Page 479 of From Rakes to Riches

Life-changing money…and they both knew it.

But only if one had the guts and gumption to seize it.

“There’s too much at stake to walk away,” she said.

Liam wanted to believe her. She saw it in his eyes.

But he didn’t.

She saw that too.

He shook his head, slowly, as if to let her down easy. “Somerton’s head groom, Wilson, won’t hire you on. He’s a known hard arse.”

“And why not?” she hissed when she wanted to raise her voice. “No one knows their way around horses better than me. Not even you.”

That last bit had been to needle him.

Liam remained unamused and unmoved. “Because you’re a woman, Gemma.”

She pinched at her trousers and tugged her ever-present slouch hat. “No one knows that when I’m wearing these.”

He heaved an exasperated sigh. “You wouldn’t fool them for long, and girls don’t get jobs in stables. You know that.”

Gemma did—and it frustrated her no end. But she had considered the possibility that Liam might be right, and another idea for inveigling herself into Rakesley’s household had—reluctantly—occurred to her.

An idea she didn’t like—not one bit.

“I know how I can get a position.”

With limbs suddenly made of lead, she retrieved her valise and removed a garment she hadn’t worn in a solid year.

“You know you are about the most stubborn?—”

Gemma held up the garment and let it unfold.

A dress.

And it stopped the remainder of Liam’s sentence dead in his mouth.

“I could get work as a scullery,” she said.

The wind left Liam’s sails, and his brow crinkled with concern. “We made a pact, Gemma.”

“I know, but?—”

“Our pact was that neither of us would ever work in service, and particularly not as a scullery.” The sudden intensity of his gaze held her in place. “You won’t be safe.”

“I know how to stay safe.”

Liam shook his head, unconvinced. “Butlords, Gemma. They don’t know what the wordnomeans.”

Gemma didn’t like it, either. Women in service were vulnerable to a lord’s whims and desires. They both understood it too well.

“I’ll be alright, Liam.”

“Damn this broken leg,” he exclaimed in a sudden burst of frustration.

Gemma placed a calming hand on top of his and held his eyes of the same hazel hue as hers. “Just one month, then you’ll be healed, and we’ll have Deverill’s blunt to go to New York with our Cassidy cousins, like we’ve been planning.” She sensed her brother’s resistance slipping—or perhaps he was simply exhausted from the journey. “Only a few weeks,” she whispered, sensing an opening.

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