Page 80 of The Scoundrel and the Debutante
“Villeroy explained that their son Albert had taken quite a liking to Miss Matheson. He’d offered for her hand, Miss Matheson had accepted. I’ll tell you that Matheson had to turn and walk to the windows then, and I could see from the grip of his hands that he was working very hard to keep his wits about him. But Villeroy went on to say that he and has wife thought, and wisely so, that it was passing strange for a young woman from America, without benefit of family, or a firm fix on her dowry, to accept that proposal. They told their son he could not marry her.”
“So she ran away!” Prudence cried.
“SheandAlbert ran away,” George said. “To Gretna Green.”
“Oh dear God,” Honor said. “What a disaster.”
“Matheson wasn’t aware of Gretna Green or the significance of it, and it fell to me to explain to him that his sister was eloping with the Villeroy lad. He suffered a bit of apoplexy at first—he was quite unable to speak. But then Villeroy said that they’d been discovered missing only that morning. They’d also found a note their son had left for them, professing his undying love and devotion to Miss Matheson and telling him of their intention to wed.”
“Oh! It’s terribly exciting, isn’t it?” Mercy asked from her perch on the edge of the settee cushion.
“Well,” George said, his eyes shining with the scandal of his tale, “Roan Matheson wouldn’t accept that. He said to me, ‘Which way to Gretna Green?’ I pointed him north. Then he asked if I might sell him a horse. I was about to tell him that I couldn’t very well sell him a horse, but Villeroy stood up and said if Matheson intended to go after them, then so would he, and he had a horse Matheson could ride.”
“So you all went to Gretna Green?” Honor asked, her disbelief evident.
“I couldn’t very well let them go off, could I, a Frenchman and an American? Who knows what trouble they might have met? I thought it was my duty to see them safely through, so I sent a footman for my horse.”
“But...” Honor looked confused. “You couldn’t possibly have gone to Gretna Green and come back in a single day.”
“No, indeed,” George said, clearly enjoying himself. “Luck was on Matheson’s side, I tell you. The rain has made the roads to the north nearly impassable, and the progress of the coach the young lovers had taken was slowed considerably. We caught up to them in Oxford.” George suddenly laughed. “You’ve never seen such a look of surprise as was on the face of Matheson’s sister when she saw her brother riding up alongside that coach. He was in quite a fury and I think if anyone had tried to stop him, he would have tossed them off the earth.”
Prudence realized she had both hands pressed to her chest. “Oh my God,” she said nervously. “I can’t bear to know what happened then.”
“I’ll tell you. Villeroy took his son in hand, and Matheson his sister. They are all returning to London. Miss Matheson had quite a lot of things to be gathered from the coach and from the Villeroy house, apparently. I invited them to stay here, darling,” he said to Honor. “Matheson intends to depart for Liverpool by week’s end.”
That was two days. It felt as if the room was moving beneath Prudence’s feet. So many thoughts and emotions were spinning in her, relief for Roan, despair for them both. Her heart, cracking and shattering in her chest, her lungs, shriveling up, incapable of proper breathing.
“Finnegan!” George shouted, “Where are you, Finnegan?”
The butler appeared a moment later. “We’ll have two guests for supper. They ought to be along by eight o’clock.”
“Yes, sir,” Finnegan said, and disappeared again.
An invigorated George Easton looked at the four Cabot sisters and tossed back his whiskey. “I believe I’ll have another. I think I’ve earned it.”
“I’ll have one, too,” Prudence said as Honor stood up to pour her husband another whiskey.
No one said a word about that.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THEENDOFthe young lovers’ flight to Gretna Green was a spectacular moment in Oxford. As many onlookers standing with mouths agape, Roan marched his sister to a coach bound in the opposite direction of Scotland and surrendered his horse to Mr. Villeroy so that he might lead his red-faced, verbally combative son home.
Aurora Matheson accompanied her brother without complaint.
The moment they were situated in the coach that would carry them back to London, Aurora turned her big brown eyes to Roan and said tearfully, “I’msoglad you came.”
Roan had been prepared to blister her with words, to upbraid her up one side and down the other for her foolishness, her recklessness, but her pitiful look and earnest words effectively collapsed his roaring anger. He sighed, took her hand in his. “What in hevean were you thinking, Aurora? You had to have known we’d not approve. And what of Mr. Gunderson? I thought you held some esteem for him!”
“I did! I do!” she said. “I don’t know why I said yes to Albert. I never truly believed he’d go through with it—he’s rather meek, really. But he kissed me and said, ‘let’s go,’and I was lost, Roan. It was so romantic.”
“Romantic,” Roan scoffed. “You were going to marry a man because you found elopement romantic?”
She sighed. “It’s inexplicable, I know. But I believed I loved him.”
“You lovedhim?” he asked incredulously, forgetting, for a moment, that he had found love on a sunny afternoon in England. “Why didn’t you come home with Aunt Mary and Uncle Robert? You knew Gunderson was waiting. Surely you weren’t in love with Villeroy then!”
“No! I’m a fool, Roan,” she said, morosely. “Albert Villeroy speaks with such a flourish. He convinced me that there was much yet to see and do in England, and that he’d be traveling with his parents, and they’d be calling on friends at great estates, and I lost my head! I wrote to Mr. Gunderson, did Aunt Mary tell you? I explained to him I’d sail home by the end of summer.”
