There she was. The woman of his dreams. Long, chestnut hair, twisted into an elegant chignon. Dark brown eyes framed by even darker lashes. Voluptuous curves, shown to perfection in a demure sunflower-yellow day dress made innocently lewd by the insistent breeze pressing against her bosom and thighs, and the backlighting of the setting sun casting the exquisite body beneath into a tantalizing silhouette.
His flesh heated and his cock stirred. All thoughts of returning to his hotel room to dive back into his history tome vanished. He wanted her. He had to have her. No one else would do. She reminded him too much of…
Of course this woman wasn’t Lady Dawn. He knew that. Over the past five years, Reuben had done his best to avoid Alsop—easy, since the man had moved to Wales, where he’d built a stunning country estate—but nonetheless, Reuben’s tortured ears had overheard countless acquaintances mention Alsop was happily married. Not just happily! Obnoxiously, boastfully, eagerly leg-shackled to a wife that…tolerated him for some reason.
It was enough to make a grown rake vomit.
But this was no time to revisit the past. Not when there was a gorgeous woman in Reuben’s very near future.
Yes, yes, any time he made the mistake of attending a social gathering, he was surrounded by gorgeous women—but he wasn’t interested in them. Reuben would rather be playing solitaire alone than bored in a crowd. Events like these had become excruciating. For the past five years, the women surrounding him were too blond, too tall, too ginger, too thin, too… not Lady Dawn.
Until today. Reuben pushed past the ladybirds flocking him, making flimsy excuses as he hurried down the grotto as quickly as his boots could carry him.
The woman had already turned away, was walking briskly, in fact, in the exact opposite direction of Reuben and the grotto.
He gave up on the walking path and cut directly across the grass, leaping over neatly trimmed geometrical flowerbeds in his hurry to reach the mystery woman’s side.
She didn’t even glance over at him.
“Do I know you?” he blurted out, his heart hopeful and his blood pounding.
This earned him a disinterested glance, and a blank, arched brow. “Who are you?”
“Who am…” He goggled at her, utterly speechless.
Everyone knew who Reuben Medford was! He was as famous as Beau Brummell! Even if Reuben’s fame was not for the clothes he wore, but rather, for the countless dresses he took off.
For the first six-and-twenty years of his life, Reuben hadn’t subscribed to a favored type. He wasn’t searching for more than an attractive, willing woman. To him, all women were attractive, and plenty of them were willing, which made their mutual desires a match made in heaven.
And then came Lady Dawn.
From that day forth, he’d only been able to rouse himself for lookalikes. One after another after another, in a futile attempt to get that long-ago woman out of his system and out of his head.
None of them measured up to the real thing, and he hadn’t even had the real thing. Look at him, running away from twenty choice offerings to chase after a siren with brown hair! Five years later, Lady Dawn was still disrupting Reuben’s seductions just by the memory alone of a mere quarter hour that hadn’t even led to a proper tumble.
It was ridiculous. It was nonsensical. And he was as powerless to resist today as he’d been that long ago night beneath the stars.
“I’m Reuben Medford,” he pronounced grandly.
“Mm-hm.” The interrupted woman didn’t change expression or give him a second glance. Just continued on her way, her brisk steps never slowing.
Either she didn’t recognize the name—Impossible!—or she categorically did not care that she was standing in the presence of rake royalty. Er, walking in the presence. Striding humiliatingly swiftly from the presence. Damn it!
Was she married? There was no ring on her finger, so Reuben guessed no. And she was no sixteen-year-old debutante. In her early-to-mid twenties, an unmarried woman was either a widow or a spinster, two groups that tended to throw themselves in his path, not saunter away without a backwards glance.
And this was Marrywell, for God’s sake. The annual May matchmaking festival. Half of the ladies here would kill to marry him, and the other half would kill to bed him. He was the only one who could barely stomach the festivities, and would much prefer a solitary stroll beside the sea or a pretty sunset. He wouldn’t even be here if his uncle hadn’t ordered his presence. This time, old gray Lucifur was no longer around to make the loneliness tolerable.
At best, this Lady Dawn lookalike seemed to find Reuben vaguely tolerable, as if he were nothing more than a stray puppy one might pat on the head, then send along on its way.
“May I at least have your name?” he begged.
Her brows raised again. “Why?”
The question flummoxed him. “What do you mean, why? So I know what to call you.”
“Will you be calling me?”
“I’d certainly like to.”
