“Now, Gemma,” he began.
She held up a hand to stay the words in his mouth. “Don’t.”
But of course, he continued. “I don’t see the purpose of us being here.”
This…again. “We were hired for a job—”
“I was hired for a job,” he corrected.
“—and,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “we’re here to see it through.”
“Deverill hired me, Gemma.”
She shrugged. A minor detail, that. “Deverill wants information about Rakesley’s stables.” She spread her hands wide. “I shall provide it.” She shifted forward, rigid with determination. “This is our chance, Liam. We can’t walk away from the money Deverill is offering.”
£50.
It was a lump sum of money that only came along once in a lifetime—if one was lucky.
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. “But lords, Gemma. They don’t know what the word no means.”
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.
He slid down the bed to lie flat on his back. “We can talk more about it on the morrow,” he said on a yawn, his eyes drifting closed.
Gemma stood and made for the door. “I’ll just go and inquire about a mat and blanket for myself.”
“Mmm,” was all she heard at her back as the door clicked shut behind her.
Instead of returning to the front desk, however, she scanned the taproom—which had acquired a few more patrons—and located the side door that led to the stables. She tugged her slouch hat down her forehead, hunched her shoulders, and made straight for it, careful not to draw attention to herself. She’d gotten good at that this last year.
Outside, a breeze whipped sharply about her. She inhaled deep and long. Life in London didn’t afford one air like this. It almost made her miss the country estate where she’d spent her childhood.
Almost.
There wasn’t any true reason for her to venture into the stables. She and Liam didn’t have a horse of their own to board. But if there was a stable—any stable—nearby, she liked to pop her head in and see how the horses were being tended. Though in a coaching inn like The Drunken Piebald, it was likely to be full of coach horses, resting up for the next leg of their stage journey. Perhaps a hack or two for the lords who would be traveling through to Newmarket.
Newmarket…horse racing…
Her and Liam’s reason for being here.
For the last year, they’d been bouncing between various stables in and around London. Liam had been steadily climbing his way up the ladder—starting as a stable lad, then as a groom, and more recently as a jockey. As Liam’s silent, younger “brother,” Gemma had been able to accompany him everywhere—stables, racecourses, and even Tattersall’s once.
And it was all because she wore trousers, bound her breasts, tucked her hair away, and kept her mouth shut.
But the thing she’d noticed—as a woman—about being a lad…
It felt safer out in the world as a lad.
Besides, she loved to ride and never did have any use for all that sidesaddle nonsense.
She wasn’t a lady.
Even if their father was an earl—an accident of birth, that—their mother had been a cook from Ireland.
In other words, no one gave a fig if Miss Gemma Cassidy wore trousers and called herself a lad.
“A strange pair,” she’d heard whispered about the two of them.
But neither of them cared. She and Liam had always stuck together—and they always would.
In the stable warm with heat from the horses, it was as she’d suspected. In the first few stalls, overworked coach horses were in various stages of being brushed, fed, and watered after their stage journey. A Cleveland bay extended his head over the gate of the fourth stall she came to. She reached inside her pocket for a chunk of carrot. She always carried a bit of carrot, turnip, or apple. The bay gently took it off her palm, and she stroked his black mane and cooed a bit of nonsense into his ear. To a one, these horses were used poorly, and their working lives totaled to no more than three years. Most were sold on for farm work after that. She could hardly stand to see it.
A sudden, loud racket came from the very last stall. Gemma glanced around at the stable lads. They appeared to be daring each other to see about the animal—and neither seemed keen on taking the bet.
While she was pretending to be a quiet lad, she couldn’t give them the dressing down they very much deserved. Instead, she made her own way down the center aisle to investigate, her curiosity up. With each step she took, the racketing continued. The horse sounded quite intent on kicking his stall door down. When she reached the last stall and peered inside, the breath caught in her chest.