The Scoundrel and the Debutante (25 page)

Prudence kept stealing looks at Roan, and every time she turned her attention to him, she found him looking at her. His gaze was contemplative in a way Prudence had not seen from him before. She wondered if he was feeling the same uneasiness, if he felt the slight shift in the air. She wondered if he would be as easy as his sister when it was over and done. If, in a few days' time, he too would be laughing about his great adventure in England.

She turned her attention to Mercy, so carefree, so diverted by the unusual American creature, and thought of her box of brushes. It was all too much. Prudence forced herself to eat something so as not to draw attention to her despair, and then struggled to keep it down. She was grateful that Aurora was taking the center of attention, pulling it away from the darkness that was creeping in around her.

After dinner, Roan suggested that he and his sister retire. It was the proper thing to do, given the circumstance, but Aurora looked disappointed.

“Matheson, might I have a word before you retire?” George asked, and to Merryton, “My lord?”

“Certainly,” Roan said, and strode out of the room with them, unafraid.

Prudence felt almost panic-stricken as she watched them go. She wondered what George meant to say. If there was anything to be said to Roan, she wanted to be the one to say it.

Finnegan came in to the dining room and said, “I've taken the liberty of putting Miss Matheson's things in the blue room.”

“I'll bring her up,” Prudence said.

“Thank you,” Aurora said. She smiled at Prudence, her gaze locking on her. “That would be lovely.”

The bedroom at the end of the hall had china-blue walls and a snowy-white counterpane on the bed. Aurora flounced onto that counterpane and sighed up at the embroidered canopy. “It feels divine
.
The bed I had at the Villeroys' was so lumpy!”

Prudence leaned up against the vanity, watching her, wondering what Roan had told her about the two of them. “You must be exhausted.”

“A bit,” Aurora agreed. “I'm
dreading
the drive to Liverpool. The roads are so wretched, and I was bounced about all day today and I ache all over.”

Prudence pretended to straighten things on the vanity and looked at Aurora in the reflection of the mirror. “May I ask...are you sad?”

“Sad?” Aurora pushed herself up to her elbows as she considered that. “A little, I think.” She smiled ruefully. “Not as sad as Albert. He was so distraught when we were caught that I feared the poor dear would burst into sobs.”

She was so flippant! It annoyed Prudence. “Didn't you love him?” she asked, perhaps a bit too sharply. She wanted to add that they'd been on their way to marry, presumably because they were in love, and to be thwarted at the last minute must have been heart-wrenching.

Aurora gave her a funny look and slowly pushed herself up, so that she was sitting on the edge of the bed. “It's funny, really—I truly thought I loved him. Of course I did, or I would have never agreed to elope. But when I saw Roan on that horse, shouting at the driver to halt before he started the team away from the station, I was so...
relieved.
I can't describe it any other way. I was relieved. I felt as if I had been saved, almost from myself.”

Prudence looked at Aurora skeptically. But the young woman nodded earnestly. “I know that must sound deplorable to you. In one moment I was running off to marry Albert, and in the next, I was glad to be rescued. I think I was infatuated,” she said. “Infatuation feels very much like love, did you know? Have you ever been infatuated?”

Prudence felt a funny twist in her gut. Was it infatuation that burned in her and not love? How did one tell the difference? “Ah...I don't think so,” she said uncertainly.

“Poor Albert. I don't think he was infatuated at all. I think he truly loved me. My father is right—we are too impetuous.”

“We?” Prudence asked.

“Roan and I,” Aurora said.

Roan, impetuous? Prudence wanted to ask in what way Roan was impetuous but was afraid to speak, afraid of betraying her feelings for him.

“Roan can be very passionate about his ideas,” Aurora said.

Yes, Prudence could agree that he was.

“Do you know it was he who first spoke to me about my fiancé, Mr. Gunderson? Well...he
was
my fiancé. Roan says he is very displeased with me now,” she said, as if it weren't the least bit odd to speak of another fiancé on a day like this. “Roan was the one who convinced me that a marriage to him would be quite advantageous for the entire family. And how important it was that we think of marriage in those terms.” She smiled. “I understood him, of course. And I suppose I was made agreeable by the fact that I've always esteemed Mr. Gunderson.”

“That's...that is the way marriages are made here, too,” Prudence said, thinking of Stanhope. “For connection. For fortune. I suppose for affection, too.”

“Affection is what I feel for Mr. Gunderson,” Aurora said. “I feel wretched that I've hurt him and I hope he'll forgive me. I rather think that's what Roan feels for Susannah Pratt,” she added thoughtfully. “Affection. Not love, at least not yet, but certainly affection.” She smiled at Prudence. “Very well put, Miss Cabot.”

Not love, but affection...
Those words struck Prudence like a knife to her back.

“What is it, have I said something wrong?” Aurora asked.

“No, no, I just...” Prudence shook her head.

Aurora stood up and walked to the vanity where Prudence was standing. She stood beside her and picked up a hand mirror set in porcelain and pretended to study it. “I feel quite awful about everything, you know. Now that I've ruined Mr. Gunderson's regard for me, I suppose it's doubly important that Roan honor his commitment to Mr. Pratt and marry Susannah. Not that I have any doubt that he
will
,” she said, and smiled sweetly at Prudence. “My brother is unfailingly a man of his word. If Roan says he will do something, he will do it.”

She put down the mirror and turned to face Prudence. “And as I said, he has such affection for her. He's cross with me, you know. He didn't want to leave her, and now he wants to hurry back.”

Prudence gaped at her. Did she know that Roan had asked her to marry him? Was that why she spoke so freely about Roan's intentions?

Aurora's smile deepened. “Life is so much easier without unnecessary complications, don't you agree?”

Prudence understood her. She couldn't speak. Her thoughts were rushing over themselves, but one thing was crystal clear: Aurora Matheson was telling her not to complicate Roan's commitment.

“Oh, but I am
exhausted
!”
Aurora said airily.

“Yes, of course,” Prudence said. “I'll leave you now.” She walked out of the room and moved blindly down the hall, reeling at the message Aurora had just delivered. Roan was committed. His family expected it. No matter what he wanted, Aurora had made it quite clear that he was expected to honor his word. She desperately wanted to speak to him, and crept downstairs. The door to George's study was closed, and a thin shaft of light was coming out from beneath it. She could hear the low voices of men behind the door.

Prudence climbed back upstairs, passing the drawing room, where she could hear her sisters talking. She carried on to her room, each step heavier than the last. It felt a monumental effort to even drag herself onto the bed, where she lay on her side, staring out the window, her thoughts whirling around Stanhope, Mercy and Roan, the man who had awakened her to the world. Her heart felt as if it were shattering.

The rain had ended and the clouds were breaking. The moon was peeking out between them. A lonely moon, gray and sickly.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I
T
WAS
HALF
past twelve when Roan made his way up to his room by the light of a single candle. He moved with deliberation, trying to swallow down his angry indignation for the “compromise” George Easton had offered him.

They thought him a bloody bounder, a scoundrel, which Roan supposed he deserved.

Easton was in shipping, he'd said, and had been eager to explore bringing the American cotton market to England. He had suggested to Roan that they could partner together, with Roan acting as his agent in America...in exchange for leaving Prudence in England.

“You can understand, surely, our concern,” Easton had said as Merryton looked on, as easily if they were talking about a horse. “Not five days ago, our Prudence was on her way to visit a friend who had given birth to her first child. Today, she is contemplating sailing to America to marry a man she scarcely knows.”

It was all Roan could do not to put his hands around Easton's throat for thinking he could buy him. Instead, Roan calmly explained that he had not lured his sister-in-law into a nefarious trap and suggested that George Easton put his cock in a goat.

That comment caused Lord Merryton to turn to the sideboard and pour three whiskeys.

“Calm yourself, Matheson. You can't fault me, can you? You've just retrieved your sister from a similar situation,” Easton said.

“I am not Villeroy,” Roan said sharply. “Do you think I've made this offer like a young pup? That I don't understand how sudden it is? I love Prudence. I have spent days in her company, at least as much time as I might have spent courting her under your watchful eye, sir. Granted, things have happened far too quickly, and in a manner that we both find surprising and unexpected. But that doesn't change the fact that I have come to love her. I would suggest the same thing happened to you,” he said to Easton. “And to you,” he said to Merryton.

Easton and Merryton exchanged a look. Merryton handed the whiskeys around. The man hardly spoke at all, but he said to Roan as he lifted his glass to him, “Think carefully, my friend. With great change comes great responsibility.”

Great responsibility.
As if Roan didn't know that.

He opened the door to his room and stepped inside, jumping a little when he saw Prudence standing there. He had expected to see her tonight, but he'd thought she'd come later, slipping into his bed in the middle of the night as she had before. But Prudence was still dressed in her evening clothes, her hair still up. An emerald solitaire glittered at her throat. He noticed the pale cheeks, the dark smudges under her eyes, the look of utter exhaustion, but he ignored it and put aside the candle, made two great strides to reach her, grab her up and kiss her as if he'd been missing her for days instead of hours.

When he would look back on that night, Roan could acknowledge that he knew the moment he saw her standing in his room that he felt something different, a significant shift between them. Nonetheless, he kissed her passionately, one hand cupping her face, one hand sliding down her hip, pushing her into his body. But Prudence put her hands against his chest and pushed him back.

“What is it?” he asked breathlessly, his body aroused and pressing for more, his heart telling him to ease back.

“Roan—”

“What?” he asked, and ran his hand down her face. “Are you all right? You look almost ill, Pru. God, are you...have you conceived?”

“What? No, no,” she said, shaking her head.

“Are you sure—”

“Yes, I'm
sure
—”

“Then what is wrong?”

“I have something to tell you.”

Roan dropped his hands and stepped back. His heart began to race.

She drew a deep breath. “Lord Stanhope called on me today.”

Roan was stunned. All he could think was that he'd never wanted to actually kill a man in his life until that moment. “For extortion? Come, let's go to your brothers-in-law now. I just left them in the study—”

“To offer marriage,” she said quietly.

It felt as if the air was sucked from the room.
Marriage?
Prudence touched his face, but Roan drew back. “I don't understand,” he said gruffly.

“It's very simple. He needs my dowry because the entail on his estate is too great.”

“The what?” Roan asked, shaking his head.

“The entail,” she said again. “It's something great estates do—they leave everything to future generations so that their immediate heirs can't sell off the properties. It often leaves very little money for the current heirs. Stanhope said it was a practical solution for us both, as no one else would offer for me, and he needed what would come with my hand.”

“No one—but
I
have offered for you, Prudence!” he said sharply. “Did you tell him that?”

“Yes, of course I did,” she said, and tried to touch him again, but Roan turned away from her.

His heart was beating out of his chest. He could feel something vital collapsing in him. “And?”

“He thinks I am foolish to turn down his offer and leave England, and I...maybe I am.”

He felt the ugly slash of her words through the center of his chest, and still he didn't believe it. He glanced up; Prudence's eyes were glistening with unshed tears. “What are you saying, Prudence?” he asked low, and reached for her hand, taking it in his. “What the hell are you saying?”

She made a sound as if she were choking. “Maybe we've been too hasty,” she said, her voice was shaking. She seemed nervous.
Too
nervous.

“Is that your idea?” he asked, pulling her closer. “Or did Stanhope say something else to you?”

Prudence opened her mouth as if she wanted to speak, but shook her head. “It makes sense, Roan. M-my family is here. My
life
is here. I can't leave it all behind because I had a passionate affair over the course of one week. One week, Roan! You can't really expect me to give up everything for one week. Maybe what we've felt is infatuation. Maybe we were caught up in the adventure and imagined something more.”

Roan's heart detonated, collapsing with the rest of his insides. He felt almost ill. “I love you, Prudence Cabot,” he reminded her. “God help me, I don't know how it happened but I love
you. I thought you loved me. Why are you deciding now that one week is not worthy of your consideration? Why are you telling me that some other man has offered marriage and you find it more agreeable?”

“It's not! I never said that it was!” she cried.

“Are you afraid? Is that it?” he asked, roughly caressing her face. “I grant you America is very far away, but I won't keep you from your family. I'll bring you to England as often as you like.” Even as he spoke the words, he knew that he couldn't promise her such a thing.

And it hardly mattered. Prudence was already shaking her head. “It's not that simple.”

“It was that simple last night. It was that simple when you lay in that bed with me. There is something you're not telling me,” he insisted.

“No. I've told you everything. I realize how practical Stanhope's offer—”

“Damn you,” Roan said brusquely before she could try and convince him she should accept the offer. His collapse transformed into fury, swelling up in him. He suddenly grabbed her arm and yanked her into him, catching her by the nape of her neck. “How can you do this, Pru?”

“I don't want to do it,” she said tearfully. “You have to believe me, Roan. It's not what I want to do. It's what I have to do.”

His feelings darkened and he let her go. “I don't deserve this.”

“I know,” she said, and a single tear began to slide from the corner of her eye.

“You're careless. You're selfish. You have taken something from me that I will never have back. And worse, you've made me an accomplice in taking something from you
that you will never have back. Does your Stanhope know that?”

She bit her lip and glanced down.

“You've put us both at great risk and now you will toss it away as if it meant nothing. I didn't come here looking for anything but my sister, but
you
put yourself on that coach. I fell in love with you, Prudence. I asked you to marry me and damn you, you gave me every reason to hope!”

She caught a sob in her throat. “I'm so sorry,” she said. “From the bottom of my heart.”

He set her back, away from him. “I should have known. I was caught up in the moment, I was captivated. But I should have known you would never leave here.”

“That's not true—”

“Good night,” Roan said, and opened the door.

“Roan—”

“Good
night
,” he said again.

He didn't actually see her go out. His fury and his disappointment turned into a sharp pain that stabbed at him. He was the biggest goddamn fool in the world.

* * *

W
HEN
MORNING
CAME
, Roan methodically went through his toilette, then gathered his things. He and Aurora would be leaving today, taking rooms in a hotel until tomorrow, when he could arrange passage to Liverpool. He went downstairs and found Mrs. Easton, Mercy and Aurora still at breakfast. He did not look for and he did not see Prudence.

Roan greeted them as politely as he could and declined Finnegan's offer of a plate; he had no appetite. Aurora, however, had a hearty one. It never ceased to amaze him that she could bounce back so quickly and completely from her follies. How he yearned for that ability today. He stood anxiously, wanting to get on with things.

A footman stepped into the room and bowed. “The carriage has been brought round, Miss Matheson.”

“Thank you!” Aurora said cheerfully, ignoring Roan's look of shock. She said to him, “I should like to say goodbye to my friends. Mrs. Easton very kindly made the carriage available.”

“What?
No
,” Roan said sternly. “We are moving to a hotel this afternoon and leaving for Liverpool tomorrow. You will not be traipsing alone around London.”

“Tomorrow!” Mrs. Easton said.

“I won't be traipsing at all,” Aurora said. “Mercy is coming with me.”

“Please don't deny me the opportunity to gad about, Mr. Matheson,” Mercy said. “I'll be entering the Lisson Grove School of Art soon, and I won't have the luxury of time to call on friends.” She stood up and gathered her gloves. “Good day, Honor! Good day, Mr. Matheson!”

Aurora stood up and kissed Roan lightly on the cheek. “I'll be back by two, I promise.” She and Mercy flitted out of the room like a pair of kittens.

The room was silent when they'd gone; Roan looked at Mrs. Easton.

She was watching him closely. “Tomorrow?” she repeated.

“Yes.”

“Prudence didn't tell me,” she said carefully.

“She doesn't know. She won't be accompanying me, Mrs. Easton, so you may rest easy. If you will excuse me, I have quite a lot to do before we take our leave on the morrow.” He bowed his head and went out before she could question him.

Roan didn't know how to leave England, quite honestly. How did one quit something like this? He felt completely vacant inside, as if he was leaving something large and important and vital behind and carrying a shell back to America. It annoyed him—Roan had never thought himself this man. He'd thought himself above common emotions and wants. Not that he hadn't wondered what it would be like to truly love a woman, but now he knew, and he didn't care for it. To love a woman was to become a mere ghost of a man.

He walked out of the dining room, eager to leave the house on Audley Street. As he walked to the foyer, however, he saw Prudence standing in the door of Easton's study. She had changed her gown, but she looked even worse than she had last night. He paused, looking at her, willing her to say something, to take it all back.

“Please don't hate me,” she said. “I never meant to hurt you.”

God
,
she sounded like Aurora now
.
“I don't hate you, Pru. I could never hate you,” he said softly. “I love you. But I won't lie to spare your feelings. I won't pretend I'm not disappointed.”

“So am I,” she said.

They stood gazing at each other. It was madness. What was left to be said? He couldn't bear standing about, hoping by some miracle that things would change. He walked on and prayed that he would not be haunted by the vision of her standing in that door, or worse, of Stanhope and Prudence in a marital bed, that man's mouth on her breast, his cock inside of her.

He spent the morning and early afternoon arranging for a suite at a nearby hotel and passage to Liverpool the next morning. He sent a messenger to Liverpool to book passage to America. He occupied himself in every way he could until there was nothing left to be done but leave.

He returned to Audley Street in a hackney and had it packed with their things. He was as ready as he could possibly make himself to leave Prudence, and announced their departure.

Mr. and Mrs. Easton, their children, and Mercy all came to see them off. So did Prudence, of course, standing off to one side. Roan could hardly look at her—it was as if she were on a funeral march.

Easton jovially clapped his shoulder. He'd done a complete turnabout with Roan since his arrival. Apparently, he'd seen something in Roan that he liked. “I hope you'll at least think about what I've suggested,” he said, referring to the cotton trade. “I could have my agent draw up some figures and send them over if you like.” He extended his hand for Roan to shake.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Roan said, shaking his hand. He said nothing about the trade. He couldn't care less about the trade.

Mrs. Easton, holding her youngest son, smiled sympathetically. She put her hand on his arm and said, “I wish you Godspeed, Mr. Matheson. Bon voyage, Miss Matheson.”