It Takes a Hero (8 page)

"I think I'll have to consult you as my resident
Darby
expert, Jemmy," Rafe teased. "You sound quite enamored."

"I'll loan you
Miss Darby's Perilous Journey
. Read how she escapes a pack of Barbary pirates and you'll see what I mean." Jemmy sighed. "She's one dashing chit."

Lady Finch cleared her throat. "So we have the Harringtons, the Gadburys, and who else?" she asked, bringing the conversation back to a more respectable subject.

"The Swantons," Mrs. Radleigh offered. "Mrs. Swanton is educated and she certainly isn't afraid to voice her opinion."

Lady Finch groaned. "That bothersome woman? Why she's the most grating, meddlesome, interfering—"

A polite fit of coughing broke out at the other end of the table. Jemmy looked about to fall out of his seat, while Mrs. Radleigh held her napkin to her twitching lips.

Lady Finch's iron brows arched. "Strike Mrs. Swanton. She couldn't possibly be who we are looking for. Anyone else?"

Jemmy cleared his throat and then said, "What about Kitling's second son?" The sly, innocuously innocent tone of his voice hinted at something else in his choice.

"Sydney?" Lady Finch said. "That idiot? You can't be serious."

"I was at Oxford with him and he was considered quite talented. They gave him the poetry prize his first year."

"Only in hopes that he wouldn't enter again," Lady Finch said. "We'll spend the evening listening to the woes and agonies he's suffered composing his latest canto."

"Yes, but I saw him riding past the gates the other day on a new mount and a well polished pair of Hessians. His father certainly didn't open his purse strings for those extravagances—we all know how tightfisted Sir David is."

"So he's come into some money?" Lady Finch asked, nodding to Mrs. Radleigh to make a notation in the book her secretary had beside her.

Jemmy shrugged. "He's managed to gain some blunt somehow. Who's to say it isn't from writing? He even bought rounds the other night at the inn."

Lady Finch's iron brows rose at this bit of news, but she didn't ask how Jemmy had come by it. Instead she turned to Rafe. "What I am willing to sacrifice to assist you, sir, you will never know, but the price is rising with every moment." She sighed and turned to Mrs. Radleigh. "If we invite the Harringtons we will have to invite Lord and Lady Kirkwood." She shot a glance at Jemmy as she added, "And do make sure to include Lady Victoria on the invitation."

"Mother!" Jemmy protested. "You'll not turn this night into one of your misguided attempts at matchmaking."

"Misguided?" She fluffed her napkin and settled it back down on her lap. "I'll have you know that there is an immeasurable number of couples in England who count their happiness as a direct result of my 'misguided matchmaking.' "

"And how many more that wished your unsolicited advice had gone astray?" he countered.

Mrs. Radleigh's napkin was back up at her lips.

"Bah!" Lady Finch told him. "Lady Victoria may likely be our author."

"Victoria? I think not," Jemmy said. "I would be more inclined to think it is Mrs. Radleigh than Kirkwood's daughter."

All eyes turned to Lady Finch's secretary.

"Me?" she said. "I hardly think so."

"You lived in India," Jemmy said. "And your husband was in the military. And you are always writing."

"Letters for your mother," she countered. "When would I have the time to compose novels?"

"True enough," Jemmy conceded, then winked broadly at the rest of the diners.

Lord Finch nodded to Addison. The butler filled the baron's wineglass. "If you are going to include all the likely suspects, you'd best invite Colonel Posthill and Miss Tate."

"Miss Tate?" Rafe asked, his ears perking up at the familiar name. "Miss Rebecca Tate?"

Jemmy's eyes narrowed. "You know Bex?"

"Bex?" he asked.

"Miss Tate. Bex is what the colonel calls her."

"Is she an infuriating minx with red hair?"

Jemmy laughed. "You've met our Bex," he said, before his gaze narrowed. "You've wasted little time if you've already made the lady's acquaintance."

"She was at the Post Office this afternoon when I made inquiries there."

"Isn't she the one who led you on that merry chase through the graveyard?" Cochrane interjected.

Curious looks broke out around the table.

Rafe shot Cochrane a dire look meant to tell the young man this might be his last meal.

"Never mind," Cochrane said, happily digging into the plate of beef Addison was offering.

"Fetching, isn't she?" Jemmy was saying. "But be warned, better to invite her up here than to try calling on her. The Colonel is apt to send you to an early grave if you arrive unannounced on one of his off days."

"Off?" Rafe asked.

"He's a bit daft," Jemmy said. "Likes to keep a Brown Bess at the ready, in case of invasion and all. Even bought a cannon and had it fixed in his garden pointed toward France. Fires it off periodically just to keep the enemy in check, or so he likes to say. The fellow refuses to believe that Bramley Hollow isn't on the verge of being overrun."

Lady Finch motioned for one of the footmen to remove her plate. "The poor colonel took a fever a few years ago and hasn't been the same since," She folded her napkin and placed it on the table. "He is a distant cousin of Lord Finch and when the poor man returned to England, and under rather difficult circumstances, we offered him the use of the Bramley cottage."

"And Miss Tate?" Rafe asked purely out of professional curiosity. Fetching though she might be, she'd led him on a merry chase and that he didn't appreciate. Besides, he still hadn't shaken his suspicions about her—or that first heart-stopping glance she'd shot at him over her shoulder, with the same deadly accuracy as a French sniper. Oh, there was more to the lady than just a spinster with a wry sense of humor. "Who is she?"

"His niece," Lady Finch said. "On his late wife's side. Miss Tate and her brother Richard used to live here in Bramley Hollow when they were children. Her father fancied himself something of a treasure hunter, but he never found a blessed thing. Rather, he ran through nearly every penny they had chasing myths, until he beggared them completely trying to get the entire family to India after some nonsense or another. As luck would have it, both he and Mrs. Tate died on the passage. Fortunately, the colonel and his wife took the children in when they arrived in Calcutta."

Jemmy leaned forward. "I doubt Bex is your author, what with the colonel's illness and all. He's mad as a lark most of the time. He's run them through a passel of housekeepers, while Rebecca spends a good deal of time appeasing the neighbors because the colonel's spent the afternoon shooting at their chickens. The gel hasn't got two seconds to spare most of the time."

"The colonel is, however, a rare fellow when he's lucid," Lord Finch added. "Unbeatable in chess. And devoted to Bex. And when he is in his right mind, an admirable scholar. Why, he's always asking for one of Evaline's couriers to fetch him some Persian tract or odd translation."

That explained the Sutton volume in her market basket, Rafe reasoned, though it didn't shake his suspicions.

"And the brother? Richard?" Rafe asked. "Where is he?"

There were downcast glances all around.

"Dead. Died fighting on the Peninsula," Lady Finch finally said. "Broke the colonel's heart, for he thought of Richard like a son." She sighed. "Richard was a dear boy. He came to see us just after Jemmy left for Spain and stayed with us until he could arrange for his own commission."

"Still, if anyone deserves a bit of your meddling, mother," Jemmy said, "it would be Rebecca." He turned to Rafe. "A bit old for the Marriage Mart, still she's the type of girl who could sneak up on a fellow, and before he knew it, find he's fallen for her."

Only if he'd been struck on the head
, Rafe thought, thinking the man who found himself in love with that vexing bit of muslin ought to reserve a seat at Bedlam right next to her uncle's.

But still the image of her sparkling eyes and pert lips left him oddly unbalanced. He tried to tell himself it was just because she'd gotten the better of him—at least this time.

This time?
Gads, he needed to get out of Bramley Hollow post haste when some spinster got him feeling all cork-brained.

"How soon could you manage to put together this dinner?" Rafe asked.

Lady Finch smiled. "Would tomorrow suit you? If I must have these people in my house, let's get it over with quickly before we all come to our senses."

Jemmy groaned. "Say you do find this author, what then?"

"I've got to convince them to stop writing," Rafe told him.

"Seems a shame," Jemmy said. "I'll miss those books."

After dinner, Lady Finch insisted Rafe and Cochrane stay with them. Before he could refuse, she ordered rooms prepared and Cochrane's preferences for breakfast passed on to the cook. Rafe witnessed firsthand the indomitable Lady Finch in action.

So when it came time for Jemmy to leave for the gatehouse, Rafe offered to walk down with him. The idea of being cooped up in the same house with a woman known for her matchmaking schemes and penchant for gossip was enough to send him hightailing outside with the feeble excuse that he wanted to catch up on old war stories.

The war, Rafe suspected, was the last thing James Reyburn would want to discuss. And he was right.

"You've unleashed the dragon, I hope you know," Jemmy told him, his cane crunching into the gravel of the drive. "She'll not rest until she helps you discover this poor author. Badger you and nag you until… well, until…"

"Until you move into the gatehouse?" Rafe suggested.

Jemmy nodded. "Yes. I suppose so." He grinned and continued his slow, beleaguered pace toward his solitary residence.

"She's worried about you," Rafe said, after a few moments of silence.

"I know."

Demmit, so was he. He'd never realized how badly Jemmy's injuries had crippled him, or that he avoided society because of them. And a large part of Rafe felt the sting of guilt that he had never bothered to discover the truth about Jemmy for himself, so caught up was he in his own life.

"Now that I've seen you, so am I," Rafe admitted.

"Thank you, but I don't need—"

Rafe stopped in his tracks. "Yes, you do. Jemmy, you can't hide from what happened to you. You're alive, for Christ's sake. You saw how many people didn't come home. You've got to live, if not for yourself, then for the poor bastards buried back there. Gads, it's not like there is anything to stop you."

And all of sudden, Rafe realized how much he envied Jemmy. Probably always had. An heir to a respected barony, wealthy, respected by society. Here was a young man who had a firm place in the
ton
and instead he hid away from it.

"Come to London," he said, trying a lighter tone. "We'll go out and do the town right. You can buy," he offered. "Besides, you can't hide forever."

But his words had no effect. Jemmy's jaw set in a determined line that was most likely inherited from his mother. Pride and fear burned in his gaze. "I damn well can," he said. "And I damn well will."

He hobbled off, up the steps of the gatehouse and closed the door. Moments later, a single candle moved through the house, then was snuffed and the place was cast into darkness.

Not unlike the occupant.

And Rafe realized that the small favor that Lady Finch had asked of him, to help her son, was going to be far more difficult to fulfill than he'd imagined.

«
^
»

There is a vast difference between a rapscallion and a gentleman. A discerning lady knows which to kiss and which to marry.

Lady Lowthorpe to Miss Darby

in
Miss Darby's Reckless Bargain

R
afe stood at the gates of Finch Manor long after Jemmy had gone inside and cursed the past fortnight.

Why had he ever answered Lady Tottley's summons? This simple assignment was turning into far more work than he wanted to invest.

First of all, how the devil was he going to help Jemmy Reyburn? The very idea curled in his gut like sour milk. For he suspected that if he were to nudge Jemmy back into society, he may well find himself on that same reluctant road.

"And it wouldn't hurt you none either," a voice said.

Rafe looked up to find an old woman standing in the middle of the road. With a knit shawl tossed over her shoulders and a plain little bonnet on her head, she might have been just another wrinkled village crone, but the lady shot him a saucy wink and swung her flower filled basket like a flirtatious milkmaid.

He glanced down the road in either direction and swore she hadn't been there a few moments before.

When he looked at her again, she was grinning.

"Never you mind where I came from. What matters is where I am going. Home it is, and you are going to walk me there. I'm not as spry as I used to be and you look capable enough." She shot him another wink and slid her hand into the crook of his arm and started down the road, towing him along until he fell into step beside her.

For a wee bit of a thing she had a grip like a dockhand.

"I wasn't planning on—" he said, glancing over his shoulder at the gates.

"Never you mind about Lady Finch. You just tell her Esme borrowed you for a bit." Her fingers gave his arm a squeeze. "Now why don't you tell me what you are looking for?"

"Looking for?" Rafe looked down at his newfound companion and wondered if everyone in Bramley Hollow knew of his quest. "I'm not—"

"Nonsense! Of course you are looking for someone. No one comes to Bramley Hollow unless they are looking for someone."

Esme
. That name now rang a bell. What was it the postmistress had said earlier?

Esme Maguire. The matchmaker.

Rafe came to an abrupt halt. "Now listen here, I'm not here to… to…"

"Get matched?"

"Exactly."

"Of course you aren't," she said, tugging on his arm anew and setting them back on their amble down the road. "No one is. Or at least not that they'd confess."