The Scoundrel and the Debutante
“Where might I purchase passage?” he asked briskly.
She looked around him—that is, she leaned to her right to see around his broad chest—to the stagecoach inn. “I’ll show you if you like.”
“That,” he said firmly, “would be most helpful.” He bent down, scooped up his hat, dusted it off by knocking it against his knee, then put it back on his head. His gaze traversed the length of her before he stepped back and swept his arm before him, indicating she should lead him.
Prudence walked across the street, pausing as the gentleman instructed the coachman to leave his trunk and bag on the sidewalk with the other luggage pieces to be loaded on the northbound coach. He stared wistfully at the coach as it pulled away, headed south, before turning back to Prudence and following her into the inn’s courtyard. She walked through a pair of doors that went past the public room and into a small office. It was close, and she had to dip her head to step inside. The ceiling was uncomfortably low, and the smell of horse manure permeated the air, as the office was situated between the stables and the public rooms.
The gentleman passenger was well over six feet and had to stoop to enter. Once inside, his head brushed the rafters. He batted at a cobweb and grunted his displeasure.
“Aye, sir?” said a clerk, appearing behind the low counter.
The gentleman stepped forward. “I should like to buy passage to West Lee,” he said.
“Weslay,” Prudence murmured.
The gentleman sighed loudly. “What she said.”
“Three quid,” the clerk said.
The gentleman removed his purse from his pocket and opened it. He fussed through the coins there, examining each one as he withdrew them. Prudence stepped forward, leaned around him, and pointed at three of the coins.
“Ah,” he said, and handed them to the clerk, who in turn handed the gentleman a ticket.
“The driver requires a crown, and the guard a half,” the clerk said.
“What?” the gentleman said. “But I just gave you three pounds.”
The clerk tucked the coins into a pocket on his apron. “That’s for the passage. The driver and the guard, they get their pay from the passengers.”
“Seems like a dodge.”
The clerk shrugged. “If you want passage to Weslay—”
“All right, all right,” the gentleman said. He peered at his ticket and sighed again. He gestured for Prudence to go out ahead of him, then fit himself through the door into the inn’s main hall and followed her into the courtyard.
They paused there. He smiled for the first time since Prudence had seen him, and she felt a little twinkle of desire when he did. He looked remarkably less perturbed, and in all honestly, he looked astoundingly pleasing to the eye when he smiled. It was a rugged, well-earned smiled. There was nothing thin about it. It was an honest, glowing sort of smile—
“I am grateful for your assistance, Miss...?”
“Cabot,” she said. “Miss Prudence Cabot.”
“Miss Cabot,” he said, and bowed his head slightly. “Mr. Roan Matheson,” he added, and stuck his hand out.
Prudence glanced uncertainly at his hand.
So did he. “What is it? Is my glove soiled? So it is. I beg your pardon, but I’ve come a very long way without benefit of anyone to do the washing.”
“No, it’s not that,” she said with a shake of her head, although her thoughts were spinning with the how and why and from where he’d come such a long way.
“Oh. I see.” He removed his glove and extended his hand once more. She noticed how big it was, how strong. How long and thick his fingers were and the slight nicks on his knuckles. A hand that was not afraid of work. “My hand is clean,” he said impatiently.
“Pardon? Oh! No, it’s just that it’s rather unusual.”
“My hand?” he asked curiously, holding it up to have a look.
“No, no.” She was being rude. She looked up at his startling topaz eyes. And at his hair, too, dark brown with streaks of lighter brown, and longer than the current fashion, which he had carelessly brushed back behind his ears. It was charmingly foreign. He was charmingly foreign and...virile. Yes, that was it. He looked as if he could move mountains about for his amusement if he liked. Her pulse, Prudence realized, was doing a tiny bit of fluttering. “It’s unusual that you are offering your hand to be—” she paused uncertainly “—shaken?”
“Of course I offered it to be shaken,” he said, as if it were ridiculous she would ask. “Why else would one offer a hand, Miss Cabot? To shake. To acknowledge a kindness or a greeting—”
She abruptly put her hand in his, noting how small it seemed in his palm.
He cocked his head. “Are you afraid of me?”
“What? No!” she said, flustered. Maybe she was a tiny bit afraid of him. Or rather, the little shocks of light that seemed to flash through her when he looked at her like that. She curled her fingers around his. He curled tighter. “Oh,” she said.
“Too firm?” he asked.
“No, not at all,” she said quickly. She liked the feel of his grip on her hand and had the fleeting thought of his grip somewhere else on her altogether. “I beg your pardon, but I am unaccustomed to this. Here, men offer their hands to other men. Not to ladies.”
“Oh.” He hesitantly withdrew his hand. But he looked at her with confusion. “Then...what am I to do when I meet a woman?”
“You bow,” she said, demonstrating for him. “And a lady curtsies.” She curtsied, as well.
He groaned as he pulled his glove back on. “May I be brutally honest, Miss Cabot?”
“Please,” she said.
“I have come to England from America on a matter of some urgency—I must fetch my sister who is enjoying the fine hospitality and see her home. But I find this country confounding. I sincerely—” He suddenly turned his head, distracted by the sound of a coach rumbling into town. It was the northbound stage, and it pulled to a halt on the street just outside the courtyard. Two men sitting atop the coach jumped down; two young men climbed down from the outboard. Another man was waiting on the sidewalk to catch the bags that one of the coachmen began to toss to him.
The coach looked rather full, and Prudence felt a moment of pity for Mr. Matheson. She couldn’t possibly imagine how he would maneuver his large body into that crowded interior.
“Well, then, there we are,” he said, and began to stride toward the coach. He paused after a few steps and glanced over his shoulder at Prudence. “Aren’t you coming?”
Prudence was momentarily startled. She suddenly realized he believed she was waiting for the coach, too. She opened her mouth to correct him, to inform him she’d be traveling by private coach, but before the words could fall from her tongue, something warm and shivery sluiced through her. Something silky and dark and dangerous and exciting and compelling...so very compelling.
She wouldn’t.
But why wouldn’t she? She thought of riding in a coach with the Linfords, and the talk of weather. She thought of riding on a stagecoach—something she had never done—and riding with Mr. Matheson. There was something about that idea that thrilled her in a way nothing had in a very long time. He was so masculine, and her pulse fluttered at the idea of passing a few hours with him. “Ah...” She glanced back at the inn, debating. She’d be mad to do such a thing, to put herself on that stagecoach with him! But wasn’t this far more interesting than traveling with the Linfords? She had money, she had her things. She knew how to reach Cassandra Bulworth. What was stopping her? Propriety, for heaven’s sake? The same propriety that had been her constant companion all these years and had doomed her to spinsterhood?
She glanced again at Mr. Matheson. Oh yes, he was very appealing in a wild, American sort of way. She’d never met an actual American, either, but she imagined them all precisely like this, always rebelling, strong enough to forge ahead without regard for society’s rules. This man was so different, so fresh, so incurably handsome and so blessedly lost! She might even convince herself she was doing him a proper kindness by seeing him on his way.
Mr. Matheson misunderstood her look, however, because he flushed a bit and said, “I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean to rush you.”
Prudence smiled broadly—he thought she wanted the privy.
Her smile seemed to fluster him more. He cleared his throat and looked to the coach. “I’ll...I’ll see you on the coach.”
“Yes,” she said, with far more confidence than she had a right to. “Yes, you will!”
He looked at her strangely, but then gave her a curt nod and began striding for the coach, pausing to dip down and pick up one of the bags with one hand, then toss it up to a boy who was lashing the luggage on the boot.
There was no time to debate it; Prudence whirled about and hurried back to the office, her heart pounding with excitement and fear. A little bell tingled as she walked in.
The clerk turned round and squinted at her. “Miss?”
“A ticket to Himple, please,” she said, and opened her reticule.
“To Himple?” he repeated dubiously, and peered curiously at her.
“Please. And if you have some paper? I must dash off a note.”
“Two quid,” he said, and rummaged around until he found a bit of vellum she might use.
He handed her a pencil, and Prudence dashed off a hasty note to Dr. Linford that she would ask the coach boys to deliver to him. She jotted down the usual salutations, her wishes that the Linfords were well and his mother on the mend. And then she wrote an explanation for her change of plans.
I beg your pardon for any inconvenience, but as it happens, I have taken a seat in a friend’s coach. She is likewise bound for Himple and it was no trouble for her to include me in her party. Do please forgive the short notice, but the opportunity has only just come about. Thank you kindly for your offer to see me safely to my friends’, but I assure you I am in good hands.
She shivered at the sudden image of the gentleman’s hands.
My best wishes for your journey and your mother’s health. P.C.
She folded the note, smiled at the scowling clerk, and picked up her ticket. “Thank you,” she said, and fairly skipped out of the office.
Her heart was racing—she couldn’t believe she was doing something so daring and bold! So fraught with risk! So very unlike her! But for the first time in months, perhaps even years, Prudence felt as if something astonishing was about to happen to her. Good or bad, it didn’t matter—the only thing that mattered was that something different this way came, and she was giddy with excitement.
CHAPTER TWO
THE INTERIOR OF the coach was suited for four people, but as the extra seating on top of the coach was filled, Roan had to fit himself inside, wedging into the corner of an impossibly hard bench, his knees knocking against the bonier ones of the old man who sat across from him and unabashedly studied him. Next to the old gent was a boy who looked thirteen or fourteen years old. He sat with a hat pulled so far down his head that Roan couldn’t see anything but his long, angular nose and his small chin. He held a small battered valise on his lap, his arms wrapped securely around it.
Beside him was one of two robust women, whose lace caps looked too small for their heads, and whose thick tight curls hung like mistletoe over their ears. Roan didn’t think they were twins, exactly, but he supposed they were sisters. They wore identical gray muslin gowns and so much frilly lace across their expansive bosoms that at first glance, Roan thought they were wearing doilies.
However, the most notable feature of the two women was their astounding capacity to talk. They sat across from each other and they hadn’t as much as taken a breath—talking over and under and around each other—since he’d fitted himself inside the coach. Moreover, they spoke so quickly, with an accent so thick, that Roan couldn’t begin to make out what they were saying.
He could feel the pitch and pull of the coach as the fresh horses were put into their traces. He managed to withdraw his pocket watch from his waistcoat without elbowing anyone in the eye and checked the time. It was just a little more than half-past twelve. They’d be departing soon, and there was no sign of the beautiful woman with the shining hazel eyes who had helped him.
She was an angel in an otherwise horrendous day, the one thing that had made his entire ordeal seem less tedious. Miss Cabot was, at least to him, surprisingly beautiful, far comelier than anyone he’d seen before departing New York, and most assuredly the comeliest thing he’d seen since arriving in England. Granted, he’d first set foot in Liverpool, in the shipyards, which was not the most attractive place on God’s blessed earth, but still. She had a mouthwatering figure, a wide mouth with pink, full lips, and dark lashes that framed her lovely almond-shaped eyes. They were more green than brown, he thought, more summer than winter. He’d felt the male in him snapping to attention when he’d reached her in the middle of the village.
The older woman next to him settled in, removing herself from the wall of the coach and taking up what was left of the bench. There were only a few precious inches between them, not enough space for even a slender thing. Had Miss Cabot gone on top?
As if to answer his question, in the next moment, the door swung open and Miss Cabot’s bonneted head appeared. “Oh dear,” she said, peering into the interior. “There doesn’t seem to be room, does there?”
“Nonsense, of course there is,” said one of the women. “If the gentleman will kindly move aside, we’ll make space for you here. It will be a bit tight, but we’ll manage.”
Roan realized the woman beneath the tiny lace cap was referring to him. He looked at the coach wall against which he was smashed, and at the woman, who had taken up more than her share of the bench. “I beg your pardon, but I am as moved aside as I can possibly be.”
“Just a smidge,” the woman said, fluttering her fingers at him and making no effort to add any room to the bench from her end.
“Thank you,” Miss Cabot said, and hesitantly stepped inside, pushing past the knees of Roan and the old man. “Pardon me,” she said as she navigated her way into the middle of the coach, leaving a wisp of her perfumed scent as she did.
She balked when she saw the sliver of bench that was to be allotted to her.
“Isn’t much of a seat, is it?” one of the women asked. “But you’re a small thing. You’ll be quite all right.”
“Umm...” Miss Cabot smiled uncertainly at Roan and by some miracle of physical science, she managed to gracefully turn about in that small space without touching anyone except with the sweep of her hem. She settled delicately on the very edge of the bench, her slender back straight. Her knees, Roan noticed, touched the boy’s knees, and he could see the stain of acute awareness of that touch in the boy’s cheeks. Roan had been just like him at that age—as desperately fearful of females as he was desperate to be near them.
“You cannot remain perched like a bird for any length of time. You’ll exhaust yourself,” Roan said. “Please, do sit back.”
Miss Cabot turned her head slightly, and while all Roan could see beneath the brim of her bonnet was her chin and her wide, expressive mouth, he could sense her skepticism. She wiggled her bottom and slid back an inch or two. The woman shifted slightly. Miss Cabot wiggled her bottom again, and Roan could feel every inch of him tense as she continued to wiggle her bottom into the narrow spot between them. By the time she was done—every delicate bit of her pressed against every hard bit of him—he was, imprudently, thinking of creamy bare bottoms. Hers in particular. He imagined it to be smooth and heart-shaped. He imagined playfully biting the firm flesh—
Stop that. The last thing he needed was to be thinking salacious thoughts about a woman no older than his sister.
Roan clenched his jaw, adjusted his arm, and still he could not escape the heightened sensation of the slender lines of her body against the hard planes of his. He argued with himself that he was imagining her body indelicately next to his, not because he was a scoundrel and a rogue, but because he’d sailed across the Atlantic with a crew of men, had bounced about this part of England in coaches much like this and had not touched a woman in weeks.
Well. Perhaps he was a bit of a scoundrel. But it was true that he’d not had the pleasure of a woman’s lusty company since Miss Susannah Pratt had arrived in New York.
“Well!” Miss Cabot said gamely, squirming once more. She folded her hands onto her lap over the small package she carried. “If we’re plagued with bad roads, I might pop right out, mightn’t I?”
No one answered that; no doubt because they all feared it was true. The boy slid down in his seat, disappearing into his coat. The old man had yet to remove his two black pea eyes from Roan, his study so acute that Roan began to wonder if his private erotic thoughts were somehow apparent in his expression.
“On the whole, it looks to be a good day for travel, does it not?” Miss Cabot said cheerfully.
Roan sincerely hoped she was not the sort to find good fortune at every turn and announce it to one and all. He preferred his traveling companions to be as out of sorts and cross as he was when traveling in this manner.
“Quite nice,” one of the women said, and launched into something so quickly and with such verve that Roan could not begin to follow.
He took the opportunity to surreptitiously look at Miss Cabot. Her clothing was expensive. This, he knew, after having paid the clothing bills for his sister, Aurora; he’d become intimately acquainted with the cost of silk and muslin and brocade and fine wool. Miss Cabot had delicate hands, the sort that he guessed excelled at fine needlework. He could see a strand of hair on her shoulder—it was the color of wheat.
Was it disloyal to think that Miss Cabot was what he’d envisioned Susannah Pratt to be before he’d actually met her? Golden-haired and elegant, her countenance and appearance to spark the deepest male desires? But Susannah had turned out to be dark, wide and shapeless. Roan liked to think he was not so shallow as to form his opinion of the woman based on looks alone, but it didn’t help that Miss Pratt had nothing to say. When she’d arrived from Philadelphia and had come to his family’s home on the arm of Mr. Pratt, all Roan could think was that he couldn’t believe he’d actually agreed with Mr. Pratt and his own father that a marriage of the two families was something that ought to occur.
The coach suddenly lurched forward, and Miss Cabot was tossed against him. She turned her head slightly toward him and smiled apologetically. “I do so beg your pardon,” she said. “It’s awfully close, isn’t it?” She resituated herself, her back perfectly straight once more, her hands on her lap.
But it was hopeless. Every rut in the road, every bounce, pressed her body against his—once, causing her to brace herself with her small hand to his thigh—and Roan was reminded with each passing mile how softly pliant she felt against him, how insubstantial she seemed, and yet strangely sturdy at the same time. He looked out the window and tried not to think of her lying naked on soft white linens, her golden hair spilling around her shoulders, her breasts pert. He managed it by looking at the old man every time his thoughts drifted in that direction.
They’d been gone only one excruciating hour when one of the women took a deep breath in her endless conversation and announced loudly, “I know who you are! You’re Lady Merryton!”
All eyes riveted on Miss Cabot, including Roan’s.
“Not at all!” she exclaimed.
“No?” The woman seemed dubious.
“No! I assure you, if I were Lady Merryton, I’d travel by private coach.” Miss Cabot smiled.
“Yes, I suppose,” the woman said, looking disappointed.
What, did the old crow really believe royalty would be carted about the countryside in a public coach? Even Roan knew better than that. He didn’t keep up with the princes and queens and whatnot of England, but he assumed a “lady” was some sort of royalty. When his aunt and uncle had returned from London this summer—without Aurora, whose person had been placed with all due confidence by Roan’s family in their care—they’d talked quite a lot about an earl here, a viscount there. Aurora dined with Lady This, danced with Lord That. Roan had paid little heed, and because he had not, he was at a disadvantage—he had no idea what the significance of any of it was, only that royalty seemed to abound in England.
“But I am acquainted with Lady Merryton,” Miss Cabot added casually.
Roan cocked his head to one side, trying to see her face. She was acquainted with Lady Merryton? What was she, a countess or some such thing? Didn’t that make her the daughter of a queen and king? And did that therefore mean that Miss Cabot kept company with kings and queens?
“Just as well you’re not her, I think, what with all the folderol around that marriage, eh?” The larger woman snorted and shook her head.
“Simply shocking,” the smaller agreed.
Roan could see the blush creep into Miss Cabot’s neck. He didn’t know what folderol meant, but as both sisters were practically congratulating each other on their opinions, it made him very curious.
The women looked as if they were poised to ask more questions, but the coach began to slow. Roan leaned forward a bit, could see a row of whitewashed cottages with red and purple flowers spilling out of the window boxes. They’d arrived in a village he’d seen earlier today, and if he were not mistaken, there was nothing here but a change of horses. Yet he, for one, could not wait to be disgorged from this coach.
They rolled into the village, and the coach swayed to one side as the coachman hopped down from the seats atop to open the door and release the step. Roan was always a gentleman, but today, he could not help himself from launching out of the interior of the crowded coach and taking several steps away to drag some much needed air into his lungs, and hopefully, erase the feel of Miss Cabot against him from his flesh. By the time he turned about, the coachman had helped all the passengers from the interior, and the boy was assisting the old man onto a bench. The two ladies, likewise regurgitated from the coach, stood in identical fashion, their hands on the small of their backs, bending backward...and still talking.
Miss Cabot was standing apart from the others, holding a small wrapped package. She looked remarkably fresh, cheerful as a bluebell in her blue traveling gown.
The driver strolled into their midst with the posture of a mayor in spite of his dirty breeches, worn shoes and a waistcoat that seemed two sizes too small. “Beggin’ yer pardon, ladies and gents!” he announced grandly. “The coach will depart at a quarter past two.”
Roan glanced around him. There was a small public inn and a smithy, but very little else. He would very much like to drown the morning with a pint or two, but instead began striding down the road, needing to stretch his legs and shake off the exquisitely torturous feeling of having a lovely young woman pressed practically into his lap for the past hour and a half. It wouldn’t hurt him to find the last tattered remnants of his patience, either. He paused, searching for it. It was not available.
Roan was not generally an impatient man. On the contrary—he thought most would say he could be depended upon to be the center of calm in the midst of a storm. But he was devilishly out of sorts—he’d been in England for all of two days and could still feel the sea swells beneath his legs after a month at sea. He’d been turned completely around by the fellows in Liverpool, who, he’d realized after some minutes of trying to understand them, were actually speaking English to him. Those lads had sent him on this fool’s errand, sent him south when he should have gone north.