Page 48 of The Scoundrel and the Debutante
“There is an old nag in the stables. She’s not worth a farthing, but she’s plodded a very long way and deserves to graze in peace.” He handed the boy a five pound banknote. The boy’s eyes widened. “Take her home, put her to pasture.”
“Ahorse?” the oldest boy repeated with awe.
“Not a horse. A nag. Be good to her.”
The boy looked excitedly at his companion. They were eager to claim their unexpected prize. Roan chuckled as he closed the door behind them. Those boys would curse him when they saw the old girl.
He turned from the door. Prudence was in her trunk, pulling gowns and frilly lacey garments from it. He was quick to open his trunk, too, to make doubly sure the banknotes he’d tucked away were still there. It was with a great amount of relief to find them there.
Prudence had laid out a variety of gowns on the bed—silks and brocades, satins and velvets, and was studying them critically when the housemaid brought their dinner and wine.
The smell of food drew her from her interest in her clothes, and she eagerly sat across the wooden table from Roan. They pulled meat from the roasted chicken, served on a cracked platter. “Do you think,” he asked, pausing to lick his fingers after pulling apart the chicken, “that the food is really as good as it tastes?”
She giggled. “I know only that I have never tasted a chicken roasted to such perfection.” She drank heartily from her wineglass, as if she’d wandered forty days and forty nights through the wilds of England’s west country. When she’d had her fill of food and drink, she leaned back in her chair with one hand draped across her middle, looking like a sated cow. “That waswonderful.”
Roan laughed. Itwaswonderful. He’d had far better food in far better establishments than this old inn, but this was the meal he’d remember—Prudence’s lips made shiny from the chicken, her eyes bright with happiness and the bit of sun coloring her cheeks. She was, to him, quite beautiful.
A knock at the door signaled the water for their bath. Over the next ten minutes, two girls hurried in and out with their buckets, pouring steam water into the copper bath until it was nearly full.
Roan gave them a banknote, too—he had nothing smaller—and their eyes bulged at their riches, just as the post boys.
“You’ll have nothing left at this rate,” Prudence said with a laugh.
Roan smiled. He locked the door behind the girls and turned back to Prudence. “Your majesty, your bath awaits,” he said.
“I’ve never been so desperate for a proper bath,” she said, and stood. She moved a chair around to rest beside the tub, then put some of the jars from her trunk on the seat. Then she removed her grimy clothes. She smiled saucily at him, like a lover. As if she’d never been the innocent debutante she’d been only a day or so before. She was bolder now. More mature. Roan liked that.
She was soon bare before him. Roan had always found the feminine form the greatest work of art, but Prudence took his breath away. She was curvy, soft and pliant, and the sight of her made him yearn to touch her.
She stepped into the tub and lowered herself into the water. Roan’s pulse turned hot as she leaned her head back against the tub and closed her eyes. Her hair pooled in the water around her and over her breasts. “It’s heaven,” she murmured. “Thank you, Roan.”
“Let me wash you hair,” he suggested.
She opened one eye and smiled with surprised. “Will you?”
He picked up the ewer from the basin. “I will.” He brought the wine bottle and their cups first, and set them on the floor. He moved her things from the chair and sat, then dipped the ewer into the water. Prudence sat up and leaned forward; he poured water over her hair to wet it, watching the water and her hair stream down her back.
“I think Mrs. Bulworth will be very appreciative that I arrive in clean dress and with my hair properly put up,” she said with a wry smile. “She won’t know how she owes you a debt for it.”
Roan smiled and lathered her hair.
Prudence sighed and closed her eyes again, relaxing as he washed her hair. “I will miss you,” she said softly. “Is that madness? I’ve known you a day and a half, and yet I know I will miss you more than breath.”
Roan hesitated a moment before continuing in the work of washing her hair. He would miss her, too—just how much he would miss her amazed him. “I will miss you, too,” he admitted.
He dipped the ewer and poured it over her hair to rinse it. She said nothing as he finished her hair and put down the ewer.
Prudence grabbed his hand. “Come in,” she said.
He laughed. “That wash tub won’t accommodate us both.”
“It will,” she said, and drew her knees up to her chest.
Roan very much doubted that they could fit in the tub, but he wasn’t above trying. He quickly disrobed, aware that Prudence’s eyes were on him, her gaze brazenly sliding over his body, drinking him in. More than one woman had seen him bare as he was now, but this was the first time that Roan could recall wanting a woman to find him as appealing as he found her. He stepped into the tub, braced his hands against the edges, and carefully lowered himself in. Water sloshed over the sides when he did, and Prudence laughed with delight. Roan was stuffed into that bath, but grateful for the wash.
She helped him, rubbing soap on his chest, on his neck and face. He helped her, too, lathering up her breasts, her abdomen. She laughed at him when he dipped his head to wet it, and she came up on her knees to return the favor of a hair wash. “Shall I shave you? I shaved the earl when he was no longer able.”
“I’d like that,” he said.
