“And why would that be, since you don’t know me?”
“I’d like to change that, too.”
A deflection, yes. But he couldn’t very well say, You remind me of the one and only woman who got away. I’d like to wrap your legs around my waist until I forget about her.
“But why would I wish to know you?” she asked, devastatingly.
“Pause for a second and find out. Please.”
“And if I’m late for an appointment with someone I do know?”
“Are you?”
“No,” she admitted, pausing reluctantly. “I was out enjoying the sunshine. You have two minutes.”
The memory of her silhouette against the sun still burned into his soul. “You have a pocket watch?”
Her gaze was flat. “You have one minute and fifty-five seconds.”
“I’m Reuben Medford,” he said again, choosing to begin anew and hoping she would allow him to come to know her a little. “I live in London. If I might be so bold, your accent suggests you’re from London as well?”
She inclined her head. “I am.”
There. That was something. The first concrete thing he knew about her. She lived in London, just like him. Her upper class accent and polished manners indicated she moved in the same social circles Reuben had once been an active part of.
He smiled. “If you’re wondering why our paths haven’t crossed before, it’s because I rarely attend gatherings of the beau monde.”
She gazed back at him, neither indicating she’d held any curiosity as to why they hadn’t met before, nor asking any of the obvious questions, like Why would you avoid the aristocracy? Or, What have you been doing instead?
He got the distinct impression she was still counting down the seconds inside her head.
“May I accompany you through the maze?” he offered.
“What about your friends back at the grotto?”
“They…” don’t mean anything to me was absolutely the wrong answer.
In fact, Reuben couldn’t think of a right answer. It was as though his mystery woman had laid a verbal trap for him, which was absurd. Reuben himself had chosen to entertain his harem in the grotto. It was nobody’s fault at all that this woman happened to walk past an extremely public place in the center of a celebrated landmark in the middle of a festival.
“One minute and thirty seconds,” she said, as if bored.
He ground his teeth in consternation. Usually he was much smoother than this. Or rather, usually he needn’t try to be smooth at all. The women he surrounded himself with didn’t much care what Reuben had to say. They wanted what his body could give them, and he was happy to comply.
Being forced to impress a woman in a rapidly diminishing minute-and-a-few-seconds was dizzying and confusing. He’d never had to work this hard. If anything, he’d never had to try at all. He was the one who could pick and choose, who never dallied with the same woman twice, who had a waiting list a mile long.
“Are you staying for the entire festival?” he blurted out.
“I had planned to.”
“Are you here to find a husband?”
“Are you here to find a wife?”
“No,” he answered honestly. If she didn’t know of his wicked reputation, the least he could do was set that much straight. “I’ve no intention to marry.”
“No one has caught your eye?”
Everyone caught his eye. It was his heart that would never be caught.
