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

“Just a smidge,” the woman said, fluttering her fingers at him and making no effort to add any room to the bench from her end.

“Thank you,” Miss Cabot said, and hesitantly stepped inside, pushing past the knees of Roan and the old man. “Pardon me,” she said as she navigated her way into the middle of the coach, leaving a wisp of her perfumed scent as she did.

She balked when she saw the sliver of bench that was to be allotted to her.

“Isn’t much of a seat, is it?” one of the women asked. “But you’re a small thing. You’ll be quite all right.”

“Umm...” Miss Cabot smiled uncertainly at Roan and by some miracle of physical science, she managed to gracefully turn about in that small space without touching anyone except with the sweep of her hem. She settled delicately on the very edge of the bench, her slender back straight. Her knees, Roan noticed, touched the boy’s knees, and he could see the stain of acute awareness of that touch in the boy’s cheeks. Roan had been just like him at that age—as desperately fearful of females as he was desperate to be near them.

“You cannot remain perched like a bird for any length of time. You’ll exhaust yourself,” Roan said. “Please, do sit back.”

Miss Cabot turned her head slightly, and while all Roan could see beneath the brim of her bonnet was her chin and her wide, expressive mouth, he could sense her skepticism. She wiggled her bottom and slid back an inch or two. The woman shifted slightly. Miss Cabot wiggled her bottom again, and Roan could feel every inch of him tense as she continued to wiggle her bottom into the narrow spot between them. By the time she was done—every delicate bit of her pressed against every hard bit of him—he was, imprudently, thinking of creamy bare bottoms. Hers in particular. He imagined it to be smooth and heart-shaped. He imagined playfully biting the firm flesh—

Stop that. The last thing he needed was to be thinking salacious thoughts about a woman no older than his sister.

Roan clenched his jaw, adjusted his arm, and still he could not escape the heightened sensation of the slender lines of her body against the hard planes of his. He argued with himself that he was imagining her body indelicately next to his, not because he was a scoundrel and a rogue, but because he’d sailed across the Atlantic with a crew of men, had bounced about this part of England in coaches much like this and had not touched a woman in weeks.

Well. Perhaps he was a bit of a scoundrel. But it was true that he’d not had the pleasure of a woman’s lusty company since Miss Susannah Pratt had arrived in New York.

“Well!” Miss Cabot said gamely, squirming once more. She folded her hands onto her lap over the small package she carried. “If we’re plagued with bad roads, I might pop right out, mightn’t I?”

No one answered that; no doubt because they all feared it was true. The boy slid down in his seat, disappearing into his coat. The old man had yet to remove his two black pea eyes from Roan, his study so acute that Roan began to wonder if his private erotic thoughts were somehow apparent in his expression.

“On the whole, it looks to be a good day for travel, does it not?” Miss Cabot said cheerfully.

Roan sincerely hoped she was not the sort to find good fortune at every turn and announce it to one and all. He preferred his traveling companions to be as out of sorts and cross as he was when traveling in this manner.

“Quite nice,” one of the women said, and launched into something so quickly and with such verve that Roan could not begin to follow.

He took the opportunity to surreptitiously look at Miss Cabot. Her clothing was expensive. This, he knew, after having paid the clothing bills for his sister, Aurora; he’d become intimately acquainted with the cost of silk and muslin and brocade and fine wool. Miss Cabot had delicate hands, the sort that he guessed excelled at fine needlework. He could see a strand of hair on her shoulder—it was the color of wheat.

Was it disloyal to think that Miss Cabot was what he’d envisioned Susannah Pratt to be before he’d actually met her? Golden-haired and elegant, her countenance and appearance to spark the deepest male desires? But Susannah had turned out to be dark, wide and shapeless. Roan liked to think he was not so shallow as to form his opinion of the woman based on looks alone, but it didn’t help that Miss Pratt had nothing to say. When she’d arrived from Philadelphia and had come to his family’s home on the arm of Mr. Pratt, all Roan could think was that he couldn’t believe he’d actually agreed with Mr. Pratt and his own father that a marriage of the two families was something that ought to occur.