It Takes a Hero (14 page)

"So how is it, Miss Tate, that living in Bramley Hollow as you do, you stay unwed?" he asked as he followed after her.

Rebecca tried not to flinch. She knew it was a question asked often behind the closed doors of local society. "By avoiding the matchmaker," she told him as lightly as she could. "Besides, it isn't like I'd be deluged with suitors otherwise."

"I don't see why not," he said. "You're a—" he stopped himself and then eventually said, "A practical lady," using her own words.

"You don't need to be kind," she told him. "I know what I am. A lady past her marriageable years, with a half-mad relative and no dowry. There aren't too many men who want to burden themselves with a wife with so many encumbrances and deficits."

"I don't think your uncle is a deficit. You never know when you'll need a dab hand with a cannon."

Rebecca nudged him with her elbow. "You should be ashamed of yourself for encouraging him as you did last night."

The rake grinned. "I have a fondness for cannons."

"So the entire village now knows."

He laughed. "Yes, Lady Finch rang a peel over my head this morning. Said she was going to write my brother immediately and chide him for my upbringing. "

"Someone ought to," Rebecca replied. "But why your brother and not your mother?" If he could ask personal questions, she decided she might as well satisfy her curiosity about this enigmatic scoundrel.

"My brother raised me and Lady Finch holds him responsible for all my sins," he said, hardly sounding a bit repentant. "My parents died in a carriage accident when I was but a child."

"I'm sorry."

"No, it was a long time ago. Besides, my brother did an admirable job with me, all things considered. You might not believe this, but I was a bit of a hellion."

"You?" She feigned innocence, but she could well imagine that he'd been a devilish rogue even at a young age. "I don't think much has changed in the ensuing years. I agree with Lady Finch, a letter to your brother is most definitely in order."

He groaned. "You'll have me hauled before my siblings and lectured fiercely."

"Does it help?"

"Never."

"Do you have many brothers and sisters?" she asked, suddenly curious.

"Just two older brothers," he said. "Well, actually they are my half brothers. My mother was my father's second wife."

There was something about the way he answered her, that left her feeling that he wasn't quite telling the truth. Like he was leaving something out, but she didn't feel comfortable pressing a man she hardly knew for intimate details of his life.

But she was curious, too much so, she thought as she asked, "Where was your home?"

He laughed and shook his head. "I've never had one." Her face must have displayed her disbelief, because he continued by explaining. "My father was a diplomat and we moved quite often. When my parents died, I went to boarding school, but given my spotty scholastic career, I went to several establishments before my brother Colin gave up in exasperation and brought me aboard his ship."

"You went to sea?" She couldn't help but hide her admiration.

"I think he thought that there would be little room for me to find trouble onboard a warship—"

A warship?
That didn't bode well.

"Oh, dear, the cannons!" she said.

He nodded. "That and other things. When he was about to toss me overboard, my other brother, Robert, stepped in and took me with him into the Army. I did better there. Plenty of cannons and such, but the regulations—" He shuddered. "I wasn't exactly a model officer."

"I imagine not," she said. As she glanced at him, a notion most unnerving uncoiled within her. There was something disarming and appealing about his unrepentant ways. And before she even weighed her words, she said, "I envy you your independence, Mr. Danvers."

"Don't, Miss Tate. My independence has gotten me into all kinds of scrapes." He stepped closer to her, catching her arm and steering her around a hole in the floor. "Besides, you are the most independent lady I've ever met."

Rebecca stilled, for his hand was cradling her elbow, holding her close. She dared a glance up into his eyes and the dark appreciation she saw there sent a warm tremor down her spine. Like he had last night, his gaze dipped and lingered over her lips and she felt them open slightly, as if of their own volition. Oh, the temptation he presented bedeviled her senses. So when he stepped closer to her… she panicked and shook him free and picked up her skirts and fled briskly down the hall.

"This way," she told him, not daring to look back in her startled wake. "The ballroom is quite exquisite."

Independent, indeed! She was a scared little goose. If she were so independent, she would be testing her theory about the temptation of his kiss right this very second.

"How is it you are unwed, Mr. Danvers?" She saw no reason not to let him dangle a bit.

"Not you as well," he said, feigning agony, his hand over his heart. "I fear I am a contented bachelor and see no reason to change that."

"Well, you are in Bramley Hollow. 'Tis a dangerous place for a 'contented bachelor.' "

"I plan on taking a page from your example and keep my distance from that wily matchmaker."

"You'd be better to worry about my uncle," she told him. "I think he was quite taken with the idea of you bringing me flowers. He declared you a devil of a shot and a fine gentleman this morning. Come around the cottage again and he'll have you before the parson and me at your side."

"And you'd let him?"

"Not likely," she declared a little more adamantly than she should have.

He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. "And why do you think you can outwit your uncle?"

"Because I'm a better shot than either of you."

He laughed and shook his head.

She came to the double doors that led to ballroom, and paused, staring at them. "That's odd. I don't recall them being shut." She tried the latch, but the door wouldn't budge. "Or ever being locked for that matter." Without asking for his help, she put her shoulder to the panel and gave it a shove.

The door held fast.

"I suppose we'll have to forgo this room," she conceded, biting her lip.
" 'Tis a shame, because it is my favorite room in the house."

"Is there another way in?"

"We could try the garden doors, but we'd have to break the glass to get them open." She put her hands on her hips. "I don't understand how this door came to be locked." Looking over her shoulder at Rafe, she added, "It isn't like there is much around here that does work, let alone locks. We'll just have to get a pry bar from the shed."

"Let me try," he offered, stepping around her and twisting the latch for himself.

When it didn't budge, she shook her head. What, did he think she didn't know how to open a door?

He winked at her before throwing his shoulder into the locked panels. They rattled on their hinges, sending a cloud of dust showering down on them. And still they held fast.

"I don't think the new owner will appreciate a broken door," she told him.

"Miss Tate," he said, rubbing his aching shoulder. "I doubt that adding one broken door to the list of repairs in this house is really going to make a noticeable difference in the price."

"I suppose not," she said. "If you'll just wait, I can—"

He took her by the arm, guiding her away from the locked entry. Once she was well out of harm's way, he glanced over at her and winked again.

Rebecca's mouth gaped as she watched the unlikely gentleman before her transform into a whirl of power and strength. He took two long strides back, then came at the double doors like a fury.

His foot hit just beside the latch and the door burst open in an explosion of wood splinters and dust.

She'd never seen a man move so fast or with such deadly intent. "No, I don't suppose the pry bar is necessary," she managed to utter.

Mr. Danvers grinned as he stalked into the ballroom, like Ajax after defeating yet another interloper in his territory.

What had she been thinking? She'd been telling herself that this man wasn't anyone she should worry about. But now she saw how she'd been lying to herself in the worst sort of way.

His mercantile jacket and scuffed boots spoke of a thin purse and careless manners. Yet when he'd unleashed his so-very-masculine power at the locked door, her entire body had trembled. Watching him left her with only one breathless thought:
What it would be like to have a man possess her with that same undeniable passion?

There was no doubt that this was a man most decidedly capable of untangling all of a woman's desires. And all of her secrets. Oh, she needed to tread very carefully.

"What the devil—" she heard him mutter from inside.

While she'd remained in the hallway gawking at the open door, he'd long since gone inside the ballroom.

As she walked through the ruined portal, her body thrummed with awareness at the destruction he'd left in his wake. It would be wise to remember the wreckage, she told herself.

She found him kneeling before the fireplace, his fingers poking at the ashes in the grate. Then he rose and looked around. "Someone has been living here."

"Tramps, perhaps," she offered. "But they are usually here in the winter, not this time of year."

"No, someone has been living here. Recently."

"How do you know?" she asked, looking at the dirty grate and the dust shrouded room.

"I know," he said. His confidence spoke volumes. "You see these footprints, here and here," he said, pointing at them. "The rest of the room is full of dust, except for those places. And here, beside the fireplace, look at this." He waved his hand at the floor as if she should be able to see the evidence inscribed in the wood.

When she shook her head, he explained further. "This entire spot is clean. It's the size of a man. He was sleeping here, but he's done a remarkable job of cleaning up—as if he didn't want to be found. But it is always impossible to fix the dust."

Rebecca didn't want to know how he knew of such things. Of hiding oneself, of tracking another human being, of dust and the clues to be found in a seemingly innocent, albeit filthy, grate.

Her secrets didn't stand a chance against this man and suddenly she realized, just how far over her head she was.

She might as well be the one at the bottom of the garden well.

"I'll have to tell Lord Finch," she said. Then she explained further. "The baron is the local magistrate. He'll send the constable out to investigate, though I doubt Mr. Holmes will be all that impressed with your findings."

He shook his head. "There is something odd about all this. Why would someone want to hide out here?"

Rebecca shrugged as if the answer was far out of her ken. But his question sent a barrage of fear through her gut. Someone had been hiding themselves at Bettlesfield Park? Lurking about the neighborhood like a thief? And a sophisticated one, at that.

Suddenly she needed to be home. Home to the colonel and away from her suspicions, away from Raphael Danvers.

She spun around and started to flee, heedless of how it looked, of where she was going.

"Careful," he called out as she nearly stepped into a hole in the floor.

Suddenly she found herself captured in his arms. His far-too-capable embrace.

Rebecca had never been held by a man, at least not like this, commandeered by his strength, hauled up against his chest, into a wall that promised sanctuary.

"I just remembered, I promised my uncle… I said I'd be home…" she stammered.

His eyes narrowed. He didn't believe her. Not in the least.

"Your heart is pounding, Miss Tate," he said, not letting her go. "What has you so frightened?"

"Nothing," she told him trying to shrug off his grasp. "Now please unhand me."

"No," he said. "Not 'til you tell me what has you so pale? So terrified. And don't try to tell me some Banbury tale about almost falling."

She should have known that like the ashes in the grate and the dust on the floor, Mr. Danvers would have no trouble seeing right through the lies that fell so clumsily from her lips.

"Rebecca," he whispered, using her given name like a caress, like he had the right to such a familiarity.
"Tell me. I can help you." His hands reached up to cradle her face, to turn it toward him so her gaze met his. He searched her face as if he could find the meaning behind her fears.

And where she had felt panicked and terrified but a few moments ago, in his arms she felt shielded from the worst the world had to offer.

Something she knew a little about.

His touch smoothed away her distress, like the fading ripples of water on a pond. "Tell me, what is wrong? What sent you racing out of here?" His fingers caught a loose strand of her hair and brushed it back into place. The tenderness in his touch sent tremors down her spine. So gentle, so very precarious.

"I realized… I need to…"

"You need to tell me the truth. I can help you."

No, he couldn't. No one could.

His gaze fixed first on her lips and then on her eyes. There was a look there so dark and unfathomable in the jet of his eyes. So very dark and dangerous. As if he desired her.

Why ever for, she couldn't imagine, but denying him was impossible.

And she was lost, awaiting him to find her like a hero from one of her novels. But Raphael Danvers was no hero—a rake and a scoundrel, most certainly, but no hero. He'd done things in life that no gentleman should claim—and as she found herself gazing once again at the firm set of his mouth, she had to imagine that he wouldn't kiss like a gentleman either.

"Tell me, Rebecca," he whispered. "What has you so frightened."

"You," she whispered.

"You're not scared," he said. And to prove his point, he dipped his head down and captured her lips with his.

Her eyes fluttered shut as his tongue eased her trembling lips open. Oh, she should protest this intimate invasion, issue a set down that would leave him sufficiently put in his place.

Instead she quaked beneath him. His tongue teased hers, daring her to sally forth, unleashing a cannonade of desire within her. Her arms wound around his neck, pulling him closer. His lips were not enough, she wanted him to unleash the maddening passion that had been tormenting her since she'd first spied him.