Scoundrel for Hire (Velvet Lies, Book 1)

by Adrienne deWolfe

  The door crashed open at her push, and Tavy, jumping a foot high, fled with her ears closed, and her tail tucked, to the bed's underbelly.

  "What the dev—?" Rafe spun, his shaving brush poised in mid-air. He gaped when he saw her, and suds dripped unheeded onto the glistening hairs of his chest. "Silver, what is it?" he asked anxiously, taking a step closer. "Is it Townsend?"

  She was shaking so hard that she didn't even have the presence of mind to fear his all-but-naked state. The only thing she could do in that moment, when confronted by the strength of those sinewy arms, shoulders, and thighs, was clench her fists in escalating rage.

  "No," she bit out, her teeth chattering between words. "It's you! You lying bastard. After everything I told you about Aaron and me, after everything you heard him say and watched him do, how could you?"

  Rafe blinked, dumbstruck. How could he have possibly done anything to evoke this much fury in the woman he loved? In the three hours since he'd tenderly kissed her and left her smiling through her dreams, he'd crawled into his own bed and slept blissfully, dreaming up ways to get even with Townsend.

  "Silver." He kept his tone as steady as his startled heart, which was still ricocheting off his ribs, would allow. "Calm down. Take a deep breath. What is it you think I did?"

  Uh-oh. Wrong approach. He could see his mistake clearly in the crimson that mottled her cheeks.

  "You know very well what you did!" she flung back, her bodice heaving hard enough to strain its pearl buttons. "You used me! Just like Aaron. I was nothing more than a means to your end!"

  "I'm not sure I follow—"

  "You seduced me so you could be a partner in Papa's business!"

  His breath rattled in his throat. Jesus. She talked to Max.

  "Silver, I assure you, that's not true." Dammit, Max. You knew she would react this way if she learned about the wedding deal. "I don't know what Max told you, honey, but—"

  "Don't you 'honey' me! I am not your 'honey.' Nor will I ever be!" A sob tore from her lips. "How could you be so cruel?"

  He swallowed, not sure himself that he wasn't the biggest sonuvabitch on the planet. He had set out to seduce her, after all. He'd just never planned on it being the most sacred, God-affirming experience of his life.

  "Silver, please. You're upset. Why don't you shut the door, and we'll—"

  "No! I'm not falling for any more of your tricks, damn you. Or any more of your lines, either! It's closing night at the Nichols Theater, although I have to hand it to you, Rafe: Your performance was magnificent. Better than I paid for. Do take a bow."

  He flinched, and she dashed away tears with an angry hand.

  "How you must have gloated to hear me say I love you. To hear me cry out your name again and again as you had your way with me—ha! Lovemaking, you called it!"

  "It was lovemaking," he growled, his own fists clenching with upset now. "What happened between us was nothing like what happened between you and Townsend-—"

  "I didn't say it was!"

  Her words throbbed between them, vibrating into a brittle, anguished silence.

  Then she grew stiffer. The blast of heat from her glare was enough to incinerate him.

  "Are you proud of making me your conquest? Does it feel good to know how much you've hurt me?"

  "My God, Silver, I never wanted to hurt you," he whispered rawly. "In the beginning, it's true, Max approached me. But I never intended to follow through. I never intended to stick around long enough to be his business partner. I'm a renegade, a confidence man. You knew that. I never dreamed you'd fall in love with me. And I didn't plan on falling in love with you."

  "You fell in love with Nichols money!"

  "That is not true!"

  "You lied a lot better last night," she lashed out, "when you said you wanted to make all my love dreams come true."

  His breath rasped. If she had clawed open his chest with her bare hands, she couldn't have dealt him a more mortal wound.

  "You know my love for you is real."

  "Do I? When you make your living telling people what they want to hear?" Her lips trembled into a sneer. "About the only truth you ever did tell me was that I'd regret us. Congratulations: I do. I want you out of this house by luncheon. And take your otter, too!"

  She spun on her heel, storming for the hall, and Rafe reeled, his world crashing around him.

  "No! Silver, stop!" Heedless of his shirtless, shoeless state, he bounded after her, panic streaking hotter than lightning through his limbs. "For God's sake, listen to me!"

  But she wouldn't stop. She wouldn't listen. In his desperation, he grabbed her arm—another mistake. She shrieked, twisting frantically.

  "Let me go!" Fear vied with the outrage on her features. Her petticoats tripped them both up, and when she teetered, nearly toppling down the stairs, he lunged, locking an arm around her waist. A resounding crack echoed off the walls around them. He staggered backwards, his palm to his cheek. It took a full second for the blistering heat of her slap to register on his shocked senses.

  "Don't you dare touch me," she spat, retreating into the banister like a cornered animal. "Don't you ever touch me again!"

  Then she fled, hiccupping with sobs. The broken, inconsolable sounds bludgeoned his heart. It was only when she practically bowled over Max, standing at the foot of the stairs, that Rafe realized the millionaire had overheard their entire confrontation.

  Max's face, crumpled with worry, tipped up to regard Rafe. "That didn't go so well, son."

  Rafe nodded weakly. He gripped the banister with a bloodless fist as he watched her run out the door to God-only-knew where. Even if he was a liar, an idiot who'd poisoned paradise with his own self-serving silence, he deserved a second chance. She'd taught him that. She'd taught him even he wasn't too heinous to be loved.

  "I have to go after her," he announced grimly.

  "Whoa, there." Max hastened to the center of the stairs and barred Rafe's descent. "Hold your horses, son. In the first place, you're not dressed for it. In the second..." He met Rafe's angry, desperate glare with an unflinching stare of his own.

  "You're too riled to talk sense into anyone—much less a woman."

  "That's a hell of a thing to say. Especially about your own daughter. Now get out of my way."

  "How come?"

  "Because I love her!"

  "Yeah?" Max cocked his head and gave him a narrow, appraising look. "So you'd run naked through the streets for her, huh?"

  Rafe's face burned. "Do you think I give a damn if some Hallam Street biddy sees me in shorts?"

  "No. No, I reckon you don't." Max did a masterful job of wiping off his smirk and tossed Rafe his suit-coat. "But Silver might. She's, uh, kind of particular about reputations. And you wouldn't want to give her any more reason not to marry you, right?"

  Frustrated by such a truth, Rafe dragged on the jacket—too roomy through the waist and short in the sleeves—but his attention was riveted on the sidewalk outside, where passersby strolled with fringed parasols, white mopcaps, and shaded baby carriages.

  "Where do you think she went?" he asked, biting his tongue on the excruciating afterthought, 'To Marshal Hawthorne?''

  "Don't know. Can't see how it matters, though. She'll come back. And when she does, you'll be gone."

  "What?" Rafe's gaze snapped back to the stoic older man's. "Now see here, Max, I'm not walking out that door until I've had the chance to redeem myself. Nothing she thinks about me is true. Nothing. I'd rather be drawn and quartered than make her hurt that way."

  "I know, son," Max said more gently. "But she's a woman. And women like to weep and wail, and throw tantrums every now and again. I think it's in their blood. Kinda like weddings. Neither's much fun for us menfolk. But the good news is, once the lady's done, she likes to make up, if you catch my meaning. Silver loves you. She told me so herself. And that gal of mine's too full of heart to stop loving a man overnight.

  "'Course," he added ruefully, "she does need to blow a bi
t more wind out of her sails, and a squall like that could last a couple of days—at least." He grimaced, as if at some private memory. "Why don't you go on up to Swindler's Creek? Take along Tavy and see if you can't get her accustomed to being wild. In a week or so, Silver'll get to missing you, and she'll be a whole lot more reasonable. You can talk to her then."

  Rafe shifted from foot to foot, seeing the wisdom in the millionaire's advice, yet reluctant to leave Silver behind. Townsend and his threats were too fresh in his mind.

  "If I go, you've got to make me a promise, Max. You've got to keep her safe. And that means keeping her away from Townsend."

  Max nodded, his face growing uncharacteristically grim. "Yeah. Fairgate told me. About Amy, I mean. It's a damned shame. I'd just as soon shoot Townsend as look at him. And in this state, shooting trespassers ain't that much of a crime."

  Rafe smiled feebly, imagining Max, in true Western fashion, greeting the Pennsylvania congressman with a shotgun at the door. "You watch your step, Max."

  The wily old miner snorted. "I ain't afraid of a man who never got dirt under his nails his whole life long. 'Sides, I got Cellie and her spooks to look after me. I can't pick up the newspaper without that woman telling me what I'm going to read on the inside—the next day. And she's always right, too. It's damned eerie." He gave a low, throaty rumble of mirth. "We're gonna have some kind of life together, huh? You and Silver, me and Cellie—and all the spooks."

  Rafe avoided Max's eyes. He didn't share the man's confidence in Cellie's predictions, much less Max's belief that Silver would forgive him. But for now, with nothing else to cling to, Rafe did his best to believe.

  "I hope you're right, Max."

  "Well, if I'm not, we'll just get Cellie to haul out her cauldron and cook you and Silver a witchy makeup potion. You'll smell like basil for a week, but it's worth it." He winked roguishly. "You can trust me on that, son."

  * * *

  Silver spent the next two miserable days holed up in her mining superintendent's office. With no steam whistles to screech the changing shifts and no shovel stiffs to pound on the door with demands, she'd thought she'd found the ideal escape from her disastrous love affair.

  Unfortunately, the potbelly stove, greasy window, and plain pine walls weren't much of a distraction. Nor, surprisingly, was the ten-page ultimatum Kilkarney and Penhalion had left on her foreman's desk. In all that eerie mountain quiet, Silver couldn't seem to concentrate on the Union's charges of "cruel and unusual punishment" because she "forced" her stalwart miners to descend into the "haunted abyss."

  In fact, the stillness of her superintendent's office seemed louder than the dynamite blasts had ever been. She couldn't help but hear Rafe's voice in that silence, wooing her with Shakespeare, taunting her with double entendres, defending her from Aaron.

  Smuggler Mountain also brought memories of their riverbank encounter when Rafe had saved her from the spider. Whenever she rode through the pine tree graveyard or watered her horse at the river, she supposed she would think of him now. She couldn't help but wonder if he'd find a home at Swindler's Creek for Tavy and if, by chance, he'd ever return to visit his otter... or her.

  Fighting back another self-pitying sob, she pressed cool fingers to her eyelids. She couldn't remember ever crying so hard, not even after Mama had died. And all this torment for what? A man who saw nothing in her but a fortune to be wooed? What was the matter with her, weeping like a brokenhearted ninny? She knew better. It wasn't as if Raphael Jones had charged out of her dreams like some knight on a white destrier. His dishonorable character had been evident at their first meeting. She'd hired him for it, for God's sake. Hurting over the man simply didn't make sense.

  Then again, loving him didn't make sense, either.

  She'd turned out to be quite the fool, hadn't she? She, with all her lofty education in Philadelphia's finest finishing schools, had proven to be a real addlepate when it came to choosing sweethearts. As hard as they'd tried, Grandfather and Aunt Agatha had never cured her of her mother's legacy. She heartily wished they had.

  Damn you, Rafe. Did you have to make me love you? Wouldn't a simple infatuation have been victory enough?

  A muffled knock rattled the door. Startled, Silver dashed away tears, reluctant to invite anyone to witness the throes of her grief. Unfortunately, her visitor didn't stand on such ceremony.

  "Hello, dear," Celestia said, breezing in. She was wearing another of her bizarre overalls-cum-turban outfits, and from her neck hung an even more peculiar diaphanous blue sling. Inside it nestled her crystal ball, and she cradled the orb as lovingly as a baby against her portly middle.

  "I... didn't know you were here, Cellie," Silver said, relief stirring feebly inside her. At least her father's fiancée was better than all this blasted silence, even if Cellie's arrival did mean she might be dragged off on a "bangle hunt." Cellie had been accessorizing for weeks, and Silver could just imagine what Buckholtz was going to write the minute he laid eyes on Cellie's wedding sari. "Um... were you looking for Papa?"

  Apparently Cellie didn't hear her. She was too busy gazing vacuously toward the cobwebs and rafters. Suddenly her focus centered, keen and blue, on the air above Silver's head. Silver's heart gave an extra-hard thump. Cringing, she glanced up and swiped, suspicious of spiders.

  "Not to worry, dear," Cellie crooned, tugging out her crystal ball. "Not spiders, spirits."

  "Spirits?" Silver bolted out of her chair, her nerves too frazzled to rationalize such nonsense today.

  Cellie nodded absently and squinted into the sphere. "Just one, actually. He was drawn by your tears. Didn't you feel him kiss your cheek?"

  Silver groaned. She was already having second thoughts about Celestia versus silence...

  Meanwhile, Cellie was nodding and mumbling. "Go home now, dear one. You're quite lost, you know. Silver will be fine. Go home and be with God."

  Strangely enough, Silver felt every hair on her head stand on end. And then the chill that passed over her suddenly lifted.

  Cellie beamed with satisfaction. "He's gone."

  "Oh." Silver tried not to dwell on the irony of losing both Rafe and a ghostly suitor all in forty-eight hours. "That's good—I think. Uh... Cellie?"

  She was holding her ball up to the window and frowning. Apparently the grease filtered out the sunlight she needed.

  Silver took a deep breath and plunged in. "I owe you an apology. I've been horribly unkind to you. And... and you don't know the half of it. But I told Papa I'd rather you heard it from me than him."

  Or Aaron, she thought gloomily. The only bright spot of this whole shameful affair was that Aaron couldn't blackmail her anymore. She'd spilled the beans to Papa, and Rafe had safely fled Aspen. Now all she had to do was fire Benson. And she would, the minute he reappeared to claim his belongings. Strangely enough, he'd been missing ever since the night of the séance.

  And speaking of strange things....

  Cellie was rubbing vigorously, her turban bobbing and her ear hoops swinging, as she cleaned the window with her elbow. Silver sighed, wondering how anyone held a serious conversation with the woman.

  "I wanted to speak to you about Chumley. Or rather, Rafe. That's his real name, you see. I... uh, hired him to pose as Chumley."

  Cellie smiled indulgently. "I know, dear. The earl of Chumley and I are old friends. Why, I read his palm in San Francisco right before I met your father."

  Silver's jaw nearly hit the desk. "Y-you knew Rafe was an impostor? All this time? And you didn't say anything to Papa?"

  "Of course not, dear. That would have spoiled spirit's plan."

  "Spirit's plan?" Silver repeated dubiously.

  Nodding, Cellie balanced her ball on the battered tin cup the superintendent had left on the window ledge. "You're supposed to marry an angel, you see. From a family of angels: Michael, Gabriel, Seraphina, and Raphael."

  Somehow, Silver managed to hinge her jaw closed. "I think your spirits are talking about the wrong Raphael."<
br />
  "I knew you would say that, dear. That's why I brought the crystal ball."

  Silver folded her arms across her traitorously hopeful heart. Of course Cellie would know about the Jones family, she reminded herself. The woman had been run out of Blue Thunder by Jedidiah himself. "Are you sure Papa didn't put you up to this crystal-ball business? He's been wanting me to marry Rafe from the beginning, you know."

  Cellie chuckled. "'The Walrus and the Carpenter.' Yes, I remember. But you see, Max wouldn't have let you marry a flimflammer. Not unless he'd had some inkling of the good waiting to be unearthed, like a treasure, inside that dear boy. And that's why I couldn't let Max go to the Mining Exchange with you last month. I know how angry you were with me, Silver, but if I hadn't found some excuse to keep Max here, your whole future would have changed. You would have married that murderous Aaron Townsend. And you might not have survived the honeymoon."

  Silver felt her limbs drain of warmth. "Y-you know about Aaron?"

  "My dear, the spirits predicted his coming quite clearly at the séance. 'A flesh-and-blood mortal who would do others wrong.' Weren't you listening?"

  "Yes, but..." Silver swallowed, not sure she liked how neatly these coincidences were stacking up. Cellie could have heard about Aaron from Fred. After all, she'd accompanied Papa when he'd bailed Fred out of jail. "Well, anyway, I'm not going to marry Aaron. Or Rafe either, for that matter."

  "You don't mean that," Cellie said gently.

  "Yes, I do!" To her mortification, her voice broke. "He doesn't love me, Cellie. I was nothing more than a mark to him. And if I never see him again, it will be too soon."

  Cellie frowned, smoothing her hand over the ball. "You didn't say that to him did you?"

  "Well, not in so many words. But I did call his bluff. I told him he made lying his business and I wouldn't fall for any more of his tricks. Then I threw him out of the house. Tavy too."

  "Oh dear. Tavy too?" Cellie worried her bottom lip. Squinting once more, she raised the ball to chin level. "You've set things in motion, I'm afraid. We are all connected, you see. Who we meet, and how our lives come together, are all part of a divine plan. Still, I had hoped by warning everyone at the séance, the plan could be shifted a bit..."