The Scoundrel and the Debutante (10 page)

“I don't have time to explain the nuances of negotiation to you now,” he said low. “I am going to step away and bargain for a horse. Not a word from you.”

He turned back and strode to the old man, who had settled against a fence railing, the dog at his feet. “I'll give you ten pounds for two,” Roan said, and reached into his pocket to withdraw his purse.

“Fifteen pound for one,” the old man countered.

“That is preposterous,” Roan said. “Do you think I mean to breed them? Produce a herd of swaybacked, used-up post horses?”

The old man shrugged.

“Perhaps twenty pounds is more to his liking?”

God help him but Miss Cabot had appeared again, standing at his elbow, smiling prettily at the old man. “It seems rather fair to me,” she said. “Twenty pounds is really quite a lot of money. Our game warden, Mr. Cuniff, sold his cart for twenty pounds and do you know, he sent his youngest off to school? It's a small fortune, isn't it?”

Roan was set to send her back to her spot, perhaps even with a swift kick to her very shapely derriere, but the old man surprised him. He gave Miss Cabot a look that Roan was fairly certain was a smile. “Aye, quite a lot,” he agreed.

“It would be very kind of you to accept twenty pounds. My cousin,” she said, gesturing to Roan, “hasn't a lot of money, really, and I, in particular, would be most grateful if you could see your way to agreeing to that price?” She smiled sweetly and looked remarkably angelic.

“Aye, for
you
, lass, I will agree to that price,” the old man said.

Roan gaped at Miss Cabot. Had she really agreed to twenty pounds, ten pounds more than he had intended to pay? For two horses? At least Roan hoped it was two—as the old man had been speaking of only one, he wasn't certain. “For that price, we ought to have saddles, too,” he said. “I can ride without, but one cannot expect my
cousin
,” he said, looking askance at her, “to do the same.”

“For that price, you have one horse, no saddle,” the old man said.

“What?”
Miss Cabot cried. “We agreed to two!”

“We agreed only to price, miss. Not the number of beasts. I said fifteen for one. You countered at twenty. That's twenty pounds for one horse.”

She gasped and turned a wide-eyed gaze to Roan. “That's not at
all
what I meant!” She suddenly swung back around to the old man. “See here, sir,” she said, pointing at him.

Roan managed to intercept her before she cost him any more money. “That's not fair—”

“No, no, no, no,” he said quickly. “Don't speak. Don't say another word.”

“But he—”

“He has the horses,” Roan said, staring hard at her, hoping that she would read in his eyes how important it was that she not say anything else.

“But you can't agree,” she whispered hotly.

“
You
already did,” he whispered, just as hotly. He glanced over his shoulder at O'Grady, who was watching with some amusement. Roan pushed her a few steps back. He stood so close to her now that he couldn't help noticing how smooth her skin was, or how fair the hair at her temple, or the tiny lines of laughter around her eyes. And that mouth that he had so impetuously kissed looked fuller, more lush than it had under the sycamore tree.

Her dark golden brows suddenly snapped into a frown. “You're cross and so am I,” she said, startling him back to the moment. “But I can't allow you to purchase a horse for that,” she said, and lifted the reticule that dangled from her wrist.

“Put that away or I will take it. I do have my pride, Miss Cabot.”

“And I have mine!”

“Trust me,
my
pride is greater and stronger than yours ever dreamed of being. If you don't put that silly bag away at once, I will not only sell you to Mr. O'Grady for a wife, I will also take a pig in exchange.”

She gasped with shock. And then her lovely face melted into a glare of vexation so intent, he could almost feel the heat of it. She whirled away from him and marched off in the direction of the pasture.

One horse, one bridle, one rope and no saddle later—eighteen pounds all told, as the man had agreed to negotiate the price a bit—Roan lashed their bags on the back of a worn-out horse. He cupped his hands for Miss Cabot, who stomped her foot, heel down, into his linked palms.

He launched her up.

She landed on the horse's back with both legs on one side.

“Hike your hem,” he said, gesturing to her gown. “Swing a leg over.”

“I will do no such thing!”

“You can't ride in that fashion,” he said impatiently. “There are
two
of us who must fit on this horse.”

She refused to look at him as she situated herself on the horse, clinging to its mane.

Roan groaned. What was it about young women that made them so damned recalcitrant? It was as if the entire feminine race was out to prove they were capable of all the things men did. He put his hand on her thigh to gain her attention, noticing how small it was, how firm. “The day is wasting,” he said.

“Then mount the horse, Mr. Matheson, and let us be on our way.”

“Fine,” he snapped. “But I will not tolerate your tears if you fall!” He threw himself up on his horse in one leap. The old beast stepped twice to the side, clearly unused to the weight on her back. Roan had to drape Miss Cabot's legs over his right thigh and put his arms around her to reach the reins. The horse gave a flick of its neck, and Miss Cabot slid into him, her shoulder just beneath his chin.

“Of all the...” She suddenly began to squirm, somehow managing to hike her leg up onto the horse's neck. She took several moments to situate herself, tugging at her hem, straightening her bonnet.

It was all too much, the feel of her body rubbing against him.

“You realize, don't you, that if we meet anyone, I will throw myself off this horse?” she said tetchily.

“If you keep up this squirming, I may toss you off myself,” he bit out as he set the horse to a trot.

With a squeal of surprise, Miss Cabot bounced back, her bottom fitting far too snugly in between his legs.

This, Roan thought, had all the potential of being the most excruciatingly painful ride of his life. He had never in his life been turned so completely upside down by a woman. He never imagined that he could be compelled in any way to buy an old horse and ride with a beautiful woman in his lap. Frankly, it made Roan fear what else those pretty hazel eyes could compel him to do.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I
T
SEEMED
AS
if
they rode hours down that narrow country lane without seeing anyone. Occasionally, across a meadow, Prudence would catch sight of a curl of smoke rising from some distant chimney or see a flock of sheep dotting a hillside. But it seemed as if the west country had been abandoned.

The horse—an old draft mare, Mr. Matheson said—plodded along. Nothing Mr. Matheson tried would encourage the beast to go faster. “I can hardly bear to think what I paid for this...nag,” he said, the last word uttered with some difficulty as he tried his best to spur the horse on.

They stopped periodically to rest the horse. The late afternoon had turned quite warm; Prudence removed her bonnet and her spencer and tucked them into her valise along with her reticule.

Without her spencer, Prudence was even more keenly aware of Mr. Matheson at her back as they rode. Her skin grew damp from the heat between them. She could feel all the contours of his body, all the man bits, pressed against her hips. It was equally provocative and alarming. She knew it was wildly inappropriate to be seated against him as she was...but she liked it.

Prudence's mind wandered to salacious vignettes, her imagination stretching to see him without his clothing. The thoughts made her moist in a way that felt a little dangerous given the circumstances, but again, Prudence wasn't sure she cared. She'd never been so intimately close to a man and it seemed ridiculous to be concerned about propriety now, not after that kiss, not after sitting so close to him.

Not that Prudence was quite ready to toss aside all of her virtue.

Or so she told herself.

As her awareness of him only intensified, she became increasingly determined to draw attention to something else. Anything else.

She tried talking to him at first—
How do you like New York? Is it very big? Was the voyage very rough? How many sailors do you suppose it takes to man one of those ships?
But Mr. Matheson did not seem in a mood to talk, and soon he was responding to her many questions with monosyllabic grunts.

Prudence therefore resorted to humming. She was regarded as highly accomplished on the pianoforte, to which Prudence would modestly agree. Her singing, however, was not as pleasant. She began to hum to cover up the sound of her growling stomach and to chase away the shivers that ran up and down her spine every time a bobble in the horse's step pressed her more firmly into Mr. Matheson. She began to sing when she noticed how her legs ached from sitting so awkwardly for so long a period of time, but to move them would push her body deeper into his.

She had just burst into a near operatic voice when Mr. Matheson suddenly put his arm around her middle and squeezed it. “Please, I am begging you...
stop.
”

“My singing?”

“Your singing, your talking,” he said pleadingly.

“I'm only trying to pass the time,” she said, a bit wounded he did not appreciate her efforts. “I should like to halt,” she said, feeling suddenly queasy.

“That's what
I
said.”

“I mean the horse. I should like to get off.”

“Soon,” he assured her. “We can't be far.”

“Now, Mr. Matheson!” she exclaimed, suddenly
quite
nauseated.

He reined the horse to a halt and lifted himself off its back. Prudence leaped before he could help her, but she hadn't counted on her legs being as useless as they were. They collapsed beneath her and she stumbled onto all fours.

“Miss Cabot!” Mr. Matheson hauled her up to her feet. He pushed her hair and bonnet away from her face. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, I'm fine, I'm
fine
,” she said, batting his hands away. She put her hand to her belly.

“What is it?” he asked, his expression full of alarm. “Are you ill?”

“No!” She winced. “A bit.”

He cupped her face with his palm. “You don't feel warm. Is it your head? Your belly?”

“I don't know,” she said, pressing her hands to her abdomen.

“You need to eat something,” he said firmly. “Where is the food you had earlier?”

“In my bag.”

He left her and moved to the horse, unstrapping her bag. He unbuckled her valise and held it open to her; Prudence removed the cheesecloth from it and unwrapped it. They bent their heads over the cheesecloth at the same time and peered down at the meager portions that were left. There was a bit of cheese, two sweetmeats and the end of a stale loaf of bread. Prudence glanced up at him.

“Well,” Mr. Matheson said sheepishly. “It seems I ate more than I thought I had. Eat what is here. We'll find a village soon and I'll see to it you are well fed.”

“There is no next village,” she said morosely as she nibbled a sweetmeat. “We've ridden all day and we've seen nothing. We must be near Brasenton Park.”

“Near...?”

“The Earl of Cargyle's estate,” she clarified. “It's situated between Ashton Down and Himple. Mrs. Bulworth told me it is a vast and untamed estate and this looks vast and untamed to me.”

Mr. Matheson helped himself to a piece of cheese. “I came this way, remember? I would say we're a half hour from the next settlement at most.”

“A half hour!” she exclaimed, wincing painfully. The thought of getting on that horse again was almost more than she could bear.

“Come,” he said, and put his arm around her shoulders. “Think of the bath you can order the innkeeper to draw for you.”

“A
bath
,” she said dreamily.

Mr. Matheson helped her up to the back of the horse, then walked beside the lumbering beast, his hand on the bridle to lead them down the road.

It turned out that he was almost right—within a quarter of an hour, as the sun began to slide from the sky, they came upon a tavern. “Aha, food ahoy,” he said, and gave Prudence a pat on her leg.

The tavern sat by itself on the road with no other structures around it. Prudence couldn't imagine what sort of food it might have—the building looked rather dilapidated, what with its chipped masonry and sagging roof on the right side. There was a single window, which was cranked open.

As they neared the tavern, a man stumbled out of the small door and around the side of the building, disappearing up a well-worn path that led into the woods.

Prudence eyed the structure warily. She'd never thought of herself as particular, but the thought of eating anything that had been cooked in that tavern turned her stomach a bit. “I'm not hungry,” she said anxiously. “There's no need to go in.”

“Don't speak to anyone, do you hear?” Mr. Matheson asked, ignoring her. “If someone approaches you, take this horse and ride. You can ride, can't you?”

“Yes, of course I can. But, really it's not necessary—”

“No buts, Prudence. Just wait.”

He strode off. Prudence might have argued more firmly for him to continue on, but she'd been momentarily distracted by the way he'd said her given name. As if they were friends. And it sounded so
pretty
when he said it. Not stiff, as she'd always thought her name to sound on the tongues of Englishmen, as if the
pru
stuck in their throats. When Mr. Matheson said it, her name sounded sweet. Easy. Happy.

He disappeared inside, and she slid off the horse, taking care to land properly this time, and stood beside the old girl, stroking her neck and watching the door of the tavern. She could hear laughter within, the low voices of men, the shrill voice of a woman. Prudence stepped back into the shadows, her pulse quickening. She had a bad feeling about this place. What was taking him?

The door burst open and Mr. Matheson came striding outside, his pockets bulging, his expression dark.

“What's the matter?” she cried.

He didn't answer; he grabbed her by the waist without warning and practically tossed her onto the horse's back, and in what seemed like almost the same movement, acrobatically put himself behind her. Wrapping one arm tightly around her waist and taking the reins in the other, he whipped the horse about and yelled, “Ha!”
at it, sending it into a jarring gallop. Prudence shrieked with surprise and fright as the horse began to move much faster than it had previously allowed was even capable. He drew her hard against him as the horse ran with an uneven gate, bouncing them about like small children on its back.

The horse quickly slowed to ambling however, apparently preferring the slower pace, no matter how much Mr. Matheson begged and cajoled.

Prudence turned and glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see riders close on their heels. But there was no one. “What happened?” she asked. “Why are we fleeing?”

“I didn't receive a very warm welcome,” he said. “I thought it best not to linger.” He reined the horse off the road, turning her down a path that ran alongside a flowing brook.

“Where are we going?” she asked, peering into the waning light of the day.

“We are stopping for the night,” he said firmly. “The horse is spent.”

“But...but there is no inn! No shelter!” Prudence cried, alarmed. She hadn't even considered the possibility of it—he'd said a village was close at hand.

“What is it, Prudence? Have you never slept beneath the stars?” he asked, sounding a bit jovial.

“No!” she replied, aghast. She could feel his chuckle reverberate against her back as he reined the old horse to a stop and hopped off her back.

“Come down,” he said, and without waiting for her reply, he lifted her off. When he had her on the ground, he put his hands in his pockets and removed a cheesecloth from one, and an old, oil-stained flagon from the other. Prudence stared at the offerings. “Meat and bread,” he said, handing her the cheesecloth. “And ale.”

“You
bought
it?”

“Not exactly,” he said with a crooked smile. “I'll say only that a barmaid offered to help me.” He had a gleam in his eye. “Help me gather wood for a fire.”

She gathered wood, her thoughts filling with explicit images of just how he might have convinced a barmaid to give him these things.

Mr. Matheson proved himself very efficient in the making of a camp. He rubbed sticks together to spark kindling as she'd once seen a gamekeeper do, and in moments, they had a roaring little campfire. He removed their bags from the horse and slapped her rump, sending her downstream to graze and drink. He laid his coat on the ground for Prudence to sit. She rummaged in her bag and found her spencer, and donned that, then drew her knees up to her chest and sat before his fire. She watched him remove his gun from his boot and stuff it into the back of his trousers.

He speared the meat on a stick and held it over the fire to warm it. Grease dripped and sputtered in the fire. He handed Prudence the stick. “Eat it,” he said.

Prudence did as he bade her. The gristly, greasy meat was perhaps the best she'd ever tasted—she hadn't realized how ravenous she was.

He offered her the flagon of ale. She eyed that with a bit more trepidation.

“You do drink ale, don't you?” he asked.

She'd drunk ale perhaps twice in her life. “Yes,” she said, and took the flagon from him.

The ale was much better than the meat. It sluiced warm through her, fortifying her against the chill that was beginning to settle around them.

When they'd devoured the food he'd managed to get them, Prudence indelicately wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. “I'll just wash my hands,” she said, and moved to the brook. She squatted beside it to clean her hands, and in doing so, looked down at the pale blue gown she was wearing. Lord, it looked as if she'd found it in the woods. Patches of dirt and horse hair were smeared across the muslin, and nettles clung to her hem. She adored this travel gown, but doubted that even Hannah, her mother's longtime maid and caregiver, could remove the stains from it.

She washed her face as best she could, pushing errant strands of her hair away. It felt as if she had a bird's nest in her hair, and she thought she would at least find the ivory combs in her bag and repair it as best she could.

When she came back to the fire, Mr. Matheson was lying on his side, his legs stretched long. He'd been watching her, she realized, and his eyes had taken on a different sheen. They seemed darker to her now. Stormier, perhaps. Whatever was different, it made Prudence shiver. She lowered herself to his coat, sitting on her knees. Mr. Matheson didn't speak; he rose up and touched the corner of her mouth. It was a small touch, hardly a touch at all, but his finger lingered there, and his gaze didn't leave hers, and the touch, that look, were all a shock of light through Prudence. She felt a bit outside of herself. She was driven by something she couldn't even name, but it had to do with that kiss under the tree in the village, it had to do with the way he was looking at her now. It had to do with a yearning so deep and vast that she felt adrift in it.

She wrapped her fingers around his wrist as far as they would go and pulled his hand from her mouth. And then Prudence shocked herself by taking his forefinger in between her lips. She touched the tip of her tongue to it like a candy and sucked lightly.

Mr. Matheson drew a long breath. His gaze fell to her mouth and lingered there, his expression changing. He looked hungry, as if he could devour her as easily as he'd devoured the bread. Prudence's heart began to flitter in her chest. As astounding a thought as it was, she thought she would like that.

Mr. Matheson slowly pulled his finger from her mouth. He gripped her fingers, squeezing them, as if warning her. “Sit back now.”

But Prudence didn't move. She was mesmerized by the look in his eye, by the set of his mouth.

His eyes dropped to her lips. “Unless you are prepared to face the consequences,
sit back now
.”

Prudence knew what consequences he meant, and it frightened her. Not because she feared them, but because she didn't fear them at all. What she feared was her willingness to ignore propriety and virtue. Hadn't she caused enough trouble for one day? But what was the point in limiting herself now? Perhaps more important, the idea that she would never have this chance again began to snake its way through her thoughts.