He stared at her in shock. If she left now, Reuben was either going to have a very uncomfortable evening, or he was going to have to take matters into his own hand. Yes, yes, there were dozens or even hundreds of other willing women in Marrywell with which he could take his pleasure, but none of them were Miss Smith. Until he had her, no one else would do.
He leapt up to stop her. “Don’t go. Not without one more kiss.”
She ducked out of reach as she collected her reticule and her hourglass.
“Wait!” he said with surprise. “Only half the sand has fallen. It’s been thirty minutes, not an hour.”
“Mm-hm.” She opened the door and blew him a kiss. “Try not to lose my attention next time.”
The door clicked shut behind her.
After Reuben collected himself from the shock, he darted forward and flung open the door to call her back.
The corridor was empty.
So were the stairs. He raced down them anyway. There was a clump of travelers waiting to check into the inn, but no sign of Miss Smith.
Reuben dashed outside and scanned the street in both directions. A parade of people filled the street, milling in all directions. The pink sunset streaked over the horizon. Some of the merrymakers were decked out in their best finery, clearly headed toward the assembly rooms or the garden. Others strolled toward taverns and other venues.
None of them was Miss Smith.
He let out a growl of frustration in disbelief. Most prolific rakehell in all of England? The object of his attentions had got bored and disappeared mid-kiss. Worse, Reuben still didn’t know how to get in contact with her to beg for a second chance.
And by God, there definitely was going to be a next time. Before the end of this festival… Miss Smith would be in his arms.
Chapter 10
Gladys awoke earlier than was her custom back in London, but the street outside her window was already bustling with festival-goers. What time was it? She craned her neck toward the clock. Half past nine. By the size of the swelling crowd, she wouldn’t be surprised to learn the merrymaking had begun anew at seven or eight o’clock.
“A.M.,” she mumbled under her breath, then cursed herself for making a Medford-inspired jest.
She had come here in search of justice—very well, revenge—for the utter mess he had made of her life. Hers, and the countless other similarly naive ingenues he’d left ruined in his destructive wake over the years.
By any metric, he was the villain of the piece. She should not be chuckling to herself over his idiosyncrasies or reliving the feel of his mouth against hers. She should be plotting her vengeance. Or better yet, not thinking about Reuben Medford at all.
She’d bid farewell to her last remaining “protector” before making this journey west, which meant Gladys was free in a way she hadn’t experienced in years. Maybe ever.
Unlike the last time she was in Marrywell, she was no wilting wallflower constrained by propriety. Gladys was a grown woman, with enough coin not to need a man. She had her independence, which was worth immeasurably more than the fiction this cursed matchmaking festival was selling.
Happy ever after? You must be jesting. Even in fairy tales, such promises of everlasting bliss were reserved solely for the prince and princess. The rest of the characters tended to suffer much darker—and, in Gladys’s experience, far more realistic—horrors.
That she wished to avoid the saccharine festivities and their incessant reminders of all she had lost was no surprise. Whether she could accomplish such a feat in a small town currently swarming with half the population of England, however…
“I knew I should’ve brought more books,” she muttered as she slipped on her pelisse.
One novel was never enough. Or it might have been, if she could manage to stop herself every night after “one more chapter”. Instead, one chapter turned into two which turned into twelve, and the next thing she knew, she was on the last page and it was a quarter to three.
“Don’t say it,” she warned herself, but her traitorous mind had already whispered, A.M.
That did it. She needed to get as far away from the festival and Reuben Medford as possible.
She tugged her bonnet low to hide her face and headed in the opposite direction of the busy park and the pleasure gardens and the assembly rooms. She walked and walked until the crowd thinned, then waned, then disappeared altogether.
Only then did she lift the brim of her bonnet and take stock of her surroundings. She’d walked so far that even the hotels and taverns were out of sight behind her. To her right was a smattering of sleepy cottages. To her left was a narrow dirt walking path that led into dense, leafy woods.
She chose the silent woods.
After picking her way through the forest, she came to the bank of a burbling stream. The only sounds were the rustling of leaves in the cool breeze, the occasional song of distant starlings and chiffchaffs, and the soothing gurgle of the wide, cerulean stream. It was perfect.
