Page 38 of The Scoundrel and the Debutante
Prudence sat up to look at him. “Mr. Matheson? Roan?” She jostled his shoulder. It was no use—his eyes were closed. The man had fainted. Or had he died?
CHAPTER EIGHT
ROANWASBENTover the neck of his favorite horse, Baron, flying as fast as the stallion could run across the fields at his family’s home in New York. He was certain he would be too late to warn the lumber train that the wheel would come off the wagon as they headed down into the Hudson Valley. But he and Baron were presented with obstacle after obstacle—fallen trees, swollen rivers, a fence too high for Baron to vault. As he neared the road, Roan saw that the wagons had already started down the hill. He opened his mouth to bellow at them at the same time the strong odor of manure enveloped him—
Roan awoke with a grunt.
He blinked against the dark light, his gaze finding the embers of what was left of the fire. He wrinkled his nose at the offensive smell, courtesy of the nag, who stood only a few feet away. Roan grimaced at the stiffness in his body; the shooting pain in his side. That damn Goliath might have broken his rib. But Roan’s heart and his lungs appeared to be working. Nothing more than a few painful bruises.
He’d live, then, which was more than he could say for that tree of a man. He wasn’t sure where the bullet had struck him, but there had been enough blood for Roan to know he wouldn’t come back for more.
He glanced to his left, and his gaze landed on Prudence curled onto her side, her back to him, the gun still in her hand. Her golden hair spilled around her. He leaned closer, squinting—she had leaves in her hair. He wondered idly what had become of the bonnet with the bothersome feather.
Roan watched her sleeping, the slow rise of her chest, the gentle fall.
Now he felt something else, too. Desire—pure, hot and urgent. He put his hand on her hip.
Prudence came up with a gasp, rolling onto her back, waving the gun about. Roan caught it. “It’s all right,” he said.
When she saw that it was he who had disturbed her sleep, she let go, sighed sleepily and pushed herself up to sit beside him. “You’re alive.”
“I can’t tell from the tone of your voice if you are pleased or not.”
“I’m relieved. I keep hearing noises, and I think it’s them, come back to rob us.”
Roan winced again, but this time at his inability to have provided her with the slightest bit of security. “We’re safe,” he said. “Our bags are the only thing of value. They won’t be back.” Even if they did return, Roan had no doubt he could and would squeeze the life from them with his bare hands in spite of his battered body. He gave Prudence a sympathetic smile. “I know you will defend me most ardently,” he said. “I like that about you, Prudence Cabot.”
She clucked her tongue at him. “I was terrified,” she said. “I thought they were going to kill you.”
So had he, but Roan didn’t like to think about that. It reminded him of a time he was in Canada, set upon by some men over a card game. He thought he would die that night, too, as the men had come seemingly from nowhere for him and Beck, brandishing sticks. It was a miracle that he and Beck had emerged from that encounter alive—and able to walk. They’d lost their horses, however, and had it not been for the kindness of a widow and her very lovely daughter, well...
Roan didn’t want to think of that now. He was glad that he hadn’t met his demise tonight. Very glad, indeed.
“You must be thirsty,” Prudence said, and began to pick herself up.
“I’m all right,” he said, and smiled reassuringly. “Americans are a hardy lot. I refuse to allow a few English brutes to beat the spirit out of me.” Even if that was exactly what the Englishmen had done. “Why don’t you sleep?” he suggested to her. “I’ll keep the eye that’s not swollen open.”
Prudence smiled wearily. With the weak light from the embers, she looked even younger than he’d originally thought. How old was she? Twenty years? Younger? He got up, put wood on the fire and stirred the embers beneath it.
She rubbed her temples. Her hair, which in this new light looked even more spun of gold, had come completely out of its pins. When she noticed him looking at her she said, “I hope you can forgive me.”
“Forgive you?”
“For this,” she said. She drew her knees up under her gown and wrapped her arms around them, resting her chin on her knees. “If I had joined Dr. Linford as I was supposed to have done, you would have been on the public coach and never would have encountered those wretched men.”
“What’s done is done,” he said, wincing as he moved his back against the tree once more, settling there. “No point in dwelling on it. We can only go forward from here.”
She idly played with a stick beside her foot. “Admit it. You wish you’d never laid eyes on me.”
“I will admit no such thing because it is not true,” Roan said. “But satisfy my curiosity, will you? Why did you really avoid Linford? Were your sisters’ actions really so awful?”
She groaned. “It’s really too mortifying to confess.”
“It can’t be more mortifying than sleeping on a riverbank, can it?”
She smiled. “That is a very good point.” She pushed locks of golden hair from her face and considered her stick a long moment. “I suppose it all began when my stepfather, the Earl of Beckington, contracted consumption,” she said. “Augustine—he’s my stepbrother—was to inherit all. He’s very generous, but his fiancée did not fancy sharing the family fortune with four stepsisters who were not married and had no current prospects.”
Roan winced again, but this time, it was in sympathy for the man who would have a wife and four unmarried sisters. He could not imagine the amount of money that would be spent on shoes alone.
