The Bride who Vanished_A Romance of Convenience Regency Romance by Bianca Bloom

Author:Bianca Bloom [Bloom, Bianca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-06-22T04:00:00+00:00

39

The morning already seemed to be wasted, and I did not want to waste the afternoon as well. I could not afford both to ignore the object of my visit to Bath and to make myself so mad with boredom that I would be sure to injure someone. If I could find the gentleman I had met the night before, then at least I might turn the afternoon into something amusing, rather than a series of humiliations. It was as if the city itself were designed to vex me, and I searched in vain for the address of the cathedral. Last night, motivated by guilt and intrigue, I had been able to find it. If I found it again and asked for the same room, might I find the man there, waiting for me?

Somehow I doubted this, but he seemed my best chance. Though my mind whispered that I could actually find a different man, perhaps one more willing to provide me with evidence of infidelity, my whole enterprise might be much more successful. Something stopped me from doing this. Whether it was the very strong impulse I had to go back and be with the man that my body longed to taste again, or whether it was simply because I did not want to bear the humiliation of being used by a different stranger, I could not say.

Though I did not know it as I wandered the streets under my wide hat, someone was searching for me even more closely. And by the time he found me, I was so disheartened by my rudimentary grasp of Bath geography so as to be quite susceptible.

“Please,” said the voice. “Can I help you?”

And when I looked up, I saw none other than the face of Luke Barlow.

I said “How do you do,” curtseying absently. My mouth did not seem ready to open and form any more words.

Fortunately, the gentleman was equally confused. “Miss Quint — Mrs. Bar — well,” he said, trying to settle on a name for the woman who had once been his wife. “Alice. I have taken rooms two streets over. Might I offer you some refreshment?”

I had half a mind to run, but then I would risk drawing more attention to the interaction. And I realized that I was both hungry and parched, having already spent many minutes wandering about in search of relief from my own torment.

And so, as if in a dream, I took the man’s arm, and we passed two blocks in absolute silence. It was not until we had entered his home, and had tea set down before us, that I was able to speak to the man. With the quiet girl who had brought our tea now out of the room, we were quite alone.

I had so many things to say to him that, at first, I was silent. But, as usual, I was the one with more of a backbone. I had not been brought up in a house where I could enjoy the luxury of silence, or run off every time I was faced with a sticky situation.

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