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

Silence fell over them again. Prudence was acutely aware of the rooster beside her, his body as big as a mountain and apparently twice as strong. He didn’t seem the least bit bothered by the weight of the bags he carried, while she tried not to limp in her horrible shoes.

She really had to think of something else, because she had become rather fixated on the way he gazed at her. His gaze was pleasantly piercing, as if he was trying very hard to see past the facade of her skin. “How is it your sister has become acquainted with Lord Penfors?” she asked curiously.

“I suppose in the way Aurora has of meeting anyone—by inserting herself into situations she has no call to be in. Do you know him?”

“Only by vague reputation. I know that he remains mostly in the country, has a wife, but no children of whom I am aware. You mean to find her and then what?” she asked.

“Escort her home, obviously. And then I will present her to her fiancé and wish him the best of luck.”

Prudence couldn’t help but giggle. “But if your sister hasn’t heeded your advice yet, what makes you think she will now?”

“An excellent question. I may be forced to shackle and bag her. Now I must ask, what will you do once you are put on a coach home?”

The reminder of Blackwood Hall sobered her. Prudence grimaced at the thought of the long winter stretching before her, and fidgeted with the strings of her bonnet, hesitating.

“Ah,” he said.

“Ah? Ah, what?”

“Just that I see.”

“What do you see?”

“It’s obvious,” he said, his eyes twinkling with his smile.

Her pervasive ennui was obvious?

“In fact it all makes sense now. Your trip to see a friend,” he said as if he didn’t believe there was a friend. “Taking a coach to gaze at me—”

“Not gaze at you,” she sputtered.

“Then quickly deciding you best run home. There must be a gentleman waiting in the wings. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s someone you can’t decide if you want to encourage, or someone you wish was more encouraging of you.”

His reasoning was so ridiculous that Prudence laughed.

Mr. Matheson stopped in the middle of the road once more and dropped the bags again, his hands finding his waist as he turned to face her. “Now what have I said?”

“You couldn’t be more wrong!” she cried gleefully. “Perhaps it is different in America, but when one’s family is embroiled in scandal, no one is rushing to the door to court the daughters. There is no gentleman. In fact, one might say there is a definite lack of one!”

The moment the words came tumbling through her lips, Prudence clamped a hand over her mouth. If there was one thing a debutante did not do, it was to announce, to perfect strangers, that there was no interest in her whatsoever.

Worse, Matheson was staring at her as if she were speaking a foreign language.

“All right, go ahead, laugh if you must,” she said, waving her hand to hurry him along. “I’ve said it. It’s the truth.”

“I’m sorry,” he said with a shake of his head, “but I am astounded.”

Prudence groaned. “Go on, make light of it.”

“I’m not making light of it. I will say this. In America, when a woman as...as beautiful as you, Miss Cabot—and make no mistake, you are very beautiful—has no understanding with a gentleman of means, there would be a line around the city blocks for her. Without any concern for scandal.”

Prudence blinked. She felt that slide of warmth down her spine, the internal glittering again.

“Your attentions would be in very high demand,” he said again, and his gaze moved over her, the intensity of it seeping in through her pores. A smile of atrociously showy proportions spread across her face.

“That is precisely why women like you should not be walking about roads like this alone,” he continued, his voice turning gruff. “Men are beasts and scoundrels and utterly incapable of not following after a woman like you.”

Impossibly, her grin spread wider. “I walk everywhere at Blackwood Hall—”

“Ack,” he said with a flick of his wrist. “It’s not the same. Out here, without protection or any sense at all, you’re prey for men like me.”

She laughed. “Men like you!”

“Yes. Me. Scoundrels, as I said.”

“You’re not a scoundrel!” she scoffed.

“Oh, but I am every inch a scoundrel, Miss Cabot,” he said with a devilish smile. “Don’t be fooled. Hasn’t anyone ever warned you about the appetites of men?”

A swirl of concern began to nudge in beside her glee at having been called beautiful by such a handsome man. Lord Merryton had indeed warned her of scoundrels and rogues. Never trust a gentleman, no matter what he says to you, Prudence. There is one thing in his mind that controls him, and it is not a virtue.

“Well, good heavens, don’t look frightened of me now,” he said impatiently. He dipped down and retrieved the bags, then casually put his arm around her waist, urging her to walk. A flash of incongruence swept through her—she liked the way this self-named scoundrel felt beside her.