“I find you stimulating. What do you do when you’re not reading?”
She took another sip to buy herself some time. Thus far, Gladys hadn’t lied to Reuben about anything, though she’d refrained from volunteering a few choice details. What did she do when not reading?
This did not seem the environment in which to pronounce, I engage in bedsport for money. Or to proclaim that she was no longer welcoming men who took their pleasure without considering hers, and therefore intended to retire with her cat and her fireplace and many more books like the one she’d read last night.
“I was a hostess of sorts,” she said at last. “But I’ve tired of entertaining others. I cherish my moments of solitude.”
“To read novels and skip rocks and drink yourself into oblivion?”
“That sounds like as good an afternoon as any.”
“I don’t know what it says about me that I agree with you.” He gave a self-deprecating smile. “Rakes are also supposed to be born entertainers, but such exploits are boring more often than not. I enjoy a good book and I enjoy a good ale, though I admit I prefer playing cards with friends over skipping rocks.”
“I enjoy playing cards,” she admitted.
“Do you? What are your favorite games?”
“It’s difficult to say. I rarely have an opportunity to join a game with others. Men have their gentlemen’s clubs, but women… Mostly, I play solitaire.”
“Most card games do require four or more players, but not all. Do you know Casino? It can be played with two.”
“I know Casino.” Gladys used to play it with her sister, before she’d been ruined and banished.
He leaned forward, ale forgotten. “Come to my room, tomorrow. We’ll play all the Casino you can stand. I’ll provide the ale.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why do I feel like I’d be walking into a spiderweb?”
“Because you’re an astoundingly suspicious shrew,” he said cheerfully. “And because if I can manage to steal a kiss between the card-playing, I absolutely will.”
“What makes you think I want a kiss?”
“What makes you think you won’t?”
Nothing made her think that. She did want a kiss. Was burning for a kiss. Ducking out of his embrace every time he reached for her was the hardest thing she’d had to do in years.
The next time he kissed her would be even worse. Unlike the first few encounters, this time, he would mean it. He’d be reaching for Gladys, not some nameless stranger in a garden. He’d be kissing the woman he picnicked with, and played cards with, and drove to London and back in the dead of night to buy a gothic novel for.
And Gladys wouldn’t be faking her desire either, blast him. She’d laid a trap for the Despicable Medford and stepped into its sharp jaws herself.
She glanced at the hourglass on the table. Empty. How long had it been empty?
She snatched it up like King Arthur brandishing his sword and scrambled to her feet. “I must go.”
Reuben rose as well, his warm brown eyes locked on hers. “Tomorrow? My room?”
It was a wonderful idea. A terrible idea. The perfect opportunity to put the final step of her plan into motion.
“Tomorrow,” she managed. “Four o’clock.”
His smile was brighter than the sun. “I’ll be waiting.”
Waiting, then soon after, he’d be weeping. Because when Gladys was through with him, she would walk away without looking back, and wipe him from her mind altogether, the same way he’d done to her. Reuben wouldn’t become a memory. He’d be nothing at all. By this time next week, she’d be safe and sound back home, and have forgotten him entirely.
She hoped.
Chapter 15
Reuben spent the entirety of the following morning preparing his rooms for Gladys’s arrival.
