It Takes a Hero (9 page)

"I can assure you, madame, I am not the marrying type."

She tipped her bonnet back and studied him. "You just haven't found the right lady yet."

"I suppose you could remedy that?"

She tugged her shawl closer. "You have only to ask."

Rafe decided the better part of valor was to say nothing.

The matchmaker laughed. "Silence won't save you, Mr. Danvers."

A shiver ran down his spine. "You know who I am?"

"Everyone in Bramley Hollow knows who you are. You couldn't have done yourself a worse disservice by introducing yourself to a certain young lady."

"Miss Tate," he said, under his breath.

"Not Rebecca, you dolt," Esme said. "The postmistress, Miss Stone."

"Oh, it's just that I thought—" He stopped when out of the corner of his eye he saw her smiling. "I didn't mean—"

"Of course you didn't, Mr. Danvers. Of course you didn't."

Rafe didn't like the way she chuckled as she finished her assurances, but he said nothing further and walked in companionable silence.

The spring evening couldn't have been more perfect as the days started to stretch longer, leaving the night to steal what time it could.

He'd always marveled at the serenity of the English countryside. After years on the war torn plains of Spain and the parched fields of Portugal, the green, fresh grass and the spicy scent of wild roses tangled in the hedges lulled him into Esme's confidence.

"I didn't mean to imply that I thought Miss Tate was a prattle-box."

Esme smiled.

"It's just that she's—"

"Yes?"

"Nothing." He was most definitely better off not saying anything. Yet in the silence he found himself thinking of that annoying minx. How she'd teased him with impunity. The chestnut fire of her hair. He'd never been one for redheads, but perhaps he'd just never seen a shade he liked…

Liked?
He shook his head. The day he found himself using "liked" and "Miss Tate" in the same sentence was the day he needed to hightail it back to London as fast as he could.

"So how does one become a matchmaker?" Rafe asked, his silent reverie becoming more unnerving than the notion that he could accidentally fall into one of Esme's marital traps.

"By chance," Esme said, as if that was explanation enough. "Now you tell me, have you found who you are looking for?"

Obviously Miss Stone had done her job well. Not only did everyone know who he was, they knew why he was here.

So much for the element of surprise.

"No," he said.

"You will," she assured him.

"Then you're here to help me?" he asked, putting on his most charming smile.

The lady laughed and ignored his question. "That's the best you can offer? I was led to believe you were a charming devil." She shook her head. "You do need my assistance."

"I do well enough," he said, feeling a bit affronted. He was starting to think that the English countryside was a foreign country when his London manners held no sway.

"I suppose you might," Esme said after taking another assessing gander at him. "But not for what you were intended to do."

"And what is that?" he asked without thinking.

"Love someone."

He flinched. What was it about this village that had him asking questions to which he didn't really want to hear the answers?

"I don't think that's possible," he told her, meaning every word of it.

"It isn't for you to decide."

Rafe definitely needed to take control of this conversation before he indeed found himself matched and married. The direct approach seemed the best. "Do you know who the author of the
Miss Darby
novels might be?"

Esme laughed. "No. And even if I did, I wouldn't tell you. I rather like those books." She came to a stop before an arched gate. "Here you are."

"Is this your home?" he said, glancing up the lane at the cozy looking cottage.

"No," she said, pulling her hand free from his arm and straightening her shawl. "But it is where I leave you." Then she reached into her basket and pressed a bounty of long stemmed flowers into his arms. Before he could protest that the thorns were going to bleed him dry, she scurried up the road, whistling a tune not unlike the one Miss Tate had left ringing in his ears earlier.

Rafe grit his teeth. There she was again, that vexing little minx invading his thoughts.

Then she invaded more than that.

"What are
you
doing here?"

He turned around and discovered that perhaps he hadn't quite escaped Esme's intrigues.

For the matchmaker had left him at the doorstep of Miss Tate.

Rebecca stood on the path and stared at the man at her gate.

His dark hair was brushed back, giving way to his sculpted features: the deep cleft in his chin, the hard line of his jaw, the perfect turn of his lips. In his dark jacket and breeches, Raphael Danvers looked more like a barely civilized pirate than a gentleman.

The kind of man who smoldered with an untamed fire, barely contained by a thin veneer of manners.

She told herself he didn't affect her in the least. Not a whit. As long as he didn't smile, glance at her or stand in her general vicinity, she would remain immune.

Oh, why couldn't this Mr. Danvers just give up and go home? And, more importantly, leave her in peace.

Rebecca glanced back at the cottage. Through the window she could see the colonel bent over another of his translations, so absorbed he wouldn't miss her for the time being.

She hurried down the path with every intention of sending her unwanted guest packing back to London with a peel ringing in his ears that would take a good month for him to shake loose, but she stopped just shy of the gate.

What the blazes did he have in his hand?

Flowers? For her?

Off all the underhanded, sneaky, predictable… her indignation started to fade when she realized the blossoms were roses. Pink roses. Her very favorites.

And from the looks of them purloined from Lord Finch's hothouse. Now she could add theft to his list of sins.

The first and foremost of those being his utter audacity.

He glanced down and spied the errant blooms and tried to put them behind his back, as if to hide his offering. "I hadn't planned on… I mean… I never intended…"

Rebecca considered all the sharp-witted ways she could skewer him, but she couldn't. Something stopped her, leaving her just as tongue-tied.

What was it about this man that made her forget every vow she ever made to find a nice, sensible, practical vicar?

Yes, a vicar was just the man she wanted.

Because right now, Mr. Danvers had her praying for things that had nothing to do with proper sensibilities.

"I thought you said you weren't here to be matched?" she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I'm not."

He needn't say it so emphatically; it wasn't as if she were demanding he come up to scratch.

"Then who are the flowers for?" She couldn't resist persisting, if only to see him shift uncomfortably from one foot to another.

"No one. They were given to me by"—he glanced up the empty road— "a friend." He looked down at the blossoms in his hand as if he weren't too sure what to do with them. "Would you like them?" He shoved them toward her in a motion that was both awkward and reluctant, as if he'd never given a woman a bouquet before.

She found that hard to believe, but then again men like him probably didn't need the aid of flowers and gifts to gain a woman's attention.

Rebecca was ready to say no, but they were her favorite, after all. And they would look so nice in her mother's vase on the mantelshelf.

"Thank you," she said, taking them hastily, trying to avoid any contact with him. Too hastily, it turned out, for she caught hold of a large thorn which stuck in her finger.

"Ouch!" she yelped, shaking her hand and dropping the roses in a shower of blossoms to her feet. "Oh, bother," she cursed, as she tried gingerly to pull the thorn free.

Before she realized what was happening, he caught hold of her hand and plucked the thorn out with a quick tug. Then he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a square of linen and wound it tightly around her injury.

Rebecca's breath caught as he held her hand, tended her, and when his fingers cradled her hand one last time to examine his handiwork, she wondered that the flowers hadn't been singed by his touch…

A spark of something whispered up her arms and down her spine—a thread of desire, like a long forgotten memory tugging to be freed. A dangerous memory of passion and what it was like to be touched by a man.

And when she glanced up and into his eyes they held a spark of surprise that must have mirrored her own.

She pulled her hand back. "Uh, thank you," she muttered, as she reached down and picked up the dropped stems, taking care this time not to get stuck by the thorns hidden in the lush and verdant greenery… or the charming smile and handsome face of the man who'd offered them.

Such wounds, she knew only too well, didn't heal readily. If ever.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, suddenly wary, both of his masculine power and the temptation still teasing her senses. "I would have thought you'd be back in London by now."

"I haven't finished my business yet."

"Ah, yes, your delivery."

"I do have business here," he insisted.

"Of course. With Miss Briggs," she said, fixing a serious countenance on her face, while trying not to smile at the memory of him gaping down at the lady's grave. "I'm sure she was delighted today with the pleasure of your company."

His brows furrowed, and his jaw set. She could imagine he wanted to deliver a well deserved set down, but he couldn't, not when he needed her help. That gave her the upper hand, or so she liked to believe until she found herself pinned by his dark gaze.

Gads, she didn't know what was worse, his disarming smile or his tempestuous frustration.

"You needn't sound so satisfied," he was saying. "You are the most incorrigible miss I've ever met."

Rebecca tried hard not to preen under such high praise. "You asked for directions to Miss Briggs and I gave them, I don't see that I did anything that deserves your censure."

He made a low noise in the back of his throat that sounded like Ajax when he spied another cat in his territory.

The oh-so-masculine sound sent a shiver of warning down her spine. What was it about this man that made her think of her overbearing, ill-mannered tom?

Might it be that he was just as rakish and inclined to get his own way? She would do well to remember that half the kittens in Bramley Hollow sported Ajax's ginger coloring.

"Actually, I've enlisted Lady Finch's aid to help me."

"Lady Finch?" she managed to stammer. Oh, this was a disaster. Rebecca's heart fluttered and she fixed her attention on the pale pink blossoms in her hands. "How do you know Lady Finch?"

It was a foolish question. Everyone knew Lady Finch.

"She's a close family friend. In fact, I'm staying at Finch Manor for the time being."

So close? It was obviously time to start packing. Rebecca wondered where it was that she'd put her valise. Instead she took a sniff of flowers and feigned indifference. "You have? I would think that if you knew who you were looking for, you'd make your delivery and be gone."

"I would like nothing more."

"So what are you waiting for?" she asked, waving to the empty road.

"For you to confess the truth that you are the author of the
Miss Darby
chronicles."

Rebecca's mouth fell open. No one had ever suspected her, not once, and this man just waltzed into Bramley Hollow and lay such a claim at her feet. It was too much to believe. So she laughed. Laughed in his face, laughed at his audacity.

Laughed to hide the fact he knew the truth.

"And if I were this author, Mr. Danvers," she offered, "why don't you tell me why you are really here? And not this fiction about a solicitor and papers."

He heaved a deep breath and looked at her.

"The truth, sir," she told him.

"I was hired to find the author by a lady of some means in London."

"So you are a runner."

He shook his head. "Not exactly."

"Then what are you if you aren't a thief taker?"

"I prefer to think of myself as a gentleman who assists my peers with problems they find difficult or disagreeable."

A gentleman?
She nearly scoffed aloud. There was nothing gentle about this Raphael Danvers.

Oh, he might possess the markings of a nobleman, from the hawkish line of his nose and strong jaw, to the commanding presence he made when he walked into a room. But everything else about him spoke of a dangerous man, rakish and devilish, and most decidedly not a gentleman.

"I help people when they have no one else to trust," he said, as if trying to nudge her out of her disbelief.

"What does this lady in London want with the
Miss Darby
author?"

His jaw worked back and forth as if trying to come up with an answer that would aid his cause. Heaving another sigh, he said, "She wants the lady to stop writing. "

"Stop writing?" Rebecca sputtered. "Well, it certainly doesn't sound to me like you are here to help this author."

He flinched, as well he should. Arrogant man to come here and think he could just dictate someone's livelihood.

"And what are you going to do if she refuses?" Rebecca said. "Make some dastardly threat? Break her arm?"

He flinched again, and Rebecca considered it a warning. That was most likely what he'd been sent to do.

"And you think I'm the author of these
Miss Darby
stories?" She brazened out the truth by laughing again.

"Yes." He said it with a dangerous certainty that shook her down to her sensible shoes. "And I have every intention of proving it before I leave this village."

"Proof?" She snorted. "You'll find no proof, sir, for you have the wrong woman. You are wasting your time chasing after me."

In more ways than one.

"I may not have my proof yet, Miss Tate. But mark my words, I will.
I will
." The challenge in his eyes sent a warning tremor down her spine.