Scoundrel for Hire (Velvet Lies, Book 1) (3 page)

That's why I won't.

He bowed his head and rattled off his prayers. Mama had taught him the words. To hear him pray had made her happy, so for her sake, he recited every one he could think of. He knew he wouldn't be saying them again, not after this day.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he cleared his throat, searching for something real and meaningful to say. He told his mama he loved her. He told her he was glad she was in a happy place at last. He asked her not to worry about him anymore.

Then he said good-bye.

Turning from his mother's grave, Rafe forged a path through the snow away from the graveyard. He didn't have a plan in mind; he just walked down, down, down the hill, too stubborn to let the bitter blasts of night knock him off his feet.

At least if I reach hell, I'll stay warm.

A livery stable huddled at the end of the street. He'd helped paint the building, and he knew the animals well. He figured the owner would be drunk and snoring somewhere as usual, so Rafe decided to steal a horse. It would serve the old man right for beating his animals. Besides, what difference would it make? Stealing a horse, saving a horse—it was all the same when your soul was damned.

"You're mine now, Belle," he told the filly after he'd saddled her and led her out into the moonlight. She didn't seem opposed to the idea, which made him feel better. Damned or not, he still had a conscience. He supposed he'd have to work a little harder not to care.

Reining in at the town marker, he pulled up his collar and tightened his scarf. His teeth were chattering, and his hands were nearly numb. It occurred to him that he should have stolen food and some blankets, not to mention extra gloves and a box of matches. The problem was, he'd never stolen anything, excluding Belle. He'd never run away before either. Now what should he do?

He squinted into the frosty luminescence of the wilderness. A tendril of smoke curled against the moon. He could just make out a caravan of wagons in the silvery drifts in the distance. His heart thumped faster with hope. He suspected he'd found the theatrical troupe Jedidiah had helped chase out of town two days ago. They must have been caught in the ensuing storm.
"Thespians are harlots, liars, thieves, and drunkards,"
Jedidiah had thundered, no doubt still fuming over the actor who'd pretended to be a preacher and had turned him into a cuckold fifteen years earlier. "
Let Satan's disciples peddle sin elsewhere."

Blinking the flurries off his lashes, Rafe gave his horse a mirthless smile. "It seems kind of fitting, eh, Belle, that I join those lost souls now?"

A good three miles later, he was shivering uncontrollably and beating his fist against the door of a painted wagon. Scantily clad cupids and sighing ladies adorned the mural, the focal point of which was the dimpled and derbied man who flexed exaggerated arm muscles on either side of the door. The portrait's face split open as the door swung wide, and Rafe blinked, dazzled by the starburst of light that silhouetted the behemoth looming over him. The man's head was hairless save for the drooping moustaches that covered his mouth.

"Bloody hell, it's a beggar. Be gone, brat. You won't find any handouts here."

Rafe raised his chin. A tantalizing blast of heat wafted out from behind the Brit—that and the mingled smells of mincemeat and rum. He had to get inside. It was inside or freeze, because he was not going back to the town of Blue Thunder.

"I'm no beggar. I'm here about the job."

The behemoth snorted. "We aren't any Punch-and-Judy show. Get on with you, now."

A painted female face, afloat in a stiff cloud of blonde hair, appeared beside the door. The matron looked Rafe up and down, paying particular attention to the body parts below his waist. Her cagey green eyes lit appreciatively.

"Aw, the tyke looks cold, Freddie luv. Let 'im in. It's Christmas Day."

"We aren't a bloody orphanage, Fiona."

"He said he's here about the job," she cooed.

"That's right," Rafe said quickly, pointing to the wind-ripped billboard that flapped beside the door. "It says here you're looking for a Falstaff. I'm your man."

The two thespians seemed to find this uproariously funny, and Rafe fidgeted beneath their guffaws. He had to admit, he didn't know what a Falstaff did, but he was good with a hammer and a paintbrush. Anything else he could learn.

"Know a lot about Shakespeare, do you?" Fred asked.

"Oh yes," Rafe lied, and quite well too, he thought, considering how little practice he'd had. "He wrote some very fine plays."

Fiona snickered. "He's got nerve enough for the footlights."

"Hmm. Maybe you're right." Fred was smirking as he rubbed his chin. "'Fraid that's an old billboard, lad. That job's already been taken. By me." When Rafe's face fell, Fred added smoothly, "But you just might fit the bill for another show we're putting on in Louisville." He winked at Fiona.

She grinned. "Why, sure. He'd be perfect—once the swelling in his eye goes down."

Fred stepped aside, motioning Rafe up the step into the wagon. "What's your name, lad?"

Rafe loosed a ragged breath. The coals on their brazier had made the interior so toasty that he could feel a thaw moving through his limbs. "Rafe. But I can't leave my horse—"

"I'll see to your horse," Fred drawled, closing the door behind him. He laid a beefy arm across Rafe's shoulders. "So tell me. What do you know about
Romeo and Juliet?"'

Chapter 1

Aspen, Colorado

June, 1881

At last!

Silver Nichols eagerly reread the letter in her hand. For what seemed like an eternity, she'd been waiting for this kind of response to the inquiries she'd mailed across the nation. She'd hired bank examiners, Pinkerton agents, lawyers, even a retired Civil War spy. She'd turned them out in droves to help her build a case against Celestia Cooper, a modern-day witch who anyone with a lick of common sense could see lusted after her papa's fortune, not his love.

But not one of Silver's informants had uncovered anything quite like this. She hugged the parchment to her chest, half-tempted to kiss it.
At last!
Here was the proof she needed—proof of a deed so dastardly, so despicable, that the mere mention of it would make the angels weep. It had taken a church organist, writing in a fit of evangelical outrage, to finally bring to light this Celestia Cooper atrocity. The skeleton this letter had exhumed would put to an end that wretched woman's social climbing in Aspen. Now Silver could prove to her father beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was planning to marry a monster.

She grinned at her reflection in the polished mahogany of her prized box piano.
Good things
do
come to those who wait!

Feeling a lightness that she hadn't known for years—at least not since the night she'd fled her maternal aunt's boardinghouse—Silver hummed a Stephen Foster ditty and struck a match, watching the stack of her more benign letters ignite in the urn on her piano. The vessel was fashioned of sterling silver, a king's treasure dug from the richest of her father's four mines. So were the bookends, wall frames, doorknobs, and a variety of other bric-a-brac that adorned her lavish sitting room.

She'd taken pains to convert the downstairs parlor into a sort of entrepreneurial trophy chamber, mainly to impress investors and potential clients. Although she entertained often in her father's Hallam Street mansion, she hosted business functions far more than social ones. Papa owned the most prosperous silver mining company in Colorado, and helping him maintain his social status required the ability to decorate and entertain with extravagance.

However, keeping Papa from frittering away his fortune required skills of a different nature.

Silver sighed as her soaring spirits were checked by the thought. Unbridled generosity might earn her father a place in heaven, but it wasn't going to feed him or keep a roof over his head. The man had never tempered his goodwill with practicality.

Before she had arrived five years ago from Philadelphia, he'd already let himself get hoodwinked into portioning off one of his most promising claims. Fortunately, his partners couldn't raise the capital to develop it, and she'd persuaded them through some savvy negotiation to sell back their shares. That mine, Silver's Mine, as Papa had called it, had turned out to hold his wealthiest vein, a bonanza that had brought him worldwide acclaim—and the attention of a fortune-teller-turned-hunter who billed herself as "Madam" Celestia.

Silver wrinkled her nose, waving away smoke. Thank God for conscientious, letter-writing citizens like that church organist from Kentucky. Otherwise, in six weeks' time, she might have been forced to call a circus sideshow act Mother.

The bell jangled over the front door. Silver started as her butler's staccato footsteps echoed in the foyer. Who on earth could be calling at this early hour?

Perhaps it was her driver. She
had
been a bit distracted last night as she'd instructed him regarding the Leadville journey. Papa had disappeared as usual after dinner, and she'd been forced to see to his traveling bags as well as her own. She'd so wanted this journey to go without a hitch; indeed, nervous anticipation hadn't let her sleep past the first rays of dawn.

For the first time ever, a woman had been invited to speak before the board of directors of the Leadville Mining Exchange. She, who had once been so penniless that she'd been reduced to cooking meals at the boardinghouse, would address some of the wealthiest brokers and stockholders in the mining industry.

But even more importantly, Silver thought with a bubbling sense of excitement, she'd have Papa all to herself for two days. It was a dream-come-true for the girl who'd been forced to grow up nearly a continent away from the daddy whom she adored.

Dumping the ashes into the unlit hearth, Silver hastily replaced the urn and stepped into the foyer. She left the parlor in time to see the front door bang open and her chubby father stand huffing on the threshold. Oddly enough, he was dressed in last night's dinner suit.

"Let me help you with that, sir," the butler said as Papa struggled over the threshold, his arms and back weighted down by bulging satchels.

"No thanks, Benny," Papa called jovially, listing to the left as he kicked the door closed. Oblivious to the heel mark he'd left behind, he grinned up at the solemn Englishman. "I've gotta get used to toting loads again so I can hoist my bride over the threshold."

Benson had the good grace not to smirk. Silver pressed her lips together. Celestia Cooper was one load Papa would
never
carry, if she had anything to say about it.

"Papa, for heaven's sake, you'll hurt yourself," she chided, hurrying to lend a hand. "Those knapsacks look much too heavy—"

"Now daughter, I'm a miner. And miners don't let a couple of rocks get the better of them." He doubled over, his ruddy face turning a shade redder as he hauled his bags toward the parlor. "'Sides, this here's a special lode. And you know what that means, don't ya?"

"A special lode needs special care," she chimed in dutifully.

He chuckled, and her heart warmed. She loved Papa's laugh. The sound always reminded her of sleighing and Christmas and chestnuts roasting over the fire. Maybe those images came to mind because for most of her lonely childhood, Papa had only come home to Philadelphia when the snows had made it too hard to prospect.

She trailed behind him. When Papa swung the knapsack from his back, she tried not to mind that Benson had to grab a priceless Oriental vase out of the way. And when Papa banged his satchels onto her table, she did her best not to worry whether the cloud of rock dust could be brushed out of her prized Persian carpet.

"Let's see what we've got," Papa said, rubbing his hands together.

Benson stood gravely at attention, but she moved closer, her heart quickening. Papa's enthusiasm had always been infectious. Even in the days when she'd preferred rag dolls to nuggets of ore, she would run to sit by his knee and help him paw through bag after bag of quartz for the glimmer of gold he'd sworn he'd found.

She held her breath. But when he unbuckled the fastenings and dumped out the satchels, she could tell in an instant he'd been prospecting a dream lode. She supposed some things never changed.