Page 531 of From Rakes to Riches

“—I need you to be in your best form,” he finished.

Lady Artemis shook her head and chuckled. “Oh, brother, you can be such a duke sometimes.”

“And who doesn’t know it,” Gemma mumbled, provoking another hearty round of laughter.

Rakesley, as ever, remained undeterred. “As the Duke of Rakesley, I cannot have my jockey walking around like an old man and, for that matter,smellinglike an East End beggar.”

Oh, that last part was low.

But not entirely unearned, Gemma could concede.

“Now,” he continued. The blasted man seemed…triumphant. “You’ll have a bath.”

While Lady Artemis and Lord Ormonde looked at her with sympathy in their eyes, she could see they agreed whole-heartedly with Rakesley on both points—and perhaps the latter in particular. It hadn’t only been Hannibal sweating buckets today. She had too. A particular musky scent wafted about whenever she lifted an arm.

And that settled the matter.

Not half an hour later, Gemma found herself gingerly lowering her aching, unclothed body into the Duke of Rakesley’s deep bathing tub, lavender-infused steam rising from the surface.

Her eyes drifted shut, and a long exhale poured from her lungs. It was quite possibly the best her body had felt in a week—possiblyever—as she sank so low her chin dipped below the piping-hot surface. Like magic, the tension in her muscles began releasing, increment by slow increment.

She would have to find a way to thank Lady Artemis for this.

She might even consider thanking Rakesley.

Then she drifted away on a sea of lavender, her parting thoughtmaybe.

11

Rake was unable to settle.

That was all there was to it.

One moment he was seated before the fire that ever burned low in his bedroom’s fireplace—even in summer, for Somerton was a drafty old pile—and the next he was striding across the room and staring sightlessly out the window that was black with night.

Yet, again, he was on the move, this time finding the brandy cart where he filled a crystal tumbler half full.

One sip later, he was at loose ends again.

Of course, how could he possibly settle?

Gem was only two doors away, in his bathing room…soaking in his bathing tub…her fetching bottom sliding against slick enamel…her pert nipples breaching the water’s surface…

Naked.

Every so often his ear picked up the muted splash of water.

Which didn’t invite calm into his body.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

She hadn’t needed to bathe in his tub.

That was the truth.

He could’ve instructed the maid to lead her to any number of the many guest bathing rooms scattered throughout the house. He calculated at least ten of them.

But, no, he’d had Gem led tohisprivate bathing tub.

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