A Regency Virgin's Undoing: Lady Drusilla's Road to Ruin / Paying the Virgin's Price
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He let out a sigh of relief. She did not seem to be worrying about him at all. ‘Was the ride tiring for you?’ He offered her an arm to help her over the uneven ground as they walked the horses towards a stream by the grove.
She gave an uneasy laugh. ‘I fear I do not make the best passenger. I could not seem to sit still.’ There was a gruffness about her words, as though they were more denial than total innocence. But the look in her eyes was confusion, and perhaps embarrassment. It seemed he was not the only one affected by their nearness.
‘It did not bother me overly,’ he said, for it hardly seemed fair to call such pleasant sensations an annoyance.
‘All the same, I do not think I wish to ride that way any longer. Is there no other way?’ She was looking at him, vulnerable and desperate, trusting that he would understand and help her. And though he wanted nothing more than to tumble her in the grass, or sweep her into his arms and back into the saddle, he knew that he would not.
He stared at her, wondering if he dared suggest what he was thinking. ‘There is a way that we can make better progress, if you are willing to take certain risks.’
‘Anything,’ she said eagerly, then looked at him, trying to appraise his plan and regain some of her old composure. ‘Well, nearly anything. What do you suggest, Mr Hendricks?’
He went to the other horse and pulled down his bag, removing the clothing he had stashed there. He held them out to her. ‘Leather riding breeches, Lady Drusilla. And I have a spare shirt as well. If you were dressed in a less feminine way, you could ride astride with more comfort.’
‘Men’s clothing?’ she said, clearly appalled. ‘You expect me to wear breeches?’
‘From a distance, you would be mistaken for a boy. It would lessen the risk of someone recognising you as the Duke of Benbridge’s daughter.’
‘But it is very improper. I do not think I could …’
‘They will fit,’ he assured her. ‘While you appear to be …’ He cleared his throat, trying not to comment on the shape of her, which was as far from a man’s as he could imagine. ‘Well, at least we are of a similar height and, in most ways, I am larger than you. If we can cobble together a disguise out of spare clothing from my pack, it would do quite well for you.’
She touched the clothes gently and he noticed how fine her hand looked, lying against the leather. ‘Would it add so much to the speed of our progress?’
‘You will find that men’s clothing is much less restrictive for trips like this. We will be able to move more quickly and will stop before returning to populated areas, to allow you to change into something more appropriate to your gender.’
‘And no one would ever know?’ she asked hopefully.
‘I will certainly tell no one,’ he said. ‘It is much better, is it not, that Lady Drusilla not be seen travelling alone with a strange man?’
She gave a little shiver at the thought. He did not know whether to be angry or flattered by it, for at least it proved that she recognised him as a threat and not some neutered tool. ‘That is probably true. If the story of this trip gets out, I have already done great harm to my reputation. Can the addition of breeches make it worse?’
He smiled encouragingly. ‘Very well, then. Take these and step behind the trees to change. If you run into difficulties …’ He thought of her half-dressed body and realised that there was not a damned thing he dared to do for her. ‘Make a brave attempt.’
He waited where he was as she took the proffered clothing and concealed herself. To prevent temptation, he turned his back on the scene as well, so that he would not catch even a glimpse of bare skin through the sparse leaves.
Or, worse yet, he might catch himself straining to see something. Though he had managed to keep his eyes respectfully averted for most of last night, after the ride they’d just shared, his will was not so strong.
He heard her return a short time later and turned to find her standing with hands spread before her, in a gesture that sought approval. ‘Is this all right?’
‘Yes,’ he responded, trying to modulate his own voice and looking hurriedly away. ‘Yes. That will be quite satisfactory.’
Dear God.
When he’d made the suggestion, he had not given two thoughts to it. They were his own clothes, after all. He had seen them before.
But never like this. The shirt was full, and covered her to the throat, obscuring the curves underneath it with billows of fabric. But it was far too thin. The dark peaks of her breasts were displayed plain for anyone who wished to look. The tender budding tips jutted against the cloth. And his eyes strained to see, like dogs at the end of a lead. He forced them back to her face, and stripped off his topcoat and handed it to her. ‘Perhaps this will help.’
It did not. Not really. Her legs still protruded from the tails of the coat and the shapeliness of her calves was not obscured through the heavy stockings. The leather of the breeches pulled tight against her thighs and her nicely rounded bottom. The buff colour looked almost like bare skin. And it all seemed to settle into that final crease at the top of her legs, drawing his gaze to a place that he should never look, but that he very much wanted to admire. They were alone, far from interruption, and only a few buttons separated him from paradise.
He turned away from her, busying himself with the harnessing of the horses, trying not to notice the increasing tightness in his own trousers, then pulled his glasses off, folded them and tucked them into the pocket of his coat.
‘Mr Hendricks,’ she said, ‘will you not need those to see what you are doing?’
‘Resting my eyes for a moment,’ he assured her. ‘It has been a long day, has it not?’ He turned back to the horse and raised the stirrups as though this were the only thing on his mind. ‘You must manage in your own boots, I’m afraid. Even if I had spares to offer, mine would fall off your feet.’
Such dainty little feet.
He rummaged in his pack for a soft hat. ‘Here. Put this over your hair.’
She smiled at him in approval and pulled it into place. ‘It is a relief to know that you do not expect me to cut it. There are some things I would not do in the name of disguise.’
‘No. Never.’ He hoped that his sigh had not been too obvious to her. But he’d have as soon asked her to cut off her arm as lose that glorious dark hair. He imagined it, down, smooth and thick in his hands. Then he did his best to imagine anything else. For a moment, he tried to think of Emily, who had occupied so much of his thoughts only two days ago. Her hair had been shorter and blond. It was strange how quickly a thing that had seemed so important to him, had faded so quickly from memory.
The same would likely be true of Lady Drusilla, once he was out of her sphere of influence. It must be, or it would drive him mad. When he glanced back at her, looking into her eyes this time, he could see that she would not. Or almost see, at any rate. For the blurring of his vision without the spectacles made her face soft, more childlike, her eyes large and bewildered, and her mouth rounded into a soft red bow. This was how she would look when he made love to her.
Which he would never do, he reminded himself. He had no right to even think such things about her. The list of reasons against it was almost too long to count.
‘It is time we were going again,’ he said, staring up at the sun. ‘I do not mean to stop until dark. Then we will return to the main road, find an inn and enquire about your friend.’
He went to her and offered her a leg up into the saddle of the big horse. For a moment, her foot rested in the cradle of his hands, and his face was far too near to her leg. He felt light headed with the desire to press his lips against the place he could reach. Then it was over and she was mounted, the horse dancing until she took control of the reins.
He looked up critically. ‘You are sure that you will be all right with this?’
She straightened, stiffened and seemed to grow braver with each passing moment, though her eyes widened at the feel of the horse between her legs. ‘It will be fine, because it must be so. And you are right. I can tell already that it is easier to ride when one can control the beast under one and not perch on it like a decoration.’ She glared down at him, eyebrows and chin raised. ‘And if you ever tell anyone I said that, I shall sack you immediately.’
‘Yes, my lady,’ he responded, with a small bow, dropping with difficulty back into the role of servant.
He rearranged the luggage and mounted his own horse. Then he pointed her in the right direction and allowed her to set the pace, for he did not wish to push her beyond her capacities.
He watched her ride. For someone with little experience, she had a good seat and showed no signs of fearing the animal he had given her. That was fortunate; he had no wish to end the day tearing across the open country after a runaway stallion, trying to save her from a fall. She chose a gait that was not too arduous on horse or rider, but still gained them time over the unreliable coach. It was hard not to admire her almost masculine single-mindedness in pursuit of a goal.
From his position behind her, he could admire her body as well. Now that the coat hid her form, there was really nothing to see. But his imagination was good, as was his memory. At some point, they would have to stop. And he would sleep in the stable before sharing another bed with her, lest he forget himself again.
Chapter Seven
Mr Hendricks pulled up beside her, and signalled her to slow her horse to a walk. ‘We shall be stopping soon,’ he said, checking his watch against the position of the sun. ‘While it might be possible to travel farther, we must change horses to keep this pace. We could take a room—’ he corrected himself ‘—rooms. And get some dinner.’
‘Or we can hire fresh mounts and continue for a few more hours,’ she said.
‘You are not tired?’
‘Not if there is a chance that we are gaining on them.’ They’d had no information since the stop this morning. And she must hope that the speed they were moving had closed the distance.
‘And you are comfortable as you are attired?’ He looked doubtfully at her borrowed costume.
‘I am accustomed to it,’ she said, not wishing to commit herself. It was strangely freeing to go without skirts, as long as she did not think of how it must look. She could bend low over the horse’s neck and gallop if she wished, unencumbered by petticoats, not worrying about the set of her hat or the attractive arrangement of the garments. And while she felt the stretching of unused muscles, it was not so much painful as troubling. There was a guilty pleasure in it that would not be repeated. And she wished to prolong that a few more hours, if she could.
‘Very well, then. We will stop at the next inn, and I will check for your wayward carriage and hire us some new steeds. You …’ He looked her up and down before speaking again. ‘You had best remain in the courtyard. Keep your coat buttoned and your hat pulled low. Speak to no one and do not wander off.’ He looked at her again as though he expected to see something he had not noticed before. ‘I am sorry to say it, my lady, but you do not make a very convincing man.’
And then he laughed, a kind of choking snort as though his proper demeanour had failed him.
‘Is there something amusing that I am not aware of?’ she said in a voice that should have frozen him to silence.
He was still chuckling slightly. ‘You seemed most unhappy with a statement that, in any other context, would have been good news. Just now, you were glaring into the air as though you had wished to hear you wore it better. I found the juxtaposition funny.’
‘I do not like to be reminded that I am unable to perform a role to the satisfaction of others.’ She’d had enough of that at home to last a lifetime.
‘It is no fault of yours, I assure you,’ he said. ‘Perhaps a less attractive woman might have managed it.’ He laughed again.
‘Please do not joke with me about my appearance,’ she snapped. ‘If you thought that I was angling for a compliment, I assure you, that was not the case.
‘I am not laughing at your appearance,’ he said in the same mild patient tone he’d used to coax her into wearing his clothes, but stifling a smile. ‘Only at the way you frowned again upon being told that you were attractive.’
‘Because it is nonsense,’ she said. ‘Fine words meant to flatter me into a better humour.’
‘Give me more credit than that, Lady Drusilla. I have not been in your employ for long, but I am smart enough to realise that it would take more than flattery to put you in a good humour.’ Before she could reprimand him, he shot her another sidelong glance, then turned his attention to the road. ‘This is what comes from reading sermons,’ he muttered. ‘You think too much. If I wished to flatter you, I would have mentioned your pleasant features and your beautiful dark hair. Both comments would have been true. But they would have nothing to do with your inability to disguise such an obviously female body in masculine clothing with any degree of success. And now, if you tell me that the Lord has given it to you, and you deserve no credit for it, then I will take that little book of sermons from your pocket and throw it into the next stream.’
To put an end to the conversation, he gave his beast a gentle kick in the sides and was off at such a pace that she had to struggle to follow him.
He needn’t have bothered. Any retorts she had for him had flown quite out of her head. Left in their place was a swirl of words: attractive, pleasant, beautiful and, best of all, obviously female. Somewhere in the midst of it, he had commented on her bad humour. But she was hardly bothered by a comment on something which was seen as a universal truth by those close to her.
And he had laughed, not exactly at her, but in her direction, as though her temper amused more than it upset him. The negatives he’d thrown into the last interchange were like salt in a pudding, serving to emphasise the sweetness and bring out the subtle flavours of the rest.
And he had threatened to throw her sermon book into the river. Taken as a whole, she could not decide if she wanted to stammer a blushing thank you, or ring a peal over him. But the last statement could not be allowed to stand.
She spurred her horse to draw even with him. ‘I would not care if you did throw the sermons in a stream,’ she said, a little breathless from the ride. ‘It is not as if they are my exclusive reading.’
‘You brought other books with you?’
‘Not on this journey, no.’
His features had returned to mild-mannered passivity, as though he had collected enough evidence for a decision, but saw no reason to comment on it.
‘Perhaps it was because I thought that the couple I was searching for needed a reminder of their duty.’
‘So you sought to give a sermon and not to read one?’ It was an innocent observation. But it made her feel horribly priggish, not at all like the beautiful hoyden of a moment ago.
‘We cannot always have what we want,’ she said firmly. ‘Where would the world be if everyone went haring off after their desires, eloping to Scotland on the least provocation?’
‘Where indeed?’
‘It would be chaos,’ she said, sounding depressingly like the voice of her father.
‘And you are sure you wish to stop this particular elopement,’ he said carefully. ‘If we are lucky, we might catch up with your friends tonight. Or perhaps tomorrow. But sometimes, when people are in love and intent upon their goal, they cannot be turned from it. If you stop them now, they will find another way.’
‘If they run again, I will chase them again,’ she said, feeling as stiff and flat as her sermon book. ‘I do not mean to give them any choice in the matter. This marriage cannot take place. It simply cannot.’ She was already near to on the shelf. With a scandal in the family, her own reputation would be in tatters. Her father would be livid at Priscilla and in no mood to launch the other daughter: the one who had failed to protect his favourite.
The man beside her sighed. ‘Very well, then. If you are resolute, I load my pistols and prepare myself for the inevitable.’
‘The inevitable?’
‘To haul the loving couple back across the border by force, if necessary.’
‘You would do that?’
‘If you wished me to.’
And now she was the one smiling at incongruity. He had replaced his spectacles since their last stop and the sun glinted off his lenses, causing him to squint slightly. He hardly looked the type to resort to physical violence. ‘If you will remember our conversation last evening, I requested discretion.’
‘The sound of a single shot will not carry all the way to London,’ he replied. ‘And from what I understand of females, a wound in a non-vital spot is often deemed quite romantic.’
‘It is not my goal to make Mr Gervaise even more attractive to the opposite gender.’
‘Perhaps not, then.’ He thought again. ‘Maybe I should punch him. A broken nose will solve the problem of his good looks quite nicely, I am sure.’
The idea did have appeal. As did dragging Priscilla back to London by the hair. But it would only make her run away again. And the last thing she needed to risk was engendering sympathy for the villain who had taken her away. ‘No, as I said, discretion is the watchword.’ She glanced at him again. ‘But thank you for the offer.’
He ducked his head. ‘At your service, Lady Drusilla.’
Of course. That was all it had been. She had employed him to solve the problem and he had offered suggestions. The protectiveness that she was sure she’d heard were imaginings on her part. Nothing more than that.
She sighed. For a moment, it had felt quite nice to think that there was a man on the planet who could be moved to brutal overreaction in defence of her.
They kept the pace until they arrived at the next inn, and Mr Hendricks left her standing by a wall in the courtyard, out of the way of departing coaches, as he went to see about the horses and make enquiries about recent guests. While she waited, she did as he’d suggested and buttoned the coat, pulling his hat low over her eyes and thrusting her hands into her pockets in a way that she hoped looked insolent and unwelcoming.
But she could tell from the looks she got from the stable hands that they saw easily through her disguise. She shrank back into Mr Hendricks’s overcoat, vowing that whatever might happen between here and Scotland, she would not be out of his sight for another moment. He had been right. There was no way that she would be taken for a male. She did not want to think about what the clothes might be exposing to view. Even hidden in the coat, she was exposing so much of her legs that she might as well be standing naked in the courtyard.
But despite her fears, the boys’ attitudes were not so much menacing as amused. She could hear the muttered conversation between them, as they came for the horses and brought out the fresh pair. One was guessing it was an elopement. The other disagreed. The gentleman seemed more interested in who had gone before than who might come from behind. It must be some sort of bet or a strange prank.
The first insisted that the man was too old to be just down from Oxford. And the woman was too fine to be the sort of woman who would don breeches for the amusement of the lads. Only love made people act as cork-brained as this. It was an elopement for sure. He’d bet a penny on it.
Drusilla tried not to smile. There was some comfort in knowing that though she did not look like a boy, neither did everyone mistake her for a whore. But the idea that she might be thought the one eloping?
What a wonderful thought that was. For a moment, she imagined herself as being that sort of girl. Just once, she wished to be the one racing for the border with a laughing lover as the hue and cry was raised after her. And chaperons all over London would shake their heads and murmur to their charges about the bad end one was likely to come to, if one behaved like the notorious Silly Rudney.
Mr Hendricks was in the doorway, haggling back and forth with the innkeeper, struggling to pull coins from his pockets and muttering to himself. Then he walked back to her through the busy coach yard, dipping his head low to speak in confidence to her. ‘Are you still carrying your reticule?’
She nodded.
‘Please give it to me.’
She produced the blue silk bag from the pocket of her man’s coat and was certain she heard laughter from the boys who had been watching her. It became even louder as they saw Mr Hendricks rooting through the contents for the sad collection of coins remaining there, swearing at the little money in his hand. Then he thrust the purse back to her and stalked away.
One stable boy passed a penny to the other, agreeing that only a man in love could be brought so low, and Dru cringed in embarrassment for her companion. And the boys glanced in the direction of the doorway to the inn, then looked hurriedly away.
There was a young lady, standing alone beside a stack of bandboxes, waving a handkerchief in the hopes of receiving aid. The burden was light and would have been no trouble for boys strong enough to handle cart horses. But when Dru got a better look at the identity of the girl, she disappeared into Mr Hendricks’s coat, sympathising with the sudden deafness of the stable hands.
Priss’s friend, Charlotte Deveral, was not someone she might wish to meet under the best circumstances. The girl was too young and pretty to be a harridan, but it was only a matter of time. If her disposition was as Dru remembered, she was most likely in a temper over nothing. And she would take it out on a tardy servant, or any lad who left a smudge on a package while trying to earn a penny or two.
‘Boy!’ Char’s voice was sharp and ugly. ‘Boy!’ And then she muttered an aside to her paid companion. But it was a theatrical sotto voce, meant to embarrass the targets of her wrath. ‘These country clods are all either deaf or stupid. One must shout to make them understand. I say! Boy!’
For a moment, Dru was reminded of her own tone as she ordered Mr Hendricks about. Did it sound like that to him? she wondered. She felt suddenly ashamed of herself and more than a little embarrassed for Char, who was making a spectacle of herself with all the shouting and flapping of linen.
‘Boy, I am talking to you.’
And it was then that it occurred to Dru that there was no one else near and that Char was addressing her. ‘Eh?’ She managed a deep masculine grunt, and thrust her hands even deeper into her pockets, as though she did not care a bit for what some London piece might think of her.
‘Help me with these packages. My coachman is nowhere to be found.’ And another aside, loud enough so the stable boys might hear, ‘And the rest of the staff here are useless.’
Dru touched the brim of her hat in what she hoped was a respectfully masculine way, managing to pull it even lower over her face as she did so. Then she sauntered towards Charlotte.
She heard one of the stable boys snicker.
But Charlotte noticed nothing unusual about the ‘boy’ she’d called to aid her, looking right through Dru and refusing to recognise someone she had seen dozens of times before. Of course, a lad in an inn yard was so far beneath her that he might as well have been an ant upon the ground. What reason would she have to assume he was no lad at all? And he was not nearly as important as the bandboxes, to which Char gave her full attention. ‘Help me place my packages in the carriage.’
‘Miss,’ Dru said with false respect, bowing low to take them from the ground at Char’s feet.
‘The correct form of address is my lady.’
The devil it was. The Deveral family was gentle enough, but there was not a title in it. And though Charlotte had her hopes, she would be settling for a plain Mister at the end of the season. But Dru could not exactly announce a fact that she should be in total ignorance of. ‘My lady,’ she corrected herself and bowed deeper.