It Takes a Hero (16 page)

They always dined at Finch Manor on Sundays.

"I told you. Lady Finch sent an invitation around just after you left and asked us to dine with her and your Mr. Danvers."

"He is not
my
Mr. Danvers," she told him through clenched teeth. Why couldn't the colonel have sent the Finch footman scurrying for safety, offering their regrets with a hail of shot blasted from his ever-faithful Brown Bess. "And I'm not going."

"Balderdash!" the colonel said, as Mrs. Wortling came in with his coat. He held it up to inspect her handiwork and then nodded in approval. The housekeeper sniffed and returned to the kitchen, though Rebecca knew the lady probably hadn't gotten any further than the hallway so she wouldn't miss a word of the brewing dispute.

Mrs. Wortling loved dissention in the ranks almost as much as she loved Madeira.

"Uncle, we can't accept," Rebecca said, this time a little less urgently. No need to put him on alert, let alone give Mrs. Wortling something to gossip about with the butcher's wife.

"I see no reason why not," he said, shrugging on his jacket.

" 'Tis a long walk and will tire you out," Rebecca told him, smoothing the wool over his back, and tugging the hem down so his uniform looked crisp and stately.

"Lady Finch is sending her carriage," he said. "She is ever the thoughtful woman."

Lady Finch thoughtful? Only when it suited her purposes. But what reason did the lady have for trotting out her husband's poor relations? Rebecca's suspicions grew. "Who else is going to be there?"

Mrs. Wortling answered this, calling from the hallway, "According to Mrs. Benton, Lord and Lady Kirkwood, Major Harrington and his wife, the Gadbury sisters and since they are going to be there, that handsome Mr. Kitling."

Rebecca groaned. It wasn't some welcome to the neighborhood party as her uncle seemed to believe. Lady Finch had deliberately invited everyone who had any connection to India. Anyone capable of writing the
Miss Darby
novels. It wasn't a social event, but a witch hunt.

"I haven't anything to wear," Rebecca said, panic rising in her chest.

The colonel pointed at the muslin. "Looks fine to me. You'll be the prettiest gel there." He picked up the gown and pressed it into her hands. "Now do your primping or whatever it is you ladies must do before one of these affairs."

"I'm not going," Rebecca told him. Spend an evening with Mr. Danvers? She'd rather face a firing squad.

And drat the man! He'd known all about the dinner as she'd fled the Park like a frightened rabbit. No wonder he hadn't pursued her. He already had his second trap baited and set.

The devious wretch!

"Bex, did you hear me? You have a half an hour until the carriage arrives. Go on upstairs and get yourself buttoned up."

She shook her head.

"None of this," the colonel said, striking a commanding stance. "You are coming along and I'll hear no more of this mutinous babble. About time you had a suitor and this Danvers fellow strikes me as just the man. Dab hand with a cannon, besides."

Rebecca did her best to ignore the "amen" coming from the kitchen. She was surrounded by traitors about to cast her before a tiger. A tiger with jet black eyes and a ravenous appetite for unwitting spinsters.

Meanwhile, the colonel was warming to his subject as if he were once again in command. "Perhaps it is time to consider seeing about that Season in town you've always wanted. I suspect Lady Finch would know how that is all done."

"A Season? In town?" Rebecca's throat went dry. "We haven't the funds. Besides, I can't leave you. I won't leave you." She couldn't leave him—not if there was someone lurking about the fringes of Bramley Hollow.

"You're a loyal gel, Bex, but you have to consider your future. I won't be around forever. Probably past time that I saw to yours." He folded his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels. "Now go on with you. And no more long faces. Perhaps this Danvers fellow will take a fancy to you and you won't have to go to town and do the pretty."

Right now facing the perils and pitfalls of Almack's sounded preferable to another encounter with Mr. Danvers. For she had her own secrets to keep and she knew without a doubt he was the one man capable of uncovering them.

One dangerous kiss at a time…

"My dear friends," Lady Finch said, entering the room with Rafe on her arm. "Here is my good friend, Mr. Raphael Danvers, and his associate, Mr. Cochrane."

Rafe knew in an instant, he'd prefer an evening spent at the Rose and Lion, Pymm's old Seven Dials haunt, guarding his purse and hoping his throat didn't get slit than spend tonight in the company of Bramley Hollow's good society.

The faces turned toward him held an air of skepticism that was nearly palatable. As Lady Finch feared, her guests were suspicious at this hasty and unprecedented dinner invitation.

Cochrane bowed curtly, then headed for a far corner. Lady Finch had spent the day hammering manners into the uncivilized young man, and from the looks of it, her lessons were working.

The rest of the company wasn't quite so concerned about civility—Miss Tate in particular, for she barely afforded him the courtesy of a glance.

She stood beside her uncle, a fierce and determined set to her lips and a taut trim to her shoulders, and nary a hint of the woman who'd melded into his arms, wild and passionate in her ardor.

Rafe shifted from one foot to another. Had his kiss been that bad? He'd never had any complaints before. Certainly he should apologize for pursuing her over the
Darby
nonsense, but now he probably needed to add his regrets over their interlude at Bettlesfield Park.

Only he didn't feel like apologizing.

He'd rather spend the night trying to tempt another such kiss from her. But before he could do that, he had to determine which of Lady Finch's guests had a secret passion for writing.

"Lord and Lady Kirkwood, may I present Mr. Danvers," Lady Finch began, wrenching him from his reverie and towing him through the room to begin the introductions.

The best chair in the room, Lady Finch's chair to be exact, had been commandeered by Lady Kirkwood. As a countess, she outranked Lady Finch, despite the fact that Lady Kirkwood had been born plain old Sally Smythe-Bimpton, the fourth daughter of a poor country curate. Luckily for Sally, being the prettiest of the sisters and the smartest, she'd been sent to London to be a companion to a distant and elderly relation, and managed in a few short months to gain herself a marriage to the second son of Earl Kirkwood. After ten lucrative years in India, they'd been summoned home upon the death of his older brother, and a year later assumed the Kirkwood title when the old earl passed away.

All of this Rafe knew, because Lady Finch and Mrs. Radleigh had supplied a complete history of their guests and the elements of their past that made them a likely candidate. Lady Finch and Mrs. Radleigh both counted Lady Kirkwood and her daughter, Victoria, as the most likely suspects.

The countess inclined her head slightly at the introduction. "That Lady Finch has shown us the hospitality of her home speaks most auspiciously of you, sir."

Lord Kirkwood stood behind his wife, mumbled his greetings and turned his attention back to the drink in his hand.

So summarily dismissed, Lady Finch steered him toward the next couple. "And here we have Mrs. Harrington, and over there by the window, is her husband, Major Harrington."

"Charmed," Rafe said, putting on his best town polish.

The lady smiled, and her husband paused long enough in his pacing about the room to nod in greeting. The man tugged on his watch chain and pulled it out from the pocket of his waistcoat. He glanced at the time and then out the window.

"I do say, I was quite surprised when we got your invitation this morning, Lady Finch," Mrs. Harrington was saying. "The major was inclined to send our regrets, but an invitation from you, why how could it be denied? Don't you agree, Lady Kirkwood?"

"Yes, quite," the countess said in bored tones that belied her sharp, curious gaze.

He thought it was telling that Mrs. Harrington sat as close as she could manage to Lady Kirkwood. A military wife on campaign. This time for the social advancement of her family.

"Mr. Danvers, you say?" she asked. "Are you related to Baron Danvers?" Clearly she'd been reading her
Debrett's
, just as Mrs. Radleigh had predicted.

"He is my brother."

"Hmmm," she murmured, smoothing out her handkerchief with her fingers. "Raphael Danvers, you say? Are you sure you are related to the baron? Why just this morning I was glancing through my new
Debrett's
and saw only a brother Robert listed." She glanced at Lady Kirkwood and then Lady Finch and smiled. "I find it indispensable to ensure that no ineligible
parti
arrive on our doorstep."

"You won't find me in
Debrett's
," Rafe told her. "I'm not listed."

"Lucky devil," Jemmy said, toasting such good fortune from his spot near the sideboard. He was in the process of filling a glass of Madeira for the major.

"Not listed?" Mrs. Harrington blinked several times as if she were trying to ascertain why Lady Finch would invite them to dinner with a man not listed in
Debrett's
. "Not listed? I do say, how odd!" A few seconds later she sniffed in dismay, then promptly returned to her fawning over Lady Kirkwood's new shawl.

After the Harringtons came the less notable members of their limited society, the Misses Gadbury. Since little was known about the sisters, they were regulated to the sofa opposite the countess, with the safety of a long, low table between the social gulf. Lady Finch barely had her introductions out, when one of the sisters spoke up, extending her hand in greeting and smiling at Rafe like a practiced coquette.

"I am the eldest," Honora informed Rafe, after she first dumped a tiny dog out of her lap, then extended her hand for him, "by all of eight minutes. Though most say I look several minutes younger."

"Honora, we are identical," Alminta said, holding an exact match of her sister's miniature dog. "There isn't a bit of difference between us."

"Ah, but there is," Rafe said. "Miss Honora has a tiny scar over her eyebrow."

Miss Honora preened. "Sir, you are very observant." She touched her brow with her fingers. "I fell from a stool as a child, trying to reach a jar of honey on the top shelf. Our
aya
scolded me something fearful, while mother was bereft that I might have ruined my face."

"I see nothing ruinous about it," Rafe told her. "But even without the scar, I would have been able to tell you apart. For I was a twin as well."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rebecca's head turn quickly at this news, her brow raised like a question mark.

He hadn't mentioned Orlando earlier because he hadn't wanted to… well, he hadn't wanted to draw on her sympathies by using his brother's memory.

"You
had
a twin?" Miss Alminta asked, before her sister had a chance to comment.

"Yes, Miss Alminta," he said. "He died a few years ago."

"Murdered, wasn't he?" Sydney Kitling asked from where he stood near the fireplace. At least, Rafe assumed the man was Kitling.

"Murdered?" gasped Mrs. Harrington, while Lady Kirkwood's fan fluttered.

With this revelation out in the open, he didn't glance at Rebecca. He didn't like discussing Orlando's death—it was, and he suspected would always be, like an open wound in his soul. No, her sharp gaze and keen mind would see right through his façade of barely restrained indifference on the subject. See the guilt and blame that hung around his neck like a noose.

He should have been there for Orlando. Should have never let his scholarly and forthright twin enter into the family profession of espionage. For Orlando had trusted where he shouldn't have, a lesson Rafe held close to his own closely guarded heart.

Meanwhile, Kitling seemed well pleased with the stir he'd created. With one hand resting on the mantel, he leaned against the heavy oak lintel like some character from a tragic novel. His choice of evening dress evoked his time in the East and his self-proclaimed position as the local poet—he wore a turban and a paisley sash wound across his chest instead of a waistcoat. "I seem to remember reading about it in the papers while I was in Calcutta. Murdered at Lord Chambley's. During a ball, wasn't it?"

Rafe grit his teeth and nodded. Kitling was every bit the smug bastard that Lady Finch had intimated. If Kitling turned out to be the author, Rafe knew his vow to Cochrane, that they weren't in Bramley Hollow to break any limbs, was going to be quickly forgotten.

Lady Finch rushed in. "Yes, dear brave Orlando Danvers. Working for the Foreign Office at the time. Gave his life protecting our King and beloved country."

Mrs. Harrington seemed anything but impressed at this addition to the story.
Murdered
, she mouthed at Lady Kirkwood and shuddered for good measure.

The Gadbury sisters clucked and fussed over this news.

"I would be bereft without my dear sister," Miss Honora said.

"As I would be without you," Alminta replied, reaching over to pat her sister's knee.

"And I would be lost without either of you, my fairest ladies," Kitling said, sauntering across the room and then seating himself between the sisters. He glanced up at Rafe. "Good to have someone new in the neighborhood. I fear everyone here is already bored to death with my harrowing accounts of India."

"I'm fond of stories of the sub-continent," Rafe told the man, hoping he was handing the fellow enough rope with which to hang himself.

"Now you've done it," Major Harrington muttered as he paused in his pacing about the room. "Hogwash for the rest of the night, mark my words."

Kitling ignored the major, as did everyone else.

Lady Finch pasted a smile on her face and led Rafe to the pair of ladies seated in the corner. "Mr. Danvers, this is Miss Charlotte Harrington and Lady Victoria Manvell."

"Charmed," Rafe said, bowing to the ladies.

Charlotte's gaze shot to her mother's, obviously to gain approval for this introduction, while Lady Victoria shot Rafe an assessing glance that went from the top of his head down to his boots, calculating the exact worth of his costume and therein, his possible income.