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

‘But if there was even the smallest chance, then I had to try. When I suggested we steal to survive, this was not at all what I was intending. I meant that we would take only what was necessary. A loaf from a farmer’s window sill, perhaps.’

      ‘Which would leave the poor family there with nothing to eat,’ she said. ‘Does it not diminish the hurt to all concerned if we steal from someone who lives a life of excess?’

      ‘Perhaps that is true, in theory. But you are not discussing some distant and romantic utopia. You are asking me to rob a coach on a modern highway. I believe, my lady, that you have confused me with some idealised combination of Robin Hood and Dick Turpin.’

      ‘Just as you have confused me with a character in a Drury Lane comedy,’ she snapped back, ‘and persuaded me to traipse halfway across England in your cast-off clothing.’ His tone annoyed her, for it was no longer mild subservience. There was a distinct air of derision. And it was just another example of the way those around her had no trouble leading her into jeopardy with their outrageous plans, then resisting when she offered an equally outrageous plan of her own.

      ‘If you mean to rob every farm between here and Scotland, we will never reach our destination. Rather than stealing one loaf at a time, we could take a single purse from someone who can afford a closed carriage and have more than enough gold to finish the trip. In the eyes of the Lord, the latter is far worse.’

      ‘It is to be my misfortune that you were reading the story of the widow’s mite,’ he said. ‘I should have taken that book from you when I had a chance.’

      ‘If you had, my opinion now would be the same,’ she snapped back. ‘I have no desire to spend a week sleeping in barns and munching on stolen bread and green apples.’ Although, were she honest, the prospect of being forced to sleep in the wilderness, huddled against Mr Hendricks for warmth, had a certain appeal to her.

      ‘I am sorry, my lady, if all that I can offer you is not to your liking.’ There was a surprising bitterness in the way he said her title, as though it were caught in his teeth.

      ‘And I am sorry if you do not like the position you have been engaged to perform.’ She gave him her cruellest smile and let the words be an equally bitter reminder for him, as well as herself, that her present condition was nothing more than a colossal inconvenience.

      ‘Begging your pardon, my lady.’ He offered a false bow and tugged his forelock. ‘I will not forget my place again.’

      The soft blond hair falling in his eye gave her the sudden and inappropriate impulse to smooth it back with her fingers. She ignored it and said, ‘Your apology is accepted. Now, about the matter of the coach robbery …’

      ‘Which I cannot in any way condone.’

      She huffed in disgust. ‘Your weak resolve had been duly noted. And I dismiss it. The occupants of the vehicle we will be stopping are unworthy of your sympathy. Char Deveral is a pampered, foolish girl of carefully cultivated prettiness, who would leave a full purse on the ground rather than soil her hands picking it out of the mud.’

      Or a coin from a coach yard. The incident still stung, even now that her hands were clean. She had made Mr Hendricks ride the next miles hard and well off the road, until her anger had abated. But at least she was sure they had passed the carriage and could lie in wait for it.

      And now, even if she did not get to Priscilla in time, she would have her revenge for that muddy coin and for a host of other small tricks and social slights delivered over the years by Char and her friends. She smiled at the prospect. ‘I know her type well. They are always talking behind their hands at those not of their set, laughing at their own empty jokes, and despite all the warnings of those who know better, running off with men who are little better than servants, heedless of what it might to their reputations, leaving the more rational members of their family to rescue them from their own foolishness, causing no end of misery …’

      Now she had gone totally off her track and could tell by the look in his eye that he thought her even madder than before. He broke into her tirade. ‘It is not the character of your potential victims that concerns me, Lady Drusilla. Or their tendency to fraternise with men who are beneath them. It is the result of our likely capture.’

      She waved away his objections. ‘If we are caught, then I shall tell everyone who I am and that you are my servant, forced into the actions by my misguided desire for adventure.’

      He held his hand heavenwards as though to summon the angels to witness what he was forced to endure. ‘And I suppose, when they ignore you, and I am hanged for highway robbery, it will be a consolation to know that it was not really my fault.’

      ‘Nonsense,’ she insisted. ‘My father has bought justice to a halt for my sister more often than you can imagine. If this time the felonious prank perpetrated was the fault of Silly Rudney instead of his darling Priss, he will be annoyed with me, but will not hesitate. While the world has heard of no such actions on my part, a single mistake of mine can hardly compare to the sum total of the rest of my family.’

      Mr Hendricks swore aloud, not caring that she heard the words, and said, in a more moderate tone, ‘The upper classes are all quite mad. For a time I had hoped that you were proving to be otherwise. But you are blessed with a stubbornness that is well outside the bounds of sanity and a single-mindedness that could wear reason down to a nub.’

      So, she had lost the good opinion of the man who sat beside her. ‘At least I am consistent, Mr Hendricks.’

      ‘You are that, my lady.’

      Then she tried something that had not occurred to her before and dipped her head slightly, doing her best at a shy smile, as her sister would have done when trying to charm a man. She looked up at him through her long dark lashes. ‘I am sorry to have been such a bother. You have done your best to keep me safe and I have much to be grateful for. If you can help me in this one last thing, I will see to it that you are properly rewarded for the inconvenience of it.’

      He laughed. ‘So it has come to this, has it? You mean to use your wiles on me, now that all else has failed?’ There was a strange pause before his response, as he stared boldly back at her in challenge. ‘And how might you reward me, if I risk my neck for you?’ His voice was not mild at all, but hoarse, deep and strangely thick. She could feel the answering thickness in her blood as her pulse slowed.

      She swallowed, wondering what she had meant to tell him. Some part of her mind was sure that her sister would have offered a single kiss as though it had some material value, but she doubted the currency of her inexperienced lips was of comparable worth. Nor could she inform him that, should they manage to find Priscilla, she could procure that kiss for him from her sister.

      Then a thought occurred to her. She could tell him to take what he liked for a reward. Then he would kiss her. And though it would seem like a forfeit, only she would know that she had been rewarded twice.

      But now that she needed it most, her nerve failed her. ‘My father will pay you double whatever you intended to receive from this escapade. What else could I possibly mean?’

      He shook his head in amazement. ‘I cannot imagine. Double the pay it is, then. And enough money to replace what was stolen from me?’

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘Then for you, I shall turn highwayman, my Lady Dru.’

      His anger with her must have dissipated, for the way he’d shortened her name had none of the frustrated affection that she felt when someone called her Silly. This made her feel odd. She tingled, almost as though he had reached out and touched her cheek to show her that they were friends again, and she needn’t worry.

      He stared down the road. The sun was near to dipping behind the horizon; with each moment, it became more difficult to make out details of their surroundings. But from just behind the last hill she could hear the sound of horses, and the jingling of harnesses growing louder as they drew near.

      Mr Hendricks removed his spectacles and tucked them into the pocket of his coat.