Page 587 of From Rakes to Riches

Tonight, they would have to get through Wilson, who was also keeping guard over Dido. Knife balanced on his knee as he kept watch through the night, the man wasn’t in any mood for shenanigans.

“They’ll know what they’re in for, if they try to enter Hannibal or Dido’s stalls, that’s all,” he’d explained, matter-of-fact. “I’m a fair man.”

Fair enough, indeed.

Gemma wasn’t a gambling woman, but at supper tonight, she would tell Liam to lay a few bob on Hannibal tomorrow. Liam’s leg had improved to the point that he could now hobble about on his own steam with a walking stick, so her twin had taken the post coach ahead to Newmarket while Gemma walked Hannibal.

She squinted at her image in the mirror. Though she’d bound her breasts, tied her hair back, and slouched her hat low over her forehead, she looked less and less like a lad every day.

Her heart had gone out of the ruse. That was the main issue.

No matter.

Tonight was the night before the Two Thousand Guineas—and her last as a lad.

She wasn’t certain what the future held, but she was ready to start living life out from under the shadows.

And that began with being entirely herself.

Which meant life as a woman.

Except…she hadn’t been livingentirelyas a lad these last few weeks, had she?

In fact, for a few nights she’d beenentirelya woman with…

Rake.

It was as well that he hadn’t come to Newmarket this week. If he’d been here, she doubted her ability to resist him—or her own desires, both carnal and…deeper.

And resist, she must.

That much she knew.

A tenderness had developed between them, one she couldn’t have foreseen.

And that tenderness couldn’t stand.

She’d spied on him. She’d deceived him. There were certain lines she hadn’t crossed in her reporting on the racing operation at Somerton, but it was her first deception that made any sort of future with him impossible.

She couldn’t continue with him and keep the truth from him.

And yet…what if…

What if she told him the truth?

What if…he forgave her?

The question warranted nothing more than immediate dismissal. In his eyes, she would be no better than Felicity and even worse—a spy…

An enemy.

She was left with no choice but to stick with the plan and walk away at the end of the day tomorrow.

Downstairs in the taproom of The Running Horse, Liam and Deverill waited for one final report. Then she and her brother would be free to start their new lives.

One more day.

Except she didn’t feel on the verge of freedom—but rather the opposite.

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