In Pursuit of Eliza Cynster (7 page)

She considered, then said, “Well, yes, I can manage — I really don’t see that we have much choice.”

He grimaced. “No good or wise alternatives, anyway.”

She nodded. “So I’ll play along and let them take me to Edinburgh.” She caught his gaze. “Then what?”

“I’ll follow, note where they take you, then I’ll come and rescue you tomorrow night.” His gaze was direct, open, and reassuringly steady. “We’re not going to let them hand you over to this blackguardly Scotsman, so tomorrow night I’ll come for you.”

She looked into his eyes, sensed the determination behind his steady gaze, and nodded. “All right. But it will definitely need to be tomorrow night — it won’t be like it was with Heather, where they waited for days for the laird to arrive. I overheard Scrope tell Taylor that he’d sent a message north before they even left London. Scrope is keen to get me off his hands and into the laird’s as soon as he can.”

“Wise man. It’s definitely safer for him that way — he doesn’t risk losing you as the others lost Heather.”

“Hmm. So, your friends … are you sure —” She broke off, glanced at the door and heard footsteps approaching. Eyes wide, she turned back to him.

“Yes, I’m sure,” he whispered back, already pushing at the casement.

She didn’t have time to reply. She grabbed the window, hauled it shut, snibbed the catch, yanked the curtains closed, then managed to start walking toward the bed before the key scraped in the lock.

The door opened, revealing Genevieve. The maid saw her, took in her slow gait, then turned to murmur a goodnight to Scrope, whom Eliza glimpsed in the shadows of the corridor. The stealthy scrape of a boot on slate tile reached her ears, masked by the dual male rumbles that came in reply to Genevieve’s words; Taylor was in the corridor, too. Reaching one of the two narrow beds the room possessed, Eliza slowly let herself down; listening carefully, she confirmed that one of the men went into the room to her left, while the other took the room to her right.

Scrope was taking no chances.

After casting her a sharp glance, Genevieve tidied away the tray, setting it outside the door. Then she closed the door, locked it once more, and, slipping the key onto a chain she wore around her neck, turned to survey Eliza. “Time for bed — please remove your gown.”

Eliza inwardly sighed and complied, undoing the tiny topaz buttons down the front of her silk ball gown, now horridly crushed. Twisting to undo the laces down the gown’s side, she saw Genevieve gather her cloak, as well as the one they’d kept Eliza wrapped in, fold both garments, and lay them beneath the head of the mattress on the other bed.

Recalling Heather’s story of how her “maid” had taken and slept on Heather’s as well as her own outer clothing every night, making escape through the dark hours virtually impossible, Eliza wondered if there was an instruction book for kidnappers, detailing the most efficient ways to ensure their captives didn’t cause them trouble.

As she’d expected, once she wriggled out of her gown, shook it out, and laid it on her bed, Genevieve reached out and claimed it. Without a word, the nurse laid the gown out on the webbing under her mattress, alongside her own black day gown and the two cloaks, then dropped the lumpy mattress down. Looking up, she met Eliza’s eyes and smiled smugly. “Now we can all get a good night’s rest.”

Eliza didn’t bother replying. Clad in her silk chemise, she quickly got into bed, stretched out, then sat up, pummeled the lumpy pillow, and lay down again.

She stared at the ceiling as Genevieve got into the neighboring bed, then blew out the candle. The other woman settled on her side. Soon her breathing deepened, steady and even, and Eliza knew she was asleep.

Much good did that do her; as Jeremy had said, trying to flee at night would be inviting disaster, even if she could manage to get out of the room without alerting any of her three captors, even if she could lay her hands on clothes enough to be decent.

Meek, mild, and helpless; that was how she should behave until Jeremy contrived to whisk her away. Behaving so would ensure her captors saw no reason to place more difficult-to-circumvent safeguards around her.

Meek, mild, and helpless.
Eliza uttered a near-silent hollow laugh. She had no doubt she’d be thoroughly successful in projecting that image, because she
was
meek, mild, and helpless. Certainly a lot meeker, milder, and a great deal more helpless than either of her sisters, than, very likely, any other Cynster female ever born.

Heather was the eldest, confident, assertive, and utterly sure of her place in the world. Angelica, the spoiled baby, was fearless, reckless, bossy, and ineradicably convinced that come what may, everything would always turn out the best for her. And it invariably did.

She, Eliza, was the quiet one. She’d heard herself referred to as that often enough, but even more, she
thought
of herself as that. She was the pianist, the harpist, the needlewoman, not exactly a dreamer but closer to that than any other Cynster in recent memory. She didn’t favor physical pursuits; such activities were all very well, but they simply weren’t for her … and she’d never excelled at, in some cases had never even attained a decent competency in, such endeavors.

Her sisters were both confident, outdoorsy types, as assured in the countryside as they were in a ballroom. In the country, while Heather’s and Angelica’s version of a brisk stroll was an energetic hike over hill and dale, hers was a gentle amble around the terraces and the paved paths of the formal gardens.

All of which left her hugely relieved that her escape was to occur in Edinburgh, and not out here in the middle of the countryside — worse, the Scottish lowlands, a region of which she had no personal experience.

She stared upward at the moonlit ceiling and felt something inside — determination and something more — quietly but steadily well, rise, and coalesce.

Meek, mild, and helpless she might be, but she was still a Cynster. No matter what happened, with Jeremy’s help, or even without it, she would escape. She would get free.

She wasn’t about to be delivered like some package to some heathenish highland laird.

Drawing in a deep breath, she closed her eyes and, somewhat to her surprise, found sleep waiting.

Half an hour later, Jeremy returned to the room he’d hired in a small tavern a hundred yards further along the road from the coaching inn where Eliza’s kidnappers had halted for the night.

By the time he’d dropped to the ground after carefully climbing down the inn’s roof, he’d realized that, given he wouldn’t simply be helping Eliza out of the room and driving her south immediately, as he’d first assumed, he would need a plan in order to effectively and safely rescue her. A detailed, well-crafted, well thought-out plan. He’d spent the next hour reconnoitering the town, making sure he had its layout, the salient features, properly set in his mind.

He might not have had much experience of such endeavors, but he’d rubbed shoulders with Trentham and the other members of the Bastion Club long enough to know the basics of how to go about formulating such a plan. Information gathering was always the first step.

Setting down the single candle the tavern keeper had handed him on the ancient tallboy, he closed the door, locked it, then, shrugging off his greatcoat, he set the garment on the straight-backed chair beside the narrow bed.

Sitting down on the bed, he tested the mattress, found it adequate, then swung around and lay down, setting his hands behind his head, stretching his legs straight so his boots dangled off the bed’s end.

Staring unseeing up at the ceiling, he reviewed all he’d learned of the town. Everything — the proximity of the garrison in the castle, the relative lack of effective cover in a town that was little more than a single street — confirmed that having Eliza go on with her kidnappers to Edinburgh was their wisest choice.

The only possible alternative that he could see was if, tomorrow morning, her kidnappers, being so close to their goal, relaxed sufficiently to make some mistake that gave him an opening to step in and whisk Eliza out from under their noses in some way that would ensure her and him a reasonable head start in driving for the border.

From all she’d told him of her captors, from what could be inferred given they’d successfully snatched her from inside St. Ives House, that scenario was beyond unlikely.

Nevertheless, he could almost hear Trentham, and the others, too, lecturing him that one should always be prepared and watching, ready to step in and take advantage of just such “beyond unlikely” situations.

So he would be there in the morning, in the inn yard, waiting and watching, just to be sure. And Eliza would, no doubt, find it comforting to have at least visual confirmation that he was, and intended to remain, close.

He lay still for some considerable time, his gaze fixed unseeing on the ceiling while his well-trained, logical scholar’s mind worked through all the aspects, the possibilities and probabilities of what would ensue once the coach carrying Eliza reached Edinburgh.

Thinking further, he methodically listed all the pertinent alternatives, as well as all his advantages, his potential sources of help, his abilities, his knowledge of the city.

He’d lived there for nearly five months eight years ago, when the university had consulted him over the translation of a dozen old scrolls. He’d made two close friends at that time and had visited every year since, usually when consulting work again called him to Edinburgh.

As he’d told Eliza, in Edinburgh he would have friends he could rely on.

Of course, both Cobden Harris and Hugo Weaver were scholars, too, but they were hale and energetic, a year or so younger than Jeremy, and weren’t without resources. Both were also local and knew the town, every wynd and twisting close, every tavern, better than the backs of their hands.

Jeremy entertained not the slightest doubt that they, and Cobby’s wife, Meggin, too, would help in any way they could.

But exactly how to effect Eliza’s rescue …

He was juggling potential scenarios when the light playing across the ceiling started flickering. Glancing at the candle, he saw it was close to guttering. Rising, he divested himself of his clothes, realizing as he did that he couldn’t risk being seen by Eliza’s captors while he was hanging around the inn yard tomorrow morning.

Following that thought further, he considered what Tristan, in the same position, would do, and amended his plans accordingly.

Snuffing the candle, he climbed between the sheets and stretched out, once again staring upward. This was the first time in his thirty-seven years that he’d engaged in a real-life drama where
he
was the one who had to make the plans. Where the mission, as it were, was his to run.

He hadn’t previously realized what a challenge it would be, let alone that he might enjoy such an undertaking, but the truth was his mind saw the enterprise as an activity rather like chess — real-life chess without a defined set of pieces, board, or rules.

He’d forgotten what it had felt like all those years ago when he’d been caught up in the strange events at Montrose Place — the thrill, the enthralling tension, of engaging with a villain, of trying to win, to triumph over an adversary.

To fight on the side of right.

Lips curving, he turned onto his side and closed his eyes.

And admitted to himself that he’d forgotten there were other entertaining challenges in life beyond the ones contained in millennia-old hieroglyphics.

liza was shaken awake by Genevieve in the morning.

When she blinked her eyes open, the nurse pointed to the washstand. “Best get yourself washed and dressed. Breakfast will be served soon, downstairs, and Scrope wants to get on to Edinburgh without delay.”

Groggily, Eliza pushed back the covers and sat up. The morning air was chill. Tugging the coverlet off the bed, she wrapped it about her shoulders, then shuffled across to the washstand. She wasn’t a morning person; that, too, was Heather or Angelica, not her.

The water in the pewter ewer was lukewarm. Tucking the coverlet under her arms, she used both hands to lift the ewer and pour … considered the ewer’s weight and solidity as she did. What if she called Genevieve over, used the ewer to strike her unconscious, then got dressed and rushed out of the room … straight into Scrope’s arms. He, or Taylor, would very likely be waiting for her and Genevieve to appear.

Setting down the ewer, Eliza splashed water on her face, blinking, gradually coming fully awake.

Attempting an escape now, on her own, was unlikely to succeed and would alert Scrope and his minions to her underlying, disguised determination. And no good would come of that.

She dried her face with the thin towel provided. Her previous night’s conclusion reached with Jeremy still held sound. She would travel on to Edinburgh and place her faith in him.

In an absentminded scholar.

Returning to the bed, and her thoroughly crushed evening gown, she reminded herself that he had climbed the inn’s roof, an action of which she wouldn’t previously have thought him capable; clearly he had hidden depths.

She could only pray that those depths were deep enough to manage her rescue.

As soon as Eliza was ready, Genevieve made sure she was enveloped in her cloak, then ushered her out of the room. Taylor was indeed waiting in the corridor to escort both women down the stairs to a tiny private parlor. Breakfast was consumed in rushed silence, then Taylor left to bring the coach to the door.

Scrope watched from the window; when the coach was in position, he looked at Eliza. “You know the tale we’ll tell if you make a scene. There’s no reason to make this more difficult on yourself than it needs to be. Behave, and we can proceed civilly.”

Eliza forced herself to incline her head. They could take it as acquiescence if they chose. This was the first time she’d had to truly make a decision to go along with their plans; until now she’d been drugged, or still too weak to resist.

On the way to the parlor, she’d tested her limbs; to her relief, she’d regained full control, her normal strength. If she wanted to resist, she could, but …

Scrope held the parlor door, and Eliza followed Genevieve through, very aware of Scrope following at her heels. Logically she knew she should do as she and Jeremy had arranged and go forward without protest, yet when she stepped out of the inn’s door and saw the dark maw of the coach waiting, innate resistance reared.

She halted on the inn’s porch, then a movement to her left caught her eye. Glancing past Genevieve, who was waiting to usher her — push her if necessary — into the coach, she glimpsed …

Jeremy, in a scruffy-looking jacket with a cloth cap pulled low over his dark hair, its bill shading his face.

He lowered his head in an infinitesimal nod.

He was there, watching over her. He would follow the coach to Edinburgh, as he’d said.

He would rescue her.

Dragging in a deep breath, she looked forward and walked to the coach. She climbed in, Genevieve followed; Scrope paused to speak to Taylor, then stepped up into the coach and closed the door.

The coach lurched, then rumbled out of the inn yard.

They were away.

On the road to Edinburgh.

As soon as the coach turned up the highway, Jeremy quit his position in the yard and strode quickly back to the tavern.

Swiftly changing into his identifiably gentlemanly coat, raking his fingers through his hair then shaking his head to resettle the thick locks, he packed his bags, paid his shot, and went out to where a helpful young ostler, currently in his shirtsleeves, was holding Jasper the Black, harnessed and prancing, ready to be off.

With a smile, a word of thanks, and a coin, Jeremy returned the coat and cap he’d borrowed from the ostler. A disguise would do him no good while he was driving his elegant curricle with Jasper between the shafts; someone might even think he’d stolen the carriage. And once he reached Edinburgh, he might well need to command the usual attention gentlemen of his class garnered; a disguise might be counterproductive.

All he had to do was ensure he didn’t get close enough for the coachman — Taylor, Eliza had named the man — to get a sufficiently good look at him to recognize him as the gentleman Eliza had tried to enlist.

Whose help Eliza
had
enlisted.

Pleased enough with how matters had thus far unfolded, he climbed into the curricle, lifted the reins, then with a flourish sent Jasper pacing smartly out of the tavern’s small yard.

Once he and Jasper had agreed on a nice, steady pace, Jeremy kept his eyes glued to the road ahead, just in case the coach had for some unforeseen reason slowed.

The one task on his list that he’d as yet been unable to accomplish was to send word to Eliza’s family. If they’d been on the Great North Road, he’d have been able to send a message by the night mail, but there was no Royal Mail service along this lesser road. Locating a trustworthy courier to employ had likewise proved futile; such messengers plied the main highways and the major towns they linked.

He’d considered approaching the commander of the garrison, but, as he understood such matters, it was imperative that Eliza’s days-long sojourn with her kidnappers be kept a complete secret, one shared with as few people as possible, as had been managed with Heather’s disappearance; he himself only knew of Heather’s kidnapping because he fell within a trusted circle.

In rescuing Heather, in protecting her reputation, Breckenridge had been exceedingly wary over entrusting the truth to anyone. In a similar vein, Jeremy had no confidence 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 him if he glanced back; he’d kept other vehicles between his curricle and the coach for as much of the journey as he could.

But … what now? What was Scrope’s plan?

There were two carts and another carriage, all rolling slowly along, between his curricle and the entrance to the coaching inn’s yard. Raising his head, Jeremy searched both sides of the road ahead; as he’d thought, while there were many inns along this stretch of road, there were no major inns beyond the one the kidnappers’ coach had stopped at.

The observation answered his questions. Scrope had halted at the coaching inn closest to the town proper, either because he intended to put up at the inn, holding Eliza there until the laird came to fetch her, or, and more likely in Jeremy’s estimation, Scrope intended to take Eliza into the town, to some house or lodging in the narrow, twisting cobbled closes where carriages didn’t go.

If the latter was the case, he needed to act now. He couldn’t afford to let them take Eliza into Auld Town without being close on their heels.

Casting around, he saw another, smaller inn a bare twenty yards from the larger house, and on the same side of the road. Praying Taylor or Scrope didn’t think to come out of the coaching inn’s yard to check for pursuing gentlemen, he drove up to the smaller inn and turned into its yard.

Five minutes later, he slouched against the iron railings of South Bridge, one among the horde of people who used the bridge to go into and out of the town, and surreptitiously watched the coaching inn. He’d only just settled into position when Scrope, Taylor, and the nurse, closely escorting a slighter figure enveloped in a drab cloak, emerged and headed his way. The nurse had her fingers locked around Eliza’s elbow, and Scrope walked close by her side, a fraction ahead of her. Taylor brought up the rear, with a porter toiling in his wake, lugging three large traveling bags.

Jeremy did nothing to attract their attention, but none of the three kidnappers looked to right or left. They walked with purpose onto and up the bridge, wordlessly declaring that they knew where they were going and were intent on reaching their destination as soon as possible.

Eliza kept her head down; with the cloak’s hood up, Jeremy couldn’t so much as glimpse her face. After watching her from the corner of his eye for several moments, he realized she was having to watch her feet, holding the overlong skirts of the cloak so she wouldn’t trip, and placing her ballroom-slipper-shod feet carefully on the worn paving.

She didn’t see him as they passed.

Pushing away from the railings, giving every indication of idly strolling, he followed some twenty yards to their rear. Given his height, he had no difficulty allowing others to fill the gap between. Ambling along, he kept the group in sight as they steadily climbed toward the Royal Mile.

Eliza had visited Edinburgh twice before, on both occasions with her parents to attend ton events. As she’d never imagined she would ever need to know, she’d paid little attention to the layout of the streets. While she recognized the wide sweep of the elevated thoroughfare they’d trudged up and the big church at the corner where that street finally met level ground — she thought the intersecting street was the High Street but wasn’t truly sure — she was lost from there on.