And if the man could kiss like this… Gladys could only imagine what making love to him must be like.
Coupling, she corrected herself firmly. Rutting, screwing, anything but making love. This was one of his tricks: making her think gentle “feelings” had anything to do with the matter. He couldn’t even remember the names of his past conquests. He certainly hadn’t loved them. And he didn’t love Gladys, either.
Not yet. But he would. And then she would break his heart.
“How did you learn to skip rocks like that?” he murmured against her lips.
How? By accident. Why and when were better questions.
The reason she’d learned to skip rocks was because, after she was ruined and banished, escaping into the privacy and beauty of nature was one of the few moments of idle pleasure a penniless vagabond could give herself.
Gladys hadn’t learned to skip rocks out of any particular love of rocks. She’d learned out of necessity. During a dark time when no one she cared about would give her the time of day, and she couldn’t bear to couple with one more sweating lecher for a shilling.
All thanks to Reuben Medford.
“Natural born talent, I guess,” she said lightly, and pushed out of his embrace. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
“Tell me how to reach you,” he blurted. “Where are you staying?”
She arched a brow in silence.
“Haven’t earned that yet,” he guessed correctly, with a sheepish smile. “How about your first name? You’ve certainly earned mine. I’ve no wish to be ‘Mr. Medford’ to you. Please say you’ll call me Reuben.”
She paused, lips pressed together, then nodded.
“And yours?” he coaxed, taking her hands in his. “Please?”
Her mouth opened. She meant to tell him Mary, truly she did, but what came out of her mouth was, “Gladys.”
A foolhardy risk. She’d told him her name before. He’d heard it multiple times that first night. Before she was ruined, back when she still had her family’s love, and dreams of love and a first kiss. If Medford finally put two and two together…
But no. There was no flicker of recognition in his lust-struck eyes. He didn’t remember her name, just like he hadn’t remembered her face. She was just a woman who hadn’t yet agreed to lie with him. A future conquest to be won and discarded. No more, no less.
“Gladys,” he purred in his best seductive-rake voice. “A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.”
Why, yes it was beautiful. Gladys’s mother had given that name to her.
And this time, Reuben Medford was going to remember it.
Chapter 11
The next morning, Reuben leapt out of bed unconscionably early, made himself as dapper as possible, then set out in search of Gladys.
His mission did not go well.
Despite haunting all the places he’d glimpsed her previously—the secluded bench behind the assembly rooms, the hedgerow labyrinth inside the botanical gardens, the river where they’d skipped rocks—she was nowhere to be seen.
As much as he disdained the festival’s legitimate planned activities—a committed rake like Reuben had no intention of finding himself leg-shackled to a wife, and therefore saw no reason to string along women who were the opposite of what he was looking for—Reuben eventually had no choice but to put in an appearance at those events as well, in the hopes of seeing Gladys again.
She wasn’t at any of those, either.
He ground his teeth in frustration as he was forced to make flirtatious smiles and flimsy excuses to the pretty debutantes that clogged his path.
He’d come to this festival because his uncle had once again asked it of him. The cat was long gone, leaving Reuben no friendly face to come home to.
All he wanted was another chance with Gladys. Not only did Reuben find her genuinely intriguing, he had also never before experienced being brushed off like a bothersome fly. Was he losing his touch? Getting too old?
Worse, what if she wasn’t interested in him because she actually saw him for who he was… and there just wasn’t enough substance for a woman of any intellect to be interested in? What if there was nothing he could do, nothing he could say, to earn a second glance?
