Page 547 of From Rakes to Riches

“Now, I have a question for you.” Her lightness fell away. Rake braced himself. “Am I sacked?”

“Pardon?”

“Am…I…sacked?”

“For…what?” Rake was utterly flummoxed. “For what we just did?”

If she thought she was getting the sack forthat, she could rest assured that wouldn’t be the case.

“For being a woman,” she said. “And for lying about it.”

Ah.At least one of them was thinking straight. “Are you going to keep being Gem?”

“Aye.”

“Then I see no reason to sack you.”

As Gemma, she would have to go, because, as Gemma, she would cause quite a stir amongst the lads and grooms. But as Gem, she could stay.

She gave a slow nod, and it struck him that while her eyes were bright, they weren’t particularly easy to read. In fact, he hadn’t the faintest idea of what was happening within those gold-flecked, green depths.

And he didn’t like it.

It felt like an imbalance.

For here was the thing—he suspected he was all too easy to read in this moment.

And he didn’t like that, either.

But he wasn’t sure he could do anything about it, for all he wanted was for her to relent and shift her weight over him and straddle him and…

They could go from there.

Instead, she reclaimed her hand and bolted from the bed. With a sigh of resignation, he settled a few pillows behind himand relaxed back against the headboard. Sheet at his waist, torso bare, he watched as she began stalking about the room, clearly on the hunt.

“If you’re searching for your clothes,” he said. “You’ll find a stack folded neatly in my dressing room.”

She whipped around, annoyance blazing about her. “Were they there all this time?”

He shrugged, letting the lie remain unsaid, but not unknown.

She rushed from the room and returned with the folded stack. “These aren’t the clothes I arrived in.”

“I’ve had others made. As my jockey, you represent me, of course. I couldn’t continue to allow you to walk around as a bundle of filth. Now”—he patted the coverlet beside him—“set those clothes down and come back to bed. Morning is yet many hours away.”

Gemma didn’t budge. In fact, she looked as if she had something she very much wanted to say. “Women like me don’t wake up in the beds of dukes.”

Reckless words were flowing from his mouth before he could stay them. “They do when they’re his mistress.”

Had he actually said that?

The lift of her eyebrows told him he had.

And he had no inclination to take it back.

Yet, she stood, unyielding. She didn’t look offended, but entirely obstinate. “I’m not exactly mistress material.”

“Why not?”

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