Scoundrel for Hire (Velvet Lies, Book 1) (28 page)

Chapter 10

Silver held her breath as the two men locked eyes. For a moment, no one spoke. No one moved. And no sound resonated through the room but the crumbling of her heart. Who was this Fiona Fairgate? The idea that Rafe's mother might actually be alive, and standing in her foyer, sickened Silver.

Her stomach roiling, she gazed at his frozen profile. Had Rafe lied to her that night in the parlor? Had he made up the whole poignant story of his mother's death to woo a naive woman who'd dared to sit beside him in her nightdress?

Rafe pasted on one of his inane smiles. If he hadn't turned so ashen, she might have thought the news of his caller hadn't troubled him in the least.

"My mother, you say?" His chuckle was a trifle high-pitched. "Lud, Bennie, old boy." He dismissed the butler's announcement with a limp wave of his handkerchief. "Mrs. Fairgate is lampooning you."

"Is she indeed, Your Grace?"

If Benson's sneer piqued him, Rafe did a masterful job of concealing it. "Just so. Mrs. Fairgate
helped
rear me after Mummy died. I daresay she considers me one of her own."

Benson didn't look impressed. He didn't even look convinced.

Silver wished she could be.

She cleared her throat. "Benson, show Mrs. Fairgate up here so she and the duke can enjoy a private reunion."

Benson marshaled blandness once more. "Very well, miss."

She suspected he'd left the matter unchallenged only because he relished the impending confrontation between Rafe and Fiona.

As Benson's footfalls receded in the hall, Silver rose. She couldn't fail to notice how carefully Rafe kept his back to her. His rigid pose and darkened countenance weren't reassuring. In fact, they triggered the old, dormant fears.

"You want to tell me who Mrs. Fairgate really is?" she asked quietly, somehow managing not to sound anxious or, worse, hurt.

He crossed to the window, his movements unusually stiff. "Like I told Benson," he said, his voice cool, clipped, and laced with a subtle warning, "she helped raise me."

Silver moistened her lips, his manner unnerving her more than she cared to admit. This wasn't a side of Rafe she'd ever seen. And while it was still nothing like the demon Aaron had unveiled that dreadful night five years ago, still... She'd been battling her fear of angry men ever since.

"So... Mrs. Fairgate's a relative of some kind?"

"No."

She winced. If words could lash, his would have. Still, she had every right to know. Wiping the palms of her hands on her skirts, she fought off the insidious urge to flee. "A... a friend of yours, then?"

He said nothing. An excruciatingly long silence passed. Silver suspected time would run out before his contrariness did.

"Rafe," she pleaded softly, "I need to know what we're up against before Benson returns."

His jaw twitched. She began to think her appeal had been wasted until finally he darted a glittering glance her way.

"She's an actress. And a professional huckster. You're already acquainted with her husband. From the Mining Exchange."

Silver frowned, momentarily baffled, until she recalled Rafe's fast-talking partner with the smelly cigar. "I take it her appearance here today wasn't part of your plan?"

His chest heaved. "No."

"Rafe..." She bit her lip. She was beginning to suspect Mrs. Fairgate's arrival bothered him for some reason besides its sheer inconvenience. If all he was trying to do was repair the damage to some humbuggery he'd been plotting, wouldn't he have launched into a spiel of excuses by now?

"Rafe," she tried again, more gently this time, "if you didn't ask her to come here, then why would someone who presumably cares about you risk jeopardizing your—"

"I'll get rid of her. Don't worry."

Cynicism, like acid, had dripped from each word.

She glanced uncomfortably at Tavy. The pup had inched closer to Rafe, her whiskers quivering anxiously. When he paid her no mind, she scrambled up on the window seat, one tiny paw raised to his thigh. Rafe acted like stone. If he felt that sweet gesture of concern, it didn't move him. Silver felt unaccountably upset for his pet. It wasn't like Rafe to ignore his precious otter. It wasn't like him to turn so blasted cold that icicles practically hung in the air between them.

But then, what did she really know about Raphael Jones?

"I-I wasn't worried," she stammered, for some reason wanting to cry. "Not about the plan, I mean. I was just... uh, concerned about..."
you.

God.
It was true. She blinked back the traitorous sting. What if this Fairgate woman had undermined Rafe's story elsewhere in town? Silver reasoned she could protect him from Benson. She could even protect him from Papa. But what about the Trevelyans? And Marshal Hawthorne?

For the first time since hiring him to ruin Celestia, Silver shamefully faced how selfish she'd been. Rafe was taking an enormous personal risk on her behalf. And even though she was paying him quite handsomely for it, she couldn't help but feel like dung on his bootheel. He might be skilled at chicanery and frauds, but he wasn't invulnerable to a jury! Why hadn't she ever considered
his
danger? What if he were arrested for some past misdeed and... and she never saw him again?

Benson's return was heralded by another measured stride, one like a veritable death knell. Towering on the threshold in all his somber black, he reminded Silver of the Grim Reaper. The only difference between doom and Benson, she thought nervously, was that Benson didn't cackle.

"Mrs. Fiona Fairgate," he announced triumphantly.

Silver tossed him a withering glare. But her attention was claimed almost instantly by the woman who stepped into the room. Fiona was older than Silver had anticipated, perhaps sixty, a circumstance that she attributed to the acceptable, though somewhat dated, hat upon Fiona's too yellow hair.

The actress was heavily busted, if not quite as broad of hip, and Silver suspected these attributes had made her wildly popular among male audiences of her day. Any hint of the burlesque show was absent from her attire, however. Fiona's hair had been neatly rolled into a French knot, and her striped, pewter-blue traveling suit, though dusty, was not noticeably threadbare. With her cameo-studded collar, snow white gloves, gray parasol, and smartly laced boots, she made for a passable matron of society.

But the thing that indelibly marked Fiona as a woman of lower class, Silver thought despairingly, was her face paint. Fiona's powder only accentuated the crevices around her sagging features and, unfortunately, contrasted a bit too vividly with her heavily rouged cheeks, cherry lips, and the vibrant blue streaks above her eyes. Silver suspected that Benson had been quick to notice the tawdry effect and had drawn a similar conclusion.

Mustering an air of cordiality, Silver stepped briskly forward. "Mrs. Fairgate," she said with cool aplomb, acutely aware that this woman was somehow hurting Rafe—and that Benson, eager to watch, was loitering on the threshold. "I am Silver Nichols. It's a pleasure to receive you in my home."

Worried green eyes, no less canny for their upset, flickered her way. Then Fiona pasted on a tight little smile, bobbing her head in greeting. "The pleasure is mine, Miss Nichols," she said in a British—unmistakably
highbrow
British—accent.

Silver silently blessed the woman for that attempt at concession. Perhaps she hadn't come with the intention of hurting Rafe, after all. But intending to or not, her appearance had all but verified Rafe's masquerade for the ever-suspicious Benson. Now Silver had to figure out some way to convince the butler he'd reached the wrong conclusion.

And how the devil was she supposed to do
that?

For the first time in her life, Silver thanked God her father disliked Benson. Perhaps Papa's good-natured antagonism, coupled with his growing fondness for "Chumley," would keep him from listening to accusations against Rafe.

Silver took some consolation in that thought. "That will be all, Benson."

The man tensed, his dark eyes narrowing. She might have been unsettled by the blatant hostility in his gaze if his behavior hadn't annoyed her so much. She glared imperiously at him. A tense moment passed, but he did, eventually, back down. Apparently Benson still valued his job enough not to defy her openly.

However, he did neglect to close the door behind him.

Damn his arrogant hide.
Silver pressed her lips together. Her esteemed British butler was getting a bit too high-handed for her peace of mind. She knew he hadn't been happy for some time in Papa's employ, but his contempt seemed to be growing in direct correlation to the new watches and rings he'd been sporting.

Why, just the other day, he'd had the nerve to pass an envelope to one of his back-alley acquaintances at the servants' entrance. Cook had complained vociferously about the incident, because the one-eyed stranger had stolen her apple pie. Silver suspected Benson was placing bets—that his gambling had given him a false sense of prosperity and he was
looking
for a reason to quit.

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.