When the knock finally did come, it was from the hotel’s employees, as expected. It took them no time at all to bundle Gladys and her valise into a hackney carriage and send her off on her way back to London while it was still light.
The novel Reuben had scoured the earth for her taunted her from the seat cushion beside her. She wanted to set fire to it and anything else that reminded her of his face or his touch or the way she’d felt when she’d still hoped he actually cared for her. But burning a book was a step too far, even for a woman scorned as badly as Gladys. Especially a book as good as this one. It wasn’t the intrepid heroine’s fault she had been purchased by an arrogant, thoughtless cad.
Not that Gladys had proved herself particularly brilliant with this hare-brained stratagem. Oh, it had worked. After five interminable years, she’d got her revenge at last. But the cost was too great. She’d let him break her heart all over again.
The first time, she’d been naive. An innocent. A goose. But this time, she’d walked right into the same old trap with her jaded eyes wide open and her heart on a platter for him to eat up and spit out anew. She scooped up her pelisse and parasol and walked away from Reuben Medford and temptation.
Never again.
By the time she arrived in rainy London just after midnight, Gladys felt worse, not better. The dreary weather matched her spirits. She paid the driver extra to carry her valise to her door, then retrieved Count Whiskers from the neighbor and cradled her beloved cat to her chest, her cheek nestled against the top of his soft head.
“I won’t leave you again,” she whispered. “You’re all the man I need.”
He responded with a purr, and wrapped his tail around her head.
She carried him into the parlor and lowered herself carefully onto their favorite chair. They’d spent uncountable hours right here, her reading, the cat sprawled in her lap, sleeping or grooming himself or blinking sleepily as if completely flummoxed as to why on earth he was awake.
“That’s how I feel, too,” she informed him softly. “I want to sleep for forty hours straight.”
But every time she closed her eyes, all she could see was Reuben. Grabbing her in the garden. Treating her like a trollop. Skipping rocks into the river. Offering to make her his mistress. Reading his godawful tomes stuffed with dry historical facts as though the contents were works of Byron. Eyes alight with mischief as he presented her with a picnic consisting purely of shameless aphrodisiacs. Toasting her ale with his own in the brewer’s field. Surprising her with pudding. Losing good-naturedly at Casino. Eyelashes fluttering as he brought them both to climax.
Offering any sum she wished, if only she would exchange it for sex—and nothing more.
To her cynical surprise, there were far more good times than bad. They could have been good together. If only.
She buried her face in her kitten’s soft fur and grieved for what might have been.
Chapter 21
When dawn came, Reuben hadn’t slept a wink. He’d made the trip back and forth between his room and Gladys’s a hundred times over the course of the night, and never quite managed to knock.
For one, he didn’t wish to disturb her sleep—or her peace and quiet, if she was awake. He’d been significantly more than a mere “bother” already. He’d ruined her life. Destroyed her future. And his response to his impulsive actions was disgruntlement that a stranger whose name he hadn’t bothered to learn had chosen Alsop over him.
Good God, the hubris.
It was a miracle Gladys had deigned to speak to Reuben at all. And no wonder he couldn’t think of anything to say to excuse his inexcusable behavior. She’d had five long years to stew over the wreckage he’d made of her life, whereas he’d only just learned the extent of the harm done.
But the point wasn’t to blame her for not informing him earlier. The point was that it shouldn’t have happened, and once it did, he should’ve known.
What would it have cost him to pay a modicum of attention when she’d told him her name? Her relatives had yelled it out the garden door, for God’s sake. There could be no claiming he’d missed hearing it.
Once he’d realized he grabbed the wrong woman, he should have done whatever was necessary to make it right. Which did not mean sending a debutante stumbling back into a ballroom with her bodice askew and her hair in disarray. He should’ve asked more questions of Alsop. What’s more, Reuben should have found Gladys and spoken to her himself.
No—not words. She’d needed more than platitudes. Gladys had deserved immediate corrective action. He’d been the one playing with fire, whilst she was the one who had got burnt.
I’ve had enough, she’d said. An understatement. Reuben had managed to simultaneously do too much and not near enough.
The mystery wasn’t why Gladys had walked away, but rather why she’d given him the time of day at all.
Time. The notion made him think of her hourglass. Of course she could only tolerate his presence in small doses. She should have sprouted the wings of an angel for refraining from slapping his face on first sight.
He couldn’t leave Marrywell without giving her that opportunity. There was no apology on earth that would right the wrongs done to her, but he would stand there and take every blow if she wished to rail at him with her nails and fists.
As soon as the sun was at a semi-acceptable height, Reuben presented himself at her door and gave a firm knock.
She didn’t answer.
He knocked a second time, and then a third. On the fourth knock, the door opened—revealing a sleepy-eyed older gentleman with an irritated scowl.
