‘Well then, Lady Drusilla, what brings you to be travelling alone? You can afford a maid, or some sort of companion. And to travel in the family carriage, instead of stuck in the mail coach with the likes of me.’
‘It is a matter of some delicacy and I do not wish to share the details.’
‘If you are going to Gretna, then you are clearly eloping, travelling alone so that your father does not discover you. Little else is needed to tell the tale, other than to ascertain the name of the man involved.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ she said sharply, insulted that he would think her so foolish. ‘I am not eloping. And how dare you think such a thing.’
‘Then, what are you doing?’ he shot back, just as quickly. The alcohol had not dulled his wits a bit, and the speed of his questioning left her with her mouth hanging open, ready to announce the truth to a room full of strangers.
She took a breath to regain her calm. ‘I wish to go to Gretna and stop an elopement,’ she whispered urgently. ‘And I do not want anyone to know. Once my end has been achieved, there must be no hint of gossip. Not a breath of scandal. No evidence that the trip was ever made.’
Mr Hendricks paused as though considering her story. Then he said, ‘You realise, of course, that the trip may be futile.’
‘And why would you think that?’ Other than that it was probably true. But it was better to appear obtuse in the face of probable defeat, than to be talked into giving up.
He tried again in a much gentler tone. ‘Should the couple involved be determined, they will not listen to you. And if they had much of a start on you, they are miles ahead already.’
‘Quite possibly,’ she agreed.
‘The honour of the girl in question is most assuredly breached.’
‘That does not matter in the least.’ After a day and a night with her lover, allowing the wedding to occur would be the logical solution. But if Priss disgraced herself by marrying Gervaise, she disgraced the family as well. And Dru would get the blame for it, for it had been her job to chaperon the girl and prevent such foolishness. Father would announce that, no matter how unlikely it might be that his awkward daughter Silly could find a man to haul her to Gretna, he was unwilling to risk a second embarrassment. There would be no Season, no suitors and no inevitable proposal. She would spend the rest of her life in penance for Priss’s mistake, on the unfashionable edge of society, with the wallflowers and the spinsters.
Was it so very selfish if, just this once, she ignored what was right for Priscilla and looked to her own future? ‘I will not let him marry her.’ If she had to, she would grab Priss from the very blacksmith’s stone and push Gervaise under a dray horse. But there would be no wedding. Dru narrowed her eyes and glared at Mr Hendricks.
He glared back at her, his patience for her wearing thin. ‘By travelling alone and in secret, you have compromised your reputation, and are just as likely to end in the soup as the couple you seek to stop.’
‘With the need for speed and secrecy, there was little else I could do.’ The Benbridge carriage was already tearing up the road between London and the Scottish border, and Priss had left her barely enough to buy a ticket on the mail coach, much less rent a post-chaise. But the scandal of it would work to her advantage in one way: in comparison with Priss’s elopement, a solo journey by her ape-leading older sister would hardly raise an eyebrow.
Mr Hendricks saw her dark expression and amended, ‘Perhaps you will be fortunate. The rain that traps us might trap them as well.’
This was hardly good news. Until now, she had been imagining her sister and Gervaise travelling night and day in a mad rush to reach their destination. But if they were held up in an inn somewhere, the chance for recognition and disgrace multiplied by a thousandfold. And in the time they spent alone together, unchaperoned …
She decided firmly that she would not think about the details of that at all. There was nothing she could do about the truth of that, especially if she was already too late. She gave her new brother a look that told him his opinions were unwelcome and said, ‘Knowing Mr Gervaise as I do, they are likely to dawdle, for he will not wish to spoil his tailoring in the rain.’
‘You do not know the man as well as you think if he has taken some other girl to Scotland.’ Mr Hendricks’s gaze was direct, and surprisingly clear, as though he were trying to impart some bit of important information. But what it might be was lost upon her.
‘It does not matter that I do not know his character. It only matters that I know his destination. He is going to Gretna. We had an understanding.’ She had paid him well enough to leave Priss alone. He had taken her money, then he had taken her sister as well. And she was not exactly sure how, but when she found him, she would make him suffer for tricking her and dishonouring the family. She glared at the man across the table. ‘The marriage must not occur.’
Mr Hendricks was watching her uneasily, as though he did not quite know what to make of such illogical stubbornness. In the end, he seemed to decide that the best response was none at all, and focused his attention upon his meal, offering no further words of advice or censure.
But watching his enthusiasm for the food, she could not contain a comment of her own. ‘After the amount you have been drinking, it is a wonder you can eat at all.’
He glanced up at her, and said, around another bite of meat, ‘If you are shocked by it, then you had best stick to your sermons, little sister. What you have seen me drink is nothing, compared to what I imbibed before.’
‘That is hardly a point of pride,’ she said with a sniff.
‘Nor is it any of your business,’ he added, taking a large drink of ale. He thought for a moment, and then said, ‘Although if it hadn’t been for my level of inebriation, I might be riding, right now, in the coach that I intended to take, and not have collapsed into the first one I found. With an excess of blue ruin, I have found my long-lost sister.’ He toasted her with his tankard. ‘Fate works in mysterious ways.’
‘Do you often drink so much that you cannot tell one route from another?’ For though he was somewhat rumpled now, when she looked closely at him, she doubted that the behaviour was habitual.
He stared down into his glass, as though wishing it would refill itself. ‘My life, of late, has taken an unusual turn.’ Then he looked at her, thoughtfully. ‘It involves a woman. Given the circumstances, an excessive amount of alcohol and impromptu coach travel made perfect sense.’
‘And is this woman in Edinburgh?’ she asked, remembering his original destination.
‘She is in London. My plan was to take a coach to Orkney.’
‘You cannot take a coach to an island,’ she said, as patiently as possible.
‘I planned to ride as far as John O’ Groats and then walk the rest of the way.’ The glint in his eyes was feverish, and a little mad. ‘The woman in question was married. And not interested in me.’ The sentences fell from his mouth, flat and heavy, like pig-iron bars.
For a moment, Drusilla considered offering her sympathy. Though he was inebriated, Mr Hendricks had come to her aid, and gone so far as to buy the food she was eating. But the recent changes in her own life had put her quite out of charity with young lovers, either star-crossed or triumphant. ‘If your goal is no more specific than that, you might just as well drown yourself by the Hebrides. Once we reach Scotland, they will be closer.’
‘Thank you for your kind words of advice, Sister.’ He gave her a strange, direct look, as though he were equally tired of the likes of her.
They would have fallen into silence again had not the innkeeper appeared at their table, followed close behind by the fat merchant, who was shifting eagerly from foot to foot as though he had heard some bit of gossip that he could not wait to share. ‘It has been decided that the coach will not continue until morning, if then,’ he said, with a satisfied