter ship than your elder sister’s captors. If you want answers to your questions, you’ll have to wait and address them to”— his lips curved, faintly malicious —“McKinsey.”
    She narrowed her eyes at him, then turned her gaze to the window and kept her lips shut.
    While her mind turned over the one new, and frankly unexpected, fact she’d learned. This time, McKinsey had wanted only her.
    Whatever his reasons, she doubted that boded well.
    And with every mile, with every rattling turn of the coach’s wheels, Edinburgh and McKinsey drew inexorably closer.
    She definitely needed to be out of Scrope’s hands before McKinsey came for her.
     
     
    They approached Edinburgh in the late morning, with a blue-gray sky overhead and a brisk breeze blowing. Carefully tooling his curricle along, Jeremy was a hundred yards back down the highway when the kidnappers’ coach slowed, then turned in under the arch of a large coaching inn close by where South Bridge Street started its ascent into Edinburgh Auld Town.
    He’d stayed far enough back over the journey to ensure that Taylor, the coachman, was unlikely to spot