Page 626 of From Rakes to Riches

Rake tossed a grunt over his shoulder and kept moving. He instructed a stable lad to deliver a parting message to Julian, and he was on his way north within minutes. He could be in Yorkshire in two days, if he started now.

Then he would speak all the words he should’ve already spoken to Gemma.

And ask the question he should’ve already asked.

And if she refused him…

Nay.

He would win her.

Loss was never an option—not without a fight.

And that wasn’t about to change with the most important moment of his life.

Endcliffe Grange,Two days later

Beneath a Yorkshire sky, gray with a dense cloak of clouds, Gemma led Snip—imaginatively named for the snip on his nose—to the far easterly field, where he could graze and laze the afternoon away. A sturdy gray Cleveland bay who had served as a post coach’s off-side leader for three years, the fellow had certainly earned the rest.

A week ago, an innkeeper in the nearest village had put up a notice offering the animal to any interested farmer. Such was the life cycle of a coach horse. They were worked until they could no longer maintain the speed and stamina to pull passenger carriages across long distances, then they were sold to farmers for field toil. These animals were worked and worked until every last bit of work was squeezed from them and they eventually broke completely down.

Not this old coach horse, Gemma and Lady Artemis had decided when they saw the notice.

And so it was that they’d acquired their first horse at Endcliffe Grange.

Though the locals mostly observed the budding animal operation at the Grange from the side of their collective eye, animals of all sorts had begun appearing on the long drive up to the manor house. In addition to Snip, they’d also come into possession of an ill-tempered, one-horned billy goat, an orange tabby cat and her kittens, and a three-legged, one-eyed sheepdog Artemis immediately named Bathsheba, lady and dog instantlytaking to each other. Bathsheba even slept in Artemis’s room at night.

It was clear the locals all thought Gemma and Artemis a little mad, but they were accepting enough. After all, Artemis was a lady, and ladies had their own—strange—ways.

Gemma knew this was how Artemis was healing the damage in her own heart after the death of Dido. And Gemma couldn’t think of a better way of going about it than to provide shelter and recovery to animals. She admired Lady Artemis for taking an approach that moved her forward, rather than allowing herself to wallow in sadness and guilt—feelings Gemma very much understood.

In fact, she’d been doing exactly that when a Bow Street Runner had appeared at her and Liam’s London rooms—hovel, more accurately. Her first thought had been that the man was sent by Bolton—and her first instinct had been to run.

But the investigator hadn’t been sent by Bolton, but rather by Lady Artemis Keating, with a message that she would be arriving at eight o’clock the next morning to transport Gemma to Yorkshire, if she was interested in starting an animal sanctuary together.

Gemma hadn’t had to think about the instinctiveyesshe’d sent by way of return.

Yet she knew her days here were numbered.

It was only a matter of time before word reached Rake.

And she would have to go.

She’d just finished latching the pasture gate when Bathsheba raced over with her wobbly, three-legged stride, her nose nudging Gemma’s hand for a pet. Artemis wasn’t far behind. “How is our fellow today?” she called out. Gemma saw a bit of her former bloom returned to her cheeks.

Gemma propped an elbow on the fence and gazed out at Snip idly munching grass. “The sores on his withers are healing.”

Artemis nodded. “No saddles or harnesses for him ever again.”

“Aye.”

Artemis held up a square of white paper. “I just received this.”

“What is it?”

“An invitation to dine with Sir Abstrupus Bottomley. Actually, it isn’t so much an invitation as a summons.”

“That cannot possibly be the man’s name.”

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