The Scoundrel and the Debutante (The Cabot Sisters #3)

“It’s my fault, Roan. Again!” she said with a nervous laugh. “But I won’t keep you. I know that you are...occupied,” she said, making a nervous whirling motion with her hand. “On my honor, I never would have come had I known. I just thought perhaps you were... I mean, I hoped, I hoped that you still felt...” She blinked. And then she bowed her head as she tried to gather herself.

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.”