It Takes a Hero (35 page)

Within a hairsbreadth of her lips, he inhaled the scent of wild roses that filled his starved senses.

"I will not be naysaid, Rafe. Never again," she whispered, and leaned forward to kiss him.

Her lips touched his with a moment's hesitation, and then they opened up to him with a pleading urgency.

Love me, Rafe. Love me.

He caught hold of her and hauled her into his lap, his lips devouring her. "Oh, Rebecca," he uttered between kisses.

"Rafe," she whispered back. "I feared you were lost."

"Not when I am with you."

He kissed her again.
Dios
, it was so easy to believe that she was his, that they were meant to be together with her willing lips teasing him senseless.

And the bold minx wasted no time, for before he knew it she was laying back in the seat and he was atop her.

She clung to him stubbornly, wantonly, her fingers winding in his hair, clinging to his jacket.

The kiss that had brought them together once again, deepened, bringing him to the brink of admitting everything. How wrong he'd been to leave her so abruptly, how much he needed her in his life, how much he loved her.

But what could he give her?

Love.

Her lips pleaded for his love, her eager touch pulled at him. And it terrified him.

Abruptly he yanked himself free.

She gasped for air, then glared at him. And she knew. Saw his cowardice.

"Rafe, you shouldn't have left me."

Oh, how her accusation stung. "I had to," he confessed. "Don't you see that?"

"No, I do not," she replied, sitting up and making a futile attempt to pat her wayward hair back into its London semblance of order.

He would have liked to point out that she was attempting the impossible now. She'd become once again his tumbledown spinster and he loved it.

Loved her.

"Why did you leave me?" she demanded. Ah, his unconventional Rebecca was never one to mince words.

"I had to."

She heaved a sigh that said only too well she thought him the biggest fool in London.

And demmit, she was right. Again.

"Rebecca, can't you see why I left?"

She crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head.

"Just look at you," he said, waving his hands over her elegant new ensemble. "How could I ever afford any of this?"

She looked down at herself and frowned. "Do you think I want this?"

"Well, yes."

To his surprise, she started to laugh. Laughed until the tears ran down her cheeks. "You are such a fool, Rafe Danvers." She pointed at her hair. "Do you know how long it takes a maid to do all this?"

He shook his head. His expertise with lady's clothing and hair lay in another direction. He'd never bothered with the getting a lady dressed part.

"Two hours. Two wasted hours. Bah, all a Season means is spending a good portion of the day sleeping and the rest sitting around while you are made presentable. Then you are wedged into some crush to be viewed and judged like one of Lord Finch's hothouse flowers." She shuddered. "And then the only topics of acceptable conversation are the weather and what everyone else is wearing." Rebecca took a deep breath. "I have eyes. I can look outside and gain a full understanding of the weather, and fashion I find tedious." She caught him by the lapels and tugged him closer. "And you would abandon me to such a life? Shame on you."

"You don't want all this?"

"Gads no. I thought a silk gown would be wonderful, but it stains terribly and this torturous corset must be left over from Cromwell's reign. My old bombazine was just fine and far more comfortable."

She leaned forward and kissed him again. "Besides, you need me."

"I do not," he replied, hoping he sounded firm.

She laughed and patted his jacket in place. "Of course you don't." She leaned her head against his chest and sighed. "Of course you don't."

"Rebecca, I haven't a fortune or a title or anything to offer you."

She struggled up off his chest and faced him, her eyes alight with a passionate fire. "But you do, Rafe. You can offer me a life. I don't want to spend my days idle, I can't. But most importantly, I love you. I love who you are and everything about you, impossible man that you are."

As the words fell from her lips, he felt his heart constrict with fear.

I love you.

He'd never thought those words would mean so much to him. Rebecca loved him.

But he didn't want her love, didn't need it, he tried telling himself. He'd certainly never sought it. But all those arguments sounded hollow, even to his most strident convictions to keep his heart unencumbered.

He wasn't the man for her, for any woman for that matter. Couldn't she see that? Yet, here she was, her eyes alight for him and him alone, and she saw in him the home and hearth that she'd always desired.

And like a candle in the window, suddenly he saw how much he needed her.

Besides, if someone as sensible as his Miss Tate could make such a declaration, who was he to disavow her? Not when he felt the very same way.

"I love you too," he said in return, waiting for the feeling of irons being clapped over his precious freedom, his independence, but instead his confession had quite the opposite affect—it let in a tempest of light that chased away the demons, the many regrets that had clouded his life for as long as he could remember.

"Truly?" she asked, disbelief surrounding her query.

"Yes. I love you. With all my heart." He'd never thought any woman would want to share his reckless life, so he had to be sure. "Do you realize what you are asking?"

"Yes," she told him, and throwing herself into his arms, her eager lips sealed their fate. Their destiny. And by the time the carriage rolled to a stop in Spitalfields, Rafe knew he'd never be able to set her aside ever again.

The Royal Thistle, Mr. Purcell's new hideout, was a fine sight better than the warehouse in Shadwell, which for that, Rafe was thankful, but against his wishes, Rebecca insisted on going in alone to inquire about the man.

"Rafe, if you go in there all scowls and bluster, the man will be out the back door and down the alley before you can bribe the serving girl for information." Rebecca smoothed out her rumpled skirt. "Better I go in and make a fuss. Then you and Cochrane can watch the doors and when he comes out, you'll be able to nab him."

Cochrane jumped down from his seat. "That ought to work."

"Of course it will work," Rebecca said. "It is how Miss Darby distracted Lieutenant Throckmorten's captors in
Miss Darby's Daring Dilemma
."

"Just because it worked in your imagination, doesn't mean that you can just attempt such madcap ideas in real life," Rafe told her.

"Actually," Cochrane said, "it's not a bad plan, sir, if you don't mind me saying."

"I do," Rafe told him. But Cochrane was right, her plan did make sense. And short of tying Rebecca up, there wasn't going to be any way of making her stay put in the carriage.

"You have three minutes," he told her. "Three minutes to set your trap."

Just then a watchman walked by, and Rebecca was at the man's side in an instant. After an exchange of coins, the man joined her as she entered the Royal Thistle, and Rafe and Cochrane made their way to the alley.

It took a total of two minutes for their quarry to come climbing out a back window and down a pile of crates. Rafe nabbed him before he hit the ground.

"Let me go," the man complained, his voice tinged with a hint of brogue. "There's some bird-witted lass in there claiming I left her in Scotland with a passel of bairns and no money to feed 'em."

"Mr. Purcell, I presume?" Rafe asked.

The man's eyes narrowed to flinty slits. "That depends on who's asking."

"Perhaps I can be of some help," Rafe said, catching Purcell by the collar and hauling him down the alley. "You see, I'm looking for something and I think you have it."

"I ain't got nothing of yours," he claimed, squirming and twisting at Rafe's steely grasp. "I don't even know you."

"Yes, but you knew Richard Tate."

Purcell stilled. "Tate?" He paled visibly. "Oh, the saints help me. I don't want to die," he wailed. "I told the gentleman that was here before that I'd get it for him. I just have been a mite busy of late."

Rafe looked at him. "What gentleman?"

Purcell appeared puzzled by this and stopped his caterwauling. "You aren't here to kill me?"

"First, you tell me about this gentleman, and then I'll decide whether or not you're worth killing."

Rebecca sat in the corner of the Royal Thistle, Richard's haversack safely tucked in her lap.

Mr. Purcell, it turned out, was only too happy to be relieved of the burden. "Are you sure you are Tate's sister?" he said, his head cocked to one side as he looked at her.

"Of course," Rebecca replied. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, it's just because, well, it's because you don't look like—" He reached over and dug into the haversack, pulling out a small framed portrait.

"Oh, dear, not that," she muttered. The miniature. The one her brother had had commissioned in Calcutta. She had hoped that, of all his possessions, it had been lost for good.

Rafe caught it up and glanced down at it. Then he flinched. "Someone paid for that?"

She nodded.

"Not very flattering, Miss Tate, you must admit," Mr. Purcell said. "Now that I see you, I realize you got his eyes, and it's not hard to believe you are his sister. Tate always said you were a fine sight prettier than this, but the rest of us thought he was just saying that because you looked capable of giving a man a lifetime of nagging."

"You weren't entirely misled," Rafe told him, then shot her a wicked grin and wink.

She chose to ignore him. It was hard to be overly vexed with the scoundrel when the memory of his kiss still lingered on her lips.

"Why didn't you bring this to me?" she asked. "I sent you numerous letters and requests."

"That you did, but I've had my share of problems of late," he told her. In an aside, he whispered to Rafe. "Dice, I fear. A terrible temptation. Worse than a fine skirt."

"I wouldn't know," Rafe said. "But tell me about this gentleman who came to get Mr. Tate's haversack."

"He was a regular like gentleman. You know, nice coat, lofty manners. Told me he'd deliver it to Miss Tate for me, no bother. Found me at an inn in Richmond."

"The Royal Prince," Rebecca said. "The one before the place on Wilton Road and after the one in Bethnal Green."

"Right you are, miss," Purcell said. "You are a persistent one." He glanced over at Rafe. "There's no escaping her."

"How right you are," he agreed.

"But you didn't give Richard's haversack to the man," Rebecca said, hugging her brother's remaining possessions tighter. "Why not?"

"For good reason," Purcell said. "When I refused, he got real mean about it. Threatened me. Scared me awful bad, so I promised to get it for him and while he waited for me to go upstairs and fetch it, I slipped out the back and I've been running ever since."

"Why didn't you just give it to him?" Rafe asked.

"Because he knew Tate was murdered in Portugal."

"Murdered!" gasped Rebecca.

Purcell nodded. "Sorry, miss, to be so blunt, but your brother was murdered outside a Lisbon cantina."

"How?" Rafe asked.

Purcell's jaw worked back and forth. "Don't like to say in front of a lady." So instead, he took his finger and drew a line from his waist up to his neck. "I still wake up at night thinking of it." He glanced over at Rebecca. "Our commanding officer thought it kinder to let you think he died a hero, instead of in an alley."

"Codlin and Harrington's murderer," Rebecca whispered. "He followed Richard to Lisbon."

Rafe's blood grew cold. If the killer was desperate enough to go to such lengths to gain the ruby, no one was safe until he was stopped.

Especially not Rebecca.

She swiped at the tears spilling from her eyes. "I thank you for your honesty, sir."

"So if the official report said he was killed in action," Rafe said, pressing for details. "How would this gentleman have known differently?"

"That's what I asked myself," Purcell said, tapping his skull with a thick finger. "How did this fellow know about Tate unless he was the one who killed him? And then I figured if I gave the haversack to him, there wouldn't be anything to keep him from doing the same to me."

"Was there anything about this man that was unusual, anything that would help us identify him?"

Purcell shook his head. "Not that I can think of."

"Anything at all?" Rebecca pleaded.

The man swiped at his nose and appeared to be thinking hard. "Well, come to think of it, there was something that comes to mind. He had a fancy walking stick that pulled out and had a sword in it. A wicked looking one!"

Rebecca nodded, and smiled. "Anything else? Engraving? A gemstone?"

He snapped his fingers and said, "Now that you mention it, it was engraved. With his initial, I suppose. There was a 'K' on it."

"Kitling, I'll wager. It's got to be him." Rafe ground out. "I'll kill him when I find him."

"Not if I find him first," Rebecca said, in an equally deadly voice.

Not for first time, Rafe was relieved that the colonel had left his cannon behind in Bramley Hollow.

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When attending an elegant ball, a proper lady always maintains a respectable distance from scurrilous types that often are invited against the hostess's better judgment. Miss Darby, did you hear what I said? A proper distance.

Lady Lowthorpe to Miss Darby and

Miss Cecilia Overton

in
Miss Darby's Daring Dilemma

T
he Setchfield Ball was regarded as the highlight of any Season. An invitation was a coveted prize, mostly because the ball wasn't an annual event, but whenever the whim struck.

And this year the duke and duchess arrived in town unexpectedly and announced to their startled staff that they were going to host a ball in less than a week.