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over the years. The girl
    turned slowly, a wary look in her wide brown eyes.
    “If supper is delayed, then you can help me settle in.”
    Leah plopped down on the bed and patted the faded
    covers beside her. “Sit down with me.”
    Henrietta’s look of repugnance would have been funny
    if it wasn’t so damn depressing. Leah began wishing she’d
    stuck closer to Avery. Clearly the female staff wouldn’t be
    giving her as warm a welcome as he had.
    Leah sighed and rubbed at the temple that was begin-
    ning a steady throb. What a damn depressing thought.
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    Five
    It had been easier than Avery had thought to
    convince Mrs. Dearborn, the cook, to pretend Leah
    was her relation from the colonies. An older woman
    with a softer heart than anyone else in the house, Cook
    had been Avery’s only confidante. Despite their cordial
    acquaintance, he’d expected much more of a fight from
    her when he suggested the plan. But once Avery had
    explained that Leah would be out on the street if she
    couldn’t provide a reference, Cook had agreed to the
    charade and bustled Leah away to meet Mrs. Harper and
    apply for Fannie’s recently vacated position.
    As Leah waved a cheerful farewell from the kitchen
    doorway, an odd twinge took up residence in Avery’s
    chest. Turning, he’d thumped at his ribs, trying to dislodge
    the feeling as he’d exited the main house and walked out
    toward the stables. It hadn’t worked. The buoyant, almost
    excited sensation cast an unfamiliar lightness to his walk.
    Her tale was difficult to believe, but she had appeared
    sincere. Was it possible that she had come from nearly
    two hundred years in the future? The gravel crunched
    beneath his feet as he considered the notion.
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    36
    Gina Lamm
    Geek Girls Don’t Date Dukes
    When he was just a boy in the village of Chelmsford,
    their neighbor, Mrs. Comstock, had dabbled in the Old
    Ways. Though his clergyman father forbade him to speak
    with the old woman, he knew from her that strange
    things were possible. He’d seen her making potions and
    curing folk in ways that no normal person could, so it
    stood to reason that this stranger’s outlandish claim could
    prove true.
    His father was dead, and he was no longer a boy.
    Would he heed the warnings he’d been given as a child,
    or discover more about this beautiful stranger? Whether
    she’d come from the future or no, she stirred an interest
    within him that she should not. And he could not afford
    any distractions.
    Once he’d reached the stables and tossed the hounds
    some scraps he’d gotten from Cook, he rounded to the
    back of the buildings into the lean- to shed he used for
    training. As he reached for the leather door strap, he
    could have sworn that his lips were stretched oddly, in
    what almost felt like a smile. Shaking his head, he tried
    to clear his thoughts of yellow hair and summer- sky eyes
    as he entered the shed. It was damn near impossible. She
    haunted him like a wraith.
    The scents of dust, hay, and sweat hung heavy in the
    air, a reminder of the sole purpose of this room. Imagining
    the way she’d felt for that brief moment pressed against
    him, he methodically stripped to the waist. Streams of
    late- afternoon light reached through gaps in the slat wall,
    lying in wicked angles across the straw- dusted floor. Dust
    motes floated in the air as Avery carefully hung his valet’s
    waistcoat, shirt, and jacket on iron hooks by the door.
    A rip, another, and then he wrapped thin linen strips
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    Geek Girls Don’t Date Dukes
    37
    around his knuckles, knotting them securely. Stretching
    his ribcage with a heavy breath, Avery turned and faced
    his opponent— a canvas bag filled with sand, hung with
    thick ropes from a ceiling beam. Settling his weight
    squarely on the balls of his feet, Avery’s fists tingling and ready, he pulled back for