It Takes a Hero (15 page)

His kiss deepened and he groaned, the untamed hunger of the sound calling to her own unanswered desires.

Her shawl fell away, her hair became unbound, his fingers gently combing through the tangled strands.

She was falling, falling so dangerously. And this man was the type who wouldn't save her when he caught her…

Even now, he was stroking her back, his hands running reverently over her hips, up her sides until he cradled her breasts.

She moaned, the sensation of his thumb easing over her nipple sending her knees crumpling beneath her.

Oh, he caught her, and kept kissing her, teasing her with his touch, leaving her willing to let him do oh-so-much more.

He gathered her closer, and as he did, he stepped back, obviously having forgotten how he had originally gotten her into his arms—by keeping her from falling into a hole in the floor.

His boot crashed through and as he fell, she found herself sprawling into a heap. Rafe didn't land too far from her and chuckling at his misfortune, he heaved himself back up and then extended a hand to her.

"Miss Tate," he said, "I swear you will be my undoing." He laughed again.

Her hand went not to his, but to her lips, where the cold air was a stunning contrast to his heated kiss.

"Oh, my," she managed to gasp. She'd been about to…

This time, her practical nature had a chance to be heard and it clamored a warning that couldn't go unheeded.

Rebecca scrambled to her feet, snatched up her shawl and fled from the room.

Fled the untamed man who had nearly been her undoing.

Rafe tried to follow her, but she slipped out of the house through an opening in the wall that had been poorly mended with a few boards nailed over it. The space was just too small for him to get through.

By the time he'd gotten out the front door and back around to the garden, she was nowhere to be seen.

"Demmit," he cursed. What had he done?

He'd kissed her without thinking. Oh, he'd been thinking but not with anything resembling good sense.

And what about the practical, sensible Miss Tate? She'd been like wildfire in his arms, igniting his passion with her response. The kind of response that would take a lifetime to explore.

A lifetime? He raked his fingers through his hair and cursed. He needed to get the hell out of Bramley Hollow.

He was about to turn around and go collect his horse, but he spied something sitting atop her former perch.

In her haste, Miss Tate had forgotten her traveling desk.

On any other case, her negligence would be considered a boon in his favor. Cochrane would have had the demmed thing open by now, without even a moment's hesitation.

He looked around the empty landscape. There was no one about, except for a few birds trilling in the hedges. Just him and most likely the evidence he needed.

So what was he waiting for?

Perhaps if you see what happens when others interfere where they have no business, you will come to realize the error of your ways.

Her words chided him. If he did reveal who she was, what would that mean to her ordered existence? She might have her legions of fans, but her enemies, the mothers of those rebellious daughters, were the ones who held sway in society. They would see her ruined and ostracized without a second thought.

Not even Lady Finch would be able to save her reputation once those tabbies in London got done with her. They'd discredit her to her publisher and any society that she tried to find a home within.

He couldn't let that happen to her, to them.

To them?

Rafe gulped for air. How had this chit gone from an annoying minx to "them?"

Marching over to the desk, he knelt beside it and studied the unusual design. It looked almost like a military dispatch box than a lady's traveling desk, but leave it to Rebecca to have something unexpected.

He took a deep breath and flipped the lid open. Inside, he found her hastily stowed pages, along with two capped inkwells—one full and one empty—and at the bottom, several quills in various states of sharpness. Ignoring the nubs and penknife, he went straight for what interested him: the pages. Sifting through them, he searched for telltale prose. Instead, he found,

Dearest Mary,

I know this letter is long overdue…

Dear Sirs,

I am writing on behalf of my uncle to request that he be allowed to borrow a volume from your library…

Household Expenses for May 1817…

Rafe kept reading one after another, turning the pages over and scanning every paragraph to find the evidence he needed.

But it was nothing more than what she had said—household accounts and correspondence. Not even the household accounts gave any indication that Miss Tate had spent an exorbitant amount on a writer's necessities: paper, ink and quills.

No, her monthly inventory looked just as it should, the accounts of a practical woman trying to hold together a household on a meager income and the charity of her uncle's relations.

The pages fell from his fingers as the truth hit him.

She wasn't the woman he sought.

He should be elated that he wouldn't have to destroy her to get his prize, yet why did he feel so disappointed?

Maybe it was because for a time this afternoon, Miss Rebecca Tate had become his own personal Miss Darby: resourceful, brave, adventurous, and so entirely enticing. And now…

He stuffed the pages back in the case and shut the lid, closing his heart as well to such foolish notions. To spinsters who could capture his imagination with their capricious ways and passionate kisses.

Picking up her belongings, he decided to take them with him to Finch Manor. He'd ask Jemmy to return them to her this evening, discreetly of course.

Yet as he carried the case back to his horse, one nagging question burrowed up out of his disappointment.

If Rebecca wasn't the
Miss Darby
author, then what had frightened her so?

He hadn't even kissed her at that point. And when she finally had fled, could it have been their kiss that sent her racing from his arms?

For if he was completely honest, her kiss had terrified him right down to his boots.

«
^
»

While you think that by accepting my proposal, my fair Miss Darby, you would be merely my second wife, believe me that you would be first in my heart.

Prince Ranjit to Miss Darby

in
Miss Darby's Reckless Bargain

R
ebecca rushed home, her feet flying over the path, mindless of the flowers and sunshine brightening the spring day. Normally such sights would have left her filled with joy, but today she saw none of it.

Who could have thought that when the sun had dawned this morn, that her life would be so turned upside down before tea time?

Someone was lurking about Bettlesfield Park?
The thought chilled her for it could only mean one thing. And why had this trouble chosen now to return to her life?

She started up over the stile at the boundary fence and paused at the top. Oh, if only that was all there was to her distress.

Rafe had kissed her. Kissed her without any thought of decency.

Oh, he was certainly no gentleman. He'd kissed her until her knees had gone weak and she'd been about to toss aside every bit of propriety she possessed.

She fumbled down the steps and jerked to a blundering halt at the muddy bottom as one final condemning thought occurred to her. If she could so easily dispatch Mr. Danvers as no gentleman, what did that make her? For she would have continued the kiss, continued to allow him liberties, if it hadn't been for that wayward hole in the floor.

Perhaps there was some reason to be glad that Bettlesfield Park was in such disastrous condition.

She glanced back over her shoulder at the house and hugged her shawl tighter. Until she was assured that Mr. Danvers was gone from Bramley Hollow, she was going to have to find another place to seek solace. Even still, how would she ever find peace there again when her childhood home was now riddled with new memories—unsettling, undeniable memories of kissing a stranger.

"Oh, what have I done?" she whispered into the soft breeze winding through the meadow. "What is to become of me?"

Hopping down from the wall, she continued home resolving to forget everything about this afternoon. The heat of his body pressed to hers. The dark smoldering blaze in his gaze that had set her knees quaking. Or the moment when he'd pressed his lips to hers, his tongue teasing her to open up to him, demanding and unrelenting, as if it were his due.

The devil take him
, she thought. How would she ever forget?

Forget… Botheration! She'd forgotten her desk. Oh, drat the man. He'd left her so befuddled she'd gone and left her belongings in the garden.

She stood her ground for a time, considering whether or not she should go back and risk facing him, but she decided it was the better part of valor to flee while she could.

Her desk would still be there tomorrow, while hopefully, he wouldn't.

As she came to the edge of the village, past Esme's cottage, Rebecca picked up the pace, suspecting that the matchmaker, with her uncanny sense of the secrets of the heart, would come racing out of her cottage declaring Rebecca "matched."

Matched to Mr. Danvers? She shuddered. Not to that charming rogue. She'd disavowed that sort years ago when Lt. Habersham had left Calcutta without a single word to her.

Yet a little voice danced inside her head.

Imagine spending the rest of your life in his arms…being plied with his kisses…

How could any woman forswear such a passionate gamble?

Rebecca blew out a loud sigh. She was growing as addled as Miss Honora, the spinster up the road.

No, she was too practical to believe such nonsense. Mr. Danvers had kissed her hoping to discover what she knew about the
Darby
novels. And like some dizzy Bath school miss, she'd almost fallen for his wiles. Rebecca marched up the road with a new determination to her steps.

It wasn't long before she found herself at the rose covered trellis that marked the entrance to their cottage. Maybe she could hope that Mr. Danvers' fall into the hole had knocked some sense into him. And that perhaps she would never see him again, which would be a blessing in and of itself. Never be kissed like that again, not by a rake, and certainly not by her future vicar. She should be thrilled to be done with him, but suddenly all she wanted to do was give herself over to a very impractical spate of tears.

As she entered the cottage, Mrs. Wortling was hustling about—a rarity to be sure—with the iron in one hand and the Colonel's dress jacket in the other.

"Rest assured, Colonel Posthill, I'll have your uniform shipshape. I'm a dab hand with an iron."

"I was in the army, madam, not one of those brine soaked fools England seems to regard as so essential."

"Army, navy, I see no difference. A man in a uniform is a sight to behold."

She turned and spotted Rebecca standing open-mouthed in the doorway. "Wouldn't you agree, Miss Tate?"

"What is going on?" she managed to ask.

"You had best get along with you. You've an invitation to dine tonight." Mrs. Wortling returned the iron to the kitchen and came out with Rebecca's best sprigged muslin. "I took the liberty of putting a few touches on this one." Cocking her head, the housekeeper gave her an assessing glance. "What is different about you?" She sighed and thrust the gown into Rebecca's arms. "Upstairs with you and get ready. Wouldn't do to be late."

"Late to what?" she asked, directing her question to the colonel, who stood before the mirror in the hall tying his cravat.

Rebecca laid the muslin over the back of a chair, and made her way to his side. After watching her uncle attempt to tie his neck cloth, she reached over and finished the simple knot for him.

Glancing up at the mirror, she found him smiling at her.

"What is this about a dinner invitation?" she asked.

"Lady Finch sent a command down this afternoon. Going to have a party to introduce your Mr. Danvers to the neighborhood."

"
My
Mr. Danvers?" She didn't even realize she'd said the name aloud until Mrs. Wortling laughed.

Well, more like cackled like an old crow.

"Oh, that caught your attention," she said, poking her head out from the kitchen. "He must be rich, because I hear tell he's inherited Bettlesfield Park. Or he's buying it. Most likely he won it dicing, for I thought last night he had the look of one of those London sharpsters." She looked back at Rebecca. "Maybe your best muslin isn't a good idea. I'd hate to see you lose your heart to a gamester. My sister did that and look at her now. Seven babes and nary a sign of the worthless sot. Not that my sister cares, for she swears that devil's kisses were well worth the price she's paying now." Mrs. Wortling shook her head and let out a skeptical "harrumph" that offered her opinion on the subject—no man's kiss could be worth a life of poverty.

But Rebecca knew exactly what kept Mrs. Wortling's sister enthralled—the memory of kisses capable of tempting a woman beyond her good sense, beyond reason.

"Yes, I think your dark dress would be better," the housekeeper was saying. "Mourning has a way of putting most men off. Most, I tell you." She made another heavy sigh. "I hope this Mr. Danvers isn't one of those that likes—"

"Mrs. Wortling, don't you have some more pressing to attend to?" the colonel asked.

The woman's brow furrowed at being interrupted, but when the colonel was in his right mind, the housekeeper knew to keep her place.

She hustled back into the kitchen, but that didn't stop her from muttering, "Don't be blaming me if this gentleman turns out to be some plaguesome cad."

Too late
, Rebecca wanted to tell her. Instead, she caught her uncle by the elbow and steered him into the library, closing the door behind them and checking it once again to make sure it was shut tight. "What do you mean that we are dining at Finch Manor? It isn't Sunday."