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

“What of the cost of her passage?” the driver called down.

Roan handed him a few coins and stuck his head in the door of the coach. He could see by the expressions of the other passengers that his bulk was not welcome inside, but he came nonetheless, fitting himself in beside her and taking her hand in his, held it tightly.

Prudence was speaking to the man she was pressed against, her speech animated, her breath still ragged. “...thought perhaps I should take the morning coach, but my father he...he is particularly unwell and I shouldn’t like to go alone. So we raced ahead to catch the post coach and...and my cousin.”

She was explaining herself, he took it, and he knew a moment of consternation—she owed these people no explanation. But she beamed at Roan, clearly pleased with her story.

The man beside her, who was dressed in a coat of navy superfine, a brocade waistcoat and boots polished to a very high sheen, smiled as if particularly amused by her story. “My, all this way to travel with your cousin?”

Roan gave the man a look that conveyed fair warning.

“Yes, my cousin,” Prudence said, nodding with great enthusiasm. Too much enthusiasm, really—no one was that excited to see a cousin.

The gentleman noticed it, too, Roan could see, and smiled again, his knowing gaze meeting Roan’s over the top of her head.

Let him think what he wanted, Roan didn’t care.

Prudence smiled up at Roan. “You’re not cross with me, are you?” she asked gaily. He noticed her face and clothes bore a thin coat of dust from the road. But he saw only the color in her porcelain skin, the flash of happiness in her eyes. “It seemed the only possible solution.”

“I am very happy you heeded my advice. But how—”

“I don’t know!” she said with breathless enthusiasm, anticipating his question. “I thought we’d never reach you.”

“We are fortunate that these post teams plod along, aren’t we?” he said. He smiled, too, as if this were all a trifling thing, a silly thing for his young cousin to do. But he was acutely aware of the gentleman’s study of him and Prudence, of the way the mother made her children look away from Prudence. And still, he didn’t care, he didn’t care. She was here, beside him, and he was astounded by how happy her race to catch him had made him. Imprudently so. Disturbingly, imprudently, ridiculously so.

Perhaps she understood him, for Prudence laughed lightly and her eyes shone at him. “I lost my bonnet,” she said.

“You lost your bonnet!” he repeated absurdly, and chortled with joy, so loudly that he drew the attention of the others in the coach.

The coach rolled on, through forests of chestnuts and oaks, past fields dotted with sheep and cattle. The land began to roll, the fields giving way to big hills that taxed the teams. They changed horses every ten miles now instead of fifteen, and on one of those stops the gentleman from the coach sidled over to Roan. “Your cousin is quite comely.”

Roan slowly turned his head and glared at him. “And?”

“She’s English, isn’t she? And you are...well, I don’t know what you are, but judging by your accent I’d say you’re an American.”

“What of it?”

The man shrugged. “Nothing at all.” He smiled at Roan and sauntered away.

The man made Roan uncomfortable. He worried for Prudence. Still, he reasoned once they reached West Lee, they’d never see the man again. In the meantime, Roan wouldn’t allow the man’s overt curiosity to dampen his happiness.

They continued on, passing over old stone bridges, rolling past a castle ruin and disappearing into the shadows beneath a canopy of trees. A few pine trees began to appear in the mix of foliage as they wended north. The sun was sinking into the western horizon. Roan longed to be off that coach and be with Prudence while he could. He thought he was on the verge of expiring with impatience when at last they crested a hill and one of the coachmen shouted “Weslay! Weslay’s next!”

“Look there,” Prudence said, and pointed out the coach window. In the distance, a large house sat majestically on a hill, built of graying limestone and anchored by two square towers on either end. The house was so large that it boasted enough chimneys to warm the entire Hudson Valley in winter.

“Howston Hall,” said the gentleman next to Prudence. “It is the home of Viscount Penfors.”

Roan was startled. That was the Penfors residence? That’s where Aurora had gone? “It’s enormous,” he muttered.

“Sixteen guest rooms,” the gentleman said, and at Roan’s look, he added, “his lordship is a friend of mine. I am rather familiar with the property.”