Page 69 of The Scoundrel and the Debutante
“Yes, of course,” Mrs. Easton said. “Finnegan, some brandy, please?”
“Whiskey for him,” George said, flicking his wrist at Roan. “Who are you, where did you come from?” he challenged Roan as he gingerly worked his jaw.
“Will the answer rile you?” Roan asked.
Easton sighed. “No doubt it will. Look here, I apologize. I may have struck you prematurely. From where did you come?”
“New York.”
“Oh goodGod,” Easton muttered as if that were the dregs of hell.
“All right,” Mrs. Easton said, eyeing Roan suspiciously. “You’d better tell us what happened, Pru. Augustine is quite beside himself. And Grace? Well, she is hysterical! Dr. Linford sent word immediately that you were not in Ashton Down where you were supposed to be, and they’ve had a man looking for you ever since. You can’t imagine what we’ve feared. But this morning, the man told us thatyouforced the wagon to turn about and take you back to Himple on the way to the safety of Cassandra’s house! Why?”
Prudence glanced at Roan. She cleared her throat.
“Mr. Matheson, please do sit,” Mrs. Easton said to him, and indicated a velvet-covered settee.
“If you wouldn’t mind, I prefer to stand,” Roan said. He wanted to be on his feet if Easton charged him again.
But Prudence sat. She practically fell onto the settee as if collapsing under the weight of the week. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“You had best begin with the moment you left Blackwood Hall, for that’s the last anyone has seen you,” Easton said sternly.
That was where Prudence began, relating the sequence of events that had occurred since her disappearance, beginning with Roan being confused about Weslay.
“And I helped him buy passage on the next coach. And...and then? Then I followed him,” she said with a sheepish shrug as she finished her tale.
“Followed him,” Easton repeated carefully, as if he’d misunderstood.
“Butwhy?” her sister cried. “Why would you do such a thing without a companion or a maid? That’s so unlike you, Prudence. You’re always very careful about such things. I can’t imagine why—”
“Because I fancied him, Honor,” Prudence said flatly. “Isn’t it obvious? I fancied him! I was quite smitten, actually—” Roan couldn’t help smiling at that “—and I thought that as I would live my life behind the walls of Blackwood Hall, without society, without an offer, why not take one opportunity to do something for me?I meant to get off the coach in Himple and carry on as planned and no one would be the wiser, but the wheel broke and Linford came, and I should have worn my boots!”
“Pardon?” Easton asked, then looked at his wife. “What is she talking about?”
Prudence took a breath and continued on to describe how the wheel of the stagecoach had broken and how fear of encountering Linford had compelled her to abandon the stagecoach once it was repaired. She told them how Roan had come after her, concerned for her safety, and about the purchase of the old nag, and how they’d slowly made their way, arriving at a public house that evening. But they’d found the company too rough, and they were right—they’d been followed and robbed, and Roan beaten.
“Oh my God,” Mrs. Easton moaned.
“He saved me, Honor,” Prudence said.
“I saved you? She shot him,” Roan said to her sister.
“Oh,”Mrs. Easton said, as if she were in pain, and sank into the cushions of the settee. “Did you...did youkillhim?”
“No,” Prudence said. “At least, I don’t think I did.”
“You should have,” Easton said. “Shoot to kill, Pru.”
“I agree,” Roan said, and noticed that Easton was looking at him a little differently.
“Oh, Pru!” her sister said, taking Prudence’s hand in hers, holding it tightly between her two hands. “What an ordeal you’ve suffered. You poor thing. Then what did you do?”
Prudence looked at Roan. “He’d made a fire, and I...I sat with him, holding the gun in case they came back.”
“Allnight?” her sister whimpered.
“Yes. All night.”
