driver requires a crown, and the guard a half,” the clerk said.
“What?” the gentleman said. “But I just gave you three pounds.”
The clerk tucked the coins into a pocket on his apron. “That’s for the passage. The driver and the guard, they get their pay from the passengers.”
“Seems like a dodge.”
The clerk shrugged. “If you want passage to Weslay—”
“All right, all right,” the gentleman said. He peered at his ticket and sighed again. He gestured for Prudence to go out ahead of him, then fit himself through the door into the inn’s main hall and followed her into the courtyard.
They paused there. He smiled for the first time since Prudence had seen him, and she felt a little twinkle of desire when he did. He looked remarkably less perturbed, and in all honestly, he looked astoundingly pleasing to the eye when he smiled. It was a rugged, well-earned smiled. There was nothing thin about it. It was an honest, glowing sort of smile—
“I am grateful for your assistance, Miss...?”
“Cabot,” she said. “Miss Prudence Cabot.”
“Miss Cabot,” he said, and bowed his head slightly. “Mr. Roan Matheson,” he added, and stuck his hand out.
Prudence glanced uncertainly at his hand.
So did he. “What is it? Is my glove soiled? So it is. I beg your pardon, but I’ve come a very long way without benefit of anyone to do the washing.”
“No, it’s not that,” she said with a shake of her head, although her thoughts were spinning with the how and why and from where he’d come such a long way.
“Oh. I see.” He removed his glove and extended his hand once more. She noticed how big it was, how strong. How long and thick his fingers were and the slight nicks on his knuckles. A hand that was not afraid of work. “My hand is clean,” he said impatiently.
“Pardon? Oh! No, it’s just that it’s rather unusual.”
“My hand?” he asked curiously, holding it up to have a look.
“No, no.” She was being rude. She looked up at his startling topaz eyes. And at his hair, too, dark brown with streaks of lighter brown, and longer than the current fashion, which he had carelessly brushed back behind his ears. It was charmingly foreign. He was charmingly foreign and...virile. Yes, that was it. He looked as if he could move mountains about for his amusement if he liked. Her pulse, Prudence realized, was doing a tiny bit of fluttering. “It’s unusual that you are offering your hand to be—” she paused uncertainly “—shaken?”
“Of course I offered it to be shaken,” he said, as if it were ridiculous she would ask. “Why else would one offer a hand, Miss Cabot? To shake. To acknowledge a kindness or a greeting—”
She abruptly put her hand in his, noting how small it seemed in his palm.
He cocked his head. “Are you afraid of me?”
“What? No!” she said, flustered. Maybe she was a tiny bit afraid of him. Or rather, the little shocks of light that seemed to flash through her when he looked at her like that. She curled her fingers around his. He curled tighter. “Oh,” she said.
“Too firm?” he asked.
“No, not at all,” she said quickly. She liked the feel of his grip on her hand and had the fleeting thought of his grip somewhere else on her altogether. “I beg your pardon, but I am unaccustomed to this. Here, men offer their hands to other men. Not to ladies.”
“Oh.” He hesitantly withdrew his hand. But he looked at her with confusion. “Then...what am I to do when I meet a woman?”
“You bow,” she said, demonstrating for him. “And a lady curtsies.” She curtsied, as well.
He groaned as he pulled his glove back on. “May I be brutally honest, Miss Cabot?”
“Please,” she said.
“I have come to England from America on a matter of some urgency—I must fetch my sister who is enjoying the fine hospitality and see her home. But I find this country confounding. I sincerely—” He suddenly turned his head, distracted by the sound of a coach rumbling into town. It was the northbound stage, and it pulled to a halt on the street just outside the courtyard. Two men sitting atop the coach jumped down; two young men climbed down from the outboard. Another man was waiting on the sidewalk to catch the bags that one of the coachmen began to toss to him.
The coach looked rather full, and Prudence felt a moment of pity for Mr. Matheson. She couldn’t possibly imagine how he would maneuver his large body into that crowded interior.
“Well, then, there we are,” he said, and began to stride toward the coach. He paused after a few steps and glanced over his shoulder at Prudence. “Aren’t you coming?”
Prudence was momentarily startled. She suddenly realized he believed she was waiting for the coach, too. She opened her mouth to correct him, to inform him she’d be traveling by private coach, but before the words could fall from her tongue, something warm and shivery sluiced through her. Something silky and dark and dangerous and exciting and compelling...so very compelling.
She wouldn’t.
But why wouldn’t she? She thought of riding in a coach with the Linfords, and the talk of weather. She thought of riding on a stagecoach—something she had never done—and riding with Mr. Matheson. There was something about that idea that thrilled her in a way nothing had in a very long time. He was so masculine, and her pulse fluttered at the idea of passing a few hours with him. “Ah...” She glanced back at the inn, debating. She’d be mad to do such a thing, to put herself on that stagecoach with him! But wasn’t this far more interesting than traveling with the Linfords? She had money, she had her things. She knew how to reach Cassandra Bulworth. What was stopping her? Propriety, for heaven’s sake? The same propriety that had been her constant companion all these years and had doomed her to spinsterhood?
She glanced again at Mr. Matheson. Oh yes, he was very appealing in a wild, American sort of way. She’d never met an actual American, either, but she imagined them all precisely like this, always rebelling, strong enough to forge ahead without regard for society’s rules. This man was so different, so fresh, so incurably handsome and so blessedly lost! She might even convince herself she was doing him a proper kindness by seeing him on his way.
Mr. Matheson misunderstood her look, however, because he flushed a bit and said, “I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean to rush you.”
Prudence smiled broadly—he thought she wanted the privy.
Her smile seemed to fluster him more. He cleared his throat and looked to the coach. “I’ll...I’ll see you on the coach.”
“Yes,” she said, with far more confidence than she had a right to. “Yes, you will!”
He looked at her strangely, but then gave her a curt nod and began striding for the coach, pausing to dip down and pick up one of the bags with one hand, then toss it up to a boy who was lashing the luggage on the boot.
There
