Page 591 of From Rakes to Riches

A little voice wanted to speak, and she couldn’t allow it.

She could only focus on what she’d gained—not on who she was about to lose.

No.

Rake wasn’t hers to lose. He’d never been hers in the first place.

Tomorrow she would win Rakesley his trophy, and that would be the end of it.

Ofthem.

Now wasn’t the time for her nerve to fail.

Deverill’s chair scraped back across rough pine floorboards. “I believe our business is at an end.”

Liam gave a nod of farewell, and Gemma glared at the man as he strode through the taproom and out the door, relieved to see the back of him.

“Off to bed with you, sister,” said Liam. “Big day tomorrow.”

But Gemma had something to say to her brother. “Were you agreeing with that man?”

“Of course not,” he returned. “But it’s you in the trenches tomorrow, not me. I don’t go deciding matters for you.”

He was right. It was better Deverill asked her—and that she’d told him off.

She stood. “I’ll poke my head into Hannibal’s stall one last time for the night. And you?”

Liam’s gaze landed on the swaying backside of a lady up from Town. “I’ll take in the sights of Newmarket a little longer.”

Gemma snorted and tugged the brim of her slouch hat low over her forehead. As she shouldered her way through the intensifying crowd, she made a vow to set fire to this hat and all the clothes on her back tomorrow. No remnant of this life would accompany her into her future.

She tamped down the tiny seed of doubt that she was only deceiving herself.

That she would, indeed, carry a remnant.

But if she gave that seed no light or air, it would surely wither away and stop causing such a deep ache.

Surely.

21

Rake stepped boot inside The Running Horse, hoping for a bit of reprieve from the rowdy atmosphere of Newmarket’s streets, and quickly found his hopes dashed.

The crowd was as boisterous indoors as it was out of them.

That was race weekend.

The race lasted for all of a few minutes, but the bacchanalia went on for days.

He’d never much minded the festivities before, but tonight he couldn’t help glancing around, looking for someone. Of course, Gemma had no reason to expect him. But he’d wanted to see for himself that all was right with Hannibal and, if he was being dead honest, to check that all was right with Gemma.

Their last night together…

He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it.

There was more he wanted to tell her—that heneededto tell her.

She wasn’t alone in the world.

---