It Takes a Hero (11 page)

For a moment Rafe thought that perhaps Lady Finch's dire warnings had been overstated, for the house and gardens appeared quite fine to his untrained eye. But as he drew closer, he could see the lady hadn't been mincing her words.

A tumbledown wreck, she'd called it. Her description had a bit of kindness to it. Bettlesfield Park would be better off being pulled down for the stone.

The clatter of his horse's hooves echoed through the desolation that surrounded them and he shifted in his saddle, craning his neck this way and that to take it all in.

There were few windows still left whole or just merely cracked, but the rest of the panes gaped like open ugly wounds.

That is, what he could see of the windows. Ivy, left to its own wild and insatiable nature, covered most of the walls. The steps to the front entry were cluttered with leaves and debris, while the door stood open, hanging lopsidedly on one creaking hinge.

Lady Finch had been right when she'd said it would take a fortune and a fool to bring the place to rights.

As he jumped down from his horse, a host of birds rose from the bushes and sought safety inside the upper floors.

His house was a demmed rookery. He had birds in his attics. Oh, Colin and Robert would find all kinds of irony in that notion.

As he was about to push the door open the rest of the way and venture inside, he heard something odd—a whistled tune coming from around the side of the house. The melody caught his ear and lured him from the steps. Before he knew it, he was picking his way through the waist high lawn and tumble of weeds, and seeking the source of the enticing strains.

Just as he hopped over a low stone wall a gasp rose from the garden beyond.

"You!"

He looked up to find the object of his vexation seated cross-legged atop a large stump, a pen in hand, and a small, traveling desk spread open on her lap.

Miss Tate no longer, Rebecca's prim demeanor had been replaced with a loose braid that fell nearly to her waist. She wore a simple green gown, but around her shoulders lay a fanciful shawl. Her feet were bare, a sight that enticed him. He didn't know if he'd ever seen an English lady with bare feet, outside his bed that was. Her toes wiggled in the sunshine, leading up to delicate ankles and an inviting pair of shapely calves.

She looked… well, she looked…

Fey.

The word came unbidden to mind. Hadn't his Irish nanny filled his head with stories of the fey—troublesome, tempting folk—but he'd never believed in them until now.

She hastily capped a small bottle of ink, and then stowed her pen. "So now you've taken to following me to prove your ridiculous theory?"

"No," he said, still taken aback by the sight before him. She captivated him as she had last night in the garden when he'd been about to kiss her. Now, more than ever, he was flooded with regrets for not having succeeded.

"So then what are you doing here?" she sputtered as she tried to gather up the pages stacked around her. Just then a gentle breeze caught the leaves and sent them fluttering over the ill-kempt lawn like autumn refuse.

"Bother!" she exclaimed before clamoring off the stump and chasing after her lost possessions.

As she dashed about trying to catch them up, he started to doubt the certainty of his convictions.

This was the creator of Miss Darby? The Miss Darby in her fine helmet and boots, who rode a charger effortlessly into battle or snagged a python from beneath the Raj's dining table with her father's best fishing rod with the same finesse with which she poured tea?

An
Incomparable
, ever at the ready, and never floundering about like a freshly caught trout.

Though, he had to admit, Miss Tate had several incomparable assets, for her all-too-tempting shape was in fine view as she leaned this way and that trying to retrieve her wayward papers.

Then in a very astute display of the differences between the elegant lady of fiction and this real life spinster, Miss Tate toppled into a hedge in an unsightly tangle.

"Oooh," she wailed as she tried to right herself but only got caught deeper in the shrubbery.

What was it about this woman and her affinity for thorns?

Rafe rushed to her side. "Careful," he advised as he started to pick her up out of the briars. "You are well caught," he added in jest.

"So you would like to think," she said, shaking off his help and righting herself with all the dignity of her accursed cat.

What the devil had she called that beast?

Ajax
. Now why did that name sound so familiar? Then it struck him. Ajax wasn't just the name of Miss Tate's hellbent tom, but also of Miss Darby's beloved wolfhound.

"Aha!" he said, pointing at her.

"Aha, what?" she asked, shaking out her skirt, then tossing her thick red braid back over her shoulder. Unruly strands curled about her face.

"Ajax!" he said. "The name of your cat and Miss Darby's dog are one and the same. I think that is hardly a coincidence."

She shook her head, and skirted past him like one might a tattered beggar on the street. "You truly do this for a living?" she shot over her shoulder.

"Well yes."

"Then it is no wonder your cuffs are so threadbare." She sighed. "I named my cat after Miss Darby's dog because I thought they shared the same fierce determination."

Damn her
. It was a reasonable explanation. There were probably hundreds of Ajaxes scampering about England now given the novels' popularity. And even a few Darbys for that matter.

She caught up with another of her pages and scooped down to retrieve it. Tucking it in with the rest of the collection, she hugged them to her chest and stomped back to her desk. "What are you doing here?"

"I would ask the same of you," he replied. "Writing novels, I presume?" He nodded at a page she'd missed that was fluttering into what might have been a knot garden at one time.

"Harrumph." Her brow furrowed as she followed it. "None of your business," she told him as she stuffed a jumble of pages into her traveling desk, snapping the latch shut and turning to face him, her hands on her hips. "If you aren't following me, then what are you doing here?"

"Inspecting the property."

"Shouldn't take you very long," she remarked.

He laughed despite himself. "I suppose not."

"Is this another of your
gentleman's
services?"

"In a manner of speaking. When I prove you are the author of the
Miss Darby
novels"—he paused as she punctuated his sentence with another indignant, and very unladylike snort—"I will be paid with the deed to this house."

Her response was much the same as Lady Finch's. She broke out laughing. "I was right. You can't be very good at what you do if you're willing to take this ruin in payment."

"I don't intend to live here," he told her.

"Not unless you like living in a… a…" Just then a bevy of birds flew out the open attic windows far above them.

"A rookery?" he asked.

This time, they both laughed, and the sudden camaraderie, even if it was only for a few moments left Rafe unsettled. This was a potential suspect. The first rule of investigation was never to get overly chummy with one's quarry. Which definitely included kissing them…

"So you noticed the squatters," she was saying. Her teeth captured her lower lip and she glanced shyly away from him.

Oh, he'd noticed. More than he wanted to.

"Now that I've revealed my purpose for being here," he said, "why don't you tell me what brings you to Bettlesfield Park?" He nodded toward her traveling desk. "Writing love notes or misleading guidebooks to Bramley Hollow's lost attractions?"

She laughed again, and when she smiled her entire face lit up. Perhaps it was the tumbled surroundings or the afternoon light, but the lady had left her spinster armor behind and before him stood an intriguing miss.

Really, what harm was there in one kiss? Perhaps in this case the rules required a little bending, he told himself. All in the line of duty, of course.

He went to step around a tumbled statue blocking his path, to pick up the piece of paper she'd missed, when she called out, "Stop!"

Rafe paused and looked up at her. Her eyes were wide and her mouth open in a wide "O". "I was right," he said. "Must be missives of love or the proof I need to discover your secret identity, Miss Tate." His boot rose to step over the obstacle.

"No!" she warned him. " 'Tis dangerous."

"Dangerous?" he scoffed, ignoring her advice and taking just that step. His boot crunched atop something that creaked, then gave way. Before he could catch himself, he toppled downward.

He bounced once or twice then landed in a heap at the bottom of what must have once been the garden well.

Dirt and debris showered down upon him, and when the dust finally settled he managed to sputter a loud curse. Struggling to his feet, he looked up.

There, high above his head was the concerned visage of Miss Tate.

"Are you
well?
" she called down, her brows arched in jest.

Well?
Was that her idea of a joke? So much for any hope of maidenly concerns for his welfare. In truth, he should have known better. This was Miss Tate, after all. He bit back the first reply that came to mind and ground out an, "Aye."

"I don't suppose you can climb up?" She leaned over the edge and held out her hand.

The well wasn't that deep, only about twelve feet but too high for him to reach her outstretched hand. He felt around the walls, but the thin roots that poked through and the few remaining boards offered no help. "No, I'm stuck." All his years in Spain, all his daring raids and sorties into enemy territory, and he manages to nearly break his neck in a forgotten Kent well.

"It seems you are once again at my mercy, Mr. Danvers." If her words didn't sting, the fact that all he could see was her grinning visage was salt enough for his wounded pride.

"Would you mind going for help?" he asked.

"That depends," she called down.

Rafe held back yet another retort. He was painfully aware that he was at her tender mercies. And tender and mercy were hardly words that seemed to fit into Miss Tate's vocabulary.

"And on what would that be?" he asked as kindly as he could manage.

"That you return to London and leave this
Darby
business alone." An edge of desperation tinged her words.

Rafe could barely restrain himself from rubbing his hands together in glee. Either Miss Tate was the lady he sought or she knew who was. "I would love to leave this place, but I have a reputation to maintain, Miss Tate. I can't give up now. Not with such a fine house as Bettlesfield Park in my sights. Think of it, I'd be living here in Bramley Hollow. You wouldn't deny a new neighbor in need?"

"Harrumph. I might remind you, you'll have to find your author first before you gain your prize."

He was beginning to dislike her rampant skepticism as to his abilities.

But then again, she wasn't the one at the bottom of a well.

"Are you going to stop hunting for this author?" she repeated.

"No!" he barked. He was losing patience with her, even if she was the only hope he had of ever gaining his freedom.

"I think it is patently unfair that you think you can march into a village and demand someone stop their profession, their very livelihood, all under the guise of a gentleman. A gentleman, indeed! And what do you get for this atrocity? A broken down estate. You should be ashamed," she scolded. "If you had one ounce of nobility in your heart you would leave Bramley Hollow this instant."

But he hadn't any nobility, he wanted to tell her. His very lack of nobility had gotten him tossed out of nearly every school in England, out of the army, and on several occasions nearly out of his family.

If she wanted honor and dignity and moral integrity—the elusive virtues that supposedly came with those blessed with aristocratic bloodlines—she should go seek out his brothers, Colin and Robert. They wore theirs like a silver mantle, though even with their lofty ideals they had let theirs tarnish a bit from time to time.

No, if any of the Danvers brothers could lay claim to unarguable nobility it would have been his twin brother, Orlando.

Lando, as he'd been known, had always displayed the highest degree of courage and nobility that any single man could possess. And there wasn't a day that went by that Rafe didn't think of his lost brother. The half of his soul that would have known exactly what Miss Tate was talking about.

And agreed wholeheartedly with her.

"Well, are you or aren't you going to leave?" she was saying.

"Miss Tate, I would be more than happy to leave," he said, "if I weren't at the moment trapped at the bottom of this well." He had not agreed, he noted to himself, to give up finding his prey. "Would you please just go for help?" He decided to count on the fact that at heart, Miss Tate was a decent sort, hardly the type to leave one down a well to meet their fate.

He was wrong.

"No," came the adamant reply.

"No? You mean to say you'd leave me down here?" he asked.

"Of course not," she told him. "It's just that there is no need to go for help. I believe there is some rope in the shed." She disappeared from sight for a few moments, then popped her head back over the edge. "Don't go anywhere," she called down merrily.

Delightful minx
, he thought, planning all the ways he would throttle her when he got to the top.

Rebecca didn't go to fetch the rope—at least not immediately. First of all she carefully picked up the last piece of paper, the one Mr. Danvers had been reaching for when he'd fallen down the well.

"Damn his pestering hide," she cursed under her breath. What the devil was he doing following her to Bettlesfield Park, of all places? He hadn't been satisfied with flowers and his attempted kisses; he had to follow her about like an annoying stray.

And boasting that he was about to become the owner of this place. What utter nonsense! Then again, she could just imagine what he would do with it—probably turn it into his own personal country boudoir, like the last resident had done—filling the rooms with cheap red velvet, copied Turkish hangings, and throwing a series of notorious house parties, his nights spent tempting and ensnaring one lady after another.