Page 560 of From Rakes to Riches

“Yes?”

Gemma shouldn’t ask the next question poised on her lips… “Are you going to marry her?”

Rake’s jaw clenched and released. “Likely.”

Gemma shook her head on a dry laugh. “Nobs.”

He cocked his head. “What are you on about?”

“The way you approach marriage—like you’re Thoroughbreds. It’s all about the bloodlines, isn’t it?”

“There’s that,” he conceded, but his voice held an unfinished note.

“There’s more?” She was genuinely curious.

“It’s simple. I prefer a union where my wife orders her own affairs, and I order mine, and we leave each other to it.”

“And never the twain shall meet?”

“Something like that.”

A note in Rakesley’s voice sounded…off—and Gemma couldn’t leave it. “You’ve always felt thusly about marriage?”

A war waged behind his eyes, as if she were asking him to speak aloud his most closely guarded secret, one he’d never shared with another living soul. “Not always,” he said, at last. “I once made a love match—or thought I had.”

Something yet remained between the words. “You’re either in love, or you aren’t.”

“If only love were that simple. But you’re forgetting one vital detail,” he said, eyes dark with intensity. “It takes two to form a love match.”

16

Aman of forward momentum, Rake wasn’t one to cast his gaze to the past.

But it was Gemma who asked, and for some reason he couldn’t fathom, he wanted her to know.

Nay, not just know.

But understand…

Him.

“I was in my third year at Cambridge and enjoyed playing the young buck around Town. No different from the sort you see now.”

Though Gemma remained serious and intent, a smile pulled at her mouth. “From a great distance.”

Fair enough.Sometimes, he forgot they weren’t of the same social standing—a fact that mattered less and less with each passing day.

“One evening, I was pulled into attending a ball at Almack’s and I saw Felicity across the assembly room.” He spread his hands wide. “And I was lost. It was that sudden.”

“You were in love.”

He snorted. “I certainly thought I was. I wrangled an introduction from the patronesses and danced with Miss Felicity Bamford twice, which was as many dances as were allowed with the same partner. I even managed to sneak a third at the very end of the night.”

Gemma’s brow lifted with irony. “Scandalous, to be sure.”

“From that moment, all London knew that the Duke of Rakesley was utterly besotted with the daughter of Sir William Bamford. A proposal of marriage was expected by the end of the season.”

“And was there?”

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