Читать книгу A Regency Virgin's Undoing: Lady Drusilla's Road to Ruin / Paying the Virgin's Price - Christine Merrill, Christine Merrill - Страница 8

The rain had been falling steadily for hours, and Drusilla Rudney fought the desire to remove the coaching schedule from her reticule to try to catch a glimpse of the stops in the guttering lamplight. They had been forced on several occasions already to get out of the coach and walk in the pouring rain as the horses navigated difficult stretches of wet road. That last time, as they’d stumbled in the dark and the gale, she had managed to raise her head to look and she’d seen the difficulty the coachman had in controlling the frightened animals, who rolled their eyes behind their blinders, trying to watch the storm. But he had managed to calm them again and shouted to the passengers to hurry and take their seats so that they could start again. And now the three of them sat, damp and unhappy in their clothes, waiting for the next stop and hoping that there would be enough time for a hot drink.

Since the fat man who had bothered her could not manage to keep quiet, he had speculated briefly with the other man about the likelihood of a delay. But her pretend brother had said not a word to her since pulling her down to sit beside him.

She remembered the way the fat man beside her had pressed his leg against her skirts, and then imagined how much worse it might have got, had Mr Hendricks not intervened. She had never been this far from home without some kind of chaperon. And although she had known the risks to her reputation, she had not thought that they might involve actual harm to her person. Leaving in haste had been foolish. But common sense had been overcome by her fears for Priscilla. Even now, her sister might be experiencing similar dangers.

She did her best to disguise the involuntary shudder that had passed through her at the thought, hoping that the two men would think it a reaction to sitting in rain-dampened clothing. It would be unwise to reveal her fear in front of a man who had already showed himself willing to prey upon a vulnerable woman. She glared at the merchant across the coach.

She should consider herself lucky that all men were not like him. If they were forced to spend a few hours at the next coaching inn, she would try to pull Mr Hendricks aside and thank him for his aid. Maybe she could even explain some portion of her story, although there was nothing about him that made her think he wished to know her reasons for travelling alone. He had been rather slow to take an interest when she’d needed his help. But now that he had given it, she wished to know if she could call on him again.

She’d heard the slur in his speech when he’d bought his ticket. But his tone had been mild enough. And the spectacles he wore gave a scholarly cast to his features. She’d decided he was a man of letters, perhaps studying for holy orders. Although he was clearly lost to drink, there was something in his face and his mannerisms that made him seem kind and trustworthy. Thus, he would be easily manipulated, even by one as inexperienced with men as she. Of course, Priscilla would have had the man dancing like a puppet by now. But Dru had assumed that his sense of chivalry would bring him promptly to heel in defence of any lady. Instead, it had taken an actual, physical goad.

Of course, now that she could see him from close up, there was a touch of the disapproving schoolmaster about the set of his mouth. She wondered if he thought her fast for travelling alone. Not that he had any right to cast aspersions. When he had first entered the carriage, he had brought with him a cloud of gin and had fallen rather heavily into his seat as though his legs would be taking him no farther for quite some time. But he had been nipping regularly from his flask and had refilled it with brandy at the last stop.

She held the book of sermons before her, wondering if he was more in need of it than she. If he was a clergyman of some kind as she’d suspected, then he had best see to his own weaknesses before correcting others. He had fallen in with her lie quickly enough, when he could just as easily have defended her with the truth. A liar and a drunkard, then. But compared to the coarseness of the other man, he seemed quite harmless.

Yet when she’d almost fallen to the floor of the coach, his response had proved that his reflexes were excellent and his arm strong. He had sorted her back into the other seat as though she weighed nothing. And the thighs on which she’d accidently sat had been hard from riding.

It was a conundrum. She’d have expected him to forgo the saddle for a pony cart, as would befit someone of his nature. The physical prowess he seemed to possess was wasted on a man of letters. And there was something about his eyes, when he had removed his glasses in that moment when he’d cleaned them. The clarity of the colour in them was quite handsome. They were a strange, light brown that shimmered protean gold in the lamplight. They were the eyes of a man who had seen much, balked at little and feared nothing.

But the man of action she’d imagined, who would ride like a centaur and fight like a demon, was just a trick of the light. He was gone with the return of the spectacles, leaving a drunken cleric in the seat beside her.

At the next inn, the guard shouted for them to leave the vehicle. And they alighted, meaning to stretch their legs and twist the kinks from their backs, only to step down ankle deep into the puddles in the courtyard. The wings of the inn sheltered them from the worst of the wind, but gusts of it still tore at their clothes, making the short scurry to the front door a difficult trip. But her unwilling protector raised his topcoat over their heads to offer some shelter from the worst of it and shepherded her quickly into the public room. In the doorway behind them, the driver was deep in conversation with the innkeeper. When she glanced out of the window, the team was being unhitched from the coach and led away, but there were no replacements stamping eagerly on the flags, waiting to be harnessed.

‘What—?’ she said to the man who might be called Hendricks.

He held up a hand to silence her, clearly eavesdropping on the conversation of the guard with some other drivers who were gathered at a table by the bar. Then he turned to her. ‘It is too bad to go on. I might have known, for it has been growing worse by the hour. Our driver fears that there may be downed trees ahead of us, and does not want to come upon them in darkness. If the mail gets through at all, I am afraid it will be without us, at least until the morning. We will set out again, at first light, if the storm has abated.’

‘That cannot be,’ she said firmly, even though she recognised the futility of it.

He gave her a disgusted look. ‘Unless you have some arcane power that allows you to change the weather, you are stuck here, as we all are.’

Glancing around the room, she could see that the place was crowded even though the hour was late, for many other coaches on the road had used this town as safe haven. She scanned the faces for the only two she wished to find. But they were not there, probably farther up the road, clear of the storm and still travelling north. ‘Never mind a little rain. I must get to Gretna Green before—’ Then she shut her mouth again, not wanting to reveal too much of the truth.

He gave her an odd look and said, very clearly ‘Nonsense, Sister. You are going to Edinburgh.’ He glanced at the fat merchant who had bothered her, then gave her a significant look. ‘With me.’

‘Not on this coach we are not,’ she answered. ‘If you notice, we are in Newport, headed for Manchester. If you wish to travel to Scotland on this route, a more logical destination would be Dumfries.’

The man next to her narrowed his eyes and pulled the coaching schedule out of his pocket, paging hurriedly through it. Then he cursed softly, turned and threw the thing out the door and into the rain, glaring at her, as though geography were somehow her fault. ‘Dumfries it is then.’

‘You do not care about your destination?’

‘There are many reasons to go to Scotland,’ he said cryptically. ‘And for some of them, one destination is as good as the next. But in my experience, there can be only one reason that a young lady would be rushing to such a rakehell destination as Gretna.’ He looked at her sharply, the schoolmaster expression returning. ‘And what kind of brother would I be, if I encouraged that?’

True enough. She knew from experience that when one’s sister had chosen to rush off for the border, one must do their best to put a stop to it. And to share as little of the story as possible with curious strangers. So she looked at the man beside her, doing her best at an expression of wide-eyed innocence. ‘Do we have family in Dumfries, Brother?’ she asked. ‘For suddenly I cannot seem to recall.’

He gave a snort of derision at her inept play-acting and said, ‘No family at all. That is why I chose it. But perhaps I am wrong. I did not know until today that I had a sister.’

‘And you took that well enough,’ she said, unwilling to offer further thanks, lest they be overheard. ‘In case anyone enquires, would it be too much trouble for you to have a sick aunt in Dumfries?’

‘I suppose not.’ He gestured to a table at the fireside. ‘As long as you do not mind sitting in comfort, while we have the chance, instead of hanging about in the doorway.’

When she hesitated, she noticed that behind his lenses, there was a twinkle in his eyes that might almost have been amusement. ‘It is marginally closer to Scotland on the other side of the room,’ he said, as though that would be enough to pacify her. After he had seated her, he procured a dinner for her, adding, in a perfectly reasonable voice, that there was no reason not to take nourishment while they had the chance.

There was one perfectly good reason, she thought to herself. The contents of her purse would not stand for many stops such as this. She thought of Priss, halfway to Gretna by now, and carrying her allowance for the month, because, as the note had said, she had greater need of it than you, Silly.

Without thinking, she sighed aloud and then came back to herself, relieved that her new, false sibling had gone back across the room to get himself a tankard of ale. Now that she could compare him to other men, she found him taller than she had estimated, but powerfully built. The timidity of his demeanour did not carry to his body when in motion, nor did the liquor he’d drunk seem to affect him. There was strength and surety in his gait, as though a change in circumstances did not bother him a bit. He navigated easily back to her through the crowded room without spilling a drop of his drink, then slid easily on to the chair on the other side of the small table they shared.

She looked at him apprehensively and wet her lips. And then she stared down into the plate that had been placed before her, as though she had not used his absence to make a detailed examination of his person. She really had no reason to be so curious. While she might tell herself that it was a natural wariness on her part, and an attempt to guard herself against possible dishonour, she was the one who had come on this journey alone and then sought the protection of this stranger, based on necessity and assumptions of good character.

She took the first bite of dinner though she had no appetite for it, and found it plain fare, but good. She vowed that she would finish it all, hungry or no, for who knew when she might eat again? As long as he showed no signs of troubling her as the other man had, she would allow Mr Hendricks to pay as well. If he complained, she would inform him that she had not requested to be fed and that it was sinful to waste the food.

But the man across the table from her was not eating, simply staring back at her, waiting. ‘Well?’ he said at last, arms folded in front of him. He was looking rather like a schoolmaster again, ready to administer punishment once a confession was gained. ‘Do not think you can sit with me, well out of earshot of our companion, and give nothing in return.’

She swallowed. ‘Thank you for coming to my aid, when we were in the coach.’

‘You left me little choice in the matter,’ he said with reproof, shifting his leg as though his ankle still pained him from the kick. ‘But even without your request for help, I could not very well sit silent and let the man accost you for the whole of the journey. It was an unpleasant enough ride.’ He glanced around him at the rain streaking the window of the inn. ‘And not likely to become more pleasant in the immediate future.’

That was good, for it sounded almost as though he would have helped her without her asking. That made him better than the other man in the carriage who would surely have pressed any advantage he had gained over her from her lie. ‘I am sorry that circumstances forced me to trouble you, Mr …’ And now she would see if he had given the correct name before.

‘Hendricks,’ he supplied. ‘Just as I said in the coach. And you guessed my given name correctly. While I do not overly object to the loan of mine, I suspect you have a surname of your own.’ He stared at her, waiting.

Should she tell him the truth? If the whole point of this journey was to avoid embarrassment to the family, it did no good to go trumpeting the story to near strangers.

‘Come now,’ he said, adjusting the fold of his arms. ‘Surely you can be more open with me. We are kin, after all.’ He leaned forwards on the table, so that their heads were close together and he could whisper the next words. ‘Or how else do we explain our proximity?’

The obvious reason, she supposed. On this route, anyone seeing a couple in a tête-à-tête would think them eloping for Scotland, just as Priscilla had done. She took a breath, wondering if she should she tell him of her father’s title, and then decided against it. ‘I am Lady Drusilla Rudney.’ Then, hoping there would be a way to gloss over the rest of it, she fluttered her eyelashes at him and attempted a smile. ‘But to my friends, I am Silly.’

And then, she waited for one of the obvious responses.

I expect you are.

Did they give you cause to be?

Apparently, Mr Hendricks had no sense of humour. ‘An unfortunate family nickname, I assume.’ And one he would not be using, judging by the pained look in his eye. ‘And given to you by the Duke of Benbridge, who is your uncle. No … your father.’

He’d read her as easily as the sermon book in her pocket. She must learn to be quicker or he’d have all the facts out of her, before long. ‘Actually, it was my sister who gave me the name. A difficulty in pronunciation, when we were children …’ Her explanation trailed off. It surprised her, for rarely did conversation with a stranger leave her at a loss for words.

‘Well then, Lady Drusilla, what brings you to be travelling alone? You can afford a maid, or some sort of companion. And to travel in the family carriage, instead of stuck in the mail coach with the likes of me.’

‘It is a matter of some delicacy and I do not wish to share the details.’

‘If you are going to Gretna, then you are clearly eloping, travelling alone so that your father does not discover you. Little else is needed to tell the tale, other than to ascertain the name of the man involved.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ she said sharply, insulted that he would think her so foolish. ‘I am not eloping. And how dare you think such a thing.’

‘Then, what are you doing?’ he shot back, just as quickly. The alcohol had not dulled his wits a bit, and the speed of his questioning left her with her mouth hanging open, ready to announce the truth to a room full of strangers.

She took a breath to regain her calm. ‘I wish to go to Gretna and stop an elopement,’ she whispered urgently. ‘And I do not want anyone to know. Once my end has been achieved, there must be no hint of gossip. Not a breath of scandal. No evidence that the trip was ever made.’

Mr Hendricks paused as though considering her story. Then he said, ‘You realise, of course, that the trip may be futile.’

‘And why would you think that?’ Other than that it was probably true. But it was better to appear obtuse in the face of probable defeat, than to be talked into giving up.

He tried again in a much gentler tone. ‘Should the couple involved be determined, they will not listen to you. And if they had much of a start on you, they are miles ahead already.’

‘Quite possibly,’ she agreed.

‘The honour of the girl in question is most assuredly breached.’

‘That does not matter in the least.’ After a day and a night with her lover, allowing the wedding to occur would be the logical solution. But if Priss disgraced herself by marrying Gervaise, she disgraced the family as well. And Dru would get the blame for it, for it had been her job to chaperon the girl and prevent such foolishness. Father would announce that, no matter how unlikely it might be that his awkward daughter Silly could find a man to haul her to Gretna, he was unwilling to risk a second embarrassment. There would be no Season, no suitors and no inevitable proposal. She would spend the rest of her life in penance for Priss’s mistake, on the unfashionable edge of society, with the wallflowers and the spinsters.

Was it so very selfish if, just this once, she ignored what was right for Priscilla and looked to her own future? ‘I will not let him marry her.’ If she had to, she would grab Priss from the very blacksmith’s stone and push Gervaise under a dray horse. But there would be no wedding. Dru narrowed her eyes and glared at Mr Hendricks.

He glared back at her, his patience for her wearing thin. ‘By travelling alone and in secret, you have compromised your reputation, and are just as likely to end in the soup as the couple you seek to stop.’

‘With the need for speed and secrecy, there was little else I could do.’ The Benbridge carriage was already tearing up the road between London and the Scottish border, and Priss had left her barely enough to buy a ticket on the mail coach, much less rent a post-chaise. But the scandal of it would work to her advantage in one way: in comparison with Priss’s elopement, a solo journey by her ape-leading older sister would hardly raise an eyebrow.

Mr Hendricks saw her dark expression and amended, ‘Perhaps you will be fortunate. The rain that traps us might trap them as well.’

This was hardly good news. Until now, she had been imagining her sister and Gervaise travelling night and day in a mad rush to reach their destination. But if they were held up in an inn somewhere, the chance for recognition and disgrace multiplied by a thousandfold. And in the time they spent alone together, unchaperoned …

She decided firmly that she would not think about the details of that at all. There was nothing she could do about the truth of that, especially if she was already too late. She gave her new brother a look that told him his opinions were unwelcome and said, ‘Knowing Mr Gervaise as I do, they are likely to dawdle, for he will not wish to spoil his tailoring in the rain.’

‘You do not know the man as well as you think if he has taken some other girl to Scotland.’ Mr Hendricks’s gaze was direct, and surprisingly clear, as though he were trying to impart some bit of important information. But what it might be was lost upon her.

‘It does not matter that I do not know his character. It only matters that I know his destination. He is going to Gretna. We had an understanding.’ She had paid him well enough to leave Priss alone. He had taken her money, then he had taken her sister as well. And she was not exactly sure how, but when she found him, she would make him suffer for tricking her and dishonouring the family. She glared at the man across the table. ‘The marriage must not occur.’

Mr Hendricks was watching her uneasily, as though he did not quite know what to make of such illogical stubbornness. In the end, he seemed to decide that the best response was none at all, and focused his attention upon his meal, offering no further words of advice or censure.

But watching his enthusiasm for the food, she could not contain a comment of her own. ‘After the amount you have been drinking, it is a wonder you can eat at all.’

He glanced up at her, and said, around another bite of meat, ‘If you are shocked by it, then you had best stick to your sermons, little sister. What you have seen me drink is nothing, compared to what I imbibed before.’

‘That is hardly a point of pride,’ she said with a sniff.

‘Nor is it any of your business,’ he added, taking a large drink of ale. He thought for a moment, and then said, ‘Although if it hadn’t been for my level of inebriation, I might be riding, right now, in the coach that I intended to take, and not have collapsed into the first one I found. With an excess of blue ruin, I have found my long-lost sister.’ He toasted her with his tankard. ‘Fate works in mysterious ways.’

‘Do you often drink so much that you cannot tell one route from another?’ For though he was somewhat rumpled now, when she looked closely at him, she doubted that the behaviour was habitual.

He stared down into his glass, as though wishing it would refill itself. ‘My life, of late, has taken an unusual turn.’ Then he looked at her, thoughtfully. ‘It involves a woman. Given the circumstances, an excessive amount of alcohol and impromptu coach travel made perfect sense.’

‘And is this woman in Edinburgh?’ she asked, remembering his original destination.

‘She is in London. My plan was to take a coach to Orkney.’

‘You cannot take a coach to an island,’ she said, as patiently as possible.

‘I planned to ride as far as John O’ Groats and then walk the rest of the way.’ The glint in his eyes was feverish, and a little mad. ‘The woman in question was married. And not interested in me.’ The sentences fell from his mouth, flat and heavy, like pig-iron bars.

For a moment, Drusilla considered offering her sympathy. Though he was inebriated, Mr Hendricks had come to her aid, and gone so far as to buy the food she was eating. But the recent changes in her own life had put her quite out of charity with young lovers, either star-crossed or triumphant. ‘If your goal is no more specific than that, you might just as well drown yourself by the Hebrides. Once we reach Scotland, they will be closer.’

‘Thank you for your kind words of advice, Sister.’ He gave her a strange, direct look, as though he were equally tired of the likes of her.

They would have fallen into silence again had not the innkeeper appeared at their table, followed close behind by the fat merchant, who was shifting eagerly from foot to foot as though he had heard some bit of gossip that he could not wait to share. ‘It has been decided that the coach will not continue until morning, if then,’ he said, with a satisfied smile.

‘I am aware of that,’ Mr Hendricks said. His eyes never left hers, as though he thought it possible to ignore the other man out of existence.

‘I assume you will be seeking accommodations?’ the innkeeper added.

‘Obviously.’

‘Then there is a small problem,’ the innkeeper responded. ‘There are three of you, and I have but two rooms left.’

From behind him, the merchant gave an inappropriate giggle, although why he found the prospect of further discomfort to be amusing, she could not imagine.

The innkeeper continued. ‘One of the rooms will go to the lady, of course. But you gentlemen must work out between you what is to be done with the remaining space. You can share the other bed, or draw lots for it. The loser can take his chances in the parlour, once the bar is closed. But you had best decide quickly, or I shall give the space to someone else. I suspect we will be seeing more like you with coaches stalled here, or turning back because of the rain.’

‘And I see that as no problem at all,’ the merchant responded before Hendricks could speak. ‘My companions are brother and sister. Since they are such close family, a single room will suffice for them and I will take the other.’ He shot her a leer, as though pleased to have caught her in her own trap, and waited for her to admit the truth.

‘That will be all right, I am sure,’ Mr Hendricks answered before she could so much as gather her breath. She wanted to argue that it would most certainly not be all right. She was the Duke of Benbridge’s daughter and had no intention of sharing a room with any stranger, much less a strange man.

But there was something calming about the tone of Mr Hendricks’s voice, like a hand resting on her shoulder.

It will be all right. Although why she was certain of that, she could not say.

In her silence, he continued as though he was accustomed to speaking for her, and it mattered not, one way or the other whether or not she was in his bed. ‘Drusilla shall have the mattress, of course. But if you could spare another blanket for me, I would be most grateful.’

The merchant looked vaguely disappointed, like a dog that had not managed to flush a bird. Then he turned his scrutiny on her, waiting for the weak link to break and the truth to come tumbling out of her.

She stared back at him, showing what she hoped was the correct amount of annoyance at having her plans changed by nature and an overfull inn, but without the outrage that she should be feeling.

Beside her, Mr Hendricks was haggling with the hosteller, who allowed that there might be enough bedding. But there would, of course, be an extra charge for it. Apparently it was at least twice the rate that Mr Hendricks found appropriate.

As the innkeeper argued about supply and demand and reminded her faux sibling that the same blanket could be let at triple the price to the next passenger who would be forced to sleep on the floor, the sounds of the room seemed to diminish. All Drusilla heard was the sound of imaginary coins clinking from her reticule into the hand of the innkeeper. She had taken all the loose money she could find when setting out after Priss, without picking the pockets of the servants or going to her father and explaining the predicament. There had been scant little available. She suspected Priss had seen to that, specifically to prevent her following.

When Dru had counted her funds, it had seemed enough to mount a rescue. There was enough for the ticket, her food and perhaps one stop along the way. But she had not allowed for tipping the guard, emergencies, or the exorbitant rates that she might find in places where travellers were at the mercy of innkeepers and would pay what the market might bear. At this rate, she would be penniless by tomorrow’s lunch. She would be forced to turn back and admit everything to Father, or to put herself at the mercy of strangers and hope for the best.

She glanced at Mr Hendricks, who was still arguing with the innkeeper. ‘I will do without the blanket. But for that price, I expect we will have space to continue this meal in our room. Give us the larger of the two, and send the bags up so that we might be comfortable. Drusilla?’ His tone was that of an older brother, used to controlling his family.

But the sound of her own name, said in that smooth male voice, and without any polite preamble or foolish nicknames, made her skin prickle. ‘Yes, John,’ she answered, ducking her head in submission and grabbing her plate to follow him.