Scoundrel for Hire (Velvet Lies, Book 1)

by Adrienne deWolfe

  "And did she?" Rafe asked softly.

  Silver's cheeks warmed. She recalled a time, a time so long ago that now it felt like another life, when she had been lonely and rebellious, when she had thought to defy her well-meaning but annoyingly prudish aunt by sneaking out of windows and meeting sweet-talking beaux in the moonlight.

  She'd met Aaron numerous times that way, and he'd stolen a kiss or two. It had seemed so romantic. She had thought herself hopelessly in love with the young ironworks heir, and she'd believed he loved her, too—until the night he'd pinned her against the garden wall. Until the night he'd said it was time to call her bluff, that he was tired of all her cockteasing...

  "Silver?"

  Rafe's gentle touch on her arm startled her, and she leaped to her feet, pressing her palms to her flaming face.

  "Y-yes," she gasped, doing her best to fight off the frisson of panic that galloped up her spine. "I was cured."

  She spun hastily away, and when she crossed to the window, Rafe frowned. What had he done this time to spook her?

  For a long moment he studied her, assessing every word, every gesture she'd made since sailing through the parlor doors. When she'd sat beside him on the bench, he'd thought he had finally moved her. He'd thought he was making progress, that she was beginning to trust him, and all because his damned feelings had been genuine. More genuine than he cared to feel.

  Who would have thought that he and Silver had so much in common: a mother who'd risked scandal for love. A legacy that was... well, less than favorable. The only difference, he supposed, was that Max had done right by Silver's mother. His father, on the other hand, had disappeared like a thief in the night.

  Rafe grimaced to recall something so useless and hurtful.

  Was that his problem, then? That he couldn't stop himself from empathizing with Silver because he, too, had suffered the disapproval of the dictator who'd raised him? Rafe hoped so, because sentiment he could ignore. His pesky conscience was another matter. Why the hell had he sat there, a mere hair's breadth from her lips, and made not a single, solitary attempt to kiss her? Wasn't seduction his game? Wasn't he playing to win?

  He scowled. Jones, you're getting soft. What are you doing here, if it isn't to woo the girl's trust, take her money, and get out before she gets wise to your lack of progress with Cellie?

  His gut roiled as he posed the question, but he pretended not to notice. Despite the uncanny way Silver had of helping his conscience rear its ugly head, she was a mark, like any other—only richer. He'd be a fool to waste this chance.

  Fortunately, all wasn't lost. She still stood by the window, worrying her full, moist lip and gazing up at the moon as if she thought she might decipher some mystical knowledge from the clouds wreathing its face.

  And as any professional rake knew, the moon was a handy tool for seduction.

  He moved toward her, but her voice, so full of trepidation, made his feet falter beside the settee.

  "Do you... believe in ghosts?"

  "Ghosts?" His brow furrowed. He liked to think he understood women, but that question had come like a bolt out of the blue. He'd been hoping to capitalize on their newfound bond of childhood despair. What had happened to all her angst about Mama?

  He chose his answer carefully. "I've never had occasion to."

  She fingered a hunter green tassel hanging from the draperies. Was it his imagination, or did her hand tremble as it wrapped around the knot?

  "I have to ask you something, and... I need to know you'll answer truthfully."

  Truthfully? He'd never wooed a woman with the truth before. He'd never found the unvarnished facts about himself terribly appealing. Why should a woman?

  More curious than cautious, however, he decided to see where this train of thought derailed. "All right," he purred in his most melodic baritone. "What do you want to know?"

  If she noticed the sultry transformation in his voice, she didn't mark it.

  "The night of the engagement party, did you, uh, carry out your threat to... um, visit my bedroom?"

  He hid a smug smile. Had she wanted him to?

  "No."

  She looked truly agitated now. "Are you sure?"

  He arched an eyebrow. "I think I'd remember," he murmured.

  She swallowed audibly. He had stopped a foot or two away; still, when she turned to face him, he swore he could hear her heartbeat. Certainly, he could see its wild cadence in the fluttering of her gown. He battled a rising sense of guilt. As much as he'd like to believe he saw longing in her eyes, he had to concede that fear, not lust, stared back at him.

  "Rafe, please," she choked, "please tell me you've been sneaking into my bedroom at night and leaving acorns. And broken bird eggs. And... and some sort of shriveled seed pod."

  He frowned, genuinely concerned by her upset—another lamentable lapse into sentiment. Even if he took into consideration the ghostly wash of the moon, she looked much too pale.

  Yet when he reached to comfort her, she backed into the draperies as if his arm were a striking snake. He froze in midgesture, his skin crawling to think he could inspire such terror in anything, much less a woman.

  "Silver." Somehow he managed to force gentleness out of the vise that squeezed his throat. "Honey, I swear, I have never meant to frighten you. And I've never been inside your bedroom, except that one time when I heard you scream. Because of Tavy. Remember?"

  She closed her eyes and nodded. Her haggard features couldn't quite conceal her struggle for composure, and he watched the rare show uncomfortably, wondering at the clash of raw emotions.

  "I-I'm sorry." She pasted on a weak smile. "It's this nightmare I keep having. It has me a bit jumpy, I suppose."

  He frowned. Nightmare be damned. This was Silver Nichols, his cool-as-ice princess, the same woman who negotiated their business deal the way a barracuda negotiated a coral reef. "What's this really about, Silver?"

  She tore her gaze away. For a long moment, she faced the window, staring glassily toward the fountain and hedgerows in the sculpted garden beyond. The muffled tick, tick, ticking of the hall clock knelled in the silence between them.

  Finally, she moistened her lips.

  "I think... I'm being haunted."

  "Haunted," he repeated dubiously. He supposed he didn't have to tell her how ridiculous that sounded.

  However, he knew better than to try dragging the truth from her. If she were anything like him, and she was proving to be very much so, she'd fight like a badger to keep her secrets hidden. "And why would you think that?"

  "If I tell you, you'll think I'm hysterical."

  "I'm more likely to think you're your father's daughter."

  She blew out her breath, as if to imply that notion was even more disturbing. But when she folded her arms across her breasts, uneasiness, not exasperation, creased her profile.

  "Swear you won't laugh."

  "I swear."

  She didn't look convinced. In fact, she looked like she regretted telling him what she had. Finally, she dropped her arms and sighed.

  "I suppose I can't expect you not to laugh. If you'd told me you were being haunted, I would have laughed. Uproariously. But you see, it's not funny when it's happening before your very eyes and... and there's no logical explanation."

  He watched the old, businesslike Silver trying to break through the fear. He was glad. The shrinking, inconsolable Silver threw him off his game, making him feel... well, inadequate.

  "Go on."

  She fidgeted, avoiding his eyes. "I started having the nightmares about three months ago, shortly after Papa ordered the new tunnel blasted in Silver's Mine. Shortly after he told me he was marrying Celestia."

  Her face twisted in a faint grimace. "I used to think Papa's incessant talk about ghosts was influencing my dreams. But then, things started appearing on my windowsill. Things like... feathers. And pebbles. Of course," she added quickly, "those were easy to explain away, because the sash had been open on those nights, and I figure
d a bird or a squirrel had left them inside. I didn't immediately link them with my dreams of him."

  "Him?"

  "Nahele." She darted Rafe an anxious, mildly embarrassed look. "I know it sounds absurd. But I've exhausted all reasonable explanations for the acorns and the eggshells."

  "So." Rafe carefully modulated his response. "You think some two-hundred-year-old dead Indian left them behind?"

  Her cheeks reddened. "What else am I to think?" she asked plaintively. "I've questioned all the staff, as circumspectly as I was able, of course; I've nailed my windows shut; I've even taken to locking my door at night."

  "Have you told Max any of this?"

  "Papa?" She looked aghast. "Absolutely not. He'd have me drinking protection potions and stringing garlic around my neck.

  "Besides, Papa's not very good with confidences. He'd blurt my tale to Benson, or Celestia or, God forbid, to Brady Buckholtz, and I'd have an army of gawkers and newspapermen camped out beneath my window.

  "I was hoping..." She fidgeted, shifting from foot to foot. "I was hoping you'd come clean and tell me your otter had sneaked in and had left the acorns and eggshells behind."

  She gazed at him so beseechingly that he was indeed tempted to concoct a tale about a secret passageway that only wily, bubble-stalking otters could navigate. Then whose story would be more absurd?

  "Do you want to know what I think?" he asked after a judicious moment of silence.

  She nodded, her eyes so wide and misty again that he forgot himself. He reached to cup her cheek. She trembled, but she didn't bolt. This time, like a ghost of the old Silver, she stood her ground. Glad to see it, he traced the pad of his thumb along the damp hollow that cradled her lashes. Beneath her tears, her skin felt like velvet.

  "Silver." He didn't have to pretend; the huskiness in his voice came naturally now. "Sweetheart, I don't think you're being haunted."

  "Y-you don't?"

  "No," he said softly. Damn, why wasn't he agreeing with her? Why wasn't he blowing her fears out of proportion like any self-respecting ne'er-do-well would do? Then he wouldn't have had any trouble convincing her not to sleep alone.

  But some dormant nobility possessed him, and he couldn't whisper the lie. He knew he'd be sorry. He knew he was a fool. Nevertheless, he told her exactly what she didn't want to hear.

  "I think you're feeling guilty. You know Max loves Cellie, and she loves him. You hired me to break up their romance, not because Cellie's a gold digger, but because you can't bear to see Max married to anyone but your mother."

  She winced, wrenching free of his hand. "That's not true!"

  Rafe sighed. He hadn't really expected her to agree. Still, after spending ten minutes alone with the giggling, kiss-throwing couple, a person would have to be deaf, dumb, and blind—or bitterly resentful—not to realize that Max and his fiancée were genuinely besotted with each other.

  Hell, Rafe hadn't even believed love was a real, viable reason for marriage until he'd listened to Max prattle so eagerly about his wedding plans. Or until he'd watched the old man's chubby face turn dark with menace as he'd vowed to thrash any husband who wasn't head over heels in love with his daughter.

  Call him a sucker, Rafe reasoned, but he liked Max. And damn him if he didn't like Cellie too. No one was more uncomfortable than he when he watched Silver snub her. And whenever he saw Max observe the same thing, and the old man's face puckered with secret hurt, he wanted to grab Silver by the shoulders and shake her. Cellie was the kind of woman Rafe might actually have prayed for in a mother—except, of course, that she could be eerily accurate at exposing truths.

  A particularly hair-raising incident flitted through his memory, a carriage ride he'd shared with Cellie two days after the engagement party. At that time, he'd been concerned for gullible old Max, and he'd been prepared to expose Cellie as a fraud. But when he'd even thought about sliding across the seat and putting his arm around her shoulders, she'd given his knee a motherly pat and fixed him with those discerning gray eyes.

  "There's a ghost that haunts you, dear boy. A ghost named Jedidiah," she had said with such earnestness that his toes had curled, his heart had raced, and his eyes had grown a good deal wider. "Love never talked to a child the way he talked to you. Jedidiah might have preached the gospel, but he forgot that God forgives. You mustn't blame yourself for your parents' sins. You're a good boy. And Silver needs you. She just doesn't know how much yet."

  Looking back on that carriage ride, Rafe still wasn't sure how Cellie knew about Jedidiah. But there had to be a logical explanation. Just like there had to be a logical explanation for Silver's ghost.

  "That's preposterous," Silver meanwhile insisted, her eyes briny with accusation. "Celestia has nothing to do with my nightmares. There are bird eggs materializing in my locked and bolted bedroom. And they appear only when I dream about him."

  Rafe arched an eyebrow. "So you've convinced yourself you're not really dreaming, is that it?"

  "Y-yes." Her bravado blew out like a candle the moment her anxiety crept back in. "He frightens me. I mean, I know he's only leaving acorns and seed pods and such, but..." She clasped her hands so hard that her knuckles actually whitened. "He's so threatening."

  Rafe's brow furrowed. Nightmare or not, he didn't like the sound of that. "Threatening? In what way?" he asked more gently.

  "He's always beside himself, yelling, and gnashing his teeth. He stomps his feet and thrusts dead animals and... and uprooted plants at me."

  "Does he say anything you can understand?"

  She began to quake, and her hand flew to her mouth. "He yells. He yells something about... raping the Mother."

  Jesus. Rafe's gut clenched so hard that he felt like a fist had plowed through it. "Silver, don't." Her tears were spilling uncontrollably now, and he pulled her into his arms. "It's all right, honey. It was just a nightmare."

  She whimpered. He could feel her softness shrinking from his embrace, as if she feared his comfort, so he hushed her and stroked her back, cupping her head against the steady cadence of his heart.

  An unfamiliar chivalry had seized him. Tenderness, protectiveness, and strength all melted through him in one golden, satisfying glow. For once, he behaved by instinct rather than design, and the realization shook him. He wasn't a selfless man. He wasn't any hero. And yet, for perhaps the first time in his life, he wasn't playacting for a woman, either.

  Silver shivered against the warmth of Rafe's length, letting the sweet solace of his thrumming heart soothe the ragged endings of her nerves. She hadn't meant to let him hold her; she hadn't meant to rest her cheek against the crisp, tawny hairs that blanketed his chest, or let her fingers slide beneath sagging linen placards to touch firm, vital flesh. Never in a million lifetimes would she have thought she could feel safe with Raphael Jones. Never would she have dreamed she might trust him to cradle her waist, or comb his fingers through her hair... or kiss her temple.

  Her pulse did a dizzying little dance as his lips, petal-soft with persuasion, drifted lower. Warm, moist breaths skimmed her cheek and tickled her earlobe before she felt the nuzzling caress of mouth and tongue in the tender hollow of her throat. Her heart leaped hard enough to burst the fortress of her ribs, and when she moaned a weak protest, he kneaded the base of her skull, coaxing her head higher.

  "Silver." His voice was velvet, shimmering over her senses, a golden thread of reason in the dazed, white numbness of her brain. "Let me kiss you."

  She couldn't think how to stop him, much less why she should. Her arms, more rubber than sinew, bowed as he pulled her closer, and when she might have protested the intimacy of her breasts, pressed so deliciously flat against the hardness of his chest, his tongue tasted hers. It was a heady sensation. If she'd had one shred of common sense left, she would have backed from his arms.

  But his palm spanned her buttocks, tucking her hips against his, and she was imprisoned in a wondrous cage of seductive pressures and shivery pleasures.

  His lips coax
ed and teased. The sweetness of brandy slid over her tongue. She wasn't sure where the taste of him ended and the scent of him began; he was citrus and pine, sandalwood and leather, and the faint, alluring pungence of tobacco. Her vague uneasiness splintered, scattering like smoke on the wind.

  When his thumb stroked her throat, when his feathery kisses rained down on her eyes, nose, and jaw, she felt the restless rise of longing. It seemed right and natural somehow for her hand to creep to his hair, to revel in the thick, burnished waves that slid through her fingers before she pulled his head lower, guiding his mouth back to hers.

  "Silver."

  His kiss was hungrier this time. Entranced, she sank deeper into the web of sensation that he spun. His lips slanted across hers; his tongue pushed and plundered. She trembled as heat pooled in her belly. She gasped as his fingers slyly brushed her nipple and his maleness grew more prominent against her femininity.

  "Rafe," she warned uneasily.

  His head rose, and his hands stilled instantly. She could hear the ragged sawing of his breaths, the fevered tempo of his heart. She didn't know what she regretted more, the cool gust of reason that shivered up her spine, or the glittering disappointment that blazed through her limbs.

  "I... we... please." She knew she wasn't making sense. She wanted more, so much more, and when she gathered the courage to meet his heavy-lidded stare, she knew she could have it. All of it. But she was afraid.

  "I have to go," she whispered lamely.

  "Silver."

  She trembled, faltering in midturn. Nothing held her but the smoky softness of his voice. She liked to think she heard concern in its timbre. But she didn't dare trust her senses. Not after the way he'd made them betray her.

  "Since you're afraid of intruders, I could accompany you to your bedroom and—"

  "No!"

  He grew very still.

  "I was merely going to suggest," he continued with resolute calmness, "that I would inspect your door and windows to make sure they're secure."

  Tears threatened to rob her vision. "That won't be necessary."