“Anywhere but here,” Father answered. He wrapped his arm about Kitty’s slender shoulders. “I’m sorry, Gladys. You’ve left us no choice. From this moment on, we have only one daughter.”
She cast her frantic gaze toward her sister. Kitty’s horrified eyes were wet with tears, but she made no attempt to stop her elder sister from rising from the picnic blanket. Devastated, Gladys pushed herself up with shaking limbs. The entire world seemed to be tilting off its axis. She had an entire life to live, and only four shillings in her reticule. What was she to do now?
Even if she could find Mr. Medford, it was clear he had no intention of lifting a finger to help her, much less make an honest woman of her by marrying her himself. He was no gentleman. He was a heartless rake and a despicable user of women.
Reuben Medford hadn’t just cost Gladys her home, and any hope of a happy future. He’d made her lose her entire family.
She would never forgive him.
Chapter 6
Five years later
Marrywell, England
1817 May Day Matchmaking Festival
* * *
Gladys’s hackney rolled to a stop in front of the Blushing Maid Inn. Carriages lined the pedestrian-filled street. The annual matchmaking festival was once again underway.
She could scarcely believe she was back in Marrywell after all these years. She’d chosen to reserve lodgings at the same inn as before—it was, after all, one of the best hotels in town—but of course, nothing else in her life was the same as back then.
She was five years older, for one. Six-and-twenty now. Her face had lost most of its youthful roundness, leaving her with high cheekbones and a more angular countenance. She hadn’t grown any taller, but she knew how to wear clothing that accentuated her curvaceous figure. Instead of bland and plump, she looked elegant and alluring.
“Here you are.” Gladys handed the driver his fare, and an extra vail for ferrying her all the way from London.
He scrambled out of the carriage to hold the door open for her. “It was my pleasure.”
She took his arm and floated to the ground, the flowing silk of her skirts hiding the elevated heel of her boots.
The hotel porter rushed forward to collect her trunks from the carriage. There would be a vail in it for him, too, though that was not why he had abandoned his other guests in order to prioritize Gladys.
It was the almost undetectable cosmetics, and the way the celestial blue silk clung to her bosom and hips that had done that.
“Thank you,” she murmured in her habitual throaty voice.
That was new, too. Or had been, once. It was now second nature. As was the careless way she lifted her face and threw back her shoulders, sashaying into the reception area with a straight spine and hips swaying seductively.
“Mary Smith,” she told the proprietor. “I have a reservation.”
“Of—of course.” He was almost too flustered by the view down her bosom to remember to take down her name. He fumbled the key twice before he managed to place it in her gloved palm.
“Thank you,” she purred.
“If you need anything at all,” he blurted. “Anything.”
She smiled and spun away, motioning for the porter to follow her up the stairs with her trunks.
Apartment number twelve. The same suite as before. This time, she was checking in without her family. The old hurt was hollow now, and not as fresh. She had returned on her own terms, and on her own two feet.
And what were those terms, precisely? Simple. Gladys was here for one reason only:
To find Reuben Medford and make him pay.
He had all but disappeared from the beau monde after ruining Gladys. She wasn’t welcome in those circles anyway, but she’d entertained enough aristocrats to have heard Medford’s name from time to time.
His careless treatment of a desperate, naïve wallflower had cost Gladys everything, and Medford nothing. Not only did he suffer no consequences for his actions, by all accounts, the cad had become an even worse rakehell than before. God only knew how many other foolishly hopeful women he had ruined over the years. Someone had to stop him.
