Page 477 of From Rakes to Riches

ODDS ON THE RAKE

SOFIE DARLING

1

SUFFOLK, ENGLAND, MARCH 1822

Gemma squinted up at the time-beaten sign swinging above the coaching inn’s entrance, shoulder braced against her brother’s heavier weight, and couldn’t help marveling that months of running had led them here—an inn called The Drunken Piebald located in the nether regions of Suffolk.

It wasn’t the name of the inn that put her off, but rather the knowing smirk on the horse’s mouth as he held up a tankard in jolly toast.

Unnerving, that horse’s smile.

“Whoever heard of a drunk horse, anyway?” she said to make light conversation for her brother whose face was stretched into a pained grimace.

Liam gave a dry snort. “Old Featheringham gives his Thoroughbreds biscuits and canary wine on race day.” He winced as she carefully maneuvered him across the inn’s threshold. “Watch how you go, sister,” he groused under his breath, a bead of sweat running down his cheek.

In the cramped receiving area, the fug of the inn’s taproom met them full in the face—spirits gone sour and ale gonestale mixed with the sweat of unwashed bodies, both past and present. It was a smell Gemma and Liam had come to know well over the last year as they’d moved from one inn or stable loft after the other.

They never stayed long in one place. It was how they hadn’t been caught.

But soon that life would be behind them.

Soon, they would be able to plant their feet in one place—which was what had brought them to Suffolk.

Liam frowned and attempted to ease a measure of his weight off Gemma as she swiped the perspiration from her brow. Hobbling around with a brother whose leg was broken above the knee presented more difficulty than she’d expected, truth told.

From his place behind a high oak desk, the cool-eyed innkeeper of The Drunken Piebald sat, unmoved and unmoving, and observed the two strange auburn-haired brothers as they approached step by shuffling step.

How much more askance would he be viewing them if he only knew the scrawny brother with two good legs was, in fact, a sister.

Well, he wouldn’t know.

Gemma had long since discovered that was what trousers, chest binding, and a slouch hat were for.

Still, if she’d been dressed as a woman, he would’ve been left with no choice but to assist them. But two lads staying in the cheapest room on the ground floor? They were left to get on beneath their own steam.

She dug into the pocket of her dull brown coat and pulled out a pouch, which gave a muted clank when it hit the oak surface.

“Half, as agreed,” said Liam through gritted teeth, as if the words cost him more than what was in that pouch.

He always spoke for them, making it easier for Gemma to pass without much notice in public places. Tonight, a light sheenof sweat coated skin that had paled with the journey up from London. He needed to lie down.

“And the other half at the end of the month,” he finished.

The innkeeper’s mouth widened incrementally—what passed for a smile on those thin, stingy lips, Gemma supposed—as he tested the weight of the purse before peering into its contents. Satisfied, he nodded and tucked it away.

The tension in Gemma’s shoulders released an increment. One obstacle overcome. The Drunken Piebald was the nearest inn to where they needed to be—and the cheapest.

The innkeeper swept around the front desk. “If you’ll follow me,” sounded in his wake, the syllables as clipped and efficient as his feet.

Gemma and Liam met one another’s gazes with lifted eyebrows. They didn’t need much more than that to communicate. It had ever been so since they’d emerged from their Mam’s womb seven minutes apart—Gemma being the elder, as she liked to remind her brother when he needed it.

“You’d thinkhewas payingus,” muttered Liam as Gemma dug a shoulder beneath his armpit.

“Ready?” she asked, the weight of his long, lanky person settling onto her slighter form, though she was lanky too. Lanky enough she could pass for a lad of seventeen years.

“Toward the promise of a bed?” he asked, hobbling forward. “Aye.”

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