Page 553 of From Rakes to Riches

“I thought you might appreciate a ride after four?—”

“Five.”

“Five days in a carriage, no matter how well-sprung.”

Like most women would—with the exception of one woman—Celia glanced down at her attire, her traveling habit no doubt in the first stare of fashion. “I suppose this will do for riding,” she said. No mistaking her lack of conviction.

But Rake was in no mood for it. “Somerton has a folly with a dead spectacular view of the next valley over.”

“Then, let’s,” she said, tightly, as if each word had been extracted from her with pliers.

They should’ve ridden in the opposite direction of the folly, Rake thought fifteen minutes later as he and the duchess made straight for it.

For, in the deepest, darkest corner of his heart, he knew—he was riding toward Gemma. Here was the opportunity to be near her, and he was seizing it. Three days had been long enough.

Flimsy…cheap…

No.

He was being a good host to the Duchess of Acaster.

No better time to start than the present. “I was sorry to hear about the loss of your husband. The Duke of Acaster was…” He wasn’t quite sure how to finish that sentence. The truth was the Duke of Acaster was a miserable lech the world was well rid of.

But he couldn’t go saying that to the man’s widow.

Celia shot him a surprised glance. “Oh?” She was an accomplished horsewoman, even riding sidesaddle as was expected of ladies. “You weretrulysorry to hear of his death?”

The question put Rake on the back foot. He’d merely expressed the platitude that people expressed on such occasions.

“Well,” she continued, saving him from having to tell a lie, “Iwasn’t.”

Rake had heard the phrase “Merry Widow,” but here he was seeing it in action. “Not a love match, then.”

Of course, he and all thetonknew it hadn’t been.

A flinty laugh escaped her. “Hardly. My father is a wealthy baron who had a hankering for a duke as a son-in-law. Acaster had a hankering for food on his table, with a little left over.”

Rake nodded. “For horses.”

Acaster had built quite the formidable racing stable over the last decade.

Again, came the duchess’s flinty laugh. “Edwin’s tastes ran to fillies of the two-legged variety.”

Rake’s brow lifted. “At his age?”

“Men,” was all she said.

All she needed to say.

Men, indeed. Rake supposed certain parts of men were indefatigable until the moment they drew their last breath.

“Anyway,” continued Celia, “the horses were my idea.”

“Is that so?”

Perhaps this duchess was even more well suited to him than he’d supposed.

She nodded tightly, looking decidedly disinclined to carry on with the subject.

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