A Regency Virgin's Undoing: Lady Drusilla's Road to Ruin / Paying the Virgin's Price. Christine Merrill

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