“None. But I suspect you knew that.”
“That is what the gossips say. But they also say you are never seen more than once in the company of the same woman.”
And here he was, spending time with her. As he had done every day of the festival since his arrival, both publicly and privately.
He matched his king to the one on the table. “Perhaps people change.”
Gladys’s eyes flew to his, her surprisingly serious gaze piercing. “Do they?”
“Have you never changed?”
“Oh, I’ve changed.” She laughed lightly. “I think it’s safe to say you wouldn’t recognize me as the naïve debutante I once was. Have you not always been a glutton, flitting from flower to flower like an insatiable honeybee?”
“Not the most flattering depiction of my personality, but an apt one. Yes, I have always been a rakehell.”
“Is ‘rakehell’ a personality?” she asked skeptically.
“What else would it be? A divine calling?”
“A symptom.”
He snorted and dealt the next round. “Is pleasure-seeking a disease?”
“No,” she said without hesitation. “Sometimes it is a necessity. The best way to relieve suffering is with pleasure.”
“You think I suffer?” he asked in surprise. “I’m rich, well-connected, handsome…”
“And breathtakingly humble,” she teased as she arranged the cards in her hand. “Yet many people who seek pleasure in the arms of strangers suffer from loneliness.”
“I’m not lonely,” he protested.
She scooped up two fives with a ten. “Aren’t you? Reuben Medford, the most prolific rake in all of England, spending the final day of the largest local festival indoors, playing a game of cards.”
“Maybe I like cards.”
“When not walking alone through an empty woods, or sitting in solitude with yet another dense tome on ancient history.”
He stacked a pair of sevens. “All that means is that I exercise my brain as well as my body.”
“Who also is available at the drop of a hat to accompany an aging spinster to labyrinths and brewer’s fields and lending libraries and picnics. Or to dash off to London in search of a gothic novel you have no interest in reading.”
“Maybe I like…” Aging spinsters? That wasn’t the common denominator at all—or a fair description. He lowered his cards and held her gaze. “Maybe I like you.”
She arched her brows. “I’m to believe you canceled your scheduled plans and cleared your busy days and nights on the off chance of spending an hour with me?”
That was exactly what Reuben had done, though he had not realized the enormity of it until hearing his actions phrased in this manner.
“You were free, too,” he shot back in defense, though this was a weak sally.
The truth was, he had spent a good portion of the past days unsuccessfully searching for Gladys, which would imply that she was off being actually busy somewhere, whilst he was merely busy thinking about her.
“I had an hour to spare,” she agreed, and matched a pair of eights.
Disgruntled, he dealt the next round with dramatic flair.
Unperturbed, she picked up her new cards and added them to her hand. “Have you been back to the river to practice skipping stones?”
“Yes,” he admitted. Celebrated rake, choosing to be all alone in a forest, just as she’d said. “I’ve improved substantially, though I’m sure I could use another lesson.”
