Lady Priscilla's Shameful Secret

by Christine Merrill

  ‘I found, once I was with him, that I could not stand the thought of marriage to him, either. He was horrible to me.’ That was as close as she could come to admitting the truth to her sister. ‘But I thought if I were ruined, then maybe Father would leave me alone. And we could be spinsters together.’

  ‘I…I didn’t think you wished my company.’ Dru seemed surprised.

  ‘Of course I did. You are my sister. Why would I not wish to be with you? But I did not think you would ever marry. Even if you were often cross with me, I did not want you to be alone with Father.’

  ‘And I spoiled your plans and ran off myself,’ Dru said. ‘I left you alone instead.’

  ‘It almost didn’t matter. I’d have been gone, soon enough, if I’d married. But it has been awful, having to listen to him and not being able to see you, even at parties. You looked happy. You are, are you not?’ she clutched eagerly at her sister’s hand and felt an answering grasp.

  ‘Very much so.’ Dru almost grinned. ‘I have a husband who adores me. And friends. And now I have you again. If worse comes to worst, you shall stay here, in my household, as a doting aunt.’

  ‘You are increasing?’

  Dru smiled. ‘I think I might be. It is about time, is it not? I wanted so much to see you the other night. But I could not manage to keep my dinner down. The thought of prawns and champagne…’ She gave a shudder of revulsion. ‘I was likely to shame myself in the middle of the dance floor, before I even got to say hello to you.’

  Priss gave a relieved sigh and turned to hug her sister again. ‘Then it shall be my turn to take care of you. Burnt toast and tea, until you are feeling yourself again.’

  ‘Dru…’ Mr Hendricks had stopped in the doorway and was staring at her where she sat on the couch. A look passed between husband and wife. Suddenly Priss was quite sure that, while Silly might extend the invitation of shelter, her husband would not be completely pleased by it.

  ‘Father has turned her out. The engagement is off. And Gervaise is back.’

  Mr Hendricks seemed to grow larger at the mention of the name. ‘I told him what would happen if he returned. I will take care of it.’ He turned to go.

  ‘No!’ Priss took a deep breath, then said in a softer, calmer voice, ‘I do not wish you to risk harm on my account. If anything happened to you, even a scratch…and it was because of my foolishness… I could not do that to my sister.’

  Mr Hendricks seemed surprised by this and shot his wife a quick glance before saying, ‘Reighland, then. I will call on him and explain the situation. He shall take care of it.’

  ‘Even worse,’ Priss moaned, for that brought forth another picture of Mr Hendricks, who knew most of the story, speaking with the only man that knew the rest.

  Another quick look passed between the couple. Then Mr Hendricks said, ‘Very well. For the moment, I will do nothing, as long as you promise to get hold of yourself. Because if you are distressed by this man, I will be forced to take action. For now, I will send Folbroke to Benbridge and he will see what is to be done to mend this breach. But do not fear, Lady Priscilla, you are safe and welcome for as long as you need a home.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Hendricks.’ She remembered when she’d first met him, barking his name and ordering him about. And God forbid, she had kissed him to make her sister jealous. She looked at him, praying that he did not remember any of it, but sure that he did. Then she said, ‘I am sorry. For everything. And especially for involving you in yet another of my many embarrassments.’

  Her apology seemed to surprise him, but he smiled. ‘That is all right. If not for you, I would never have met my darling Drusilla.’

  Mr Hendricks departed and Dru put Priss into the tub, then washed her, dried her and dressed her in one of her own nightgowns. The fabric pooled at her feet, as did the silk of the wrapper, making Priss feel even more like a coddled child. Then Dru combed out her hair and tied the curls out of the way so she could sleep. It felt wonderful, as it had after Mama had died and her big sister had played mother to her, stepping into the role as if she’d been born to it and easing some of the loneliness.

  After all was done, Dru offered her a hot drink and led her to the guest bedroom, assuring that she could stay as long as she liked.

  Although how she would live here without so much as a petticoat to call her own, Priss was not sure.

  * * *

  The letter she sent to Veronica the next morning, requesting the right to remove some of her possessions from the house, was summarily ignored. Dru’s offer to purchase a wardrobe for her was embarrassing, but she could think of no other way to go on but to accept it with promises of repayment when she found her feet again.

  Priss was in no rush to do so, for that would admit what a mess she had made of things. So she had. Priss had allowed herself to succumb to the cold that had resulted from walking the London streets in a rainstorm and spent the better part of a week with her stuffed head buried in the pillows, unwilling and unable to rise and take meals with the family. When she recovered sufficiently to rouse herself, she restated her thanks and apologies to Mr Hendricks.

  He gave her an arch look from the end of the table, where she had interrupted his reading of the morning’s Times. ‘Please, Priscilla, do not trouble yourself further on the subject. It is quite apparent that you are considerably altered since we first met. While I welcome the improvement in your character, I am sorry that it was a result of the cold manners of your father and stepmother. Let us hear no more of you begging your way back into the house. I could not in good conscience let you go.’

  ‘But whatever will I do to repay you?’

  ‘For a beginning, you can promise not to kiss me, as you did the first time I rescued you.’

  ‘Certainly not, Mr Hendricks.’ The awful memory was being casually thrown back in her face and she took a deep breath to prepare further denials as she would have, had she been talking to her father.

  Then she noticed that both he and her sister were smiling at her. ‘Very well, then,’ she said, with more composure. ‘I will try to restrain myself.’

  ‘Then you must allow me to tell Reighland of your whereabouts.’

  ‘I will not see him,’ she said, firmly.

  ‘He was likely concerned by your letter, followed by your sudden disappearance. Even if you do not see him, I could seek a short interview with him and make your explanations for you.’ As always, Hendricks was the soul of diplomacy. Priss suspected that it was something he wished to do, but he would not proceed without her consent.

  ‘Very well, then,’ she said. ‘You are bound to see him at some point or other, although I should be able to avoid him.’ It was just what she planned to do, unless there was some result from the time they had spent together at the farm. But three days with Gervaise had amounted to nothing. She must pray that she was lucky again. ‘Send my apologies for wasting his time, and for embarrassing him with my behaviour. If he is angry, then I can certainly understand it. But I do not think that I can bear another scold on the subject.’

  Even the thought of their last meeting made the tears well up in her eyes again. She filled the awkward silence with enthusiastic application of marmalade to toast, hoping that her host and hostess did not notice.

  ‘As you wish,’ said Hendricks, pretending to go back to his reading. ‘I shall take care of it for you. Do not trouble yourself further.’

  She felt none of the relief she’d hoped she would, after his assurance. It only reminded her of the times that Robert had wondered whether she was strong enough to be his duchess. If nothing else did, this would prove to him that the answer was a resounding ‘no’.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Robert reached into his pocket and crumpled the paper it held, which was still twisted around his ring. When he’d first read it,
he’d almost shouted to all the people in the room that they must go home immediately. There was no cause for celebration. He had been jilted in front of the cream of society and they could all laugh as he knew they wished to.

  But then he had remembered that this was not his house, nor were these his guests. A revelation of the note would mean alerting Benbridge to some of the more sordid details of the last few minutes.

  It had been difficult enough holding up his head while people around him whispered that his fiancée had run crying to her room, and that he had been seen forcibly ejecting someone from the house. Benbridge would want to know the man’s name, the reason that Priss had been alone with him, and why she was protecting the bounder when he clearly needed a sound beating for taking liberties with another man’s betrothed.

  Then there was the matter of the letter. And the ring. And the fact that, if the girl did not want him, did he have any more say in the matter? Did he even have the right to be here? A decent father would take one look at the letter and put him out of the house as well.

  But he was dealing with Benbridge. If he pressed the issue, Priss would be hauled bodily down the stairs and forced to dance with tears still wet on her cheeks.

  So he had said nothing to anyone, folded the paper up again, stuffed it into his pocket and danced and made merry as if his life depended upon it, leaving the house at dawn just as he had planned to, and telling host and hostess that he hoped Lady Priscilla would be feeling better after a good night’s rest.

  Almost a week had passed since the receipt of the damned letter; he had received no further word and no apologies for her hasty actions at the party or her silence afterwards. The silly girl seemed to think that she could hand the Duke of Reighland his walking papers and disappear into the night, like some sort of Bedouin.

  This farce had gone on long enough. She would not be permitted to upend his life and turn what should have been a simple business arrangement into a Cheltenham tragedy. He had never intended a love match. But for a moment, he thought he’d found one, only to see it evaporate in the heat of the first argument. It was not to be tolerated.

  Since she had not come to him, as he had expected her to, he must seek her out. But it was proving difficult. Benbridge had compounded her insult with his unwillingness to give a straight answer on the subject of the girl’s whereabouts. When he’d called, the earl was unavailable, as was the countess. The butler had been unable to give him more information on the subject, other than that Lady Priscilla no longer resided in the house and would not be returning. When he had at last cornered the earl and demanded to know Priscilla’s whereabouts, the man had looked through him and announced, ‘I have no daughter’ in sonorous tones, as though he could erase members of his family by sheer force of will.

  The whole lot of them were clearly mad.

  If she was not at home, he could think of only one other place in London she might have gone. Two other places, actually. There was always the chance that his worst fear was true: he had totally misjudged her and she had run off with the dancing master again. Although he had reminded himself repeatedly that he had no logical reason to wish marriage with someone who preferred another, the idea made him wish to tear down the roads to Scotland, locate the couple and shake Gervaise until his dancing pumps fell off.

  But it was far more likely that she had gone to her sister. At the very least, the woman should know of all the properties Benbridge might have secluded her in. He would come away with a list and visit each of them until he found her.

  So Robert had come to beard Hendricks in his den. He ignored the protestations of the housekeeper that the master was not at home and pushed his way past her into the man’s study. To be turned away repeatedly at the door of an earl was an insult. He would not stand it from Hendricks.

  ‘I was just about to write to you,’ Hendricks said, as though there was nothing unusual about being discovered at his desk when the prospective guest had just been informed that ‘the master was out’.

  ‘Really? You could have simply spoken to me at the club, at dinner, or anywhere else in London. I see you often enough. In truth, you have been constantly underfoot, trying to win my approval. Until this week, of course.’ Robert gave the man a dark glare that did credit to previous iterations of Reighland. ‘Suddenly you are as elusive as Benbridge. I demand an explanation.’

  ‘I have been unexpectedly busy,’ Hendricks admitted, without turning a hair. The man’s calm was maddening.

  ‘Would this increased activity have anything to do with the sudden disappearance of my fiancée?’

  ‘I was given to understand that the engagement was at an end,’ Hendricks replied.

  ‘Not from me you weren’t,’ Robert replied. ‘The engagement will be over when I post an announcement in The Times and not before.’

  ‘Normally, it is the young lady involved who makes such a decision,’ Hendricks informed him placidly.

  ‘This young lady should not be allowed to make decisions, since she clearly lacks the sense to know what is good for her. She will not wish to end the engagement once I have talked to her again. And I will do it over the dead body of her precious dancing master, if that is necessary. I assume that Benbridge has packed her off to the country, just as she always wanted. Or is she hiding here?’ Reighland squared his shoulders and gave Hendricks a look that should have sent the man scurrying to fetch her, while the Robert Magson that still quavered inside him crossed his fingers that the answer would bring him closer to the truth.

  ‘She does not wish to see you.’ It was not the same thing as affirmation, but he suspected that Hendricks would have told him flat out if he did not know the girl’s location.

  ‘I wish to see her,’ he said firmly. ‘She sent me this. Now she must explain it.’ He pulled the letter from his pocket, embarrassed that it showed obvious signs of agitated and frequent reading.

  Hendricks ignored the crumples in the paper and gave it a cursory examination. ‘It seems plain enough to me. She has cast you off.’

  ‘But I never meant for that,’ Robert argued.

  ‘Did you do something that might lead her to write this?’

  ‘I lost my temper with her,’ he admitted, thinking of the stricken look on her face as he had scolded her.

  ‘And both the girls have seen enough of that to last a lifetime.’

  As if that had not been plain to him already. The annoying prickling of guilt that he’d felt after parting with her had grown into a continual chafing, as though his heart was full of sand. ‘She does not complain of it here,’ He rattled the paper of the letter, trying to shift the blame and feeling all the worse for it. ‘The letter is full of nonsense about protecting me from the shame of association with her.’

  Hendricks nodded. ‘She would not blame you for your arrogance, of course. Benbridge may not have trained his daughters well, but he has done it thoroughly. Dru was told, practically from birth, that all problems were her own fault. I suspect, once she left, that the role of family scapegoat fell to her sister. Circumspection and humility have come late to Priss. In the past she’d got her way in all things. It has not been a kindness to her character.’

  ‘There is nothing all that wrong with her character,’ Robert snapped back, ‘other than that it is damned hard to read.’ Not that he had ever been good at understanding other humans. ‘I thought she had more spirit in her,’ he admitted. ‘She did nothing but fight me for the first weeks of our acquaintance. And just when I thought matters between us had been settled, she changed.’ He stared at the letter in his hand. ‘I was not particularly surprised at her threatening to break the engagement, but I did not expect she would actually do it. And in such a weak and spineless way as this.’

  ‘And do you think this speaks her true feelings?’ Hendricks prompted.

  ‘Yes,’ Robert ad
mitted glumly. ‘If she has decided she is not worthy, then it is what she truly feels. But she cannot be further than the truth. It is I who am unworthy.’ It was only when he saw the surprise on Hendricks’s face that he remembered that Reighland would not think thus.

  ‘She has told me she does not want to see you,’ Hendricks said, watching him closely. ‘She insists it is for your own good. I will not force her to, for there has been too much of that used already.’

  Robert debated for a moment, applying the weight of his forgotten title to the situation. Hendricks talked as if the girl was hiding above stairs. If Reighland had pushed his way this far into the house, what was a few more feet? But Robert Magson shrank from a confrontation that might display his inadequacies before the girl’s family. If she could not be persuaded to come back, it would gain him nothing.

  ‘Going to let her go, are you?’ Hendricks gave him a curiously neutral look.

  ‘She wishes it,’ he said, despising himself for having no better answer. ‘She has sent back the ring as well. It might be over, but for the announcement. But if I end it, what is likely to become of her? Will her father find her another match?’

  ‘He has put her out of the house and cut her from the family, just as he did her sister,’ Hendricks said. ‘In the rain,’ he added.

  ‘The bastard!’

  ‘Indeed,’ Hendricks agreed. ‘She came here with the clothes on her back and nothing more. We cannot get so much as a hair ribbon out of him. She can stay here as long as she needs to, though I will admit that our funds are limited. It will not be what she is accustomed to.’

  ‘She can hardly marry Gervaise in my stead.’

  Hendricks was still watching him closely. ‘It should be no business of yours whether she does or not.’

  ‘It is my business because…I have feelings for her,’ he said, not wanting to sound as miserable as he felt at the idea of her returning to the dancing master. ‘Gervaise used her abominably during their supposed elopement and has been dogging her every step for weeks, trying to make mischief between us. He deserves horse whipping, at the very least. But she did not wish me to challenge him,’ he added, feeling all the worse that he had not done it before now, despite his reservations.