by Julia London
Roan looked to where Stanhope was chatting with a porter and gesturing in their direction. “You have nothing to worry about,” Roan said. “You’re my cousin, remember? Miss Cabot has—”
Prudence gasped and punched him on the arm.
“Ow,” he said, surprised by the strength of her swing.
“Don’t utter that name!”
“I only meant to remark that...she has stayed behind at Blackwood Hall—”
Prudence gasped and punched him again.
“I didn’t say it!” Roan protested.
“You said Blackwood Hall,” she hissed, her eyes darting to Stanhope. “All of London knows who resides at Blackwood Hall now.”
“All right, I understand. I won’t—”
“All of London will know it,” she frantically said again. “All of London, and you may trust I will be made the laughingstock of the haut ton. Why, why did I ever think I could be like my sisters?” she pleaded skyward. “I never even wanted to be like them, but look at me. I’m the worst of us all! Merryton and Augustine will have my—”
“Pardon.” It was Stanhope again, having appeared at Roan’s elbow, still smiling as if he and Roan and Prudence were enjoying a little secret.
Prudence pressed her lips tightly together and turned away from him, as if she were now trying to hide her face. “My boy will take your things. You need only point.” He chuckled, as if he found it all very amusing, and walked away again.
“It is beyond hope,” Prudence said weakly.
This woman standing beside him, looking so utterly dejected, had been the picture of calm and determination the past two days, happy to play the part of cousin or wife, happy to experience her adventure with him. She’d shot a man and kept her head, for God’s sake. Roan didn’t know what it was about this man that should change it, but he wanted to box his ears for having ruined it all. “Be still,” he said soothingly, and put his hand to the small of her back as he pointed to the trunks for the boy. “We’ll be rid of him soon enough.”
“Oh, Roan,” she said in a tone that sounded as if she pitied him. She smiled sadly. “You will. Not me.”
Roan felt a roil of guilt and the weight of their folly slowly closing in on them.
As the trunks were loaded, Lord Stanhope gestured for them to board the carriage. He helped Prudence inside the coach. Roan followed and sat beside her and across from Stanhope, eyeing the man closely, debating what was to be done with him. Their lark had shifted from intensely pleasurable to troublesome. He’d been so happy to see Prudence, he hadn’t thought through what was happening. He couldn’t help agree with her—she should have stayed on the wagon. She should have gone on to her friend.
As the carriage rolled from town, Stanhope said to Prudence, “I beg your pardon, miss, but I’ve yet to have the pleasure of your acquaintance.”
“Matheson,” she said slowly, surprising Roan. “I am Miss Matheson.”
One of Stanhope’s brows rose curiously over the other. “Matheson. It is my great pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Matheson. Now you must tell me from where you hail. You look quite familiar to me, and I think perhaps we’ve met before? Almack’s perhaps?”
“I’m sure we haven’t, my lord,” Prudence said quickly, shaking her head. “I am from the west country. How very kind of you to bring us along. This is a lovely carriage. The springs seem new. Are they new?” she asked, bouncing a bit on the seat.
The springs? Roan looked at Prudence.
“I hardly know,” Stanhope said, his gaze steady on Prudence. “The carriage is hired.”
“Where is your home, my lord?” Roan asked, drawing the man’s attention to him.
“London,” Stanhope said. “Near Grosvenor Square.”
“Have you just come down from London? What’s the news?” Roan asked, and continued to pepper Stanhope with questions so that he couldn’t question Prudence. For her part, Prudence ignored them, fanning herself as if she were overly warm.
But when Roan began to question Stanhope about London trade—to satisfy his own curiosity if nothing else—Stanhope waved a hand at him, his signet ring blinking in the waning light of the day. “I don’t concern myself with trade, sir. So. You’re cousins, are you?” he asked before Roan could begin to speak of the weather. “I would suppose, Mr. Matheson, that your father is your cousin’s relation by...”
“Brothers,” said Roan, at the very moment Prudence said, “My mother.” The moment she did, she closed her eyes and pressed two fingers to the point just between her brows.
Stanhope laughed. “There seems to be some confusion.”
“Not at all,” Prudence said, recovering at once. “My mother is married to his father’s brother.” She smiled, and Roan sensed she was rather pleased with herself for having thought quickly.
Stanhope was clearly entertained by this ridiculous banter. The three of them were all very aware that the lies were piling up in the interior of that carriage, but only one of them was diverted by it. The question Roan wanted answered was what, exactly, Stanhope would do with the lies. For the moment, he looked as if he would like to have carried on, poking and prodding Prudence, but the carriage turned and Howston Hall came into view.
Roan was momentarily distracted from the dance of words with Stanhope because the house was even grander as they neared it. He couldn’t begin to imagine how Aurora had gained an invitation here. Through what acquaintance? For what purpose?
The road went through the forest, so only the front of the house was visible, but even that small glimpse was enough to startle one into silence. It stood three stories high, all stone. Rows of sparkling windows on each floor looked over the forest. Ivy covered one of the two anchoring towers, and a trellis of roses had been trained to create an arch over the doorway.
The carriage turned onto the drive, circling around an enormous green, in the middle of which was a stone fountain, fashioned to look as if three fish were leaping over one another, their three mouths open and spouting water. Two peacocks strutted about the fountain, pecking at the grass.
The house was a beautiful, idyllic vista. Roan had never seen anything quite as grand as this, except perhaps in books, or in paintings that hung over mantels in New York, and he couldn’t help be impressed with the size of it. The house where Roan’s family resided, considered to be one of the grandest homes in the valley, and situated in a setting very similar to this, was only half as large.
The carriage rolled to a stop.
The pair of double doors that marked the entrance suddenly opened, and a butler and two footmen—Roan supposed this, given their livery—ran out onto the drive and stood at attention as the coachman came down from the bench up top and opened the carriage door.
Stanhope was the first to alight, and paused just outside, offering his hand to Prudence.
“My lord, you are welcome,” the butler said. “Madam.”
Roan stepped out of the carriage behind Prudence just as a very short and round gentleman came hurrying out of the house. He had florid cheeks and a wide nose, and looked to be in the vicinity of his sixth decade. Close on his heels was a woman who was a head taller than him, and nearly as round. She had the sort of soft, doughy face Roan’s grandmother had sported in her dotage.
“My lord Stanhope! We thought you’d not come!” the man said happily.
“You’ll be very glad you have, you know,” the woman said, bubbling with enthusiasm. “You’ve missed all the excitement! Redmayne very nearly shot Lady Vanderbeck!”
“Shot her!” Stanhope exclaimed, and took the woman’s hand, bowing over it.
“Silly woman means with the badminton cock, of course. We won’t allow Redmayne to have a gun, not after last time, what?” the man said. “Oh! You’ve brought friends,” he said, seeing Roan and Prudence. He cast his arms wide. “You
are most welcome!”
Stanhope, Roan noticed, did not dispel the idea that they were friends, but merely looked at Roan as if he expected Roan to deny it. Roan wasn’t about to do any such thing, not before he at least knew who this man was to his sister.
“How do you do,” Roan began, but was interrupted by galloping horses and laughing riders who thundered onto the drive.
“Penfors, really!” cried one woman. She was dressed in a ruby riding habit with a matching hat placed jauntily to one side of her head. “You didn’t tell us the road’s been washed away!”
“Has it?” asked the short, portly gentleman, who was, apparently, Lord Penfors. “I wasn’t aware. Were you aware, darling?” He turned toward the woman who’d come out with him.
“I’ve heard no reports of it!” she protested as if she were being accused. “Cyril?” she shouted, twirling about, marching toward the house. “Cyril! What is this news of the road being washed away?”
“Stanhope!” the woman in ruby called out. “You bounder, you.” She leaped off her horse and ran for him. “I knew you’d come!”
Stanhope laughed. “I take great exception to being called a bounder, madam. I have not yet reached that lofty status,” he said, and greeted her enthusiastic hug with one of his own.
“Oh, Penfors!” the woman said as she linked her arm through Stanhope’s, “you must welcome Mr. Fitzhugh into our party.” She gestured to a gentleman who was still seated on an enormous, fine, black stallion. “He has come from Scotland with a very big purse, as it seems he sold the castle after all.”
“Yes, of course, you must join us, Mr. Fitzhugh. You are most welcome,” Penfors said as the man hopped down and a groom ran out to fetch his horse. Fitzhugh bowed low and scraped his hat against the road, thanking Penfors before running to catch up with Stanhope and the woman in ruby, who were walking inside. The other riders moved on, laughing and chatting on their way to the stables.
That left Penfors, and Roan and Prudence standing awkwardly in the drive as servants bustled about them. “Oh, I do beg your pardon,” Penfors said, tilting his head back to look up at Roan. “Have we been introduced, my lord?”
“Regrettably, no,” Roan said. He saw Penfors’s wife bustle out of the house and hurry toward them. “I offer my sincere apologies for arriving unannounced. I am Roan Matheson. And this is—”
But Penfors suddenly pivoted about before Roan could introduce his supposed cousin. “Cyril!” he shouted. “A room for Mr. and Mrs. Matheson! They are Stanhope’s guests so it must be a good room, Cyril, not one in the west wing.”
“Oh no!” Prudence cried. “You mustn’t—”
“Nonsense, madam. Stanhope is our very good friend, and therefore, so are you.” He looked at Roan. “I wouldn’t think of putting you in the west wing. We save those rooms for the scoundrels who turn up uninvited.” He laughed heartily.
“My lord!” his wife said, having arrived in their midst once more. “That is not true.” She looked at Prudence. “We simply do not welcome scoundrels at Howston Hall.”
“You can’t say that we don’t,” Penfors said. “Did you look about the supper table last night?”
“I can say it and I just did. Now come with me, Mrs. Matheson,” she said, holding out her hand to Prudence. “Is your maid coming?”
“I haven’t—”
“Oh, that’s quite all right. We’ve plenty of girls. I daresay we employ all of Weslay here, do we not, Penfors?”
“Yes, quite a lot of them. All right, then, Matheson, are you a good hand in cards?” Penfors asked as Lady Penfors began to drag a stricken Prudence along with her.
“I, ah...I neither win too often nor lose too often,” Roan said.
Penfors roared with laughter at that, startling Roan. “What a strange way you speak! That must be Eton. It’s Eton training isn’t it? I was a Cambridge man myself.”
“My lord! Do stop talking and allow the poor man to his room!” his wife yelled. “They will quite obviously want to bathe before supper, and we haven’t much time.”
“No, we haven’t, have we?” Penfors asked, peering at his pocket watch.
“Mind you keep your bride close, Matheson,” she shouted over her shoulder. “Penfors is quite right, we’ve a house full of rakes and rogues!” She laughed gaily as she maneuvered Prudence in the door and disappeared into the house.
“If you will follow me, sir,” the butler said, and walked briskly behind the footman who carried the trunks.
“You seem alarmed,” Penfors said. “Do you shoot?”
Roan paused. “Scoundrels?”
Penfors laughed so hard, his eyes squeezed shut and tears leaked from the corners as he settled one hand on his belly to contain it. “What a delight, a delight! Did you hear him, Mother? He’s very clever!” Penfors shouted, even though his wife had gone inside. He hastened toward the entrance, leaving Roan to bring up the rear.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE GUEST ROOM they were rushed to was sumptuous, Prudence thought, with a high, feathered bed and tall, double windows with a magnificent view of the lake behind the house. The bed was surrounded by brocade hangings, the floor covered in thick carpets, and above the mantel, a masterfully rendered depiction of a fox hunt.
Prudence hardly noticed any of it—she frowned at Roan every time she passed him as she paced before the hearth, pausing only once at the window, her arms folded tightly, to watch two swans glide westward. It appeared as if they would glide right into the setting sun. That’s what Prudence felt she’d done—she’d been so blinded by the bright light that was Roan, so enthralled, she’d glided right into a ball of fire.
She whirled away from the window and passed Roan again, this time halting before him, her hands on her hips.
He was seated, his boots propped on a footstool, a glass of brandy dangling from his fingers. He arched a brow.
“How can you sit there as we swim into the sun?” she demanded of him, gesturing to the window.
“Pardon?”
Prudence waved her hand at him—there was no time to explain the volatile mix of emotions now, how the joy and hope and been swallowed whole by Stanhope. “Stanhope knows me, I’m certain of it. Do you realize what that means?”
“No,” Roan said, and shook his head. “Pru, he doesn’t know you. He has an idea of you, that’s all.”
“An idea of me! What do you mean?”
Roan sighed. He put his brandy aside and his feet on the floor, then leaned forward, bracing his arms against his knees. “How shall I say it? He has an idea of the sort of woman you are—”
Prudence gasped and whirled away from Roan.
“No, I didn’t—” Roan’s hands were suddenly on her waist, and he pulled her back against his chest. “I didn’t say it to distress you. But what he knows is that something is amiss, and a man’s thoughts naturally wander in that direction—”
“Naturally?”
“What I mean is,” he said, squeezing her to him, nuzzling her neck, “that this is the most plausible explanation, given that he knows nothing of our circumstances. You said you’ve never met him. He doesn’t know who you are. You must keep in mind that we’ll be gone as soon as I find Aurora, and you won’t see him again.”
“How do you know that I won’t?” Prudence shrugged Roan’s hands from her and stepped away, turning around to face him. “Roan...” She paused, uncertain how to express herself. “This has been the most astonishing and wonderful thing to ever happen to me. I thought I could carry it with me. But when I saw him, I...” She groaned. “I’ve been such a bloody fool!”
“No, I won’t abide that,” Roan said, pointing at her. He slipped his fingers under her chin, forcing her to look up at him. “You’ve been a vibrant, beautiful woman who has quenched her thirst for life. If you denounce our advent
ure for that popinjay, you will slay my poor heart.” He cupped her face. “You won’t slay me, will you, Prudence?”
Prudence couldn’t resist a small smile. “No.”
“Good girl,” he said, taking her in his arms. “I’d hate to strangle a man before supper.”
Prudence sighed and rested her head against his chest. “What do we do now?”
“What can we do? We’re here. I must inquire after Aurora. So I suggest we take the bath Lady Penfors has graciously offered. We’ll attend this insufferable supper and hopefully find Aurora there or at least hear some word of her, some idea of where she might have gone. And then, we take our leave of Howston Hall. As you said, in the end, no one will be the wiser.”
“You don’t understand, Roan! He is an earl, he moves in the same society as my family.”
“Listen to me,” Roan said sternly. “If you see Stanhope at some future date and he is rotten enough to question you, or suggest that you were here, you merely deny it. Prudence Cabot wasn’t here tonight. Prudence Matheson was. It is the word of a chaste young debutante against a man, and from what you’ve told me, no one will believe that you, tucked away at Blackwood Hall as you are, will have somehow appeared here without escort or invitation. I can’t believe it when I say it out loud.”
“It does seem very simple when you say it,” she said uncertainly.
“I think it is still as simple as it seemed to you in Ashton Down when you put yourself on that stagecoach, Pru. We’ve come upon a bump in the road, but it’s nothing we can’t overcome. It’s one night. Look at what we’ve done! And you think a man as namby-pamby as Stanhope will ruin us? Impossible. We are a formidable team, Miss Matheson.”
She smiled ruefully. She wanted desperately to agree, and to believe Roan, and when she looked up into his topaz eyes, she could see that he desperately wanted to believe it, too. How she wished she would never return to her life. How she wished that she and Roan could keep looking for his sister, across England, across Europe, across the world, just the two of them surviving by their wits.