The Scoundrel and the Debutante

“God in heaven, I could die,” Miss Cabot said, and turned her head.

Roan laughed. “Please don’t.” He put his hand on her shoulder and coaxed her around. “You’re far too comely to die, and after all, you’ve gone to so much trouble now.” He squeezed her shoulder. He meant to let it go, but his hand slid down her arm, to her wrist.

She clucked her tongue and turned her head away from him.

“I am teasing you, Miss Cabot. A rooster can’t help but crow, can he? I am truly flattered.” He moved his hand from her arm to her waist and pulled her closer. “If I’m to be admired, I am very pleased to be admired by someone as beautiful as you.”

“Oh Lord,” she muttered, blushing furiously. “Don’t trifle with me. I’m mortified as it is.” And yet she made no move to step out of his loose embrace.

“I am very sincere. Nevertheless, as pleasant as this has been for me, you know very well that you shouldn’t be gallivanting across the countryside with strangers. You could very well fall victim to some rogue on the road. At the next stop, I intend to put you in a private conveyance to Hipple myself.”

“It’s Himple,” she corrected him, and regrettably, stepped away from him. “And I will see myself there, you need not concern yourself.”

Just like Aurora. It’s my life to ruin, Roan. You needn’t concern yourself with it.

“Seeing yourself there is not inconsequential, Miss Cabot. You don’t want to have your reputation marked by an impetuous moment, do you?”

“No, it’s not inconsequential, Mr. Matheson,” she said pertly. “But the ruin has already been done. I highly doubt that I could make it worse.”

And what did that mean? Roan wondered. In what way had she been ruined? Or was she prone to overly dramatic interpretations of the events of her life as was Aurora?

“Ho! The coach!” someone shouted. A cry of relief went up from the other passengers, and there was a sudden flurry of activity, of gathering luggage. As the second stagecoach pulled in behind the first, Roan watched the men over his shoulder a moment, then glanced at Miss Cabot. He looked her over, the purse of her lips, the color in her cheeks. Why were the most alluring women the most trouble? He couldn’t imagine Pratt would never dream of doing what Miss Cabot had done today. Which he supposed was what made her the perfect wife. Didn’t it? At present, Roan would keep telling himself that. He hadn’t actually offered to make Susannah his wife, but it was expected that he would. He expected he would, for all the reasons Susannah was not standing here under this tree with him.

Yes, he would keep telling himself that.

Roan looked away from Miss Cabot’s hazel eyes. “I should make myself useful in the repair of the wheel.”

“Yes, of course.” She held his gaze, watching him closely. A smile slowly appeared. “Thank you for not revealing me to Dr. Linford.”

He sighed. “I am unduly swayed by the smile of a beautiful woman. It is my cross to bear.”

Her smile deepened. “I’ll wait on the rocks.” She walked past him—gliding, really, with an elegance that was not learned, he knew from experience. She took a seat where they’d gathered previously, picked up her valise and balanced it on her lap, her hands folded primly on top. She looked straight ahead, as if she were at a garden party.

Roan couldn’t help his smile as he walked past her and touched her shoulder. “I didn’t thank you.”

“Thank me?” she asked, looking up at him.

“For your great esteem,” he said, and winked.

Miss Cabot muttered something under her breath that sounded very much like rooster and more, then turned her head, fidgeting with a curl at her nape.

Roan joined the men, discarding his coat. The driver of the second coach had the tools necessary to repair the broken wheel. Roan would have had the wheel repaired more quickly had he been allowed to conduct the work himself. He was familiar with broken wheels; he and his family were in the lumber trade, their teams bringing loads into New York City from as far north as Canada. It was arduous work, cutting and hauling lumber, and Roan had been pressed on more than one occasion to lend a hand to help with the work and the transport. He didn’t mind it—he liked the way physical labor made him feel alive and strong. As a result, he had repaired more wheels and axles and that sort of thing than perhaps even these men had seen.

But the driver was adamant that the work be done his way.

The wheel was fixed and attached to the axle, and the men began to load the luggage onto the coach once more. As the team of horses was harnessed, the driver asked the passengers to board.

Roan donned his coat, then collected his smaller bag from the pile of luggage that would be reloaded. He turned and looked back to the rocks, intending to rally Miss Cabot.

She was not sitting on the rocks.

Roan walked into the meadow, scanning the tree line and the road. The woman was nowhere to be seen. Had she boarded the second coach? He looked back to that coach. The passengers were gathering their things and boarding.

Roan strode back to the second coach. “Excuse me,” he said, and stepped through the passengers to look into the interior. Only a woman and a small girl sat inside.

Roan turned back to the others. “Have any of you seen a woman? About yay tall,” he said, holding his hand out to indicate her height. “With a bonnet?” he asked, gesturing to his head.

No one had seen her.

Roan was baffled. Where could she be? He hurried back to the first coach, where the luggage was now secured. One of the men reached for Roan’s bag, but he held tight. “Have you seen Miss Cabot?” he asked the man. “She got on in Ashton Down.”

“No, sir,” the man said. “Shall I put your bag up top?”

“I’ll hold on to it, thank you,” Roan said. He stepped around the coachman and peered into the interior of the first coach. Two gentlemen who had ridden on top put themselves inside next to the young man who was scrunched down on the bench, swallowed in his coat, still holding the battered valise.

No Miss Cabot.

A sliver of panic raced up Roan’s spine. He turned to the driver, who was overseeing the last adjustments to the team’s harnesses. “Have you seen Miss Cabot?”

“The comely one?” the driver asked, squinting up at him.

Roan didn’t have time to think why it annoyed him the driver would refer to her in that way and said, “Yes, that one.”

The driver shook his head. “Heeding the call of nature, I’d say.”

Yes, of course. Roan looked back to the trees across the meadow.

“Come, then, climb up,” the driver said. “We’re late as it is.”

“But we’re missing one,” Roan said.

The driver glanced back at the trees. “I’m not in the business of chasing strays,” he said, and hauled himself up to his seat. “It’s been plain enough we’re on our way. Are you boarding?”

Roan glared at him. “You would leave a young woman unattended in the middle of the countryside?” he snapped as the second coach pulled around them and began to move down the road.

“How long do you suggest I wait, Yankee? I’ve a schedule to keep and passengers to deliver. They’ve not had any food. I’ll be lucky to reach Stroud by nightfall.”

Roan whirled around. “Miss Cabot!” he bellowed. “Miss Cabot, come at once!”

There was nothing, no answer. They waited, Roan pacing alongside the coach.

“Come on, then, move on!” shouted one of the men.

“Last chance, Yankee,” the driver said.

“What of the luggage?” he demanded, gesturing at the bags and things strapped to the coach. He had helped load her trunk and there it was, strapped onto the coach beneath all the rest, including his trunk.

“All unclaimed luggage will be left at the next station,” the driver said, and picked up the reins. “Will you board?” he asked once more.

Roan glanced over his shoulder at the empty meadow.

“Ack, I’ll not wait,” the driver said, and slapped the reins against his team. He whistled sharply and the stagecoach lurched away, the wheels creaking, the dust rising to envelop Roan as he stood on the side of the road with his bag.

Where the hell was she? Roan turned a full circle, his gaze scanning the quiet countryside, seeing nothing but a pair of cows grazing across the way.

And why the hell did he care, precisely? Wasn’t it enough that he had to leave his thriving business in New York to come after Aurora? It was just his luck—Roan’s father was too old to chase after his wayward daughter, and Roan’s brother, Beck, was even younger than Aurora. There had been no one but him, no one who could be depended upon to fetch his sister and bring her home to marry Mr. Gunderson as she had promised she would do.

He supposed that perhaps contrary to what Aurora had claimed, she didn’t love Mr. Gunderson after all. It had seemed highly improbable to him that she did, really, seeing as how her engagement had been carefully constructed by Roan’s father.

Rodin Matheson was a visionary, and he’d devised a way to increase the family’s wealth in a manner that would provide generously for generations of Mathesons—aunts, uncles, cousins, grandchildren. All of them. By marrying his daughter to the son of the building empire that was Gunderson Properties, he made certain that Matheson Lumber would be used to build New York City for years to come.

Roan thought it was brilliant, really, and Aurora had easily agreed to it after a few meetings with Sam Gunderson. “I adore Mr. Gunderson,” she’d said dreamily.

Perhaps she did...in that moment. That was the problem with Aurora—she flitted from one moment to the next, her mind changing as often as the hands on the clock.

It was Mr. Pratt who had suggested to his friend Rodin Matheson that perhaps Roan would be a good match for his daughter Susannah. Mr. Pratt was the owner of Pratt Foundries, and Rodin began to see a bigger, more successful triumvirate of construction. He explained to Roan that between Pratt Foundries, Gunderson Properties and Matheson Lumber, their business and income would soar as they became the construction industry of a growing city.

It was a heady proposition. Roan had never met Susannah, learning that she summered in Philadelphia. But Mr. Pratt had insisted that his daughter was a delight, a comely, agreeable young woman who would make him a perfect wife. Roan hadn’t thought much about the qualities of a perfect wife—he wasn’t a sentimental man, and when it came to marriage, he accepted it as something that had to be done. Neither had he given much thought as to who he would marry; that had been the furthest thing from his mind as they’d worked to expand Matheson Lumber. He’d supposed that whoever it was, familiarity would eventually breed affection. Affection was all that was necessary, wasn’t it? His parents had found affection somewhere along the way and seemed happy. Roan imagined the same would be true for him. As for siring children, he hardly gave that a thought—he could not imagine any circumstance in which he’d be anything less than willing and eager to do his part.

And then he’d met Susannah Pratt.

She’d come to New York just before Roan’s aunt and uncle had returned from England. She was nothing as Mr. Pratt had described, and worse, Roan could not find anything the least bit attractive about her. It was impossible for him to accept that she was the one he was to acquaint himself with and then propose marriage. Privately, he’d chided himself for that—a woman’s value was not in her face, for God’s sake, it was in her soul. So he’d valiantly tried to see beyond her appearance. Unfortunately, she was not the least bit engaging. He could find no common ground, and even if he had, the woman was painfully shy and afraid to look him in the eye.

Just before his aunt and uncle had come home, he had decided he would speak to Susannah about her true desires. Perhaps she found him as odious as he found her. Perhaps she was desperate for escape from this loose arrangement.

But the news his aunt and uncle had brought home trumped everything else. They were all desperate to find Aurora before she was lost to them, and Roan had put aside his own troubles to chase after her. What could he do?

He could curse Aurora for the weeks it had taken him to cross the Atlantic, that’s what. The longer Susannah Pratt thought he would be her husband, the harder it would be to disengage from her. Roan was even angrier with Aurora for not being in West Lee, or whatever the hamlet he’d been directed to, but in the other West Lee, north. That alone was enough to concern him. Did he really need to fret about another incorrigible, intractable, disobedient young woman?

No. No, he did not. He didn’t care that Miss Cabot’s eyes were the color of the vines that grew on his family’s house. Or that she had boarded this coach because she’d been attracted to him. Or that he’d teased her and embarrassed her and thereby was probably the cause of her running off.

She was not his concern, damn it. And yet, she was.

For the second time that day, Roan swept his hat off his head and threw it down onto the ground in an uncharacteristic fit of frustration. Damn England! Damn women!

He kicked the hat for good measure and watched it scud across the road.

And then, with a sigh of concession, he walked across the road to fetch it. But he discovered he’d kicked his hat into a ditch filled with muddy water. Roan muttered some fiery expletives under his breath. He’d find another hat in the next village. He picked up his bag and hoisted it onto his shoulder and walked on.

Now, to figure out where that foolish little hellion had gone.

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