Page 512 of From Rakes to Riches

Frustration traced alongside the dread.

She’d been so very, very close.

“Gem,” she heard at her back.

She cut an impatient glance over her shoulder. “Aye?” She’d rather get this over with before the grooms and lads with their curious ears began milling about.

“Not there,” said Wilson.

Gemma’s brow furrowed, and her feet stopped. “At the practice course?”

“In his rooms.”

Her eyebrows released and arched toward the sky.

“He’s in a right rush to get to London,” continued Wilson, “and he has a few questions for you.”

Questions.More questions. Did the man never stop asking them?

And the answers to those questions…

He wouldn’t like them.

Gemma somehow managed to nod.

“Enter the house through the kitchen, and a footman will lead you to His Grace. Now get on with you.” Wilson’s eyes narrowed. “And wash your face first.”

That was precisely what she wouldn’t be doing.

In fact, she might smudge on a little more dirt for good measure.

Still, she managed to say, “Aye.”

The now-familiar sequence of emotions marched through her.Fear…excitement…dread…

But mostly fear.

The duke held her future in his hands—and he hadn’t the faintest idea.

Rake had never been muchfor waiting.

Which was what had him summoning Gem to his rooms at the break of dawn.

Sometimes with a person, we only see what we expect to see, and not what’s really there.

Julian’s words had followed Rake to bed last night and greeted him upon waking this morning.

Whatever it was he wasn’t seeing, he needed to see it.

Sooner, not later.

His ear picked up the creak of his dressing room door opening and closing. He listened for further sounds and heard none, but he sensed a presence.

The lad was waiting.

Rake glanced down at his half-clad state, towel cinched about his waist, straightedge in one hand, washcloth in the other. His valet had taken ill with influenza these last three days, and Rake had been fending for himself with mixed results, if the two nicks beading red on the indent of his chin were any indicator.

“Enter,” he called out and swished the blade around the washbasin before he made another go at his black-stubbled jaw.

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