as much as he would have liked. He turned his face up to a bright blue sky and roared his frustration with his missteps, with his sister, with everything in general.
Now he felt better.
Roan pivoted about and strode back to the little hamlet.
He spied Miss Cabot perched on top of a fence post. She had opened the package she’d held protectively in her lap and appeared to be eating something. Next to the fence, the sisters were seated side by side on a trunk, each with a pail in their lap. They, too, appeared to be eating.
Roan strolled to Miss Cabot’s side. He tried not to ogle what was in her lap, but he couldn’t resist it, particularly as a quick review of the past twenty-four hours reminded him that he’d not eaten.
Miss Cabot glanced up, turning her head so that he could see her hazel eyes from beneath the deep brim of her bonnet. “Oh. Mr. Matheson.”
“Miss Cabot.”
She held up the brown cheesecloth so that a variety of small bites were displayed just below his nose. “May I offer you a sweetmeat?”
He peered more closely at the contents. They looked like the fried cakes that Nella, his family’s longtime cook, often made. “No, thank you.” He wasn’t so out of sorts as to take her food.
“No?” She took one and popped it into her mouth. “Mmm,” she said, and closed her eyes a moment. “Delicious.”
Much to his consternation, Roan’s stomach grumbled.
Miss Cabot smiled and held up the cheesecloth a little closer to him. “You must at least try one.”
“You don’t mind?” he asked, but he was already reaching for one.
She watched him closely as he put the morsel in his mouth. Good God, she was right—it was delicious.
“Have another. Have as many as you like.”
“Perhaps one more,” Roan said gratefully, reaching. When he opened his palm, he found three instead of the one he’d intended.
Miss Cabot laughed, the sound of it crystal and light. “One might think you’ve not eaten today, Mr. Matheson.”
“I’ve not eaten since yesterday morning.”
“What! Why ever not?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been traveling and it’s not always convenient. Frankly, I thought I would have reached my destination by now.”
Miss Cabot hopped down from the fence and squatted down beside a small bag by her feet, which she opened and rummaged in before removing another cheesecloth. She handed that one to him.
Roan unwrapped it. It was bread.
“I’ve cheese, too.”
“No, I—”
“I must insist, Mr. Matheson! My youngest sister put it in my bag.” She smiled up at him, her eyes sparkling like diamonds in the sunlight. “She wanted me to be properly provisioned. She has high hopes that we will be set upon by highwaymen and forced to live in the woods.”
“She has hope of that?”
“She has a keen sense of drama. Please, help yourself. There is more.”
“I’m grateful,” he said, and went down on one haunch and tore off a chunk of the bread. He ate it much more savagely than he intended as Miss Cabot climbed back onto the fence railing. He helped himself to the cheese, too, surprised by how ravenous he suddenly realized he was.
“Yoo-hoo!”
The two sisters wiggled their fingers at Miss Cabot, even though they sat only a few feet away. “We’ve solved the mystery!” one of them trilled loudly.
“We have indeed! It was quite a puzzle—”
“Quite,” said the more robust of the two.
“What mystery?” Miss Cabot asked.
“Well, you, my dear. But we have deduced it. You are Lady Altringham!” she said proudly.
“Oh dear me, no,” Miss Cabot said laughingly. “She’s twenty years my senior.”
“Oh,” said the woman, clearly disappointed once more.
“But I am acquainted with her,” Miss Cabot said. “Her daughter and I were presented together.”
“Ooh,” said the smaller one, her eyes lighting with delight.
“Presented?” Roan said uncertainly.
“To the king, sir!” one of the women said crossly, as if he should have known it.
Roan looked up at Miss Cabot curiously. “Why? Did you do something of note?”
Miss Cabot burst into a delightful laughter. “Not at all! It was all I could manage to curtsy properly.”
“I should like to know from where you hail, sir, for you seem quite ignorant,” said one of the women.
“Doesn’t he, though?” agreed the other. “Everyone knows that presentation in court is the rite of passage for a young lady of pedigree,” said the other in a bit of a huff.
Roan didn’t understand. “For what purpose?”
“The purpose!” the woman scoffed, clearly annoyed. “Wouldn’t you like to be presented to the king?”
Roan had to think about that. If it prolonged his time in England, he would say no.
“Where are you from?” the woman demanded.
“America,” Roan said. “New York, to be precise.”
“And why have you come all this way?”
He didn’t think it was any business of hers, but he said, “To collect my sister who has been visiting your fair country for several months. Does that meet with your approval?”
The woman didn’t answer. She had turned her attention to Miss Cabot again, eyeing her suspiciously. “And if you’re not Lady Altringham, then who are you? What young lady travels without escort, I ask you?”
Roan wondered that, too, and his curiosity was the only thing that kept him from stuffing the woman’s cloth from her pail into her mouth. He glanced at Miss Cabot. Her cheeks had flushed in a way that made her look a bit guilty. Good God, she wasn’t another Aurora, was she?
“Oh, ah...please, allow me to introduce myself. I am Miss Prudence Cabot. And who might I have the pleasure of addressing?”
“Mrs. Tricklebank,” said the smaller. “And my sister, Mrs. Scales.”
Miss Cabot peeked up at Roan. “May I introduce
