Lady Drusilla's Road to Ruin

by Christine Merrill

  Then she remembered that he was giving her no choice, so she smiled, spread her legs and waited.

  And he must have known she was ready, for he pulled away from her and rose so that he could remove his boots and push his trousers down, off, out of the way. He stood above her for a moment, naked and magnificent, staring down at her in her tangle of rumpled bed linens and half-removed clothing as though he owned her, body and soul.

  And it occurred to her again, in a quiet, distant way, that this was just the sort of situation that she’d meant to rescue Priss from. And that it was quite possible, if she’d felt as Dru did now, that Priss had not wanted to be saved.

  Then his hands were on her ankles, spreading them even wider. He lay down on top of her and his weight was on her, between her, and then in her. And there was a sudden thrust. And pain. And he whispered, ‘And now, you are mine.’

  I am yours. Whatever became of her, it did not matter any more. In this instant, she belonged to someone and felt safer than she ever had before.

  He was lying very still on top of her and she wondered if this was all. She had lost her maidenhead. It had not hurt as much as she had expected. Nor did it feel as good as she’d hoped, compared to what had come before. But the pain was fading, and his lips were on her shoulder, brushing back and forth ever so gently as though to soothe her. ‘Lady Drusilla,’ he crooned. ‘My Lady Drusilla. You feel wonderful.’

  And then he was moving again, very slowly. It made her gasp, for it was new and strange, and he was right. It felt wonderful. And she could feel herself beginning to tingle again. ‘Mr Hendricks,’ she said, a little breathlessly.

  He laughed. ‘Please, darling. Call me John.’

  ‘John,’ she said, trying to sound more confident than she felt. And then, ‘Oh. John.’ For he was rubbing relentlessly against a most sensitive place in her body, and it was all beginning again.

  She reached for him, putting her hands on his shoulders, trying to remain steady. They were warm and smooth; she could not seem to stop touching him once she had started, roaming over his back and his arms and settling upon his bottom to find the rock-hard muscles that drove his thrusts.

  In response, he bit her shoulder, just hard enough so that she arched her back and gasped. And when her hips rose to meet him he thrust harder, holding her as she did him, squeezing her from behind and locking her against him.

  She should beg him to stop. Hadn’t she heard that, even when things had progressed to this point, there was a way to stop that would minimise the possibility of a child? But instead she held him tighter and moved with him. And in opposition, as though she was only playing at escape so that she could come rushing back to meet him with equal force.

  But Mr Hendricks showed no sign of slowing. ‘John,’ she said. And then, again, ‘John.’ What he was doing felt achingly good, and even better when she tightened the muscles of her body and spoke his name. With each flash of desire, she felt a little more control slipping away, and the madness that she had felt before was beginning to take her again.

  Only this time it was better. His groans answered hers, and when she began to move against him, he answered with even more force. Then they both were lost in a hot wet rush of feeling and she thought she called his name, one last time, but she was not sure. She could think of nothing but the helpless, blissful feeling of being with him, under him, and around him.

  He went limp against her for a moment, as though there was no strength left in him. But when she tried to struggle out from beneath him, he came to life again and rolled with her farther on to the bed, wrapping his arms around her and stroking her skin until the trembling grew in her muscles again, and then slowly subsided.

  And as sanity returned, she realised that she was making sport with a strange man on the way to Scotland. If they had crossed the border, would this have made them married? she wondered. Perhaps it was the act that made the union, not the other way around.

  ‘Drusilla?’ The man with her sounded quite dispassionate again. Which was strange for one whose body was still… She flexed the muscles where they were still joined and realised that there was no situation of etiquette that covered just what it was she was supposed to do in this situation.

  ‘Mr Hendricks,’ she said at last, ‘I think that was probably very unwise of us. Of you,’ she corrected, for now that she thought of it, she had not encouraged the beginning, much as she might have enjoyed the end. ‘And I think you should probably—’

  ‘What?’ he asked. He began to move his thumb over a spot very near the place they were joined. ‘What do you wish me to do?’

  She had meant to say, ‘Leave here immediately.’ But perhaps his leavetaking could be postponed for a few moments at least, until he finished what he was doing to her, which was making her body tighten on his.

  He smiled against her skin as he kissed her. ‘Because I think, for a time, I will decide what it is that I should do. And I mean to make it so you will never think of another man, ever again.’ He had begun to move in her again, and his other hand cupped her from behind, lifting her hips to his. ‘And I think I shall make you call me John, again.’

  She drew her knees up until she could cradle his body with them, wondering, as his hands stroked her legs, lifting them even higher to rest on his shoulders as the shudders began to rack her body again, whether it was possible to be ruined more than once.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When John woke in the morning, he rolled over and reached without thinking for the woman at his side. The empty space beside him came as a shock; he groped blindly in the pillows for a moment, as though there were a way for her to have got lost in the narrow and uncomfortable bed on which he had slept.

  Consciousness returned. After a few moments of waking clarity, he remembered. This was his room, not hers. He had left her only a few hours ago, when the horizon was lightening with the dawn, sneaking back down the hall to the room she had got for him so that he was not seen leaving hers in the morning. He had fallen into his own bed exhausted, to catch a few hours’ sleep so that he might pretend to rise refreshed.

  But with waking had come the beginnings of dread. The activities of the previous night had been earthshakingly wonderful. And when he had left her, she had been smiling in her sleep. But he would be lying to call them consensual. She had known nothing of lovemaking when he’d met her, only three days ago. She had been a proper, sermon-reading young lady and well on the way to becoming a spinster. And he was sure the kisses he had given her, only yesterday, were the first she had ever received.

  He had worked to break down her defences, weaken her resistance and destroy her virtue. Of course, the idea of such a woman remaining unmarried and untouched was so wrong as to be almost criminal. If there was nothing in her sermon book about the need for fruitful multiplication, then its lessons were incomplete and she was in need of other reading material.

  But that had given him no right to push his way into her room and have his way with her. He was little better than Gervaise if he tricked the girl out of her maidenhead with no promise of a future. Today, he owed her an apology and an offer.

  But until it was too late to take them back, he would have no real evidence to assure him that his words would be well received. She was a duke’s daughter and he was someone’s unclaimed natural son. In the cold light of morning, she could be screaming for her father, who would administer the horsewhipping he deserved for touching his precious daughter.

  Although John had to wonder how precious she might be to Benbridge, if he allowed the family to call her Silly, gave her younger sister a come out and relegated Dru to the background. Dru did not seem to find it unusual. But John felt a growing outrage on her behalf, a need to rescue her, to take her away and prove to her that she was beautiful, cherished and desired.

  And to be honest, he had hi
s own reasons for offering. Although he had thought he understood love and the loss of it, the feelings he experienced when he thought of Drusilla Rudney were unfamiliar to him. There was the madness and rage that had taken him when he feared he might lose her, and the bliss of lying with her. And at all other times, there was… He searched his vocabulary and decided to call it a surety. It was as though they shared secrets that no one else had heard. When they looked at each other, there was knowledge. Trust. Communion. Quite simply, when she was beside him, things were right. And when she was not, they were wrong.

  He had no idea if she felt something similar, for he had not spoken of it, or given her time to speak last night. What if it had left her frightened into silence by him and the possible consequences and the results that could be visited on her from his actions: disgrace, discomfort, pregnancy… She might be meaning to keep silent, as though it was something shameful and best forgotten.

  His guts clenched at the thought of her, hiding her feelings behind a mask of stoicism, as she did everything else. Now that her sister travelled with them, it would be much more difficult to get her alone so that he might declare himself. And the fact that he had rushed into action, rather than wooing her properly, would make it harder for her to believe that what he did was not from obligation.

  For a few blissful hours he had been only a man and she had been a beautiful and impossibly high-born woman. Even now, while alone, he could barely find the words to explain what he felt for her. But last night he had let his body talk to hers, knowing that if he did not do something sudden and irrevocable, common sense would win the day and he would do the right thing. He would stay silent, take her back to London and give her up. Lying with her had been selfish, irrational and unwise. But he had wanted to do it more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life.

  And it had made her happy. Because of that, if nothing else, he had known that it was the right thing to do. Now it was simply a matter of finding the right thing to do next.

  * * *

  When he came down to the taproom to arrange for breakfast and ready the carriage, he saw no sign of his Dru. He smiled. Perhaps she was sleeping late, for they’d had an active night.

  He did see Priscilla, sitting on the same bench in the parlour that she had shared with Gervaise, soaking in a patch of sunshine like a pampered kitten. He hoped the sun was doing her good. Her cheeks were wan and her eyes rimmed faintly with red. It had been a difficult night for her. But she had already been unhappy when he’d found her. He doubted that parting from Gervaise had done her any lasting harm.

  Lady Priscilla was as pretty as Dru had said, in a fragile, flawless way that seemed to come naturally to the aristocracy. And while he had found the same sort of look quite attractive in his friend’s wife, the eyes of the girl before him lacked the natural intelligence that he had found in Emily Folbroke.

  Of late, John had decided that he much preferred a woman who could combine that intelligence with a sharp wit and a sharp tongue. And deep brown eyes. He tried to stifle his smile at the thought of Dru as he’d left her, lying in the tousled sheets, staring up at the ceiling as though she could not quite fathom how she’d come to be there.

  But the younger Rudney sister had caught his mood and now, thinking it was for her, she smiled back at him. It was brilliant and captivating. It made him uneasy. ‘Good morning, Mr Hendricks, it is a lovely day, is it not?’

  He nodded in greeting to her, and said, ‘Good morning, Lady Priscilla.’ And then he fell silent, for he had nothing to say. Nor was it his place to make his feelings known about the day or anything else.

  ‘Silly has told me so much about you,’ she said, smiling even more.

  For a moment, his mind stumbled over the nickname, wanting to rush to her defence and argue that there was nothing the least bit silly about his Dru. Then he caught himself and remained silent. There was something about the statement that sounded like a trap. When had Dru found the time to speak to her sister? He’d been with her most of last night. He suspected she would not have told Priss a single thing about the last few days, even had she had the chance. And now Lady Priss was angling for details.

  ‘She spoke frequently of you as well,’ he said.

  ‘I am sure I gave her a fright, running off like that. But she needn’t have worried.’ She turned a little in her seat, to put herself in the best light, so that he might better admire her. ‘As you can see, I am quite all right and well able to take care of myself.’

  That was a patent untruth. He had never seen a woman more foolishly in need of rescuing. ‘I am sure Lady Drusilla is gratified to find you so.’

  Priss smiled all the brighter. ‘But she would not have done so without your help, I am sure. The roads were most difficult on our way north, and we were delayed several times. It is a wonder that you were able to catch us so quickly.’

  So that was it. She wished to know what her sister had been up to, perhaps wanting to hold an impropriety over her head to fend off the anger of their father.

  ‘Lady Drusilla was most eager that you be found and scandal averted,’ he said, still not sure if it was the sister or the man she had been trying to find.

  ‘And you helped her.’ Priscilla gave a moue of sympathy, rather as though, in looking at her sister’s ability to appeal to a man for help in anything, she were staring at the runt of the litter.

  ‘She engaged me to do so,’ John said firmly.

  ‘And it was nothing more than that?’ she asked, quite candidly. And for a moment, he saw the firm look that Dru used so frequently on him. It was as though the younger girl were daring him to admit any impropriety so that she could punish him, had he caused harm.

  ‘What else could it have been?’ he said, lying through his teeth. ‘I met your sister on the road, just three days ago. It was most fortuitous that I was in need of a position just at the time she needed help.’

  The girl seemed to relax in relief. ‘Oh, Mr Hendricks, you are so gallant that I am sure it was more than that.’ Dru’s sister fluttered her eyelashes at him, but the eyes under them were as sharp and discerning as her sister’s.

  ‘Not at all, Lady Priscilla.’ There was something about the calculated way that she did not stare at him that put him on his guard.

  ‘No, really. In helping her, you have saved me from a disastrous mistake, and I have much reason to thank you. If anything about this trip got out, my reputation would not survive it.’

  He gave her a reassuring smile. ‘No word of it will pass my lips, my lady.’

  ‘And you have seen to it that Mr Gervaise will have no cause to speak either.’ There was a slight tightening of her brow as she said it, as though that had not been what she’d intended at all. She stepped closer to him, until he could almost feel the warmth of her little body. ‘How can I ever repay you?’

  He gave a dismissive shake of his head and took a step back, bumping against the table, suddenly sure that the girl had meant to say, How can I pay you back for this? He had spoiled some plan or other, and it had nothing to do with thwarting her chances for true love.

  ‘No thanks are necessary. Your sister engaged me to help in this matter. I was most eager to discharge the duty.’ He moved clear of the furniture and took another half-step back. There. That should put things back on a professional standing.

  ‘No, really. I was quite overcome by the excitement of it. Men, fighting. And over me.’ She looked to be near swooning, until he stared into those very large, very blue, very cagey eyes.

  ‘Well, it was, in a sense, a battle for you,’ he admitted. ‘But it was to defend your honour, my lady. And that is a cause that any gentleman would be happy to defend.’

  ‘But surely the victor deserves a reward.’

  ‘As I said before, Lady Drusilla will be amply compensate—’

  The gi
rl made a sudden lunge forwards, as quick and deft as a trained fencer. As she did so, she rose on to tiptoe and seemed to fall into his arms and, openmouthed, onto his lips.

  There was an awkward moment of surprise on his part, then a tangling of tongues—and the horrible realisation that there was too much experience on her part, far too much eagerness and the subtle shifting of her body against his that hinted he was likely far too late to save her honour by scaring off the dancing master. The best that could be hoped for at this point was to get her safely back to her family, so that the doors could be double locked to prevent another escape.

  And then he would get Dru away from the girl. For if she was the one tasked with keeping Priss on the straight and narrow, she must see that it was a losing battle.

  He slid her feet back to the floor as gently as possible, hearing her moan at the friction between them, and untwined her vine-like arms from his neck. ‘As I said, my lady—’ he did his best to sound properly subservient ‘—what I have done for you was all in a day’s work.’ He looked her squarely in the eye. ‘No further thanks are needed.’

  ‘So you say, now,’ she suggested. ‘But if your mind should change on the subject…’

  ‘I will bear your offer in mind,’ he responded.

  The girl stepped away from him, at least temporarily satisfied that she had made a conquest of him. He would need to steer clear of her until he could speak to Dru. Once he had her heart secure, he could counter any further attacks on his person with the assurance that he held only brotherly affection for Priss, tempered with the need to keep on her good side lest she run to her father with tales.

  He straightened his glasses, which had been knocked askew by the force of her attack. And when he looked up again, Dru stood in the doorway, a stricken look upon her face.