Scoundrel for Hire (Velvet Lies, Book 1) (19 page)

Unfortunately, his practical side reminded him that he couldn't play Chumley forever. One way or another, he'd be found out. Then Max would never stand for the wedding. And Silver... well, she'd be happy to wash her hands of him. Inevitably, he'd be forced to disappear like he always did to avoid sheriffs, marshals, and those pesky Pinkertons.

In the meantime, Rafe thought, brightening at the prospect, he could have a lot of fun at the Nicholses' expense. He wondered how much money he could scam out of Max and Silver. Seeing how they were both using him to scam each other, it only seemed fair that he earned a tidy sum for his cooperation.

"Pish posh," Rafe said in jovial tones. "There's no need for thrashing, old boy. Devilish messy. Billiards are so much tidier between gentlemen, don't you agree?"

Max's eyes twinkled, belying his attempt to appear foreboding. "Poker's tidier still."

"Ah, poker," Rafe drawled with a lopsided grin. "The sport of the self-made Colonial. What a smashing idea. When in Rome, do as the Romans..."

Max chuckled, a warm and amicable sound. "You're all right, Chumley." Opening a desk drawer, he pulled out a box of black and scarlet markers. "There're a couple fellows in the back room you might like to meet. Especially if you're set on making a fortune in this town."

"You don't say?"

"Not in front of Silver, I don't."

It was Rafe's turn to chuckle. "I take it she frowns upon gaming?"

"You've gotta spend money to make money, Chumley. That's my motto."

"And the opening ante?"

"A thousand bucks."

Rafe smiled like the Cheshire cat. Just imagine the profit he could fleece from Aspen's millionaire tinhorns. "I'll consider it an investment."

"You do that, my boy," Max said heartily, winking as he rose. "All's fair in love and poker."

Clutching his box of chips under one arm, Max linked his other with Rafe's and guided him toward the rear of the study. Rafe was at first surprised, then amused, to spy a narrow door in the maple-wood paneling. It had been effectively camouflaged, thanks to the shadow of an enormous elkhorn trophy. He suspected that Silver wasn't supposed to be privy to her papa's high-stakes amusements. Bless his rascally soul, Midas Max was nothing more than an ordinary mountebank.

This realization warmed Rafe's heart, making him like the mining baron even more. Poor Silver. She was so smitten by her papa that she didn't know he was bamboozling her.

Max threw open the door, and a cloud of cigar smoke rolled into the study. The clink of crystal and the gruff rumble of male voices could be heard somewhere beyond the eye-stinging assault of tobacco. Rafe cast a sideways glance at his host. God was clearly falling down on the job, letting Rafe have so much fun. Who would have thought that he'd find a kindred spirit in a millionaire? Why, the man was willing to board a beau to keep his daughter distracted from his amorous mischief.

And speaking of mischief...

"I say, old fellow," Rafe drawled as they stepped into the antechamber, "are you fond of baby otters?"

* * *

Somehow, Silver survived her night of living horror—no thanks to Rafe. From the moment he'd arrived, he'd sabotaged her plans. As if his ridiculous whiskers and that odious quizzing glass hadn't been bad enough, he'd invented the story about his grand-mummy's haunted castle. Between his tales of Sir Harry, the Pied Piper of hapless sheep, and Papa's stories of an Indian spirit wreaking havoc in her mine, was it any wonder she'd dreamed again of Nahele?

Glaring at her sleep-starved eyes in the looking glass, Silver carefully disregarded the thought that maybe she really
was being haunted. Even if she had believed in ghosts, she couldn't imagine why one would waste its time trying to frighten her with feathers and acorns. If she were a ghost, and inspiring terror was her mission, she would get right to business, moaning and rattling chains.

Of course, she was a practical woman, and that would have made her a practical ghost. Maybe Nahele was a bit addlepated.

She scowled once more at her reflection.

That was just the point, she reminded herself tartly, dabbing a touch of rose water behind each ear. She was a
practical
woman. Although the mysterious appearance of last week's eagle feather was easier to reason away than last night's acorns, she had no doubt there was a logical explanation. After all, hadn't Rafe tried to finagle an invitation to her bedroom?

Silver nodded emphatically at this memory, because it was so much more plausible than the delusions she'd suffered at two o'clock that morning, when she'd imagined herself watching an outraged Indian warrior break an oak limb over his knee and scatter acorns all over her window seat.

Yes. Rafe was to blame for her misery
and
those blasted acorns. She'd concluded that while she'd been busy in the kitchen last night, he'd sneaked upstairs and left his strange little calling card. No doubt he'd thought himself too clever for words, and he'd be right. What on earth were the acorns supposed to signify? His virility?

She blushed at the thought.
His virility, indeed.
If she weren't so mad at him, she might have been... well, unnerved. The thought of him prowling around her bedroom in the moonlight, leaving tokens reminiscent of some pagan fertility rite, was enough to make her knees go weak.

Unfortunately, that weakness wasn't due entirely to uneasiness.

Silver shook off that traitorous notion. The last thing she needed was the distraction of Raphael Jones when she had a miners' strike to avert. Her accomplice was in need of a comeuppance, and she had every intention of giving it to him—right after she dealt with the blackguards who were trying to extort her.

Silver grimaced as she coiled her heavy mass of hair into a knot at the nape of her neck. Her head was splitting, and she was running behind schedule. She abhorred being late, not that she had any great desire to rush off to a meeting with the Miners Union, but she did pride herself on setting a good example for her employees.

Besides, those pesky reporters, who had nothing better to do than invent half-truths, would tout her tardiness as proof of supernatural troubles in her mine. She could just throttle Rafe for encouraging Papa to prattle on about Nahele and toppled lunch pails in front of Brady Buckholtz. Union leaders would pounce on such rubbish as proof that their members were being abused.

Jabbing a pin into her jaunty black beaver hat, Silver arranged its blue veil over her chignon and grabbed a parasol before hurrying for the door. She was so preoccupied with thoughts of her impending negotiation that she didn't notice the ruddy-faced youth in the scarlet livery racing toward her from behind. In fact, she didn't hear his thundering footsteps until they jolted the stairs beneath her feet.

"Make way, miss," the youth panted, his cheeks nearly as red as his jacket. "Gotta draw a bath for Miss Tavy."

Jostled against the stairwell's banister, Silver barely had time to gasp "Miss who?" before the youth shouldered past her and galloped like a runaway bull down the hall toward the kitchen.

"How rude." She narrowed her eyes after the young man who'd flattened her to near pancake width in his zeal to serve his mistress. "And just who, might I add, are—"

"Miss Silver."

She winced, recognizing the testy tones of her butler. Benson stood stiffer than petrified wood at the foot of the stairs, glaring up at her as if
she
were the one who'd just committed some heinous breach of etiquette.

"Uh, good morning, Benson."

"Good morning, miss. May I have a word with you?"

Stepping down to ground level, Silver glanced impatiently at the hall's grandfather clock. It read ten minutes after eight. "Can't it wait, Benson? I'm rather pressed for time right—"

"It's about your father."

Silver groaned inwardly.
Of course it is.
Benson always wore that dire expression when he was miffed at Papa. No doubt Papa's attempts to get Benson to dance a waltz last night—with her, no less—had been the final straw.

Silver cleared her throat, remembering the servant's mortified expression when Papa had shoved them toward the dance floor. Humiliated and secretly hurt, she'd interpreted Benson's reaction as a slur upon her breeding. Thanks in part to Papa, she supposed her butler would never consider her
haut monde.

She did her best not to care.

"Benson, please be patient with Papa. He was in unusually high spirits last night, celebrating his"—she tried not to choke on the word—"engagement."

"Last night is another matter, miss, which I had hoped to address with you," Benson said with cool diplomacy. "As for
this morning,
however, I must protest on behalf of the staff. Cook cannot hope to find enough frogs' legs to fill such an impossible breakfast order, and we do not have enough water on hand to refresh a copper bathtub every two hours—"

"Papa wants to bathe every two hours?"

"Not exactly, miss."

"Comin' through, folks!" bellowed the red-faced servant as he kicked open the dining room doors and hurried back through the foyer, a sloshing pail of water gripped in either fist.

"Benson," Silver murmured, watching in alarm as the youth splashed puddles onto the beeswaxed cherry wood of her floor, "would you mind telling me just exactly who—"

"Hullo, miss." Skirting Benson's formidable spine, the youth gave her a toothy grin. "Jeepers, you sure are ragged out today."

Arching an eyebrow at this awkward compliment, Silver watched the ruddy anomaly with the golden epaulets climb her stairs and disappear into the guest wing of her home.

"That
, miss," Benson said in arid tones, "is Mr. Jimmy Bob Roy, Miss Octavia's... er, groomsman."

Silver's brows knitted. "Miss Octavia?"

"The duke of Chumley's ward."

Silver choked, suspecting she'd turned beet red as her gaze flew back to Benson's. "The duke has a... a
ward?"

"Alas yes," Benson said dryly. "Perhaps you should speak to your father about the sort of, er,
gentleman
he is entertaining for the summer."

"For the summer?"
Belatedly, Silver realized she was gaping at this latest example of Rafe's audacity. "Now Benson," she forced herself to say more mildly, her hands itching to box the ears of a certain playactor, "I'm sure you and the duke just got off on the wrong foot last night."

"Your pardon, madam." Benson's spine never broke its rigid line as he bowed. "But that is precisely the point. There is no duke of Chumley. And even if there were, I assure you, no duke would hire a... a
pumpkin
picker as his manservant."

"You mean melon picker," came Rafe's impossibly cheerful voice from the open front door. "Jimmy picks cantaloupes, Bennie, old boy. Pumpkins are gourds."

Silver frowned, spying the rogue himself in a lavender waistcoat and pink vest as he leaned against the jamb. Somehow, he looked more dapper than clownish as he braced a strong, arrestingly masculine hand against the doorframe. Of course, the wind-tumbled curl across his intelligent brow did give him an advantage compared with last night's slickened hair style. So did the wolfish gleam in his pewter eyes.

She tried to concentrate on his insolence, not the kindling admiration in his gaze as it swept intimately over her traveling suit. The man had some kind of gall, tricking Papa into housing a floozie for him, then devouring
her
with his eyes, as if she were the proverbial icing on his cake!

Hiking her chin, Silver carefully ignored the spike of jealousy that pricked her heart. She had just enough time to wonder how long Rafe had been eavesdropping on her and Benson before Papa's head bobbed under the open window pane.

"That's right, Bennie," Papa called, leaning beneath the sash. "Last night, Chumley explained all about getting his dukedom. Reckon you'll feel more at home now, having a real live royal to serve for meals. How're you coming with those frog legs?"

Benson looked like he might spout steam from his ears.

"Uh, Papa," Silver interceded, "to what do we owe the honor of His Grace—" she tossed Rafe a withering look "—and His Grace's
ward
as guests in our home?"

"I couldn't have one of our biggest investors wasting all his money on a hotel room, now could I?"

Papa winked at Rafe, and Rafe winked back, much to Silver's irritation. It was bad enough that she'd found the two of them in cahoots last night, running a high-stakes poker game. They were obviously conspiring again.

She didn't know which was worse: that her papa could be so easily bamboozled by a tale as transparent as a ward named Octavia, or that Rafe had somehow charmed her papa into letting him move in. But more to the point, just how did Rafe think he was going to seduce Celestia if they weren't rubbing shoulders in the same hotel?

The clock chimed a quarter after the hour, and Silver muttered an oath. As much as she wanted to scold the living daylights out of Rafe, she didn't have time now.

"Thank you, Benson, for your, uh, attention to these matters," she said crisply. "I'm afraid I'll have to leave the frog-legs matter in your capable hands." She gathered her nerve and swept toward the door—and right into the devil's own playground.