Scoundrel for Hire (Velvet Lies, Book 1) (21 page)

A muscle twitched along Benson's jawline. "Your
otter
, sir, has
feasted
on her frogs, leaving a barbarous mess to be cleaned."

"Jolly good." Rafe paused with his foot on the stairwell's bottom step. "I say, Bennie," he called over his shoulder, "don't forget to put fresh sand in Tavy's scat box. I daresay she'll be making rollicking good use of it, if she hasn't already."

Snickering at his vision of Benson crouching on his hands and knees to scoop up misfired otter droppings, Rafe began his climb to the second story.

Yes, he was quite pleased with himself today. He'd arranged for fifteen thousand dollars to be transferred to Leadville and deposited in a bank account in Fiona's name—not Fred's. Fred would only do something selfish or stupid with it, like trying to salt a diamond mine. Fifteen grand should be enough to buy Fiona her medicine
and
let her and Fred retire in style. If it wasn't, then the old scam artist was herself being scammed.

For the first time in ages, Rafe felt a lightness. He recognized it as relief. Ten years ago, he'd walked out on his foster parents' show, and they'd forever held his feet to the fire, claiming he'd cost them untold ticket sales over the years. Frankly, he couldn't imagine being worth more than ten grand, no matter how riveting his Romeo was, but in any event, he'd settled the debt, throwing in another five grand because... well, because he loved the old rascals.

His throat constricted at the thought.

Today was indeed the day to repay old debts. Ten years ago, on this very day, Gabriel had died. Sera had taken it badly, being only ten. She'd wanted Rafe to stay in Blue Thunder, to fill the shoes of the brother she'd lost. Rafe couldn't do that, of course. Even if he'd been ready to forgive Michael and Jedidiah for every cruelty they'd ever inflicted, their hatred of him still poisoned any hope of a truce.

So under a midsummer moon, in the freshly turned earth beside Gabriel's grave, he'd had to tell Sera he was leaving again. She'd thrown herself at him, little fists flailing, until he'd been able to wrap his arms around her and let her sob out her heart. He'd felt useless, so he'd promised to take care of her. He'd vowed on Gabriel's grave that she would always be able to find him, no matter where he traveled.

Michael and Jedidiah, of course, would have forbidden her to receive his letters, so Rafe had made a secret pact with their backyard neighbor, "Aunt" Claudia Ann Collier, to sneak his correspondence to Sera. Claudia loved mischief, and she'd never made any bones about disliking Jedidiah, so she'd been eager to help. Thus, Rafe had been faithfully writing to Sera, by way of Aunt Claudia, once a month ever since.

If Aspen's 'Express Mail' lived up to its name, Rafe mused, Sera would learn about his latest adventures, slightly censored, of course, by the end of next week. He just knew she'd love the part about him smuggling an orphaned baby otter into the mansion of an heiress.

Rafe grinned to himself, but he couldn't quite ignore the catch in his chest. He missed Sera. He regretted not being able to watch her grow up. Judging by her letters, he suspected he and she were a lot alike, a fact that probably didn't endear her to Michael, who'd become her guardian upon Jedidiah's death two years ago.

Damn that holier-than-thou bastard.
Jedidiah Jones was finally rotting in his grave, but nothing had changed. He'd passed the torch to Michael.

Rafe scowled as he reached the top of the stairs.

The only things he had to tie him to his sister were a couple dozen letters, and they weren't enough. But until Sera married, or turned twenty-five, Rafe knew he'd be facing Michael's shotgun if he ever dared return to Blue Thunder to see her.

His lips twisted bitterly. He wondered what Michael would say if he knew Rafe had just deposited twenty-five thousand dollars in legitimate earnings in a bank. By Sera's accounts, Michael's medical practice was barely keeping a roof over their heads. If not for Aunt Claudia—she'd paid off Jedidiah's debts, including his mortgage—Michael and Sera would be walking the streets. Michael certainly deserved such a comeuppance, but not Sera.

Rafe sighed. Maybe he should go back to the bank tomorrow and arrange for another ten thousand dollars to be sent to Michael for their kid sister's sake...

The sight of his open bedroom door interrupted Rafe's reverie. He frowned. He specifically remembered closing it that morning before walking down the stairs. He'd learned this habit the hard way. Tavy was a master of unlatching her cage, and besides, he didn't have the heart to keep her cooped up like some circus sideshow. Had Jimmy gone to play with her, then forgotten to lock the door?

In ten brisk strides, Rafe traveled the length of the hall and pushed inside his ornately furnished room. The usual otter chaos greeted him: the toppled washstand, a gnawed shaving brush, scattered cigars, a broken vase. Yellow pollen had been tracked in ambling circles to the next mischief site: the white dinner shirt that Silver's housekeeper had pressed for him. It had been liberally trampled beneath the rainbowed glass of the room's vaulted, southern window. The goosedown pillows from his four-poster bed had been scattered across the burgundy and green weave of his Turkish carpet, and a couple of feather tufts stuck out of the carpet's fibers. In the next glance, he confirmed his worst suspicions: Tavy wasn't huddled in her cage or crouched in her scat box.

"Damn," he muttered. Closing the door behind him, he hoped against hope that she was still hiding somewhere in the room. "Tavy?" he called, hurrying to the bed. He flipped up the quilt and peered under the mattress. No bright, adoring eyes blinked back at him.

He looked under the maple armoire, beneath the brimming copper bathtub, even inside his well-battered traveling trunk. No Tavy. How the hell was he supposed to find her in a house this size? He cursed again, more vehemently this time. He thought he'd put the fear of God in Jimmy about doors, locks, and otters.

Then a more sobering thought struck him. One that made his gut clench. Had that sonuvabitch Benson sneaked in here out of spite? Had he turned her loose in the streets to be struck by some runaway wagon... or mauled by some stray dog?

Rafe's heart crawled into his throat as the gory images flashed through his mind.

"So help me God, Benson," he growled, forgetting his accent as he ran down the hall, "if I find out it was
you
who set Tavy free, there'll be hell to—"

A muffled shriek cut him off. Sliding to a halt by the main stairwell, he gazed toward the bedroom door at the far end of the family's wing. He knew the room was Silver's. He'd taken special pains to learn this information. He planned on using it to his advantage one night very soon.

Silver screamed again—or was that an oath this time? He strained his ears and heard the muted sound of otter chirping, followed by a rather lusty splash. His lips quirked, and he raced to the rescue.

Tavy, apparently, had been found.

Chapter 8

Silver heard the pounding of boots in the hallway; she heard the rattling of peg lamps and the trembling of brass hinges before the door crashed open, and a very heroic Rafe burst across her threshold.

"Silver!"

She had a breathlessly long heartbeat to stare. For a moment, she forgot her dishabille. Her consternation. The
Thing
that had fled the bloomers she'd tossed across her bed and that was now rollicking in her bath.

It was as if time started crawling the instant Rafe charged through her door. His sun-gilded features were flushed and anxious; his gray eyes were black with concern. From beneath rakish curls, he gazed wildly about him, as if seeking the cause of her shriek. Despite his lavender waistcoat, he looked every inch the champion, looming larger than life against the backdrop of rose-patterned wallpaper and rainbowed window sashes. His clenched fists and pugnacious pose told her things she hadn't guessed about Raphael Jones: that he was a scrapper, certainly. That he'd survived the ugly side of life, more than likely.

But most eye-opening of all was his readiness to defend her,
the woman he took such delight in tormenting. It was a mind-boggling revelation.
Never
had she had a man on whom she could rely. During his precious visits to Philadelphia, Papa had always been more playmate than father, and she'd become resigned at an early age to the fact that she must fend for herself. She'd had to do precisely that against Aaron Townsend.

And yet, here stood Rafe, her scoundrel-for-hire. An unlikely knight in the least daunting armor she'd ever seen. He'd raced to her rescue. The knowledge touched her in a dangerously romantic way. For a moment, she was confronted by Raphael Jones the Hero, not the Rogue, and she thought him the most wonderful man in the world.

Unfortunately, the moment passed quickly.

"Silver!" he exclaimed again, striding valiantly to the tub. "Put down the fire poker. You'll hurt her!"

She blinked, somewhat dazed by his command. It wasn't exactly what she'd imagined a champion might say, especially her champion, who'd come to rescue her from the
Thing.

Her senses affected once more by the passage of time, Silver became aware of the bite of iron in the palm of her hand and the tickle of woolen fibers beneath her toes. Her pulse hammered against the fist that clutched the neckline of her dressing gown; her hair spilled across the forearm that had been bared by her voluminous jade sleeve.

The caress of cool hall air against her thigh warned her that the paisley fabric was revealing more scandalous vistas of flesh, and she straightened, hoping the shimmering folds would conceal everything north of her ankles and praying the satin was opaque enough to withstand the backlighting of her hearth.

She needn't have worried, though. Rafe wasn't even looking at her.

"Tavy?" he breathed. His face transfused with wonder as the creature chirped and dived, chasing a cake of lavender soap. "You're swimming!"

Silver narrowed her eyes first at Rafe, who, contrary to all his wicked propositions, appeared too enamored of the bewhiskered creature sullying her bath to make good on his threats. She next glared at the animal itself, which was happily sloshing water all over the tarpaulin that, thankfully, she'd spread to protect her Persian rug.

"Tavy?"
she choked out. "You mean this... this..." She hesitated, momentarily bemused. What the devil was the creature, anyway? A rat?

She quailed and retreated a step, tightening her grip on the fire iron. Other than its sleek little body and a disturbingly long tail, the thing was hard to see clearly. It kept splashing and submerging, lobbing bubbles into the air as if it were having the grandest of times wasting her imported French soap. Personally, she'd never laid eyes on a rat, having always prided herself on keeping an impeccable larder, but she wouldn't have put it past Rafe to own a pet rodent. Or better yet, a pet weasel!

"Do you mean to tell me this... this water-logged
weasel
is Octavia? Your
ward?"

He was too busy grinning at the creature to do more than dart her the barest of glances. "Tavy's an otter, not a weasel. And look, she's swimming!"

Silver gritted her teeth. An otter. The rounder had smuggled an
otter
into her house! And Papa had clearly been in cahoots.

She was just about to explode into a denunciation of pests, prevaricators, and papas when Tavy's impish paw slapped the water, showering soap over Rafe. He laughed. The sound was a rumble of pure, unaffected delight. It was her first hint that his roguery sheltered a more innocent nature, and Silver, her breath catching, once again stood transfixed.

Before her eyes, her scoundrel-for-hire had turned sweetly boyish. Gone was the feral cast to his features and the haunted shadow she sometimes glimpsed in his eyes. In that moment, Silver came to understand that her playactor performed a multitude of roles. Beneath the guise of rascal and thief lurked the real Raphael Jones. She couldn't help but wonder if now she was seeing the authentic man for the first time.

She cleared her throat. It was hard not to be smitten by a man who cared not one whit for the soapsuds running down his cheek and into his collar. He simply splashed his otter back.

"Well, of course Tavy's swimming," Silver acknowledged grudgingly. "Otters
do
that, you know."

"Not this otter." Kneeling, Rafe beamed like a proud father as Tavy paddled after a sponge. "Tavy was orphaned. Couldn't have been more than four weeks old when I found her. Otters need their mamas to teach them how to swim. It's not an instinctual part of their nature."