Page 615 of From Rakes to Riches

Of a sudden, her future spread wide open before her. Not because of the money she’d earned from Deverill and from winning the Two Thousand Guineas. But because of Rake—his generosity…his protection.

That was the man she loved.

That was the man she couldn’t have.

The man she could’ve had in a different life.

If…

If she’d been born on the correct side of the blanket.

If she’d not betrayed him.

If she was a wholly different person—and that she couldn’t be.

She could only be herself, making the best of the lot in life she’d been born into.

Even so, she understood all theifswould haunt her for the rest of her days.

And one moreif.

If…she could’ve been Rake’s.

What would this life that she was free to fashion for herself be worth without him?

25

LONDON, ONE WEEK LATER

It wasn’t until the third occurrence of muted footsteps scurrying past his closed bedroom door that Rake willed his eyes open.

And even then, it was one eye that squinted to check the time on his bedside clock.

Half past seven.

He noted the sun peeking around the edges of velvet curtains shut tight against the outside world. He lay back and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. The sixth day in succession he’d lain abed past daybreak. He could try to convince himself he was keeping London hours—and he was, if drinking and gaming his evenings away at Brooks’s counted as London hours. But the simple truth was, every morning he lay in his bed and struggled to find a good reason to remove himself from it.

He shouldn’t be in London, anyway. But Artemis hadn’t been able to return to Somerton after the Two Thousand Guineas, and Rake couldn’t allow her to ramble about his Grosvenor Square mansion alone with only Mother for company—not that their parent was of any use. She strictly kept to her own hours andcalendar, and since her children weren’t scheduled, they weren’t seen.

Which was a blessing.

She’d listened attentively to the tragedy that had befallen Dido and at the end of it had said, “It’s a horse, Artemis.”

And that was the end of it for Mother.

But Rake sensed he had a deeper, truer motivation for having accompanied his sister to London.

Gemma.

She would be in London.

Her ship was to set sail from the London Docks.

Today.

Outside his bedroom door, the continuous sound of feet shuffling about corridors, accompanied by voices lowered to a muted pitch didn’t relent. Rake flung the blankets away and snatched up his dressing robe. As duke of this mansion, he supposed he needed to investigate what the blast was going on. It wouldn’t be Mother, for her silk sleeping mask didn’t leave her face a second before noon, which left but one other occupant.

Artemis.

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