Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue Read Online Free PDF Page A

pointing out that perhaps her current predicament was fate’s way of ensuring she stayed with her abductors long enough to learn what lay behind the threat to her and her Cynster sisters.
    She was debating—panic versus fatalistic pragmatism—when a skittery scraping on the windowpane sent horrible shivers down her spine.
    Frowning, she glanced at the window—and saw a shadow looming beyond it.
    A man-sized shadow—head and shoulders. Broad shoulders.
    Slipping out of the bed, she grabbed the coverlet, wound it about her, then hurried across the bare floor. Reaching the window, she looked out—
    Straight into Breckenridge’s face.
    For an instant, shock held her immobile. He was quite the last person she’d expected to see. Then again . . .
    His exasperated expression as with one hand he brusquely gestured for her to lift the sash window shook her into action. The room was, after all, on the second floor. He seemed to be hanging onto a pipe.
    Reaching up, she struggled with the window latch. Perhaps she should have realized he’d appear. He had been watching her walk to her parents’ carriage. He must have seen her seized and bundled into Fletcher’s coach. Finally forcing the latch free, she eased up the sash, glancing over her shoulder at the lump that was Martha as the wood scraped and slid.
    Martha’s snoring continued unabated, rhythm undisturbed.
    Breckenridge had seen the glance. “Is there someone there?”
    The question reached her as the barest whisper. She nodded and leaned on the sill so her head was level with his. “Yes. A large and strong maid, but she’s sound asleep. Those are her snores you can hear.”
    He listened, then nodded. “All right.” Then he frowned. “Where did you get her—the maid?”
    “My captors—Fletcher and Cobbins—are working for some man who has employed them to bring me to him, but said employer has instructed them to provide me with every comfort along the way. Hence Martha. She was in the carriage when they grabbed me.”
    No matter what else one might say and think about him, Breckenridge most assuredly was neither stupid nor slow.
    “Your abductors have provided you with a maid.”
    She nodded. “To see to my needs and lend me countenance. Fletcher, the thin, wiry one—he seems to be the leader—actually said so while introducing me and Martha to the innkeeper. They’re calling me Miss Wallace.”
    Breckenridge hesitated, then asked, “Is there some reason you haven’t told the innkeeper your real name and demanded his assistance in escaping Fletcher and company?”
    She smiled tightly. “Indeed there is.” She told him of Fletcher’s story, the tale of her guardian, Sir Humphrey, her supposed flight to the wicked streets of London, and the letter of authority Fletcher had, presumably, forged.
    When she finished, Breckenridge remained silent for some time.
    Heather peered over the sill, confirming that he was indeed clinging to a lead downpipe, one booted foot wedged on a support. Given his size and undoubted weight, gaining that position, let alone maintaining it, had to be counted an impressive feat.
    If she’d been in a mood to be impressed.
    Which made it even stranger that every last iota of her incipient panic had vanished. Raising her gaze, she met his eyes—found him staring, then he looked deep into hers. Then he blinked, shook his head slightly, then eased a hand from the pipe and beckoned. “Come on—time to leave.”
    She stared at him, then looked over the sill again—at the ground far below. “You have to be joking.”
    “I’ll keep you before me and steady you down the pipe.”
    She looked at him. He’d steady her down the pipe by holding her against him, trapping her body between his and the pipe? The notion . . . made her inwardly shiver. “I haven’t got any clothes—Martha’s lying on them.”
    His gaze dropped to her throat, bare, then lower, to the coverlet she’d wrapped about her. “You’re naked under