It Takes a Hero (7 page)

The lady's eyes narrowed. "Did you say
Bettlesfield Park?
"

"Yes. The house and property if I stop the
Darby
author from publishing any more tracts."

Lady Finch's reaction didn't do much to instill confidence. She burst out laughing, and continued so, until tears ran down her wrinkled cheeks. "Oh, my dear boy, tell me this isn't true?"

He shifted in his seat. "Yes. It is." Rafe dug into his jacket and produced a miniature of the house. "She showed me this and said it was a fine estate."

Taking his offering, Lady Finch peered down at the delightful country vista and well-situated manse and began laughing anew. "A fine estate—of all the nerve. I hope you weren't planning on moving in any time soon."

So his suspicions had been right. Still, the property had to be worth something—for he was only interested in the cash it would gain him. "No, I was going to sell it. What do I need a house for?"

"I suppose you don't," she said, though she didn't sound convinced. She handed him back the deceptive portrait. "Malvina won the property in a game of whist about four years ago and it's been a noose around her neck ever since."

"Is it worthless?" he asked, more than willing to return to London and wish Lady Tottley many happy years with her unwed daughter at her side.

"No, just in need of repair."

Lord Finch, seemingly still captivated by his orchid journal, made an ignoble snort.

Lady Finch shrugged. "The baron is probably right. A lot of repairs. But the land is good and you should have no problems finding someone to buy it."

"So why hasn't Lady Tottley been able to sell it?" he asked, still suspicious that his possible fortune was now dwindling to a meager purse.

"She's had offers, but mostly from mushrooms and other cits who want to set themselves up with a country address. She's rather high in the instep and has refused them all so far, much to my relief." Lady Finch sighed. "I suppose you won't be so particular though and I'll end up with another one of these ridiculous and pretentious nabobs for a neighbor."

Rafe smiled at this. "I haven't the means to be choosey, so it will be the first fool I can find."

"You shouldn't have any trouble there, for London is full of them," Lady Finch remarked before returning to her meal. "And though I see now that you are going to be the ruination of Bramley Hollow, I'll still help you. But I'll ask a boon in return."

Rafe felt an uncharacteristic twinge of guilt, and in a weak moment said, "My lady, if there is anything I can do to repay your favor, you have but to ask."

She glanced up from her plate and studied him. "Since you've offered, there is a matter of some importance that I would like your assistance with."

"Anything."

"Not for me, but for someone else."

Something about the way she said it sent a warning clamor down his spine. Yet before he could inquire further, a young man entered the dining room.

"Rafe? Rafe Danvers? Is that you? Demmit, I thought I'd gone round the bend when I saw you ride past the gatehouse," he said, hobbling into the room, leaning heavily on a silver tipped cane.

"Jemmy," Rafe said, more in shock than in delight at seeing James Reyburn, the Finch heir and only child. Like his mother, Jemmy was a recluse, though for different reasons.

Years earlier the young man had impetuously stowed away on Colin's ship and ended up in Rafe's guerilla band searching the Iberian Peninsula for an ancient treasure.

But the fresh-faced, idealistic young man he remembered held little resemblance to this pale, haggard man before him. Rafe saw only too clearly the terrible price Jemmy had paid for his noble dreams of war.

One hand clung to a cane, which he obviously needed to walk, his once shattered leg dragging along, sad evidence of the nearly fatal injuries he'd suffered at the Siege of Badajoz. There was also a long scar on one side of his face and he looked pale and thin. Hardly the rakish and robust daredevil Rafe remembered who'd come to Spain determined to make his place in history.

And when Rafe glanced over at Lady Finch, he knew without a doubt what she wanted.

She wanted him to help her save Jemmy.

Dios
, what had he gotten himself into?

"What are you doing here?" Jemmy asked, as Addison set a place and filled a plate for him.

"I've come to ask your mother's aid in finding someone."

"Yes, and he was nearly to telling me whom, when you arrived," Lady Finch said. "I thought you weren't hungry and deemed us too boring to eat with?"

"I didn't know you were having company," Jemmy told her, winking at Rafe. "So who are you looking for? A murderer? A thief? Some foreign spy? Bramley Hollow is hardly a hotbed for insurrection and unrest."

"No one of that nature. I'm looking for the author of the
Miss Darby
novels."

Jemmy put down his knife and fork. "What? You're looking for some spinster scribbler?" The young man broke into wails of laughter. "Oh, you must be up the River Tick if you're chasing after harmless bluestockings."

"Scarcely harmless," Lady Finch said. "Those novels have caused a revolution amongst the
ton
. Daughters refusing to marry, can you imagine such a thing? Almost as bad as heirs who refuse to take their obligations seriously."

Jemmy ignored his mother's jab at his own unmarried state and turned to Rafe. "So you think this chit is here?"

"Yes. My information says that the M. Briggs who is writing the books lives here in Bramley Hollow."

"Here? Imagine that," Jemmy said. "If you ask me, those
Darby
books are a shocking waste of time. Utter nonsense. I wonder that anyone gives them a bit of regard."

"I wouldn't be so quick to judge," Lady Finch told her son.

Rafe couldn't resist asking, for there was something a little too defensive in the lady's words, "Have you read the
Darby
books, my lady?"

At first she started to shake her head, then stopped. "Oh, I must confess I've read every single one. I couldn't put them down." She sighed. "Would be a shame to see the stories end, but I can see Malvina's point. Can't have all these girls running about decrying marriage. Now that's utter nonsense." She shook her head. "And you? Have you read them?"

Rafe shifted in his seat. 'Twas embarrassing to admit the truth. "I've only just started the first one,
Miss Darby's Daring Dilemma
. Though purely as part of my case." He wasn't about to admit, especially not in front of Jemmy Reyburn, that he'd been up till the wee hours reading the demmed thing.

"And what do you think of them?" she asked.

He ignored the smirk on Jemmy's face. "They aren't quite what I expected," he confessed. "This Miss Briggs does know how to spin a story. But that Lieutenant Throckmorten is an insufferable boor."

"Agreed. I was glad to see him die at the end of
Miss Darby's Darkest Hour
."

Rafe's gaze shot up. "He dies?" Not that he cared, for Throckmorten was only a figment of Miss Brigg's fertile imagination, but it was a shame to think of Miss Darby as brokenhearted.

"Ha!" she said, pointing a finger at him. "You are as besotted as the rest of the
ton
."

"I suppose," he admitted, not willing to tell the lady that now he would have to burn an extra candle tonight to see how exactly Throckmorten's utterly dull life ended.

"Are you so sure the author is here in Brantley Hollow?" Mrs. Radleigh asked. It was the first time she'd entered the conversation, but her question was well put.

"I have it from the clerks in her publishing house that the manuscripts come from Bramley Hollow and the payments are sent here as well."

"But who could it be?" Lady Finch mused aloud, more to herself.

"Perhaps it is one of those nabobs you love so much," Jemmy teased. "Especially since all the
Miss Darby
books take place in India."

Rafe shot him a sidelong glance. "I thought you said you hadn't read the books." He grinned down the table at Lady Finch. "Utter nonsense, wasn't that what he called them?"

She smiled. "I believe his exact words were 'a shocking waste of time.' "

"Well it was a waste of time to read them." Jemmy conceded, then grinned. Then he leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table, a mischievous light in his eyes. "But at least I know how Throckmorten died."

"Has everyone read these books but me?" Rafe asked.

The entire party nodded, including Lord Finch and Cochrane.

"
Et tu?
" Rafe asked his assistant.

"Pymm said it would show me the evils of what happens when a gel gets too headstrong," Cochrane said between bites, ignoring the snort of dismay from Lady Finch's end of the table. "But I thought that Miss Darby is probably a real swell sort of lady. Wouldn't fuss if a fellow didn't have the best of manners and all." He swiped at his chin with his sleeve and went back to his dinner, as if suddenly embarrassed to have all eyes upon him.

Rafe glanced at Lady Finch and found her studying Cochrane once again, her expression maternal and something else, as if she were making notes to herself.

Poor lad
, he thought.
That woman is going to take you under her wing
. Cochrane may have learned his trade from the spymaster, but he was about to meet the master meddler. He didn't stand a chance.

Better him than me
, Rafe thought, before returning to the subject at hand. "I think you might be on to something, Jemmy. The author would have to be someone who knows India, or is well enough read to have a good command of the locale and customs. A nabob's daughter, perhaps."

"Cits and mushrooms," Lady Finch said. "Nuisances, one and all. Buying up every sort of manor and acting like kings. No manners, no breeding, just an obscene amount of money that allows them to think they should be included with the gentry."

Jemmy shot Rafe an arched glance.
Now, you've done it
.

"Are there many of them about?" Rafe asked, realizing this was as good a place as any to start. Maybe he'd find that infuriating Miss Tate once again. He'd like to see if her blue eyes still held that mocking skepticism once he'd unmasked his quarry. Without her witty aid.

"How many? Too many, according to mother," Jemmy told him. "Take you at least a week, most likely two just to call on all of them. But I doubt just making a social call will work, for whoever it is must be very good at keeping their scribbling a secret if mother hasn't discovered them before now. Besides, to get into their houses, you'd have to take mother along with you."

Lady Finch groaned, looking as if she were about to be ill at such a prospect. But she was saved from that horrendous fate by her husband.

Lord Finch glanced up from his end of the table. "Why not just invite them all here? All the likely suspects and that sort of rot. Have one of those supper parties you're always pestering me about. Ought to be able to winnow your likely author from the field."

Rafe and Jemmy glanced down at Lady Finch. She looked about to choke on a forkful of cheese tart.

"Here? To Finch Manor?" she managed to sputter. "You want me to invite those… cits into my home? Preposterous!" She shuddered. "Why, if word got out that I had lowered myself to entertaining nabobs and mushrooms, my good opinion would hold no continence with anyone of any social standing."

"All anyone will remember, my lady," Rafe told her, warming to the idea since it would expedite his time in Bramley Hollow, "is that you assisted in unmasking the author of the
Darby
tales. In that light, your heroic sacrifice will be regarded as merely another indication of the great lengths you will go to aid your peers." He added a charming smile and a wink to his plea.

The lady picked up her fan and fluttered it at him. "Go on with you, Raphael Danvers. You are as silver-tongued as your father once was. And I'll have you know he was quite a favorite of mine when I was out."

There was another snort from the baron's end of the table.

Lady Finch ignored him.

"The idea of a supper party does have merit," Rafe said. "For I couldn't call on these people without you accompanying me and you did say you would help me." He glanced over at Jemmy. "How many visits would it entail?"

"Weeks worth," he said, clearly enjoying the idea of his mother being sidetracked for a good fortnight or so.

Glancing over at Mrs. Radleigh, Lady Finch asked, "How many likely families are there?"

"Fifteen at least," the young woman replied. "And I imagine they would all come if you invited them to dinner."

"Fifteen?" Now it was Jemmy's turn to express disapproval. "Why not just invite the entire Indian subcontinent and be done with it? No, I think you two should go out and visit each one. Uncover them in their own lair, so to say."

Jemmy wasn't getting rid of his mother that easily.

"It won't be necessary to invite them all," Lady Finch said. "We can eliminate a good many of them for any number of reasons. I have no more desire to see this house overrun than you do, Jemmy."

"Thank heavens," Rafe heard him mutter under his breath.

"Who do you think would be our most likely suspects, Mrs. Radleigh?" Lady Finch asked.

Her secretary paused, her brow furrowed. "Major Harrington and Mrs. Harrington, most decidedly," she said. "And Charlotte, of course."

"Their daughter," Lady Finch said, nodding. "She seems an intelligent enough sort, possibly capable of writing two lines of sense."

Mrs. Radleigh nodded in agreement. "I'd say she's your most obvious choice. But there are also the Gadbury sisters."

"Yes, good suggestion," Lady Finch said, tapping her fan against her chin. She glanced over at Rafe and said in explanation, "They were raised in India and certainly know the country and habits. And both have a fondness for literature. Yes, either of them could be your author."

"Miss Alminta or Miss Honora?" Jemmy sputtered. He set down his wineglass and motioned for Addison to refill it. "You can't think that one of those ape leaders is Miss Briggs? Why the very idea of them being
Miss Darby's
creator is preposterous. Why Miss Darby is elegant and sophisticated, which neither of those two ladies, kind though they are, could ever imagine." His brows furrowed together and he sat back in his seat.