Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue by Stephanie Laurens Page B

learn from her captors—when she heard Fletcher inform the landlord, “Don’t know how many days we’ll be here. Two at least, but most likely more. We’ll be here until Sir Humphrey Wallace’s agent—a Mr. McKinsey—arrives to escort the young lady on.”
    Swinging around, Heather stared at Fletcher—at his back. He remained engaged with the landlord, haggling over rooms.
    Snapping back around, she pinned Martha with a demanding glare. “ This is where you’re to hand me over? We’re waiting for this laird of yours here?”
    Martha shrugged. “So Fletcher says.” Her hatchet face was entirely uncommunicative.
    “But he’s not here yet?”
    “No.” Martha resettled her shawl. “Seems it’ll take him a few days to reach here, wherever he’s coming from.”
    Fletcher was still engaged with the innkeeper. Heather turned to Cobbins, as always standing near. “When did you send him word that you’d seized me and were bringing me north?”
    As she’d hoped, Cobbins answered, “Put a message on the night mail at Knebworth.”
    Heather calculated; she was losing track of the days, but . . . if McKinsey had been in Edinburgh or Glasgow, he should be here, if not by now then certainly by tomorrow.
    Before she could follow that idea further, Fletcher strolled up.
    “Two rooms as usual, both in the east wing, but not next to each other.” He glanced at the two lads carrying in their bags. “Cobbins and I will take the room nearer the stairs.”
    Heather straightened, lifted her chin. Narrowed her eyes on Fletcher’s face. “Why are we stopping here?”
    Unconvincingly mild, Fletcher returned, “This was where McKinsey told us to bring you.”
    “Why of all the towns in Scotland did he chose Gretna Green?”
    Fletcher opened his eyes wide. “I don’t know.” He exchanged a glance with Martha, then looked back at Heather. “We might guess, but”—he shrugged—“we really don’t know. This is where he said, so this is where we’ve brought you. Far as we know, that’s all there is to it.”
    And they didn’t believe that for a moment.
    Heather absolutely definitely did not like the implications. She knew that, theoretically, a woman had to be willing to be married, over an anvil or any other way, in Scotland or anywhere else in the British Isles.
    What she didn’t know was, in a place like Gretna Green, just how agreeable a woman had to be. Did she have to make any statement of agreement? Or could she be drugged or coerced in some way to ensure the deed was done?
    One thing she did know was that marriages conducted over the anvil at Gretna Green were legal and binding. Her parents had been married there.
    She made no demur when Martha shooed her up the stairs and ushered her to their room. Inside, she’d grown strangely detached. To her mind, the way forward had just become crystal clear. It was obviously time to leave her kidnappers, to cut and run with what she’d already learned. When Breckenridge arrived, she’d tell him she was ready to escape. . . .
    Except Fletcher had said they’d be here for at least two more days.
    Entering the room ahead of Martha, barely registering the pair of narrow beds and the single small window, Heather considered, but she didn’t think Fletcher had been lying. He wasn’t honest, but in general he focused on his route forward; she didn’t think he was likely to have invented the tale of having to wait for days.
    Why would he? He didn’t know Breckenridge was close, her ready route out of their clutches. There was, from their point of view, no reason to lie to her about how long they would remain there, waiting on McKinsey’s arrival.
    Sinking onto the bed further from the door, she stared at the wall and wondered if there was any way she could exploit the situation for her own ends. Whether with what she now knew, she could pressure Fletcher, Martha, and Cobbins for yet more about McKinsey. And when she ultimately decided to escape, whether that