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

Great responsibility. As if Roan didn’t know that.

He opened the door to his room and stepped inside, jumping a little when he saw Prudence standing there. He had expected to see her tonight, but he’d thought she’d come later, slipping into his bed in the middle of the night as she had before. But Prudence was still dressed in her evening clothes, her hair still up. An emerald solitaire glittered at her throat. He noticed the pale cheeks, the dark smudges under her eyes, the look of utter exhaustion, but he ignored it and put aside the candle, made two great strides to reach her, grab her up and kiss her as if he’d been missing her for days instead of hours.

When he would look back on that night, Roan could acknowledge that he knew the moment he saw her standing in his room that he felt something different, a significant shift between them. Nonetheless, he kissed her passionately, one hand cupping her face, one hand sliding down her hip, pushing her into his body. But Prudence put her hands against his chest and pushed him back.

“What is it?” he asked breathlessly, his body aroused and pressing for more, his heart telling him to ease back.

“Roan—”

“What?” he asked, and ran his hand down her face. “Are you all right? You look almost ill, Pru. God, are you...have you conceived?”

“What? No, no,” she said, shaking her head.

“Are you sure—”

“Yes, I’m sure—”

“Then what is wrong?”

“I have something to tell you.”

Roan dropped his hands and stepped back. His heart began to race.

She drew a deep breath. “Lord Stanhope called on me today.”

Roan was stunned. All he could think was that he’d never wanted to actually kill a man in his life until that moment. “For extortion? Come, let’s go to your brothers-in-law now. I just left them in the study—”

“To offer marriage,” she said quietly.

It felt as if the air was sucked from the room. Marriage? Prudence touched his face, but Roan drew back. “I don’t understand,” he said gruffly.

“It’s very simple. He needs my dowry because the entail on his estate is too great.”

“The what?” Roan asked, shaking his head.

“The entail,” she said again. “It’s something great estates do—they leave everything to future generations so that their immediate heirs can’t sell off the properties. It often leaves very little money for the current heirs. Stanhope said it was a practical solution for us both, as no one else would offer for me, and he needed what would come with my hand.”

“No one—but I have offered for you, Prudence!” he said sharply. “Did you tell him that?”

“Yes, of course I did,” she said, and tried to touch him again, but Roan turned away from her.

His heart was beating out of his chest. He could feel something vital collapsing in him. “And?”

“He thinks I am foolish to turn down his offer and leave England, and I...maybe I am.”

He felt the ugly slash of her words through the center of his chest, and still he didn’t believe it. He glanced up; Prudence’s eyes were glistening with unshed tears. “What are you saying, Prudence?” he asked low, and reached for her hand, taking it in his. “What the hell are you saying?”

She made a sound as if she were choking. “Maybe we’ve been too hasty,” she said, her voice was shaking. She seemed nervous. Too nervous.

“Is that your idea?” he asked, pulling her closer. “Or did Stanhope say something else to you?”

Prudence opened her mouth as if she wanted to speak, but shook her head. “It makes sense, Roan. M-my family is here. My life is here. I can’t leave it all behind because I had a passionate affair over the course of one week. One week, Roan! You can’t really expect me to give up everything for one week. Maybe what we’ve felt is infatuation. Maybe we were caught up in the adventure and imagined something more.”

Roan’s heart detonated, collapsing with the rest of his insides. He felt almost ill. “I love you, Prudence Cabot,” he reminded her. “God help me, I don’t know how it happened but I love you. I thought you loved me. Why are you deciding now that one week is not worthy of your consideration? Why are you telling me that some other man has offered marriage and you find it more agreeable?”

“It’s not! I never said that it was!” she cried.

“Are you afraid? Is that it?” he asked, roughly caressing her face. “I grant you America is very far away, but I won’t keep you from your family. I’ll bring you to England as often as you like.” Even as he spoke the words, he knew that he couldn’t promise her such a thing.

And it hardly mattered. Prudence was already shaking her head. “It’s not that simple.”

“It was that simple last night. It was that simple when you lay in that bed with me. There is something you’re not telling me,” he insisted.