Now, there she’d be in trouble, for she wasn’t a lad of seventeen years but a woman of twenty.
Just when she’d convinced herself that he wouldn’t relent, he said, “Be at Somerton’s stables at seven o’clock tomorrow morning—sharp. I do not tolerate laggards. Ask for Wilson.”
All the nerves held in check within Gemma released in a rush, “I’ll be there at six.”
The Viking lord laughed, and Rakesley said, unsmiling, “Let’s not get carried away. Seven will do.”
The lords rode out of the stable yard, leaving Gemma alone, the clip-clop of horse hooves fading into the night. Tempering the feeling of triumph currently streaking through her came a chill. The instant she stepped foot inside Rakesley’s stables, she would make an enemy of that magnificent, capable duke.
But what choice had she?
Her future, and Liam’s as well, was at stake.
And there was nothing she wouldn’t do to secure it.
Liam would resist, of course.
But she would prevail.
Mainly because Liam was confined to a bed.
Well, one had to take one’s luck where one found it.
She had this under control.
Except…no one controlled the Duke of Rakesley.
No matter. She wasn’t planning to control him. She would only gather information about the operation of his renowned stables and send it along to Deverill in agreed-upon regular missives by post.
When viewed from that angle, it was practically a crime without a victim. No one would be getting hurt. It was simply the passing on of information. If she didn’t do it, someone else would.
And someone else would get that life-changing fifty pounds.
She made her way across the stable yard, and the wind caught at her slouch hat, a tendril of hair slipping from beneath. By the time she entered the inn, the errant lock was securely tucked away before she stopped to secure an extra blanket and pillow. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d slept on a floor.
Nor the last, she suspected.
Inside their room, she nudged Liam awake and recounted the happenings of the last half hour, leaving out not a single, solitary detail.
He let her finish, then said, “It won’t work.”
She puffed out an irritated breath. “Why is that?”
Liam didn’t rise to it. “Just look at you, Gemma.”
“I know what I look like.”
His eyes rolled toward the ceiling. “You’re a woman,” he explained slowly. “Truly, the man must be blind.” Another thought seemed to strike him. “Or a complete dolt, like most lords.”
It was only established fact. Most lords were self-centered dolts.
But Rakesley…
She wasn’t sure what he was—man or mythology—but one thing she was sure he wasn’t.
This duke wasn’t a dolt.
She shook her head. “He’s neither blind nor a dolt.”
Liam sucked his teeth. He didn’t like that answer.
“You know, I’m very much the size of a lad,” she continued. “The binding on my, erm, chest keeps it flat enough, and I’ve learned how to hide my privy habits around the stables in London.”
Liam pointed an accusatory finger square at her face. “Not a hint of fuzz on your upper lip.”
“Some lads don’t have any until later.” She could only hope she didn’t sound as desperate as she felt. “I’ll smudge dirt into my skin. No one will notice me.”
“Your hair,” stated Liam, as if those two words were enough said.
“What about my hair?”
“Tucking it away works when I’m around to vouch for you. But I won’t be there, Gemma.”
The worry was apparent in his eyes. They’d always protected one another, and with her up the road at Somerton and him here with a broken leg, he wouldn’t be able to.
“Your disguise might suffice for ten minutes, in the dark, but not every hour of the day. Your hair is silky. Like a woman’s.”
“I suppose I am a woman,” she admitted, grudgingly. “Beneath it all.”
“And won’t the Duke of Rakesley know it?”
Gemma removed her hat and took a long look at herself in the mirror. A riot of thick red-gold curls. That was her untamed hair—a force to be reckoned with. And in combination with the delicate features of her face…
Liam was, of course, correct.
Rakesley, with his fathomless black eyes that pierced and assessed, would see through her sooner rather than later.
An idea stole in. A bold idea…
Who was to say she had to keep all this hair, anyway?
She wasn’t some ingenue about to make her debut with the intent of securing a lord for a husband.
She was a bastard on the run, trying to secure a future free of fear for herself and her brother.
Was there anything that woman wouldn’t do?
Right.
She turned on her heel and made straight for the door.
“Where are you going now?” Liam called out to her back.
“To procure a pair of scissors.”
Chapter Two
Somerton Manor, Next morning
Rake stepped inside the breakfast room drenched with morning sunshine at precisely seven o’clock—as he did every day.
The first to arrive, too—every day.
His was an ordered life. It was the same for any man who ran a successful stable. Horses—particularly Thoroughbreds—thrived on structure and had a keen distaste for disorder.
He took his usual place at the head of the gleaming mahogany table that sat a modest twelve—this wasn’t the dining room, after all—and settled back into his chair, allowing the servants to perform their jobs: one footman placing the morning papers and correspondence to his left, another pouring coffee to his right, and yet another footman setting his breakfast before him—a plate bearing fruit, two boiled eggs, and a bowl of honeyed porridge. The same meal every morning.
Rake shuffled the turf newspaper to the bottom of the stack and began flipping through letters while he sipped his coffee, on the lookout for one missive in particular. It wasn’t there. In fact, this was the fifth consecutive day he’d been expecting the letter and it hadn’t arrived.
The Dowager Duchess of Acaster was playing the tease.
A ploy he could respect.
Her deceased husband, the Duke of Acaster, had been in possession of the second finest racing stable in England—second to Rake’s, of course. A year had passed since the old lech’s death, and Rake didn’t like the idea of all those fine Thoroughbreds sitting around and going to fat—or worse, being sold off in a Tattersall’s dispersal sale, which widows were prone to do with their deceased, horse-mad husbands’ stables.
Rake would write her again today. She had a five-year-old mare named Silky Sadie he was keen to have for Somerton. Silky Sadie was descended from the Darley line and had won at Doncaster as a three-year-old. No matter their lineage, Rake only bred mares who were race winners, which was how he maintained the excellence of his stud.
At least, that would be the surface of his letter to the duchess. In truth, he was considering taking her to wife. The two of them were of an age, and she was a fine-looking woman to boot. It had been her bad luck to have had an ambitious father, willing to sell her off to a decrepit old duke desperately in need of a legitimate heir after a lifetime of licentiousness. The old roue hadn’t succeeded, which was Rake’s gain. He wouldn’t have to worry about raising another duke’s duke.