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

“I don’t understand,” Prudence said.

“Well, neither did Matheson,” George said with a laugh. “I feared he would put a fist through the window as the Villeroys sorted out their breakfast.”

Prudence gasped.

“Calm yourself, Pru, he didn’t do that. But after several minutes of listening to the Villeroys bicker, he rather firmly insisted they bring down his sister. That is when Villeroy admitted that she had gone.”

Prudence’s heart seized. “Gone?”

“Yes, gone.” George paused and looked at Honor, then the rest of them and smiled as if he had a secret. “Along with their son,” he added in a low voice. He arched a brow and then drank more whiskey.

The Cabot sisters all gasped at the same moment.

“Villeroy explained that their son Albert had taken quite a liking to Miss Matheson. He’d offered for her hand, Miss Matheson had accepted. I’ll tell you that Matheson had to turn and walk to the windows then, and I could see from the grip of his hands that he was working very hard to keep his wits about him. But Villeroy went on to say that he and has wife thought, and wisely so, that it was passing strange for a young woman from America, without benefit of family, or a firm fix on her dowry, to accept that proposal. They told their son he could not marry her.”

“So she ran away!” Prudence cried.

“She and Albert ran away,” George said. “To Gretna Green.”

“Oh dear God,” Honor said. “What a disaster.”

“Matheson wasn’t aware of Gretna Green or the significance of it, and it fell to me to explain to him that his sister was eloping with the Villeroy lad. He suffered a bit of apoplexy at first—he was quite unable to speak. But then Villeroy said that they’d been discovered missing only that morning. They’d also found a note their son had left for them, professing his undying love and devotion to Miss Matheson and telling him of their intention to wed.”

“Oh! It’s terribly exciting, isn’t it?” Mercy asked from her perch on the edge of the settee cushion.

“Well,” George said, his eyes shining with the scandal of his tale, “Roan Matheson wouldn’t accept that. He said to me, ‘Which way to Gretna Green?’ I pointed him north. Then he asked if I might sell him a horse. I was about to tell him that I couldn’t very well sell him a horse, but Villeroy stood up and said if Matheson intended to go after them, then so would he, and he had a horse Matheson could ride.”

“So you all went to Gretna Green?” Honor asked, her disbelief evident.

“I couldn’t very well let them go off, could I, a Frenchman and an American? Who knows what trouble they might have met? I thought it was my duty to see them safely through, so I sent a footman for my horse.”

“But...” Honor looked confused. “You couldn’t possibly have gone to Gretna Green and come back in a single day.”

“No, indeed,” George said, clearly enjoying himself. “Luck was on Matheson’s side, I tell you. The rain has made the roads to the north nearly impassable, and the progress of the coach the young lovers had taken was slowed considerably. We caught up to them in Oxford.” George suddenly laughed. “You’ve never seen such a look of surprise as was on the face of Matheson’s sister when she saw her brother riding up alongside that coach. He was in quite a fury and I think if anyone had tried to stop him, he would have tossed them off the earth.”

Prudence realized she had both hands pressed to her chest. “Oh my God,” she said nervously. “I can’t bear to know what happened then.”

“I’ll tell you. Villeroy took his son in hand, and Matheson his sister. They are all returning to London. Miss Matheson had quite a lot of things to be gathered from the coach and from the Villeroy house, apparently. I invited them to stay here, darling,” he said to Honor. “Matheson intends to depart for Liverpool by week’s end.”

That was two days. It felt as if the room was moving beneath Prudence’s feet. So many thoughts and emotions were spinning in her, relief for Roan, despair for them both. Her heart, cracking and shattering in her chest, her lungs, shriveling up, incapable of proper breathing.

“Finnegan!” George shouted, “Where are you, Finnegan?”

The butler appeared a moment later. “We’ll have two guests for supper. They ought to be along by eight o’clock.”

“Yes, sir,” Finnegan said, and disappeared again.

An invigorated George Easton looked at the four Cabot sisters and tossed back his whiskey. “I believe I’ll have another. I think I’ve earned it.”

“I’ll have one, too,” Prudence said as Honor stood up to pour her husband another whiskey.

No one said a word about that.