The Scoundrel and the Debutante (28 page)

She
was
real. His love, his heart's desire, was standing before him on a crowded sidewalk in New York. Roan took a cautious step forward. People were passing left and right, some slowing to have a good look at them. “I can't believe it's you,” he said. “How...
when
did you come? Are you alone? Did someone come with you?” he asked, looking around them now.

“I am such a
fool
,” she said sorrowfully.

“Fool,” he repeated, not understanding.

“Don't try and spare my feelings. I don't deserve it. I saw you in the window, Roan. I know. I
saw
you.”

“Saw me what?” he asked, confused, looking over her shoulder to the hotel.

“I saw you and your bride!” she blurted.

“
What?
No! No, no, Pru, that was... Oh my God, no,
I didn't marry Susannah Pratt! Sam Gunderson did. I only made a toast.” He mimicked the toast, one arm around an invisible Susannah, the other with his arm lifted in the air.

Prudence blinked.

“You thought I married? How could I, after England? How could I possibly?”

“You didn't? I thought— Aurora said—”

“Never listen to a thing Aurora says,” he said, taking a step forward. “Good God, take
nothing
she says to heart. Even I have been reminded of it in the worst way these past few weeks. No, Pru, I am the same man I was when I left England. I feel the same way. No, that's not entirely true, I am far worse. I yearn for you every day.”

A small smile began to form on her face. “Do you mind that I came?”

“You must be joking,” he said, moving to stand before her. “I've thought of nothing but you, Prudence Cabot. Only you. I relive our moments together, I kick myself for having left without you, I wish for the days to pass quickly so I won't torture myself with memories, and I think of you, married. Where is he? Did Stanhope come with you?”

“No!” she cried, horrified. “Oh dear. There is so much to tell you.” She reached for his hand. “Roan...I've thought of nothing else but you, either.”

That lurch in his chest was his heart, the beat of it renewing with a vigor that left him a bit breathless. “Come,” he said, linking her hand in the crook of his arm. “There is a tavern nearby—”

“But what of the wedding?”

Roan smiled. “I won't be missed.”

In the tavern, he bought them two tankards of ale. Prudence hardly touched hers as she told him all that had happened in the past several weeks, including the details of Stanhope's offer and the threat he'd made to Mercy.

“Why didn't you tell me?” he demanded.

“I thought there was nothing you could do,” she said. “I thought there was nothing anyone could do.” She went on to tell him that she'd been so distraught when he'd left, she could hardly summon enough to care about anything else. She removed the letter he'd written her from her reticule and showed it to him. It was worn, obviously read many times. “This was all I had to keep me,” she said. “In the end, it was Lord Merryton who convinced me to come for you.”

“Merryton!” he said, disbelieving.

Prudence told him that Merryton had coaxed the truth from her and had made her see that she could reach for her desire.

“Thank God you did. What happened to Stanhope?” he asked.

Prudence shrugged. “I don't know, exactly. Grace said he had a sizable gambling debt Merryton threatened to have called in. Of course Stanhope has no means to pay it. They reached some arrangement.”

“And Mercy?”

Prudence's face brightened. “When I left for America, she was on her way to Italy with her class. She is very happy. She has dreams of seeing and painting the world.”

Prudence told Roan how George Easton had put her on his ship in its maiden voyage to America, and how they had sailed through one violent storm that had put them off a few days. “I left three weeks after you did, but it took me a week longer to reach New York, I think. I was desperate to reach you before you married. George's agent found your house and gave me the direction. I was to send a note, but I couldn't bear it. I couldn't wait to see you, so I went myself. Your butler told me you were at the City Hotel—I think he was a bit shocked that I was calling like I was—and he failed to mention you were at a wedding.”

“You can't imagine the sleepless nights,” Roan said. He told her how he'd only recently learned that Aurora had tried to put her off. And how they'd returned to New York to find not only had the partnership their marriages would have sealed been disbanded, but their prospective mates had united in the long wait and had decided to marry. “It's just as well. No matter that I left you behind, I couldn't marry Susannah, not after what we'd shared. If nothing else, I realized that I can't marry merely for the sake of it. I can't devote my life to a woman I don't love.”

“Oh, Roan,” she said, and reached for his hand. “I must be living inside of a dream, because I can't believe I am sitting across from you now. I'm sorry. Please know how sorry I am for disappointing you—”

“Never mind that,” Roan said. “Just tell me this—Do you love me?”

Her smile broadened. “I love you. I love you more than I've ever loved another being. I should have said it, I should never have let you leave without saying so. Do you still love me?”

“Utterly and completely,” he said emphatically. “Where are you staying?”

Her smile deepened. “The captain secured rooms for me at the Harsinger Hotel. It's close to here—”

“I know exactly where it is,” he said, coming to his feet. He took her hand and pulled her up.

Prudence laughed and allowed him to lead her out of the tavern.

The clerk at the hotel eyed them disdainfully, but he could tell from the cut of Roan's clothing that he had means, and with a banknote in his hand turned a blind eye as they scurried up the stairs to her room.

Prudence tossed aside her bonnet as Roan pushed the spencer from her shoulders. Their mouths and hands were on each other as they fell together onto the bed. “My heart was broken,” Roan said as he ravaged her bosom. “I thought it would never mend and by God, I didn't care if it did. Now you are here, Pru. I can't believe it, you're here, and I feel whole again.”

“I've been so wretchedly unhappy since you left,” she said through ragged breaths as she dragged her fingers through his hair. “It was the most painful thing I've ever endured.”

“I can't imagine anything less than spending my life with you. Marry me, Pru. You're here. Marry me.”

“Yes,” she said.
“Yes.”

Roan slid into her body and closed his eyes. The heaviness that had existed in him lifted, and he felt a sense of euphoria filling him up. He couldn't believe she was there, in his arms, warm and fragrant and...and he was going to marry her. He would spend every day for the rest of his life making their marriage an adventure for her.

She caught his face between her hands as he moved in her and said, “I love you. I will always love you.” And then she smiled at him with the devilish gleam in her eye he'd seen the first day of their acquaintance, and Roan felt as if he were walking on clouds. Big puffy white clouds of love.

Good Lord, he was besotted.

EPILOGUE

T
HINGS
HAPPENED
VERY
quickly
after that long afternoon spent in bed at the Harsinger Hotel. A proper wedding was first and foremost on Roan's mind, and with the help of his father, he arranged it quickly. Prudence thought it was rather amusing that there wasn't any time for the Mathesons to get acquainted with the idea that their son had married an English girl out of the blue, because Roan set off with her north on horseback almost as soon as their vows were said.

Prudence loved every moment of it. She took Aurora's advice and wore trousers and rode astride. She felt strong and confident in them, and it helped that Roan seemed taken by her in the trousers, too. He said she looked like a tiny lumberjack.

Prudence also loved that every night, they would sleep in the same bedding, their horses tethered close by, and the pair of dogs that had come along curled at their feet. It reminded her of the first night they'd lain together under the stars, but wildly better. “This is the best adventure I've ever had!” Prudence declared with great exuberance one day.

Roan arched a brow at her.

“I beg your pardon. The
second
best adventure,” she'd said, then smothered him with kisses.

When they returned to New York a month later, they were met with some astounding news. Apparently, Mr. Gunderson's younger brother, Ben, had discovered a liking for Aurora's auburn-haired beauty at his brother's wedding and had fallen head over heels in love. Aurora and Ben Gunderson married on New Year's Eve, exactly six weeks after Roan and Prudence married. Roan and Prudence agreed that it was a very good thing Aurora married when she did, as her first child appeared “quite early” seven and a half months later.

Roan and Prudence were delighted to welcome their son a few months after that.

Drake Matheson, a big, healthy boy, was the apple of his father's eye. Prudence adored that child beyond measure. But she desperately wanted her sisters to meet him. The baby was too young to make the voyage, however, so Roan and George brought the Cabots en masse to America to greet the newest addition to their family.

Roan and George had indeed forged a new arrangement, wherein Roan and Beck acted as cotton brokers, sending off ship hulls full of American cotton to England on George's ships. George had two ships now, and the arrangement had proved a lucrative one for both families. But for the Mathesons in particular, the cotton trade, in addition to the lumber trade, had made them quite well-to-do. Roan and Prudence were building a house very near his parents for the large family they hoped to have.

Honor and George, and Grace, and Augustine and Monica arrived in New York to meet the newest addition to their family. Their party was missing Merryton, who had stayed behind with the youngest of their collective broods. “He's quite unable to make a voyage such as this,” Grace said, one of the few mentions she ever made of her husband's peculiarities.

Neither was Mercy with them, obviously. She was still in Italy. “I think she will live there always,” Honor said.

“Do you?” Prudence said, surprised.

“I think she has a
lover
,” Grace said slyly, and giggled.

That night at dinner, Grace related that Mercy had written several letters home and was fully engaged in her life there. She had one more year in her schooling, and had recently sold a painting for a small sum. Mercy was thrilled that something she'd painted would be displayed in an Italian home.

“I can't believe it!” Prudence said proudly.

George looked around at the three oldest Cabot women. “No one can ever say the Cabot girls don't strive for what they want,” he said with a laugh.

Unfortunately, the arrival of the Cabot sisters brought sad news to Prudence, too. Her mother had died over the winter. “A frightful ague,” Honor said. “It was as if she had no desire to fight it.”

The news filled Prudence with grief. But there was also some relief in her mother's death. Prudence had gone to see her mother before she'd sailed to America, and her mother had gazed at her with vacant eyes. Lady Beckington's spirit had long been gone out of her, and as the weeks and months had passed, she'd grown feeble and weak, her head and her heart nothing but the fragile shell of the woman she had once been. In the end, Honor said, she didn't even recognize Hannah.

Merryton had graciously kept the loyal Hannah on to help with the children.

Honor brought Prudence news of Stanhope, too, which she had confided one day when she and Prudence were walking. Prudence never knew exactly what Merryton said to him to make him cry off, but Stanhope had done so without equivocation. “I've heard his situation is quite dire,” Honor had confided in Prudence. “They say the entail of his title is so great that
he
owes the
estate
each year.”

“How dreadful,” Prudence had said. “And how thankful I am that I didn't accept his offer.”

“Perhaps he ought to find an occupation, other than offering for rich debutantes,” Roan said crossly when Prudence told him later as they lay in bed.

That made Prudence giggle.

“What?” Roan asked.

“English lords don't
have
occupations. That's rather the point.”

“You see,
that's
what's wrong with all the royalty over there,” Roan said, casting his arm in the general direction of England.

The Cabots saw all of New York during their stay and proclaimed it smaller than they'd imagined it, but quite charming in that way colonies had of being rustically charming.

When it came time for them to return to England, Prudence cried buckets of tears, as did her sisters, while Roan and George stood by awkwardly, trying to soothe them all, but failing miserably. Augustine and Monica saw the prolonged goodbyes as an opportunity to tour the Matheson gardens once more.

That night, Roan and Prudence dined alone at the Matheson home on Broadway Street. With Drake in his crib, his governess asleep beside him, Roan and Prudence had a quiet dinner. When the meal had been cleared, and the servants retired for the night, Roan reached across the table and stroked Prudence's face. “Are you all right?”

Prudence missed her family, but she had never been more certain of herself. She was precisely where God wanted her. To think that once she'd feared the marriage would ruin her adventure! It had only enriched it. She smiled at her husband with all the love she held for him in her heart.

“I know how much you miss them.”

“Terribly,” she agreed, appalled that she should tear up again.

“Any regrets?” he asked.

“Regrets?” Prudence stood up from the table and walked around to where Roan was sitting. She hiked her skirts and straddled his lap. “No regrets. Not once, Roan Matheson, and never will I have them. I am where I am meant to be.”

He chuckled with delight as she moved on his lap. “Mrs. Matheson, I think you're a tart.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I learned it from you, you scoundrel.”

“I tried to warn you about scoundrels but, naturally, you wouldn't listen,” he said, his hand finding her waist, his body hardening.

Prudence thought of that moment in Ashton Down when she'd decided to follow this scoundrel. She would always wonder how a girl like her, who had always done what she was supposed to do, could so utterly abandon everything she was in a single moment. It was as if she'd been standing still for so long that the moment she moved, it all moved very fast.

She kissed the corner of his mouth, her tongue flicking across his lips. “I think I would feel much better with a bath. Will you wash my hair?”

Roan grinned and nipped at her bottom lip. “Will you let me in the tub with you?”

She kissed his mouth and slid her hand down his chest, to his cock. “Will you allow me to put my feet wherever I like?”

He cupped her breast with one hand, grabbed the tail of hair she'd let down with his other and pulled her closer. “Will you allow me to put my mouth wherever
I
like?”

“I will insist on it, Mr. Matheson.”

“You
are
a tart. God, how I love you.”

How she loved him. “Show me, you old scoundrel.”

Roan did as she asked—he showed her just how deeply he loved her that night.

A month later, Prudence confirmed she was expecting her second child.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from THE DEVIL TAKES A BRIDE by Julia London.