And far more dangerous than anticipated.
Chapter 13
Reuben hoped his carefully arranged expression projected his mask of roguish confidence, and not the stomach full of nervous butterflies he was currently trying to hide.
Was the book a misstep? Should he have gone with roses? Sweets? A gold-and-diamond tiara? No gift?
The hourglass was already a quarter empty, and he had no notion of whether he was moving in the right direction—or going anywhere at all.
Her gaze lifted to his.
“Thank you,” she said softly, her face radiant. “I plan to start reading this very night. In fact, if you have other business you’d rather attend to…”
Relief coursed through him. From the moment the wild idea had occurred to him, Reuben hadn’t been able to get it—or her—out of his head. Truth be told, the trip to and from London had passed in a blur.
He’d spent the outbound journey making a list of every bookseller and reading library he could think of, refusing to even consider the possibility of defeat. Reuben would have knocked on the publisher’s door at three o’clock in the morning and dragged him to his printing press in his nightclothes if that was what it took to get Gladys her book.
The inbound journey had been worse than a child awaiting Christmas. With the book safely in his hands, Reuben’s overactive mind imagined every possible way he might gift it to Gladys, and what her reaction would be… from the sweet to the salacious.
Sending him away so she could start reading right then and there hadn’t made the list, but he could not stop grinning at her regardless. He’d made her happy. A new experience that he liked better than he would have guessed.
Until now, he’d only pleased a woman with his hands and his mouth and his body. That he’d put this blissful look on Gladys’s face without even touching her was heady and confusing and a little bit addicting. Now that he’d achieved it once, he wanted to do so again and again.
She placed the book on the grass next to her parasol. “Is there food in that basket, or is it full of literary surprises?”
The picnic. Right.
With alacrity, he set about divvying up the plates and the utensils, and presented her with the next round of offerings: every rumored aphrodisiac he could get his hands on. Oysters, chocolate, strawberries, fat, succulent grapes…
Surprising him, she caught on without any need for explanation and burst out laughing at the less-than-subtle sensorial feast.
The sound of her laughter warmed him just as much as her smile upon sight of her new book.
Conflicting emotions crawled beneath his skin as he served her a plateful of decadent delicacies. What exactly was he doing here? Seducing Gladys, or wooing her?
This was supposed to be simple and straightforward. He had never before bothered pursuing the same woman twice, and still didn’t quite understand how his old habits had got turned on their heads. He was a rake. He indulged sexual relations, not serious relationships.
Yet here he was, in sight of half of Marrywell, picnicking with a woman he hadn’t even successfully managed to steal a kiss from the day before. Giving her a novel, rather than a tumble in the grass. Laughing, as though they were old friends, not anonymous lovers.
He liked her, was the problem.
And instead of convincing her to tup him, what he wanted most was for her to like him, too. He wanted to see her smile and to hear her laugh. He wanted her to throw that godforsaken hourglass into the nearby pond and never mention a time limit again.
Terrifying thoughts, for a man who was always the one to walk away.
But he was far from done with Gladys. For the first time in his life, Reuben wanted to take things slow. To come to know the woman herself, not just her body. He wanted her to wish to know him just as deeply.
This was baffling new territory, and he didn’t have the least idea how to behave accordingly. He feared saying or doing the wrong thing, and losing her interest in every possible way before he learned the trick of this new game.
Reuben fully intended to win.
“Where in London do you live?” he asked as they dined.
She slanted him an unreadable look. “Not in Mayfair. I presume you do?”
“I do,” he admitted. “It’s…”
“Exclusive? Expensive? Unwelcoming to outsiders?”
