Page 94 of The Scoundrel and the Debutante
The woman walked on and Roan turned back. And when he did, his heart stopped beating.
Prudence was standing behind him on the walk, her hazel eyes wide with surprise. Roan couldn’t speak—he couldn’t even be sure she was real.
“I...I am sosorry,” she said, and put her hand to her breast.
He didn’t understand. “Pru?”
“I shouldn’t have come,” she said quickly. “I didn’t realize what he meant when he said the City Hotel—”
“Is it really you?” Roan asked stupidly, still trying to make sense of it, to understand where she’d come from.
“It’s my fault, Roan. Again!” she said with a nervous laugh. “But I won’t keep you. I know that you are...occupied,” she said, making a nervous whirling motion with her hand. “On my honor, I never would have come had I known.I just thought perhaps you were... I mean, Ihoped, I hoped that you still felt...” She blinked. And then she bowed her head as she tried to gather herself.
Shewasreal. His love, his heart’s desire, was standing before him on a crowded sidewalk in New York. Roan took a cautious step forward. People were passing left and right, some slowing to have a good look at them. “I can’t believe it’s you,” he said. “How...whendid you come? Are you alone? Did someone come with you?” he asked, looking around them now.
“I am such afool,” she said sorrowfully.
“Fool,” he repeated, not understanding.
“Don’t try and spare my feelings. I don’t deserve it. I saw you in the window, Roan. I know. Isawyou.”
“Saw me what?” he asked, confused, looking over her shoulder to the hotel.
“I saw you and your bride!” she blurted.
“What?No! No, no, Pru, that was... Oh my God, no,I didn’t marry Susannah Pratt! Sam Gunderson did. I only made a toast.” He mimicked the toast, one arm around an invisible Susannah, the other with his arm lifted in the air.
Prudence blinked.
“You thought I married? How could I, after England? How could I possibly?”
“You didn’t? I thought— Aurora said—”
“Never listen to a thing Aurora says,” he said, taking a step forward. “Good God, takenothingshe says to heart. Even I have been reminded of it in the worst way these past few weeks. No, Pru, I am the same man I was when I left England. I feel the same way. No, that’s not entirely true, I am far worse. I yearn for you every day.”
A small smile began to form on her face. “Do you mind that I came?”
“You must be joking,” he said, moving to stand before her. “I’ve thought of nothing but you, Prudence Cabot. Only you. I relive our moments together, I kick myself for having left without you, I wish for the days to pass quickly so I won’t torture myself with memories, and I think of you, married. Where is he? Did Stanhope come with you?”
“No!” she cried, horrified. “Oh dear. There is so much to tell you.” She reached for his hand. “Roan...I’ve thought of nothing else but you, either.”
That lurch in his chest was his heart, the beat of it renewing with a vigor that left him a bit breathless. “Come,” he said, linking her hand in the crook of his arm. “There is a tavern nearby—”
“But what of the wedding?”
Roan smiled. “I won’t be missed.”
In the tavern, he bought them two tankards of ale. Prudence hardly touched hers as she told him all that had happened in the past several weeks, including the details of Stanhope’s offer and the threat he’d made to Mercy.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded.
“I thought there was nothing you could do,” she said. “I thought there was nothing anyone could do.” She went on to tell him that she’d been so distraught when he’d left, she could hardly summon enough to care about anything else. She removed the letter he’d written her from her reticule and showed it to him. It was worn, obviously read many times. “This was all I had to keep me,” she said. “In the end, it was Lord Merryton who convinced me to come for you.”
“Merryton!” he said, disbelieving.
Prudence told him that Merryton had coaxed the truth from her and had made her see that she could reach for her desire.
“Thank God you did. What happened to Stanhope?” he asked.
