Page 84 of The Scoundrel and the Debutante
“Sad?” Aurora pushed herself up to her elbows as she considered that. “A little, I think.” She smiled ruefully. “Not as sad as Albert. He was so distraught when we were caught that I feared the poor dear would burst into sobs.”
She was so flippant! It annoyed Prudence. “Didn’t you love him?” she asked, perhaps a bit too sharply. She wanted to add that they’d been on their way to marry, presumably because they were in love, and to be thwarted at the last minute must have been heart-wrenching.
Aurora gave her a funny look and slowly pushed herself up, so that she was sitting on the edge of the bed. “It’s funny, really—I truly thought I loved him. Of course I did, or I would have never agreed to elope. But when I saw Roan on that horse, shouting at the driver to halt before he started the team away from the station, I was so...relieved.I can’t describe it any other way. I was relieved. I felt as if I had been saved, almost from myself.”
Prudence looked at Aurora skeptically. But the young woman nodded earnestly. “I know that must sound deplorable to you. In one moment I was running off to marry Albert, and in the next, I was glad to be rescued. I think I was infatuated,” she said. “Infatuation feels very much like love, did you know? Have you ever been infatuated?”
Prudence felt a funny twist in her gut. Was it infatuation that burned in her and not love? How did one tell the difference? “Ah...I don’t think so,” she said uncertainly.
“Poor Albert. I don’t think he was infatuated at all. I think he truly loved me. My father is right—we are too impetuous.”
“We?” Prudence asked.
“Roan and I,” Aurora said.
Roan, impetuous? Prudence wanted to ask in what way Roan was impetuous but was afraid to speak, afraid of betraying her feelings for him.
“Roan can be very passionate about his ideas,” Aurora said.
Yes, Prudence could agree that he was.
“Do you know it was he who first spoke to me about my fiancé, Mr. Gunderson? Well...hewasmy fiancé. Roan says he is very displeased with me now,” she said, as if it weren’t the least bit odd to speak of another fiancé on a day like this. “Roan was the one who convinced me that a marriage to him would be quite advantageous for the entire family. And how important it was that we think of marriage in those terms.” She smiled. “I understood him, of course. And I suppose I was made agreeable by the fact that I’ve always esteemed Mr. Gunderson.”
“That’s...that is the way marriages are made here, too,” Prudence said, thinking of Stanhope. “For connection. For fortune. I suppose for affection, too.”
“Affection is what I feel for Mr. Gunderson,” Aurora said. “I feel wretched that I’ve hurt him and I hope he’ll forgive me. I rather think that’s what Roan feels for Susannah Pratt,” she added thoughtfully. “Affection. Not love, at least not yet, but certainly affection.” She smiled at Prudence. “Very well put, Miss Cabot.”
Not love, but affection...Those words struck Prudence like a knife to her back.
“What is it, have I said something wrong?” Aurora asked.
“No, no, I just...” Prudence shook her head.
Aurora stood up and walked to the vanity where Prudence was standing. She stood beside her and picked up a hand mirror set in porcelain and pretended to study it. “I feel quite awful about everything, you know. Now that I’ve ruined Mr. Gunderson’s regard for me, I suppose it’s doubly important that Roan honor his commitment to Mr. Pratt and marry Susannah. Not that I have any doubt that hewill,” she said, and smiled sweetly at Prudence. “My brother is unfailingly a man of his word. If Roan says he will do something, he will do it.”
She put down the mirror and turned to face Prudence. “And as I said, he has such affection for her. He’s cross with me, you know. He didn’t want to leave her, and now he wants to hurry back.”
Prudence gaped at her. Did she know that Roan had asked her to marry him? Was that why she spoke so freely about Roan’s intentions?
Aurora’s smile deepened. “Life is so much easier without unnecessary complications, don’t you agree?”
Prudence understood her. She couldn’t speak. Her thoughts were rushing over themselves, but one thing was crystal clear: Aurora Matheson was telling her not to complicate Roan’s commitment.
“Oh, but I amexhausted!”Aurora said airily.
“Yes, of course,” Prudence said. “I’ll leave you now.” She walked out of the room and moved blindly down the hall, reeling at the message Aurora had just delivered. Roan was committed. His family expected it. No matter what he wanted, Aurora had made it quite clear that he was expected to honor his word. She desperately wanted to speak to him, and crept downstairs. The door to George’s study was closed, and a thin shaft of light was coming out from beneath it. She could hear the low voices of men behind the door.
Prudence climbed back upstairs, passing the drawing room, where she could hear her sisters talking. She carried on to her room, each step heavier than the last. It felt a monumental effort to even drag herself onto the bed, where she lay on her side, staring out the window, her thoughts whirling around Stanhope, Mercy and Roan, the man who had awakened her to the world. Her heart felt as if it were shattering.
The rain had ended and the clouds were breaking. The moon was peeking out between them. A lonely moon, gray and sickly.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ITWASHALFpast twelve when Roan made his way up to his room by the light of a single candle. He moved with deliberation, trying to swallow down his angry indignation for the “compromise” George Easton had offered him.
They thought him a bloody bounder, a scoundrel, which Roan supposed he deserved.
Easton was in shipping, he’d said, and had been eager to explore bringing the American cotton market to England. He had suggested to Roan that they could partner together, with Roan acting as his agent in America...in exchange for leaving Prudence in England.
