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

“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.