Lady Drusilla's Road to Ruin (9 page)

And the foolish girl leaned so far forwards, trying to get a good look at the man in the road, that she tumbled out into his arms.

From Dru’s position, it was the most contrived thing she had ever seen in her life. Char’s shameless behaviour very nearly made her forget the two men she was supposed to be watching. But when she looked back at them, they showed no signs of rising and seemed more interested in a flask they were passing back and forth between them, than in regaining the pistols resting on the seat of the carriage.

Mr Hendricks caught Charlotte easily before she hit the ground. Then he said, in a voice deeper than usual, ‘You needn’t fear, my lady. Your person and your jewels are perfectly safe. Though indeed, now that I see you, they are hardly necessary to enhance your beauty.’

Dru’s eyes narrowed. For while she had no wish to see Mr Hendricks shoot Char, Priss’s friend was doing it much too brown. The girl reached to open the reticule, pretended to fumble, dropping her purse in the dust of the road. Then she began to sag.

Hendricks rescued the money and tightened his grip on the girl fainting in his arms. Dru could remember how nice those arms felt when they had been around her body. But he’d never had cause to hold her as tightly as this. And he never would, if the only way to accomplish it was to fake a swoon.

Charlotte gave a weak laugh. ‘I fear I am close to overcome.’ She put her hands upon his bicep, so she could feel the muscle there. ‘You are very strong.’ She tipped her head back in an obvious invitation. ‘And I am quite defenceless.’

‘Are you, now?’ She could tell, even from this distance, that Hendricks was responding favourably to the shameless play-acting. And it irked her to see the trick she’d tried on him played better by one who had no responsibilities to prevent her from feigning helplessness when it suited her.

In the carriage, Char’s chaperon gave a warning tutting noise, but did little more than fan herself and watch eagerly. In Dru’s opinion, the woman did far too little to put a stop to her charge’s behaviour, even when there was not a pistol drawn.

Hendricks had pulled the coin purse from inside the bag and was feeling the weight of it in his hand. ‘This will do nicely, I think. I will not take from your companion. If she has any money, she will need it more than you.’ He glanced over his shoulder, gauged the distance and tossed the purse expertly up to Dru, who loosed the strings and counted the substantial curl of notes inside.

‘If there is anything else you want sir, you are welcome to it. As long as you spare my life and my necklace.’

She’d said nothing of her innocence, Dru noted. And now Char was batting her eyelashes as though she had cinders in her eyes.

Mr Hendricks gave a little laugh and reached to undo the bottom of his mask. ‘Then you shall sacrifice a kiss, my dear, and I will go on my way.’ And then he put his lips upon hers. It was hard for Dru to see past the edge of the mask and the red haze forming in her own eyes. But it appeared that he had opened her mouth. His mouth was open as well. There was much movement and what looked like mutual chewing.

The coachmen were nudging each other and chuckling where they lay on the ground. The rate of the chaperon’s fan increased, as though she was about to overheat in the closed carriage.

Now Char was making little noises in the back of her throat that sounded suspiciously like moans of pleasure. Her body trembled and her hands clutched urgently at Mr Hendricks’s coat, as though she wished to crawl inside it with him.

And Dru felt sick, wishing that she could call the last few moments back and beg bread from farm wives as he’d first suggested. Her petty desire to take revenge on Charlotte might have gained them the money needed to finish the trip, but it had earned Charlotte a conquest.

And Char had got
her
kiss. If she had only chosen the right words a few moments ago, she would be the one bent over Mr Hendricks’s arm. It would be her mouth he’d opened. And she would be the one shuddering in ecstasy and hanging from his lapels.

Instead, she had offered him money.

Dru stared down at the purse. Then she pocketed the bills, which were more than enough to get them to Scotland and back, and let the little bag drop again to the ground. She gave her horse a little kick that caused him to shift uneasily and stamp the thing into the mud at his feet.

When she looked back to the road again, Mr Hendricks was setting Char back upon her feet to more ineffectual noises from the companion. Dru could see the look of dazed happiness on the face of her sister’s friend.

She felt the strange, hot feeling again, in her cheeks and lower. Her throat felt flushed; the fabric of her shirt seemed to chafe at her breasts. And in the tight confining cases of leather there was a spot between her legs that seemed to pulse and burn and make her want to leap from the horse and rip the breeches from her body.

Now Mr Hendricks had secured his mask again and was helping Charlotte back into the coach. Then he ran to his horse, springing easily into the seat as though invigorated by the robbery. He tipped his hat again. ‘Thank you, my lady.’ And then, another tip of the hat for the chaperon. ‘Apologies, ma’am.’

The casual courtesy annoyed her almost as much as the kiss had. How many times had she experienced that polite, dismissive attention from an attractive man, only to have him turn back to Priss?

‘And now, I must be going.’ Mr Hendricks looked back to the coachmen. ‘See to your mistress, gentlemen. And if you are smart, you’ll take your time about it.’ Then he spurred his horse up the hill towards her, and they were off, into the open country, far away from the road.

They rode for some time without stopping; she ripped off her mask when he did and followed him without question. But her mind was seething and her body still in turmoil. If there was such a thing as a chaperon’s corner for highwaymen, she had been left there tonight, holding an empty gun instead of her knitting. As usual, the real excitement was occurring close enough to be seen. And, as usual, no one had wanted her participation.

Mr Hendricks pulled up suddenly in the shelter of a copse of trees. Then he reached into his pocket and retrieved his glasses, looking through them and polishing the lenses. Without her having to ask, he supplied, ‘I stayed not far from here, while growing up. There is no reason to ride blind. But it was pleasant to learn that I still know the roads well enough for pranks such as this.’ He adjusted the spectacles and gave her a dark look. ‘Not that I mean to pull any more of them.’ Then he held out his hand for the money and counted it.

‘And no more robberies should be necessary. This is enough that we might hire a carriage for the remainder of the journey. Once we reach Lancaster you may put on skirts again and travel properly, as a lady.’

As though that would matter to him, for she doubted he thought any more of her than he had of the unfortunate young lady fanning herself in Char’s carriage. ‘I do not have to put on skirts again, if it is more convenient to proceed as we have been.’

‘I should think you’d be happy for the chance to ride in comfort. We can resume a normal rate of travel, rather than tearing across country, higgledy-piggledy.’ He looked off in the direction of the northern horizon. ‘Although we will keep it up for some time yet. There is a short cut I know that will bring us out on the road far away from the carriage we have just visited and closer to the one you seek.’ He glanced back at her, taking in her unusual costume. ‘The night is clear and I do not expect pursuit. We shall stay as we are and sleep under the stars. But tomorrow, it would be better that you were a woman again and I take back my hat and coat.’

‘If I were a woman?’ This was even worse than being ignored. It seemed she had lost her gender altogether, with a simple change of clothes.

‘If you were dressed as one,’ he corrected. ‘Of course, I know you are a woman.’ He laughed in a funny, awkward way that did not match his earlier self-assurance.

‘Do you really?’ Suddenly it was very important that he say it aloud.

‘And my employer as well,’ he added quickly. And this was worse than neutering her. She might as well have been another species. But to choose now, of all times, to remind her of the distance between them was particularly cruel. ‘If I am so far above you,’ she snapped, ‘then I am surprised that you think yourself entitled to choose my attire.’

A difference in their stations had not mattered a bit when he had been kissing Char. And the fact that she employed him did not mean that she was without feeling. She had a good mind to show him…to prove to him…to make him see…

Something. It was as if there was a word on the tip of her tongue that she could not quite remember. But she was sure that, whatever she meant to say, it was a uniquely female thing that everyone had learned but she. And if she’d asked Char or Priss what it was, they’d have looked knowingly one to another and then laughed at her.

She was tired of sitting in the corner while others danced, and even more tired of watching others being kissed in the moonlight. And beyond everything else, she was tired of Mr John Hendricks looking through her and holding another woman in his arms.

He was looking at her, aghast, and she wondered if some portion of her thoughts could be read on her face. Then he said in a mild, servile voice, ‘I only meant that if any are searching for two daring highwaymen, they will not recognise them in us, should you choose to don a dress.’

It was so perfectly rational, and had so little to do with her femininity or his awareness of it, that she felt a complete fool. So she pulled herself together, gathered what little respect she had left, and answered just as reasonably, ‘You are probably right. It is time to put this foolishness aside and behave properly.’

But her heart said something far different. Before the night was over, she would teach the man beside her that she would not be overlooked.

Chapter Nine

F
or their evening resting place, John chose a field that was at least a mile from the highway and every bit as remote as he could have hoped. There were trees for shelter, a nearby stream and not even a house in the distance. And there was a haystack with a single, rather uninterested cow munching upon it. He jumped down from his horse, feeling well satisfied with the night’s doings.

Although it had been the height of foolishness to take to highway robbery, it had been strangely exhilarating. Rather like being back in the army where every moment might mean one’s death. He had acquitted himself well and survived the incident with an intact skin and a purse in his pocket.

And Lady Drusilla was safe as well. And a living example of why men should not take foolish risks for the glory of it. There were far better ways to expend energy waiting at home in England for those lucky men who could win them.

Not that he was the man for the lovely Drusilla. But the little fool in the carriage would have tumbled for him, easy enough, had he coaxed her. Kissing her had done nothing to ease his desire for dark eyes and luscious red lips. But it was an assurance that he was not the eunuch that his position required him to be. ‘We will stop here,’ he said.

‘And sleep in a haystack?’

‘You will find it a more comfortable bed than the ground is likely to be,’ he assured her. His employer was out of sorts with him again and had been behaving more curiously than usual since the robbery. He had assumed that she would have some reaction to her participation in the robbery. But he had assumed that it would be fear, or perhaps excitement. He had not been prepared for annoyance.

Although it took some experience to gather what behaviour was unusual for the Lady Drusilla. The girl was a genuine eccentric. She rode like a man when the situation required it, miles at a time and without complaint. Where another woman might have held even an unloaded pistol with shaking hand, she’d played her part like a veteran of the road. And she’d snatched the booty from the air as he’d tossed it to her as though they were true partners and the action was old hand.

But now her silence had a prickly quality to it. And it seemed to stem not from the hay in front of them, but his earlier suggestion that she would be able to hire a post-chaise and travel in skirts like a normal lady of the
ton
, sleeping in inns and ordering him about in front of the coachman. After the day’s easy camaraderie, the change in her grated on his nerves. ‘Well?’ he asked.

She frowned at him in the moonlight, the pucker of her mouth deeper than usual. He tried not to be flustered by it. But he could hardly look elsewhere because of what he had come to term in his mind ‘the issue of the breeches’. While it was difficult to look at her face and not think of kissing her, it was even more difficult to deal with the thoughts that arose when he looked anywhere else.

‘What do you mean by that?’ she demanded.

‘You are cross with me, though I have done just as you asked. I wish to know the reason for it. I can hardly remedy the problem if you do not state clearly what it is.’

‘There is nothing,’ she said, removing her hat and giving an imperious toss of her head meant to put him in his place.

‘There damn well is,’ he snapped back, looking at the cascade of shining black hair and forgetting his place yet again. After what they had just been through together, it irked him that she felt the need to play high and mighty.

‘It is nothing important,’ she corrected.

‘If it is important to you, then it is important to me as well. Now tell me what is bothering you.’

She bit her lip in the way that she had when she feared she was revealing a weakness, as though she were accustomed to having any such used against her. ‘I am tired, is all. And my muscles are sore from too much riding.’

‘You have not been eating or sleeping properly and you are stiff from exertion. And not accustomed to riding astride.’ She did look tired, swaying a little as she dropped to the ground beside her horse. It made him want to take her in his arms to soothe her, stroking her hair as one might a sleepy child.

Then she squirmed. ‘I think I am not accustomed to these breeches.’

Nor was he accustomed to seeing her in them. And his thoughts changed instantly from innocence to hunger. ‘I trust that they are not too uncomfortable.’

‘It is not that.’ She shifted again, but made no effort to explain.

‘All the more reason you should return to your own clothing tomorrow,’ he prodded. ‘If mine is so disturbing, I should think you’d be happy to be rid of it.’

And that was badly phrased. It made him imagine her without any clothes at all. He stepped closer until she was so close that he had no choice but to look into her eyes. If she released his gaze, he’d not have been able to take his eyes from the place where her legs met, imagining the hot wetness of it, wanting to touch, to smell, to taste.

It was absolutely the last thing he should be thinking. And nothing like the chaste devotion he’d felt for Emily Folbroke. This was an all-consuming lust.

And Dru was looking back at him with eyes fixed and yet unfocused, the pupils large in the thin dark irises. But the firm set of her lips had a slight curve to it, as though she was daring him to reveal his feelings.

And he wondered—could it be that the tight clothing was arousing her? Perhaps she had learned more from her wayward lover than she’d let on. While it was flattering to imagine that she wanted him, it was far more likely that what she was experiencing was little more than a passing urge.

If so, there was no real harm in indulging it. A slight bruising of his pride, perhaps, when she cast him off in the morning. But it was better than feeling unmanned and invisible as he rode at her side.

As an experiment, he smiled at her in a way intended to charm.

In response, she bit her lip again, as though plumping it before a kiss.

And so he gave her permission to reveal herself. ‘We have not really been speaking of doffing a disguise, have we?’

‘We have not.’ The words were half-statement, half-question, as though she was aware of what they did not mean, but was unsure of what they did.

He took a step closer. ‘Or whether my clothing is an ill fit. Which it is not, if you were wondering.’

‘It is not uncomfortable. But it is very improper.’ She’d said it with a half-smile, as though telling him a secret.

‘The impropriety is probably what makes it so damned fetching.’ He waited for the firm snap of her disapproval at his impertinence and a return to the cold and aloof woman who had been ordering him around Britain.

Instead, there was only a slight gasp and the whispered words, ‘You have been admiring me?’

‘Any sane man would. And I could recommend something that might ease your distress, if you are feeling unsettled. Do you wish me to be of assistance?’

‘In what way?’ Perhaps she was not as experienced as he suspected. There was no trace of guile in the question, or any sense that she was trying to shift the responsibility for what was about to happen.

Which was why he ought to turn away, and do nothing at all. If she was unaware of the truth, it was not his job to change that fact.

But he could not help himself. After the adventures they’d had together, he was as restless as she was. There might never be a night when she was less of a lady, and he more of a rogue. The distance between them had shrunk until it hardly seemed to matter. For better or worse, he would take advantage of the opportunity and touch the woman who had been driving him mad, almost from the first. He put a hand on her shoulder.

And she did not pull away.

So he said in a voice that was low and full of seduction, ‘Sometimes, after a long ride, it helps to massage the stiff muscles, to return the natural ebb and flow of the blood.’

‘I see,’ she said, though clearly she did not, for she added, ‘Like currying the horses.’

‘Yes. Rather.’ He was thrown momentarily off his stride.

‘And you would do that for me.’

He regained his balance and lowered his voice again. ‘If you wished.’ Again, he waited for the outraged dismissal.

And again it did not come. Instead, she said, very softly, ‘Perhaps you could demonstrate.’

So he stepped behind her, letting his fingers caress her shoulders as he moved, and eased the heavy coat from her body. He began, very innocently, by rubbing her neck and shoulders, stroking his hands down her back. She wore nothing beneath the shirt, having discarded her stays with her dress. It allowed him to enjoy the delicious feel of firm, smooth flesh under the linen, and the way the knots in her muscles seemed to melt at his touch.

It would be wrong of him to do more than this. And it was not as if he could pretend there was mutual seduction in play. Despite her forward nature, Lady Drusilla was considerably more innocent than the girl in the carriage had been. But he told himself that he was performing a service. She was tense and tired, and would sleep better after his ministrations.

She swayed against him; he heard her sigh and imagined her lips parted for a kiss.

So he put his arms around her waist and laid his cheek against her hair. No point in pretending that he was soothing her aching back. He was holding her for his own enjoyment, his lips resting an inch from the skin of her throat.

She did not move or tense, but stayed comfortably in his grip. And then, suddenly, she spoke, blunt and alert. ‘Why did you kiss Charlotte?’

He started, but did not release her. It had not occurred to him that she had seen the kiss. But she could not have missed it. He just had not thought it would bother her.

And this sounded almost like jealousy. It was really quite flattering and a very good sign that further action on his part would be welcomed. So he pretended for a moment that he had room in his head for thoughts about the silly chit in the carriage they’d robbed. ‘I knew she would be much less likely to send the law after us if I left her in a good humour. And she seemed to wish me to kiss her, did she not? When a woman makes such an effort to fall all over a man, it is cruel not to oblige her with a kiss.’

‘So you knew she was shamming her faint?’

‘Of course.’
But what are you are fishing for, in asking me these questions?
Dru was naïve, of course. But surprisingly savvy, when she had a need to be. There must be a purpose to this. And her movements against his body seemed almost an invitation. If she wanted to be aroused by a detailed description of the event, he was happy to oblige her.

‘The kiss was pleasant for me as well,’ he admitted. Then he could not resist goading her. ‘Your friend is a very pretty girl, is she not?’

‘I suppose.’ He could feel Dru’s shoulders tighten, as though he had struck her. ‘And she is not my friend,’ she added. Then she lifted her head again, rubbing her hair against his cheek as a cat might rub against its owner. ‘I expect she will tell everyone who will listen that she was forced into submission by a wicked stranger, while revelling in the details of the experience.’

He felt his body tighten in response to her words and wondered how much of the discomfort she was feeling had to do with the sight of that kiss, and the hunger it had raised in her. ‘Well, I expect that a well-bred young girl would find it an unusual and exciting thing to be kissed by a highwayman.’

Dru made a sound of displeasure and he imagined the bow of her lips, moist and waiting for him. ‘She is not so young, come to that. She has been out for two years, already. Nor do I find her particularly well-bred. She really is the most appalling gossip.’

‘And not too innocent,’ he supplied, slipping his hands around her waist. ‘It was quite clear to me, as I kissed her, that she knew exactly what to do with herself, from previous experience.’

‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

So she wanted the details, did she? He smiled and obliged her, shifting his lips so they touched her ear. ‘She pressed close against me as I held her, to make sure that I could feel her breasts against my own body. She opened her mouth at the first touch of my lips, and took my tongue into it as though she could not get enough of me.’

Under his hands, he could feel the slight hitch in her breath as she listened. It had nothing to do with hisses of disapproval, and everything to do with salacious curiosity.

‘But she is a blonde. And fair-haired women are not to my taste.’ And he stroked up over her ribs and took her breasts in his hands.

She started. ‘That is not the area which was affected by riding.’

He stilled, but did not remove them. ‘One cannot treat one area of the body without seeing to the others, any more than one grooms just one leg of a horse.’ It was a most unromantic analogy, but she was not a particularly romantic female.

Her shoulders pressed into his chest and then relaxed. ‘I suppose that makes sense.’

‘You will find it quite satisfying, I promise.’

‘Well, then,’ she said again, ‘carry on with your story.’

‘Of course, Lady Drusilla.’ He stopped to wet his lips, allowing the tip of his tongue to accidentally stroke the shell of her ear and felt her hips settle against his in reward. She could feel him now, he was sure, for she was pressing herself against the growing desire he had for her. But she did not pull away from him, so he continued their game. ‘I meant to be gentle with her. Just a light touch of the lips and then I would be gone. But when a woman is willing, it is hard to resist.’