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Regency Virgin’s Undoing

Lady Drusilla’s Road to Ruin

Paying the Virgin’s Price

Christine Merrill

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Lady Drusilla’s Road to Ruin

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Paying the Virgin’s Price

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Read all about it…

Copyright

Lady Drusilla’s Road to Ruin

Christine Merrill

Chapter One

John Hendricks took a sip from his flask and leaned back into his corner of the northbound mail coach, stretching his legs in an effort to take up as much space as he could before another passenger encroached on his person. After the week he’d had, he was in no mood or condition to be packed cheek to jowl with strangers.

Mr Hendricks, if there is something else you have to say on your hopes for my future, know that I decided on the matter from the first moment I laid eyes on Adrian Longesley. Nothing said by another is likely to change me on the subject.

The words were still ringing in his ears, three days later. And with each repetition of them the heat of his embarrassment flared anew. The woman was married, for God’s sake, and above his station. She’d made her uninterest in him plain enough. If he’d suffered in silence, as he had for three years, he could have kept his job and his pride. Instead, he’d been so obvious in his infatuation that he’d forced her to speak the truth aloud.

He took another swig from the flask. If the blush on his cheeks was visible in the darkness, better to let the others think it was from drunkenness and not the shame of unrequited love.

Adrian had known all along, of course. And would have allowed him to continue as a part of the household, if he’d not made such an ass of himself. But once it was out in the open, there was nothing to do but give up his position and slink away from London.

John’s feelings for his old friend rose in a tangle of jealousy, pity and embarrassment at his own behaviour. Despite all that had happened, he liked and respected Adrian, and had enjoyed working for him. But what did it say of his own character that he’d even consider stealing the wife of a man who would need her support and unwavering love as the last of his vision faded?

And how foolish did it make him to think that Emily would leave a blind earl for an unacknowledged natural son? He might have been an equal to Lord Folbroke in looks and temperament, but he had no rank, no fortune. And though his sight was better than Adrian’s, he could hardly call it perfect.

John slipped the flask into his pocket and removed his spectacles to give them a vigorous wipe. There was not a woman alive who would leave her husband for a man whose only asset was marginally better vision.

He stared sullenly through the cleared lenses at the two people on the seat opposite as though daring them to comment about his earlier drinking. When he had bought the ticket, he’d had some hazy idea that travelling to Scotland would be like venturing into the wilderness. It would be a place to heal the soul and the nerves in quiet and solitude. He had not allowed for the fact that, to arrive at this hermit’s paradise, he would be crammed into a small enclosure with the very humanity he despised. They had been rattling about the interior of the conveyance like three beans in a bottle for hours already. He felt the impact of each bump and rut in his bones, his teeth and his aching brain. The swaying of the coach was made even worse by the gusting winds and the rain that hammered the sides and tried to creep in at the poorly sealed window on his right, wetting the sleeve of his coat when he tried to relax against the curtain.

He thought of the coaching schedule, forgotten in his pocket. It was over thirty hours to Edinburgh and he suspected that, with the wet roads and the gathering darkness, it would take even longer than normal. Not that it mattered to him. He was his own man now, with no schedule to keep.

He wished that the thought cheered him. Thank God that he was still half-drunk. When the last effects of the alcohol had gone from his system, they would be replaced by the panic of a man who had destroyed his old life.

Hung over was no way to start a new one. But when he’d gone to the Swan with Two Necks, trying to buy a ticket out of London, he had been several gins past the point of making that decision and would now have to live with the consequences.

‘Beastly weather we are having.’ The man across from him seemed to think that stating the obvious was a witty opening gambit.

John ignored him. He’d been forced to leave London because he had said far too much to his employer. That did not mean he wished to blurt every thought to strangers.

The woman that shared the coach with them seemed to have similar sentiments. At the sound of the man’s voice, her skirts rustled and she clutched the book of sermons she had been reading, bringing it closer to her face to catch the flickering light of the reading lamp in her corner.

John saw her give the slightest flinch as the other man turned his attention to her. ‘Travelling alone, miss?’

She looked up long enough to give the man next to her the frosty glare of someone who did not answer to those to whom she had not been properly introduced. Then she returned to her book.

But the man who addressed her was undeterred. ‘Because I would be happy to escort you to your destination.’ Although there was plenty of room in the body of the coach, he’d made a point of choosing the seat next to the young lady and tended to use each swerve and jostle as an excuse to crowd her. Now, he was definitely leering.

John had a moment’s concern that she might be naïve enough to accept the man’s offer out of hand. Then he dismissed it as none of his business.

Her skirts gave another rustle as she drew them tightly to her legs, as though trying to shrink herself enough to minimise contact with the stranger. But that would be near to impossible, for she was of an uncommon height. She did not seem to realise that the movement of the cloth over her legs outlined areas of her body that the man accosting her found most interesting.

As did John, come to that. They were long legs, to match the length of her body. If they matched the small amount of ankle he glimpsed beneath her skirts, they were well shaped. A pity the girl was so Friday-faced. If she’d smiled, she might have been quite pretty.

Though her expression hinted that she was travelling to a funeral, her clothing did not. Bright colours suited her fair skin and the deep blue of her gown made her brown eyes seem even darker. The fabric was expensive, but the cut was conservative, as though she renounced fashion when it impinged on movement or modesty. Her long, black hair was dressed severely away from her face and hidden under a poke bonnet.

If John had to guess, he’d have said spinster. Clearly, this was a girl with money, but no prospects. It was a very unusual combination, for the former often created the latter. But reading sermons in public hinted at a moral propriety that would make her unpleasant company, should she deign to open her mouth.

Her dark eyes caught his, just for a moment. In the dim light they seemed to glitter sharp and dark, like the eyes of a hawk.

Do something.

Had she spoken? Or had he just imagined the words, planted firmly in his brain? Surely, if they had come from her, there would have been some softness in them, some urgent courtesy in their appeal to a stranger for help. The command was an invention of his own drunken mind.

‘It is quite lonely,’ the other man announced, ‘to travel without a companion of some kind.’

A merchant, thought John, for he could not seem to resist speculating about the other passengers. And a prosperous one as well. The man could afford his extra weight, for the fabric of the vest stretched across the bulging stomach was a fine brocade. But his head seemed to be outgrowing his hair, which struggled to conceal an expanding forehead that the man now mopped in the early summer heat. He spoke again, addressing the girl, who had not responded to his earlier comment.

‘Is there someone waiting to join you at the next stop?’ He was eyeing her carefully to see if there was some small acknowledgement that she was not as alone as she appeared.

John looked as well and saw no such response. The mystery deepened.

Her eyes flicked to him again, and then away, sharp and quick as a knife cut.

Well?

Well, indeed. The only advantage of being a gentleman of leisure was that he did not have to be at the beck and call of anyone. Not even young ladies with large dark eyes and forbidding expressions. It was ungentlemanly of him, but so be it. If nothing else, the last few weeks should have taught him not to become embroiled in the schemes of beautiful women who, in the end, would offer nothing more than dismissive thanks as they rushed past him to the object of their desire.

Very deliberately, he yawned and closed his eyes, pretending to sleep. Then he opened them just enough so that he could continue to watch his companions.

There was a flash of lightning, followed close by a crack of thunder loud enough to make the other man jump in his seat. But the woman was unmoved and the cold white light threw the annoyance on her features into sudden sharp relief.

Do you mean to allow this?

When John did not respond, she turned to look at the man next to her. The merchant was impervious to whatever messages she was sending or he’d have turned to dust in his seat before speaking again. This time, he was louder, as though he thought she might not have heard him before. ‘I said, is there someone to greet you at your destination?’ John watched the flicker of truth on the face of the girl that admitted she had no one.

Their companion saw it as well. ‘I noticed, at the last stop, that you did not eat. If you lack funds, you needn’t fear. The Cap and Bells does a fine joint. I would be only too happy to share my portion with you. And perhaps a brandy and hot water, to keep away the chill.’

Then he’d offer to share his room as well, John had no doubt. The fine example of London citizenry across the coach from him was on the make for a bedmate. Without someone to aid her, the man would grow more predatory the farther they got from town.

John offered a silent plea to the sense of duty that pushed him to become involved in the business of others, begging it to lie still, just this one time.

Without warning, the girl announced, ‘I am not alone. I am travelling with my brother.’ And then she kicked John smartly in the ankle.

It was rather like a nightmare he’d once had, of being an actor forced on stage in a play that he had not learned. The girl opposite him seemed to think him obliged to rescue her, though she had no way of knowing whether his intentions were any more gentlemanly then their companion’s.

Very well, then. And be damned to his own sense of honour for participating in this farce. He gave a garumphing, snuffling cough, as someone awakening after a long sleep, opened his eyes with a start and shouted, ‘What is it? What? Have we arrived already?’ He looked straight into the eyes of the girl across from him, shocked at the feeling of sudden connection between them, as though she could manage to relay the whole of her situation with just a glance. Then he stared at the man beside them, as though just noticing him. ‘Is this man bothering you, dear heart?’

‘I most certainly am not,’ the other man replied. ‘And I doubt that you know any more of this girl than I do, for you have been travelling with us for some time and have said not a word to her.’

‘I did not feel the need to speak to someone I have known since birth,’ John said with some asperity.

‘And you—’ the man glared at the girl ‘—I’ll wager you do not even know this man’s name.’

Come on, he thought, in her general direction. Choose anything and I will answer to it.

‘It is John,’ she said.

He tried to contain his surprise, for she had chosen the single most common name in the world. There was something disappointing about the fact that it fit him so well. He glared at the insolent cit. ‘And if I were to give you leave, you would call her Miss Hendricks. But I do not. My dear?’ He held out a hand to her, and when she took it without hesitation, he pulled her across the body of the carriage into the seat beside him.

The carriage gave a sudden jolt and she landed half in his lap. The sudden contact was most pleasant, and, for a second, his thoughts were in no way filial. But not a hint of answering blush tinted her pale skin and she grabbed the strap beside the door and sorted herself into the seat between him and the opposite window without further assistance.

To hide his momentary confusion, he removed his spectacles and wiped the lenses on the corner of his handkerchief. When he replaced them, he could see that the woman next to him was bristling in outrage. But she was directing it at the other passenger, glaring in triumph across the coach at her adversary.

You are beautiful when you are angry. It was a foolish sentiment, even when true. Knowing the trouble that they could cause, what sane man wanted to make a woman angry? But in her case, there was a strength and energy in her that was accented by her indignation. John had a moment’s desire to reach out and touch her, running a hand lightly over her back as one might, when soothing the feathers of a flustered falcon.

‘My apologies,’ the man muttered, giving John a wary look. ‘If that was the way of it, you’d have best spoken sooner.’

‘Or you could have found your manners before speaking at all,’ John said back, annoyed at the cheek of the man and at himself for his foolish thoughts. Then he settled back into his seat, pretending to doze again.

Beside him, the woman removed a small watch from her reticule, and looked uneasily from it to the shadows of the landscape passing by their window. In the flashes of lightning, he saw violent movement, as though the trees and hedges were being whipped about by the wind. The swaying of the coach increased. Though it was barely midnight, it appeared that their journey was about to take an unfortunate turn.

Chapter Two

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.