A Regency Virgin's Undoing. Christine Merrill

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СКАЧАТЬ 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

      For 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 СКАЧАТЬ