It Takes a Hero (4 page)

They teased at his ears like the sultry tones of a well-experienced lady, one who knew how to tell a man exactly what she liked. And once again, he found himself taking another gander at this enigmatic spinster before him.

"I'm sorry, you are?" Rafe asked.

"Miss Tate," she said. "Miss Rebecca Tate." She inclined her head ever so slightly, yet her sharp gaze never left his.

So she wasn't the elusive M. Briggs. He didn't know if he was disappointed or relieved that he wouldn't have to tangle with her.

"And this is Miss Sarah Stone," she added, "the postmistress of Bramley Hollow. And you would be?"

"Danvers," he offered. "Raphael Danvers, at your service." Remembering some hint of manners, he added an elegant bow. "I'm looking for an M. Briggs," he said, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a packet of papers, as if he were merely trying to complete an errand. It was a ploy that had worked well in the past. These ladies didn't need to know the packet was the eviction papers his landlady had served him with this morning.

The postmistress shared another glance with Rebecca, only this time there was no humor in their silent communiqué.

The postmistress cocked her head. "Did you say
Miss Briggs?
"

Now I am getting somewhere
. He'd have his directions and be gone from Bramley Hollow before Cochrane's dire predictions of an unplanned wedding came true. "Aye. I'm looking for Miss Briggs."

The postmistress's brow furrowed. "And what business do you have with the lady, sir?"

He wanted to tell her that his business was none of hers, and in London that would have been well and good, but he reminded himself that this was the country and a modest, more mild approach would serve him to better advantage.

"These papers are from a solicitor in London. A very confidential matter, or so I am told," he lied. Manners were one thing when they were a means to an end, but honesty had little place in his line of work.

Especially when there was so much at stake.

Miss Tate smiled at him. "How kind of you, sir, to bring something so important all the way from London to Bramley Hollow."

It was then he noticed a few tendrils of red hair peeking out from beneath her bonnet. The rebellious color seemed at odds with the prim spinster before him. Rather such silky, enticing tresses were far better suited for spilling over the tangled sheets of a moonlit boudoir, and in an instant he imagined the lady herself naked in his bed. But then he glanced at Miss Tate again, seeing only the plain lady in the hideous bonnet and wondering what had happened to the momentary temptress of his imagination.

"I said how kind it was of you to come all this way," she repeated, her brows arched in annoyance. "Very generous, indeed."

Of course she was annoyed. He was staring again.

Rafe shook his head, not so much at her question, but at his own odd thoughts. Naked spinsters? What was he thinking?

Perhaps there was something to Cochrane's fears about this village and its matchmaking reputation. He hadn't been here more than five minutes and already he was seeing a seductress in the guise of a spinster.

Cochrane would probably say that was how it always started…

"Nothing so generous," he told her. "Actually this charming village was hardly out of my way and I make it a habit to lend a helping hand when I can. Besides, when my friend spoke so highly of Miss Briggs, I knew I'd be only too delighted to make her acquaintance." He supposed he was laying on the charm a bit thick, but perhaps this as yet unsusceptible miss wasn't going to be such a challenge to charm after all.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

"Indeed," she mused, crossing her arms over her chest. "Now was that Miss Mary Briggs or Miss Millicent Briggs?"

Rafe coughed. "Two of them?" Just his bloody luck.

"Perhaps it says inside the packet," she said, holding out her hand. "You can trust that we are both the epitome of discretion."

The postmistress nodded enthusiastically.

Yes, and he was about to be named a Knight of the Garter.

"Mary Briggs," he said, offering up one of the names. Besides, if he was wrong, there was always his next course of action—bribing the innkeeper and explaining to Cochrane that his next meal would not be forthcoming.

Miss Tate nodded. "Of course! Miss Mary Briggs would make more sense. If you would like, I am sure Miss Stone would see your packet delivered promptly and you could be on your way."

While her lips curved sweetly, her eyes held all the predatory wiles of a cat stalking its prey.

"No, it really isn't any trouble," he said, tucking the papers back into his jacket for safekeeping.

"And it would be no trouble for Miss Stone, for in truth, it is her job," the insistent miss said, folding her arms across her chest. "Especially since, I assume, you have no real business here."

Little minx
, Rafe thought. With little or no effort she'd boxed him into a corner—challenging his story and essentially calling him a liar—all the while with a pleasant, deceptive smile on her face.

Mierda
, he cursed silently, reverting to his mother's native language.
She was more wily than Napoleon
.

Rafe almost felt sorry for the man who woke up and found himself matched to this termagant.

Then again, it was no wonder she was still
Miss
Tate. For what did it say about a lady when she couldn't even find a husband in Bramley Hollow?

The postmistress picked up her friend's cue. "You must be in a hurry, sir. Please feel free to leave Miss Briggs' packet with me and I will see it delivered to her forthwith."

The pair of cats smiled at him, looking as innocent as two young country misses could. Why he could almost smell the sweet roses and fresh manure behind their offer to help him.

"I thank you, ladies," he said. "But I fear I am under strict instructions to deliver the packet to Miss Briggs personally."

"Yes, I suppose you would want to do that," Miss Tate said, her eyes sparkling with new mischief as she slanted yet another glance at her friend behind the counter. And not to be diverted from her self-appointed mission to aid him, she then turned and said, "Mr. Danvers, if you are under such strict directions, then please allow me to take you to Miss Briggs."

"Rebecca!" Miss Stone whispered. "What are you doing?"

"Offering to help this man," she said to her friend while smiling at Rafe.

"Oh, you needn't go to any bother," he insisted, having never meant something more in his life, though he suspected his protest wouldn't matter in the least to this Miss Tate. The pushy miss was determined to make his business her business. "Perhaps you could just give me the directions, then I can be gone and leave you ladies to your… uh, conversation."

Miss Tate crossed the room, her steps direct and full of purpose, so very unlike her sleek and smooth counterparts in London. As she passed him, her skirt brushed his leg, and if he'd been in town he would have been of half a mind to check his wallet and watch fob after coming so close to such a wily wench, but as he looked at her again, smiling up from beneath her simple straw bonnet, he wondered if he was just being foolish.

Miss Rebecca Tate and her charming and unsullied village of Bramley Hollow were about as far from Seven Dials or the Rookeries as one could get in England. Obviously he was becoming as jaded as his brothers claimed, especially when he viewed a country spinster to be as disingenuous as a London abbess. Miss Tate was most likely just being as congenial as most people from the country tended to be.

That's it, she was just being generous and kind.

He shot one more glance at her blue eyes and went with his original instincts about the lady.

She was trouble.

"There is no problem, sir," she was saying. "I am more than happy to assist someone who is so generous with his time." And he would have believed her innocent then if not for the bemused mockery in her eyes that said only too clearly that she knew as well as he that he was lying about his connection to Miss Briggs. "Are you coming along? Or do you have other packets you need directions for?"

Rafe cringed, but decided he'd trust her for now to take him to Miss Briggs. Once they got there, he'd leave her on the lady's doorstep to go seek her gossip elsewhere.

She made her way out the door but stopped on the steps, her gaze fixed on Cochrane. "Quite a procession just to deliver a packet." She looked from him to Cochrane then back to him, as if she expected an introduction.

She wasn't getting one.

Rafe shot his assistant a black look, a warning as it were, before he asked Miss Tate, "Is Miss Briggs far? For I see you don't have a ready mount." He was hoping she'd take the hint and just give him the directions.

"And why would I need one?" she asked. "Bramley Hollow isn't that grand, sir. Everything I could possibly need is merely a stone's throw." She shied another glance at Cochrane, who'd now doffed his cap and was smoothing down his hair. "Unless you need your friend, why don't you just follow me? Miss Briggs isn't far." With that, she turned and strolled down a narrow path, market basket swinging in her hand.

"Wait here," he told a disappointed Cochrane, before striding after his newfound and unwanted helpmate.

When he caught up with Miss Tate, she was stopped before the gate to the churchyard.

"You seem rather an odd sort to be looking for the author of the
Miss Darby
novels."

This stopped him. Did everyone in Bramley Hollow know that Miss Briggs spent her time penning these scandalous tales?

She must have noted his surprise. She leaned forward, cupping her hand to her mouth. "You aren't the first to come here seeking her out," she whispered.

There was a wicked light in her blue gaze that teased him and once again he found himself staring at her, unsure whether or not to trust his own eyes.

"I'm not?" he managed to ask, still trying to reconcile the spinster before him with the siren who seemed to lurk beneath the lady's plain exterior.

"Oh, no," Miss Tate said, leaning back against the gate, her market basket plopped by her feet. "I think she had three visitors just last week."

So much for the bundle of coins he'd wasted on those worthless clerks. Obviously Mr. Ahey's apprentices were making a small fortune selling the directions to the popular author.

"I actually do have business with her," he said, finding some gratification in the truth.

Those damn, infuriating eyes of hers held a bemused air, but she hardly appeared impressed—with him or his assertion.

"Ah, yes. The packet to be delivered."

"You don't believe me?" Rafe wasn't used to people not heeding what he said. In his line of work, people either feared him or just wanted to avoid him.

But they didn't mock him. And even if it took a few coins to get the truth out of them, they always told him what he wanted.

Her slipper nudged at a bunch of blue flowers blooming at the foot of the gatepost. "It's just that none of the others went to the trouble to bring a packet, though one professed to have an offer of marriage, while the last one claimed she was a long lost relation. Poor Miss Briggs. Besieged by all sorts of knaves and imposters."

She reached down and plucked a few of the wayward blossoms.

"So which are you, Mr. Danvers?" she asked, straightening up and arranging the purloined stems into an orderly little nosegay. "For truly you don't look like one of her acolytes, those foolish young girls who forget the
Darby
tales are just fiction—" She paused and that assessing gaze ran from the toes of his less than polished boots to the top of his hat. "Then again you hardly appear the type to come ringing a righteous peel over her head either, like the vicar who arrived last month."

"I have a business proposition for her," Rafe said, holding firm to the truth. It was a business proposition of sorts.
Stop writing or else
. "And if you don't mind, if you could finish escorting me to her, then I can be done with my business and return to London."

Her glance seemed to say,
Where you belong
, though her good manners held sway. "Why we are already there."

He glanced up at the yard, and then at the cozy vicarage sitting like a tidy mushroom beside the ancient stone church.

The vicar's residence? Oh, Lord. This wasn't his day.

He'd bet even money he'd been sent to break the arms of the vicar's spinster sister.

If Spain hadn't been enough hell for one existence, then this day was proving itself a close second.

"Here?" he managed to ask, trying to determine how far into Dante's rings of hell he was going to have to wade through after he'd "persuaded" some kind-hearted old lady to quit writing.

She'd probably offer Cochrane a plate of sugared biscuits right before they got down to the business of wrenching a promise out of her never to write again.

"Yes, right over there to the left," she said,, pointing across the yard to the far corner.

And in the opposite direction of the house. He nearly sighed with relief until he saw where she was going.

Having opened the gate, Rebecca was picking her way through the yard, her skirt swinging this way and that as she wove past the headstones and lichen covered stone monuments raised for Bramley Hollow's more illustrious former residents. She paused and glanced over her shoulder. "Come on. This is what you came all the way from London to discover."

He followed, now convinced he was part of some great jest the postmistress and her friend liked to play on unsuspecting visitors.

"Here she is," she said, pointing at a simple headstone.

Rafe strode across the graveyard, ready to end this charade.

"Careful as you go," Miss Tate said, pointing at his boot which hung in mid-stride. "You are about to step on Abigail Roundsfield, and she would be quite put out by the insult."

Rafe moved his foot over, just avoiding trespassing on Mrs. Roundsfield's slumber.

"If this is some kind of prank, Miss Tate," he said, "let me assure you I am not the kind to find such diversions amusing."