must be cherished when it is found. I have learned all I wish to know. I will have you.’ He stepped closer to her and she felt a sudden panicked scrambling desire to move away, back across the room before he would touch her.
But he did nothing more than bow before her, taking her cold hand in his and offering a kiss that was the barest touch of his lips against the skin. ‘Now, with your permission, I will depart.’ He rose and smiled. ‘And with or without your permission, I will visit you again. While I am decided, I think we have more to discuss before an announcement can be made.’
She sat down on the couch behind her, numb with shock. He left the room and she could hear him speaking to her stepmother in the hall, arranging for another visit.
He was decided.
What had she said to him that had made the decision? She had done everything in her power to put him off. The truth, there at the end, should have been enough to send him running from the room. She was not good enough for him. Any rumours he might have heard of her elopement were true. She was ruined.
Yet he meant to come again. To persuade her. She felt a shudder rising from deep within her and tried to tell herself that it was revulsion. That was not true. But neither was it desire. She did not find him attractive. He was too large, too imposing and in all ways too blunt. She was not exactly frightened of him. That would be like fearing a mountain, or perhaps a cliff that one had no intention of standing on. It was more like awe, really.
She was not used to being in awe of anyone. The glamour of a title had been tarnished to her years ago.
And as for men?
She removed a handkerchief from her sleeve and delicately mopped her brow. Those secrets had been stripped away as well. Men were not nearly as pleasant as they appeared. She would be quite content to do without them, if only it would be permitted.
Veronica’s voice, as she saw the duke to the door, was light, flirtatious and sycophantic. Whatever Priss might feel on the subject, her prospective husband was a favourite of the household and she was unlikely to escape him.
She thought of the size of him and the way he would come to her, naked, hairy as a bear, crushing her body with his weight, sweating and grunting over her as he pushed and thrust.
There was a soft rip and she noticed that she had torn the lace on the corner of the handkerchief she’d forgotten she was holding. She would need to mend it before an explanation was required of her. There had been a time when she might have lost a hundred such linens and experienced no punishment. But that was when Dru had still been in the house and there had been no Veronica, eager to find fault with her.
The duke was barely gone from the room when the doors to the salon burst open and her stepmother entered. ‘Well, then?’
‘He has offered,’ Priss affirmed glumly.
Veronica clapped her hands together in triumph. ‘Lucky for us and far better than you deserve. I will put the announcement in The Times immediately.’
‘He does not wish to announce it yet,’ she said.
‘Then we will allow him to make that decision.’
‘I have not said yes.’
Veronica was across the room in a moment, her hands in Priss’s hair to pull her gaze up to meet her. ‘Perhaps your father might permit your wilfulness, but we have seen where that led. When the time is right, you will say yes, like any sensible girl, because, my lady, in a few months there will be no space for you in this house. I will need your room for a nursery.’
‘There are a dozen rooms that will suit just as well,’ Priss said, glaring back at her and feeling the claws tightening against her scalp.
‘But I favour the light in yours,’ Veronica said with a small tight smile. ‘You will be out of this house and you will be thankful that we are sending you to such a fortunate marriage and not out into the street as you deserve. But you will not be allowed to remain here, courting further disgrace. I will not let a girl who does not have the sense to keep her legs closed associate with children of mine.’ She released Priss’s head with a jerk that cracked her neck.
And then Veronica was smiling again. ‘Come, my dear. We will go to Bond Street and buy you a trousseau.’
Chapter Four
John Hendricks owned an unassuming house in an equally humble neighbourhood. Robert scolded himself for the assessment, remembering that he’d have thought no such thing before the title had foisted on him the various entailed properties in all their grandeur. There was nothing really wrong with this place, although he wondered what Lady Drusilla made of it, after living as Benbridge’s daughter.
He knocked upon the door; when it opened, he announced himself and pushed his way past the housekeeper, tossing his gloves into his hat and giving her his most aloof ducal glare. Then he demanded to be shown to the receiving room, or whatever place was deemed best for a meeting with Mr Hendricks.
He watched the servant melt before him with a subservient curtsy. ‘I will get him immediately, your Grace.’
Of course she would. It was late for an uninvited call, of course. Not the thing to arrive at a man’s house without some kind of warning. But now that he was ‘his Grace’ instead of plain old Mr Magson, the rules no longer applied.
Sometimes, he rather missed the rules. Dammit, he liked Hendricks. At least a lot more than he liked being Reighland and throwing his weight around. But today there would be no more pussyfooting about the truth. He wanted answers and he wanted them now, before his own native foolishness overcame good sense and he continued to press his suit on a girl who was showing every sign of being completely inappropriate. Even in his worst and least confident days, he’d had more sense than to chase after the leavings of other men when seeking a wife.
‘Your Grace?’ Hendricks stood in the doorway of his own home, offering an unironic bow as though it were he who had entered unexpectedly. ‘How might I be of assistance?’
‘You can leave off bowing at me, for one thing,’ Robert muttered, unable to control the impulse. ‘You might well want to bounce me out into the street when you hear why I have come. The respectful greeting will only make that more difficult.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Hendricks, with the faintest lift of an eyebrow. ‘But we will not know until you have made your request.’
‘Tell me about Benbridge’s younger daughter. And not the nonsense you were spouting at the party. I want the truth this time.’
‘It really is not my place—’ Hendricks began.
‘Yours as much as anyone else’s. I will have the story in the end. She’s already told me the more interesting half of it. The girl is no longer a maid.’
Hendricks sucked his breath in between his teeth in a sudden hiss, but said nothing.
‘If the circumstances mitigate the truth, I should like to know it now. Who? When? Why? And who else knows of it? I heard rumours of an elopement with a dancing master. But I refuse to base my decisions based on tittle-tattle from gossiping old ladies. Any accurate information you can provide about Lady Priscilla will be welcome.’
Hendricks rose and went to the door of the sitting room, glancing into the hall to be sure that they were alone, before shutting it. ‘I would rather my wife not hear what we are discussing. It is a sensitive subject in the family as you can imagine. Dru was charged with watching the girl and feels quite responsible for anything that might have happened. And I do not know the most intimate details, of course. It was several days before we caught up with the couple. The situation might not be as dire as you make it out.’
‘I make nothing of it,’ Robert said. ‘It is Priscilla who seems sure of events. She should know them, if no one else does.’
Hendricks swallowed. ‘And I can trust that, since I am speaking to the Duke of Reighland, the story will travel no further than