Scoundrel for Hire (Velvet Lies, Book 1)

by Adrienne deWolfe

  So help her God, if she found him eavesdropping in the hall, she'd give him one.

  Meanwhile, Rafe had grown composed enough to turn and face his visitor. "Fiona," he greeted her, his voice pleasant, his eyes more turbulent than a midsummer snowstorm. "How good to see you so healthy. Why, was it only three weeks ago that you were wasting away at death's door?"

  The woman visibly winced, glancing at Silver. However, whether Fiona was worried that Rafe might unleash his simmering temper on her, or confused that he'd dropped his Chumley facade in front of a prime mark, wasn't clear.

  "I, uh, came to explain that little misunderstanding to you, luv," she wheedled in a far less cultured accent.

  "You mean to confess?" His smile was as dazzling as ice in the sunlight. "Why, what a novel approach."

  Silver's innards writhed at the bite of Rafe's sarcasm. Again, Fiona glanced her way, as if the woman were hesitant to discuss the matter before an audience.

  Silver decided to take her cue. As much as she was dying to know what Fiona had done to make Rafe so bitter, Silver couldn't allow herself to eavesdrop any more than she had allowed Benson to. Besides, she was worried that her butler was prowling the hall, seeking information to unmask Rafe for good.

  "If you and Mrs. Fairgate will excuse me, Your Grace—" she emphasized the bogus title—"I'll, uh, see that Tavy is made ready for her photograph."

  Never having held an otter before, however, she juggled the pup none too elegantly against her chest. Tavy managed to wriggle upright, planting her front paws on Silver's shoulder, whimpering for the master she was leaving behind. Silver felt unaccountably guilty as she pulled the door closed.

  At least, she thought grimly, there was no butler lurking in the shadows. But Benson was nothing if not clever, and she wondered if she might not be wise to guard the door, in case he had an attack of servile dedication and returned with a tray of refreshments.

  Unfortunately, this thought was punctuated by a paw, which swiped five webbed and sharply clawed toes after her earring.

  "Ouch!" She glared down into bright, inquisitive eyes and a full set of fishbone-grinding teeth. "You're going straight to your cage, fish puss. Just as soon as I find it," she added grudgingly.

  Tavy stuck a wet nose in her ear. Silver nearly jumped out of her skin. Otters, she grumbled under her breath. Whatever would possess a man to keep one?

  By the time she reached Rafe's bedroom, a full wing away, Tavy had apparently forgotten her master. Considering how busy the pup had been, Silver wasn't surprised. The little monster had pulled the entire left side of her coiffure down, gnawed the point of her collar, and chewed a sterling button clean off her bodice. In fact, the pup had swallowed it before Silver could pry the creature's jaws apart and fish it from her mouth.

  On second thought, Silver mused queasily, recalling the heap of crayfish shells she'd once seen Jimmy toting to the kitchen, maybe prying open otter jaws isn't such a good idea.

  "Octavia, you are a menace," she told the creature sternly, pausing outside Rafe's closed door and gathering the nerve to march in.

  Tavy planted a fishy kiss on her jaw.

  Silver wrinkled her nose, as much at the smell as the ticklish sensation of whiskers. She wondered if Rafe had trained his pet to kiss... or if otters went about kissing each other naturally. She guessed the former. And what earthly good would that skill be for a defenseless baby otter in the wild? Honestly, how did Rafe hope to send Tavy out among coyotes and wolves?

  She eased the door open. Knowing that she was perfectly safe, that Rafe was probably tongue-lashing Fiona half a house away, brought a traitorous sense of disappointment rather than relief. Silver was appalled by the realization. Still, there was no use denying it. She didn't know exactly when her heart had changed, or even when the idea had taken root, but God help her, she wanted to feel safe in a man's arms again. And she wanted that man to be Rafe.

  "He is rather charming, isn't he, Octavia?" she murmured, her heart quickening as she forced her feet across the threshold. Clutching the pup closer for moral support, she continued, "And he's dashing, handsome, and... well, sweet. In a wicked sort of way."

  Tavy's head bobbed, as if she agreed. Silver darted her a dubious glance. What's more likely is the little scamp just spotted the flash of an earring on the other side of my head.

  She hastily tucked that bangle, too, in a pocket concealed within the folds of her skirt.

  Then, gulping a steadying breath, she gazed around the guest room that, for the last three weeks, had become her scoundrel's lair. She wasn't sure what she'd expected. False whiskers, marked playing cards, carefully cross-referenced books of love poetry for dupes like her?

  Instead, she was pleasantly surprised. Rafe hadn't left empty champagne bottles or the calling cards of half-naked women strewn across his bed; in fact, she could detect no visible evidence of a decadent life. His belongings were rather Spartan for a man with his flare for the dramatic. She detected only one battered trunk in the whole of the lavishly decorated room, and since it was open, she could see its contents: his flannel shirt, several pairs of woolen socks, an Indian blanket, and what appeared to be a sewing kit. Curiously, the trunk was three-quarters empty; spying Tavy's open cage on the window seat, she wondered if it fit as neatly into that void as its appearance suggested.

  So that's how he smuggles his little darling into grand hotels and the homes of the well-to-do, eh?

  The shaving brush and razor he'd left on her marble washstand were humble affairs, sporting wood, rather than bone or ivory, handles. His four-pronged comb still looked suspiciously like the tree limb he must have carved it from.

  It occurred to her then that while he played incessantly with his quizzing glass, which, he'd once confessed, he'd "borrowed" from a former employer's prop wagon, she'd never seen him wear a watchfob. Or cuff links. Or even a signet ring. Didn't he own a single manly vanity? Where the devil was he spending all the money she paid him, if he wasn't spending it on himself?

  "Your master is proving to be quite an enigma," she told Tavy as the pup squirmed, barking at a monarch butterfly that had alighted on the window ledge.

  Silver half smiled, lowering the pup to the floor. Tavy, rippling with excitement, waddled with surprising speed to greet the new playmate. Of course, by the time Tavy shimmied onto the seat, the butterfly had flown away.

  Tavy's whiskers fell. She tried to claw her way out on the ledge, but Rafe had constructed some sort of wire mesh to keep her from taking flight herself and plummeting to the lawn below.

  Silver's heart twisted to watch the pup gnaw so futilely on the cross-hatches that barred her freedom. Somehow, her original idea, to shove Tavy into a cage and bolt the door, seemed heinous now. Silver was ashamed she'd ever intended to do so.

  "I'm sorry, Tavy," she murmured, understanding now why Rafe couldn't bear to cage his pet.

  But even a mansion as big as hers would eventually feel like a cage to a full-grown, twenty-pound otter. As much as Tavy had been driving her crazy with her escapades, Silver supposed it wasn't fair to expect a wild creature to sit still, nibble neatly, and otherwise behave according to human rules of decorum. Tavy needed all the outdoors in which to romp and satisfy her curiosity.

  In fact, Tavy needed her own personal den soon.

  "Don't worry, sweetheart. We'll find you a home in a river far from sawmills and lumberyards, a river with lots of butterflies, and crayfish, and other otters, too."

  When she realized she'd included herself in the home-finding quest, Silver shook her head in bemusement. Rafe's influence was more seductive than she'd realized. Why, three weeks ago, she'd never given a passing thought to otters, much less the rivers they inhabited.

  Now she found herself wondering what happened to otters, crayfish, and frogs when the water they lived in was choked full of wood pulp. What did they eat? How did they survive?

  An unsettling thought followed: Maybe they didn't.

  A resounding slam vibr
ated all the way through the house.

  Silver caught her breath. Even Tavy raised her head, pricking her ears at the sound.

  Rafe.

  Silver stood like stone, her heart thudding painfully against her ribs. She knew the culprit had to be him. None of the servants would dare slam a door in her home. And Papa's happy-go-lucky nature never allowed him to get that angry.

  Anxiously, she tiptoed to the door and cracked it open. Was Rafe coming this way? Did she really want to be here, in his bedroom, if he was?

  She'd come so far over the last five years, forcing herself not to flee from blustering Union leaders, braving the temper tantrums of teamsters, investors, and lumbermen. Nevertheless, standing in Rafe's private quarters, the old dread coiled through her gut. She hated the fact that images of Aaron, kneeling over her, flashed through her mind. But she couldn't stop them any more than she could keep her knees from quaking at the memory—and at what she'd had to do to break free of him.

  She'd been terrified; she'd been protecting herself, but who would have believed her? She'd sneaked through her window not once but several times to meet him after midnight. She was lucky Aaron hadn't sent the entire Philadelphia police force after her. She was lucky she wasn't locked in some woman's reformatory... or swinging from a gallows.

  She shuddered, stepping into the hall. She didn't want to come that close to taking a man's life again.

  Tavy yipped as Silver pulled open the door. Seeing the rainbowed light pouring in from the hall's vaulted windows, the otter thumped eagerly down to the carpet.

  "Oh, no you don't," Silver muttered as the pup, webbed paws slapping, made an awkward but no less exuberant beeline for freedom. Her hands shaking, Silver hastily shut the door. She could hear Rafe's footsteps heading her way.

  "Coward, " she chided herself. "He's not even angry with you."

  And he was Rafe, after all. Any man who raised orphaned otters and played Beethoven in memory of his mother had to be crushingly sensitive, no matter how adept he'd become at hiding wounds that festered so deeply.

  And if anyone understood pain of that nature, it was she.

  On the other hand, his otter had practically undressed her. When Aaron had accused her of cockteasing, she hadn't stood before him with her hair in wanton disarray. She hadn't flaunted her corset and chemise through a gaping bodice. In such a state of dishabille, could she blame Rafe if he concluded she was loitering outside his bedroom to entice him?

  She winced. He'd already withstood the temptation of her bathrobe and her nightdress. She didn't want to try fate a third time.

  Slinking into an adjacent bedroom, she did her best to repair herself with nervous, fumbling fingers and the broach she'd been wearing, thankfully, on the side of her gown Tavy hadn't gnawed. She needn't have gone through the trouble, though. Five minutes ticked by, and Rafe still hadn't stormed past her hideout to slam a second door. She ventured a peek into the hall. Maybe he wasn't coming this way, after all.

  She was nearly as chagrined as she was relieved.

  Had he left the house? His departure stood to reason, if only to keep Benson from jeering at him. Damn Fiona anyway. What if the woman had driven him away for good?

  Presentable once more, Silver hurried toward the rear staircase. She was planning to go to the stables and see if a groom had seen Rafe ride away. Unfortunately, she had to pass her office on this mission. And the sobbing behind the door was unmistakable.

  She scowled at the sound. Lord, what had Rafe said to Fiona? Or more to the point, what had she done to him?

  Recalling the hurt beneath his devil-may-care facade, Silver's fingers curled into fists. She didn't know everything there was to know about him, of course, but surely Rafe didn't deserve that kind of heartache. She had half a mind to march into the office and give that woman a verbal thrashing that would make Rafe's door-slamming seem tame.

  But Fiona was in tears. And while Silver would have much preferred to comfort Rafe than Fiona, good breeding won out over personal whim. Gritting her teeth, she mustered a semblance of compassion and rapped on the door before walking in.

  Fiona was huddled in the embrace of a wing chair, her eye paint muddied, her facial powder streaked red and blue. Silver sighed, fishing a handkerchief from a skirt pocket. Even without the colored rivulets that ran from Fiona's eyelashes to her chin, she would have had to be a consummate actress to fake puffy eyes and a mottled nose.

  "Is there anything I can get you?" Silver asked quietly.

  A rising blush helped offset the pallor beneath Fiona's rouge. "D-did Rafe leave?"

  "I believe so."

  "For the marshal's office?" The hope swimming in Fiona's eyes was hard to mistake.

  Jesus. The woman wanted Rafe to go to the Marshal's office? Didn't she know that was the last place he should be showing his face—even in disguise?

  "He didn't say," Silver replied cautiously. "Why? What happened?"

  Fiona delayed her answer, dabbing at her cheeks, her nose, her eyes. Silver sensed a deception coming on.

  "Let me be quite frank with you, Mrs. Fairgate. You have exactly five minutes to convince me why I shouldn't have my butler throw you out."

  Her chin quivered, but a spark of ire helped to dry those moss green eyes. "Now see here, miss, I may not be as fine as you and all yer kinfolk, but in Mayfair, a lady of yer ilk would show a bit of compassion for a poor—"

  "Four and a half minutes, madam."

  Fiona blew out her breath. Silver arched an eyebrow.

  "My Freddie's in jail."

  "And Freddie would be?..."

  "My husband."

  "I see."

  "You know him, miss," Fiona continued urgently. "Fact is, you two had a nice chat about business at the Leadville Mining Exchange. It would've been about three weeks ago, now. He was the big strapping bloke with the top hat and cigar," she added with a touch of feminine pride. "You remember him, don't you?"

  Oh yes. Silver's lips twisted. She remembered "Freddie," all right. "So your husband's in jail," she said crisply. "An unfortunate circumstance for you both. But what does that have to do with Rafe?"

  Fiona blinked at her, looking genuinely aghast. "Why, he didn't tell you about us? How me and Freddie took him in? Straight outta the snow, we did. He'd been running away on bloody Christmas Day. The poor lad had just come from watching his Mama be buried, and that bastard brother of his started a brawl right on the poor woman's grave. 'Course Preacher Jones blamed Rafe, not his precious Michael."

  Silver frowned, uncertain how much to believe. "Preacher Jones? Rafe's father was a preacher?"

  "Not exactly." Fiona's smile was wry. "Never told you about Jedidiah, did he? How that holier-than-thou bastard would spout scripture while he whipped the boy? Or how he'd convinced Rafe he'd been spawned from the devil's own loins?"

  Silver winced. So that's what Rafe had meant that night in the parlor?

  "I don't know why Rafe's Mama had the poor sense to get caught two-timing Jedidiah," Fiona said more softly. "Don't know why she suffered herself and Rafe to live with an embittered old cuckold, either. But she did. And Rafe... well, he wouldn't leave her. Leastways, not 'til she died."

  A lump thickened Silver's throat. Rafe's mother had borne him in shame as an adulteress? If Fiona's tale was true, then... Silver's heart twisted. Poor Rafe.

  "How old?" she murmured. "How old was Rafe when his mother died?"

  "Fourteen." Fiona darted her a keen, assessing look. "I'm telling you, miss. Rafe owes my Freddie his life. It was Freddie who taught the lad to survive. Why, at fourteen, Rafe still didn't have the blooming sense to pack food or matches when he ran away. That preacher's son wouldn't have stood a bloody chance."

  Silver did her best to swallow her outrage over Rafe's childhood. She suspected her show of sentiment had already cost her the advantage with Fiona.

  "I suspect, Mrs. Fairgate, that while Rafe may indeed have you and, uh, Freddie to thank for his... way of life, Rafe's feelings toward
you are, frankly, hostile. I also suspect that you have a fairly good idea why. A lie you told him, perhaps?"

  Fiona grimaced, dropping her eyes to the linen she was twisting in her hands. "Freddie said you were smart," she mumbled.

  "I also suspect your husband is in jail because he got caught red-handed in one of his humbugs."

  Fiona's head jerked up at that. "Oh, no, miss. Freddie's much too clever for some tinstar to put the finger on him. Freddie got caught... well, 'cause his heart's in the right place. And whenever his heart talks louder than his head, trouble's sure to follow."

  "The point in question being?..."

  Fiona fidgeted. Either she disliked direct questions or she was wracking her imagination for a plausible lie. In either event, Silver wasn't going to let Fiona lead her down the garden path. She folded her arms across her breasts. "You're wasting time, Mrs. Fairgate."

  "It's a delicate matter," she hedged.

  "You will find me much more patient, not to mention understanding, if you tell the truth. What did Freddie do?"

  Fiona raised her chin. Behind the mutinous glare, pride gleamed unmistakably in her eyes. "He tried to smash the face of some rich bloke who beat the bloody hell out of one of our chorus girls."

  Silver's heart quickened as she let that information sink in. "When?"

  "Two weeks ago."

  An eerie shiver gusted down Silver's spine. She had no reason to doubt Fiona's tale. In fact, she had a couple of unpleasant personal reasons to believe her. "How is the girl?" she asked quietly.

  Fiona shook her head, fumbling with the handkerchief again. "Not good. The doc says Amy ain't likely to dance for a long time. Maybe never."

  It was Silver's turn to fidget. She had to admit, she didn't want to know that. "Is there anything I can do?"

  "We take care of our own, miss. That's why I thought Rafe would want to know. And... well, why I need his help."