Page 525 of From Rakes to Riches

He supposed the sacking could wait until tomorrow.

Satchel in hand, Foley thanked Gem and spoke his farewells. Then the animal surgeon was gone—and Rake was left alone with his jockey.

He felt no small bit useless in the face of Gem’s efficient industry while he stood idle. “You’re a jockey now,” he said. “You don’t have to muck out boxes anymore. There are more than thirty lads at Somerton who can do that.”

She shrugged and didn’t stop pitching hay. “I don’t want a lad coming in and unsettling Flicka,” she mumbled. “Besides, I prefer the work.”

“Can I help?” he found himself asking.

Was he truly offering to help muck out? What was his world coming to?

Gem appeared not to think anything of it. “I’m nearly finished. Can you fetch a few clean blankets from the saddle room?”

Rake moved to fulfill the request that sounded more like a command. How was it that this woman, disguised as a man, was so comfortable ordering a duke around?

When he returned with the blankets, he found the occupants of the foaling box busy and contented each in their own way—Flicka tending her new foal, the foal happily nursing, and Gem packing the last of the fresh hay against the box walls to prevent a draft.

At last, she straightened and swiped the sweat off her brow with the back of her hand, eyes closed with exhaustion and relief. Rake opened his mouth to ask where she wanted the blankets when a small movement of her shoulder froze him in place, and all he could do was watch.

A single, feminine shrug, followed by a subtle arcing of her back. A working out of the kinks in her muscles. Then another shrug, and a roll of her head. Unguarded, her voluminous, worn-to-threads coat fell open at the front, revealing a man’s shirt, laces loose, so a V opened down the center of her chest, giving a hint of what lay beneath, and Rake’s mouth went dry.

Ahint?

He would say more than a hint. Twin peaks of nipples puckered beneath the fabric.

Given her red-gold hair and ivory freckled skin, her nipples would be rose-hued.

He was halfway to a cockstand just thinking about those nipples.

Unbound.

She must’ve been interrupted in the process of preparing for bed and had neglected to bind her breasts before coming to the foaling box.

She’d have rushed without thinking. The hour was late—gone past midnight—and she’d been distracted. Too distracted to pretend to be the lad she wasn’t and, instead,be…herself.

What else could explain what he was witnessing—and all but gawking at like a green youth catching a stolen first glimpse of female flesh?

Right.

He cleared his throat. “The blankets.”

Gem visibly gathered herself before opening her eyes and stepping forward to take the blankets from his outstretched arms, leaving him one. “Thank you.” A beat ticked past before she remembered to add, “Your Grace.”

When Rake didn’t move, she shifted on her feet and muttered, “I’m sure you have somewhere else to be.”

She was trying to get rid of him.

“As it happens,” he began, all aristocratic arrogance, “I don’t.”

Her mouth twitched with annoyance. She couldn’t very well tell a duke to leave his own stables.

“I’ll help,” he said, stepping around her and shaking open his blanket.

In unison and without conversation, they spread blankets over mare and foal, a strange sense of comradery stealing in as they completed the task.

“I’ll be sleeping here tonight,” she said, tossing her sole remaining blanket onto the hay.

Rake almost said he would, too, but stopped before he made a fool of himself.

---