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about hiring men like you? You can’t possibly put a notice in the news sheets
advertising your services.”
    Fletcher chuckled. Even Cobbins cracked a
smile.
    “We get business on recommendation,” Fletcher
explained. “I don’t know who mentioned us to him, but he sent word to our
contact, and we met him in a tavern. He laid the job before us, and we accepted.
Simple enough.”
    “So you don’t know his name?” It was one step too
far, but, she judged, worth the gamble.
    Fletcher’s expression closed, but when she
continued to look expectantly at him, his slow, taunting smile returned. “It’s
no use, Miss Wallace, but if you truly want, I can put my hand on my heart”—he
suited action to the words—“and tell you he called himself McKinsey.”
    She caught the implication. “That’s not his
name.”
    “No, it’s not. And before you bother asking, I
don’t know his real name—he’s the type wise men don’t question about anything
they don’t want to reveal.”
    She pulled a face and sat back. And asked nothing
more for the moment.
    The man who had hired them to kidnap her and
deliver her to him was wealthy, lived somewhere in the north, possibly as far
north as Glasgow, and was of the caliber to inspire a healthy respect, if not
fear, in men like Fletcher.
    Despite her curiosity over his identity, she felt
increasingly certain she didn’t want to actually meet the man.
    T hey
halted for lunch a little after noon in the village of Stretton. As they turned
into the forecourt of an inn, Heather noted the sign—the Friar and Keys. She’d
been this far on the Great North Road on several trips to visit her cousin
Richard and his wife Catriona in Scotland, but she couldn’t say she recognized
the village.
    Descending from the coach, she eased her cramped
limbs, then looked swiftly around. Would Breckenridge notice that they’d
stopped?
    Assuming, of course, that he was indeed following
and wasn’t too far behind.
    “Come along.” Martha took her arm and propelled her
toward the inn’s main door. “Let’s order that lunch you were asking after before
Fletcher changes his mind.”
    Heather went docilely enough, but the comment had
her glancing back. Fletcher and Cobbins had left the coach, which, thankfully,
was being led not deeper into the yard but to one side of the forecourt, where
it would be readily visible from the highway. Fletcher and the taciturn Cobbins
had walked to the highway’s edge and were looking back along the road, talking,
possibly arguing, as they watched.
    Allowing herself to be led inside, then steered to
a wood-paneled booth in the back corner of the taproom, at Martha’s nod Heather
sat, then scooted along the seat so Martha could sit, too, hemming Heather in
against the wall. She looked toward the door. Fletcher and Cobbins had yet to
come inside.
    A serving girl approached. Martha asked what was
available, then ordered shepherd’s pie for them all. “And three mugs of ale.”
Martha glanced at Heather, then added, “And one of cider.”
    The serving girl nodded and took herself off.
    “Thank you,” Heather said.
    Martha only grunted.
    Heather let a moment of silence elapse, then, her
gaze still on the open door, asked, “What’s Fletcher waiting for?” Could this be
where she was to be handed over?
    “He’s just playing cautious. It’s habit with him.
He’s making sure no one’s following us along.”
    Heather’s heart sped up. Keeping her tone even, she
ventured, “But how could anyone be following? If they’d seen me snatched off the
street, they would have caught up long before now, surely?”
    Martha nodded. “So you’d think. But like I said,
old Fletcher’s a man of caution. No doubt but that’s why he’s survived for so
long.”
    The serving girl arrived with a tray piled with
plates. Another came up bearing four mugs. The pair blocked Heather’s view of
the main door. By the time they deposited the plates and mugs and drew back, she
was