Page 46 of The Scoundrel and the Debutante
Prudence was already at the door of the Royal Post office, peering into the window. When Roan opened the door for her, she walked in and cried out with delight at the sight of her trunk against one wall. His was beside it. “Yours?” she asked Roan.
“Yes, thank God.” He walked to the trunks and squatted down to have a look. Miraculously, the lock was intact.
A man with a wide, flat nose and garters around his sleeves wandered out of a back room. He was holding a monocle, which he polished as he eyed them. “Yes, please?”
“Mr. Roan Matheson,” Roan said. “I’ve come to collect my trunk. The other one belongs to Miss Cabot.”
The clerk continued to clean his monocle as he squinted at the trunks. He moved to a small counter, put the monocle to his eye and began to rifle through some papers. He picked one up and brought it close to his face.“Ah.”
“Ah what?” Roan asked.
“The black trunk is marked for Roan Matheson,” he said, and glanced up. “That you?”
Roan glanced at Prudence. “Yes, as I said.”
The clerk looked again at the paper. “The second belongs to Miss Prudence Cabot.” He looked up. “Is that you, miss?”
“It is.”
“You’re the lass the stagecoach lost when the wheel broke, are you?” His gaze flicked disapprovingly over Prudence. The color rose in her cheeks.
“And you’re the gent who went after her,” the man said to Roan.
What was it to this man? Roan responded with a dark look for the man.
The clerk did not seem to care that Roan looked at him in that way. He turned back to the paper and said, “The Cabot trunk will be picked up by Mr. Barton Bulworth’s man at noon on the morrow.” He removed his monocle then and looked at the two of them.
Roan could feel the tension radiating off Prudence. “Tomorrow?” she repeated, and looked at Roan uncertainly. He knew what she was thinking—what was she to do until the morrow?
“Aye,” the clerk confirmed. “And you, sir? Where am I to have the trunk delivered?”
Roan stared at the man. “I’ll take it with me. I intend to be on the four o’clock stage for West Lee.”
“You want the southbound coach. It’s come and gone, comes through promptly at one o’clock—”
“Ah...I think the gentleman means Weslay,” Prudence quickly interjected. “It’s his accent,” she added, a bit softer, and avoided making eye contact with Roan.
“Ah!” the clerk said triumphantly, and smiled. “A Yankee, I’d wager. I’ve heard the accent is a wee bit coarse.”
“Coarse?” Roan echoed.
“The northbound coach came through at three o’clock,” the clerk said. “Right on time, too.”
Roan gaped at him. This journey was nothing but one obstacle after the other. He felt as if he might come apart at the seams, just as a tent had come apart with a strong gust of wind at a wedding celebration he’d attended several years ago. “Three!” he said, his fury hardly contained. It was only twenty past.
The clerk casually braced his elbow on the counter and said easily, “The afternoon northbound stage comes by at three o’clock. Every day, three o’clock. Why, he’s never more than a quarter hour late. Unless there’s rain. If there’s rain, he might be a bit delayed,” the clerk said, settling in, warming to his explanation. “A good rain can slow the best drivers, you know, what with the roads in the condition they are. I remember the year it rained every day. Not a light rain mind you, but heavy rains. They lost a bridge up at Portrees, but the Royal Post, it still ran. Just ran late every day, sometimes as much as four or five hours. Sometimes as much as aday—”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” Prudence said sweetly, stepping forward a bit, putting herself between Roan and the clerk. “We find ourselves in a bit of a dilemma. I should call on Mrs. Bulworth at once. Surely there is some method of transport to the Bulworth estate?”
“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “Not this time of day. Had you come earlier, you might have talked the dry-goods man into taking you. I believe he was out that way. But you’re too late. You can ride with the Bulworth man on the morrow. Not too many go in that direction from here. You came the long way to reach the Bulworth estate, didn’t you? Them that goes to Bulworth come down from Epsey.”
Prudence glanced helplessly at Roan.
“There is no other way we might continue our journey?” he asked. “No cab for hire, no portage?”
“Not through Himple, no sir. There’s an inn down the lane here, the Fox and Sparrow,” the man said, gesturing to his right. “It’s a decent inn, if you ask me. One wing is for the gentlemen, the other for families.” He looked at Prudence again. “Mrs. House is the innkeeper’s wife. You might tell her you fell on hard times. She doesn’t usually take in single women.”
“Pardon?” Prudence said, her brows dipping into a frown. “Why shouldn’t Mrs. House accept single women?”
