It Takes a Hero (10 page)

"Who have we here?" came a voice from the doorstep, like the saving grace of a dinner bell.

Uncle
. His timing was impeccable, but that didn't mean he was here to help her. Knowing her uncle and his disposition, he'd probably ignite the situation like throwing hot grease on a kitchen fire.

Rebecca held her breath as Colonel Posthill continued to say, "Mrs. Wortling said you were out here courting with some stranger and I told her it was nonsense. Called her an old rum-pot for making up such ridiculous stories and now she's in a fine kettle. Our Bex never has swains, I told her, and now look at this, you've gone and made a liar out of me, sir."

Rebecca forced a smile onto her lips and tried to make the best and shortest work of her uncle's arrival. So she told him, "The gentleman was just leaving."

"Nonsense!" her uncle declared, coming down the steps and marching smartly up the walk. "I won't have men calling on my niece without…" he paused for a moment and stared at the flowers in her arms. "What have we here?"

"Just some flowers," Rebecca said, wondering if this could get any worse.

Her uncle made sure it did. He eyed Mr. Danvers from head to toe. "Now who are you, that you think you have leave to bring my niece flowers without first seeking my permission to pay your addresses?"

Rebecca swallowed. Oh, yes, worse was decidedly possible. "Uncle, this is Mr. Raphael Danvers. Mr. Danvers, my uncle Colonel Posthill."

"Good to meet you, Mr. Danvers. You aren't from around here, are you? Then I must ask what you are doing bringing flowers to my niece?"

"I wasn't really here to see your niece. I was out walking with Mrs. Maguire, and the lady—"

Rebecca looked up at the heavens and prayed for a sudden bolt of lightning to strike her dead.

Better yet, may it hit Mr. Danvers.

"The matchmaker brought you here?" The colonel said loud enough for Mrs. Benton across the garden wall to hear him.

Delightful! By morning, the entire village would know that Esme had brought her a suitor.

"Now Mr. Danvers," her uncle continued, "if you are here to court my niece, I must know a few things about you."

Rebecca held her breath.

"First of all, how are you," her uncle asked, his head tipped slightly as if to better gauge his response, "with a cannon?"

She turned a fast glance at him. A cannon? Why it was brilliant! Nothing like a freshly fired cannon ball to send one's enemies scampering for higher ground. Her uncle would have Mr. Danvers running back to London before midnight, if he didn't accidentally shoot the rogue first.

But her happiness was short-lived when Mr. Danvers said, "A cannon? Why I have a great fondness for them. Is it a three pounder or six?"

Rebecca's mouth fell open. Even the colonel looked taken aback, but he recovered much more quickly than she did.

"A nine pounder. And a fine one, I might add. Come along, come along. We'll fire off a few rounds and I'll see if your boast is worth any merit."

"Delighted, sir," Mr. Danvers said, following behind the colonel. "I haven't fired a nine pounder in years. Not since I was experimenting with powder loads at school and accidentally destroyed the statue of Cromwell in the middle of the commons."

"You don't say?" the colonel said, a light of appreciation glowing in his eyes.

"Mr. Danvers, uncle, you cannot fire off the cannon."

They turned and looked at her with the same question in their eyes.
Why ever not?

Then they grinned like a pair of errant schoolboys and headed for the rear garden, discussing weights and range as if they were about to defend the village from the entire Continental army.

"Oh—" Rebecca stammered as she tried to come up with the most unladylike curse she could think of. But a small breeze stirred and brought with it a gentle hint of roses.

She inhaled deeply, and suddenly her ire faded. The demmed rogue had brought her flowers.

It wouldn't hurt, she decided, to put them in water—before she sent him packing.

Remember you are in Bramley Hollow
, Rafe told himself. For the sake of his carefully guarded bachelorhood, it probably wouldn't do to spend the evening staring at a woman, especially not when that lady was Rebecca Tate.

But demmit it was hard not to look at the chit.

She glowered at him like she'd like nothing more than to consign him to the darkest reaches of hell. But what she didn't realize (or maybe she did) was that in her passionate fury, her prim spinsterly demeanor fell away.

There was something altogether disconcerting about a lady who refused to be charmed. Something altogether appealing.

The colonel was in the process of loading the charge for his next shot. They had fired eight rounds already and the man was determined to hit the target they'd set up in the field behind the house.

Rafe had already hit it three times in a row.

"I think I'll match your skill with this one," the colonel was saying.

"I think you have too much powder," Rafe advised, taking a few steps back.

"No such thing," the colonel said enthusiastically.

A derisive snort rose from Miss Tate's position.

The chit certainly had a way with words
, he thought. Perhaps, she wasn't the author of the
Darby
novels. It was hard to believe that such lyrical prose came from a lady whose favorite phrase sounded like a cat with a hairball.

As the colonel tamped down the load, Rafe wandered over to Rebecca's side. "Care for a turn?" he said, casting her a wayward grin.

Charm, that was what he needed to do, charm the lady into giving away her identity. And if her uncle had been telling the truth, and Rafe saw no reason to doubt it, considering her less than welcoming stance, Miss Tate wasn't exactly the belle of Bramley Hollow.

If there was something Rafe knew a little about it was gaining a lady's confidence. How hard could it be to charm one spinster?

But her tight smile did little to instill confidence in his efforts. "Would you trust me with a cannon?" she asked. "I fear my aim isn't as precise as yours."

He could well imagine what she'd aim at. Still he wasn't about to let her sink his efforts just yet. He leaned forward and whispered in her ear, "Perhaps you just haven't had enough practice."

Her eyes widened at the implication of his words and from the outraged moue that formed on her lips, he had no doubt she knew exactly what he meant.

So Miss Tate wasn't quite as inexperienced as she appeared.

And that in itself took him aback. What did she know of men? The mysterious lady caught and held his attention once again.

And if he'd meant to tease her with his double entendre, he should have at the same time kept his distance from her, for he had gotten close enough to smell the lingering hint of roses about her, and spy the pale hint of freckles on her rose-tinted cheeks, enticing stars that provoked him to consider tracing their haphazard path across her face with his fingers, with a lingering kiss.

Her arms once again crossed over her chest. "I assure you, sir, I am able and ready to defend myself."

Rafe backed up, his boot bumping into something.

An indignant yowl set up at his feet and he looked down to find an enormous cat eyeing him with a mixture of indignation and distrust.

Not unlike its mistress.

Well, if he couldn't charm the lady, perhaps his entree was this ugly beastie. He reached down to give the old fellow a scratch on the ears, even as Miss Tate cried out, "Don't touch him!"

At first he thought she feared for her cat's welfare, but only too late discovered the warning had been for his benefit.

In a flash, the cat turned from ragged beast to a raging fury. It jumped up on his sleeve and dug in with all four paws. It ripped and shredded at his jacket and the more he tried to shake it off, the more determined the wretched feline became, clinging to him, spitting and hissing, its fur out at all points.

"Oh, Ajax," she cried. "Get off of him. Get off of Mr. Danvers."

Rafe heard her cries but was too busy trying to save his arm to let her words register.

"Get off of me," he barked at the beast, and for a moment it paused, hanging from his sleeve, glaring up at him as if gauging how serious he was. "
Stand down
," he ordered, glaring back at the animal.

It made one more swipe at his tattered coat and then leapt off his arm. It shook itself, as if trying to remove any traces of evidence, then sauntered off, tail high and waving with all the pride and markings of a victor.

Looking down at his coat, he knew the demmed thing had every right to be cocky.

"Oh, dear, oh my," Miss Tate said, her hand covering a smile. "Your coat, I fear it is ruined."

He glanced down. His coat
and
his shirt. Not to mention the stinging scratches in his flesh. He held it out for her to see and her eyes widened as she surveyed the damage and her glee turned to something else.

Concern.

Rafe held back a grin. Concern wasn't a bad place to start.

He flinched as she reached out to touch his arm, as if it pained him greatly. It stung a little, but nowhere near the pain he feigned as she looked up at him.

"You shouldn't have tried to pet him," she said, taking him by his uninjured arm and leading him to a nearby bench.

"I thought it was merely a cat."

"He's not very friendly," she advised.

That was an understatement.

Now that he was settled on the bench, she sat beside him and tenderly took his sleeve in her hands. Ever so gently she pulled back his torn sleeve.

"Ooooh," he groaned, trying to retrieve his arm out of her grasp.

"Does it hurt?" she asked.

"Terribly so," he told her, hoping his pained expression and strained words would be enough to get her to let go. "I think I might be bleeding."

"Oh, no," she said, hanging on tighter, and pursuing her ministrations with even more due diligence.

Just his luck, he got the only lady in England not squeamish about the possible sight of blood.

Jemmy Finch had been right when he'd said that Miss Tate was anything but typical.

"What were you thinking?" she was saying. "Petting a cat."

"I usually have a way with animals," he said.
And ladies
, he thought vexed at her continued indifference.

"Ajax is not your typical feline. "

"Neither is his mistress," he said, glancing into her eyes.

Her pale cheeks blushed to a rosy hue and even the wary light in her eyes started to soften. Rafe took that as a good sign, leaning forward, gazing down at her lips and wondering what it would be like to steal a kiss from her usually tart mouth. To see if beneath her bluster and prickles was a fire to match the one now smoldering in her eyes.

Once again, he'd miscalculated his own allure.

"Try to kiss me, sir," she said, dropping his arm as if it had suddenly grown white hot. "And you'll leave here with Ajax attached to your breeches."

A little flesh off his arm was one thing—his lower regions were another.

"Kiss you? Why I wouldn't—" Rafe started to protest.

"Oh, please, do us both a favor and save your charm for a lady foolish enough to be dazzled by your errant smile. You intended to kiss me in hopes that I would melt under your skillful attentions and then be so dazzled I would reveal all my secrets to you."

"Miss Tate, I'm a gentleman," he told her. "I would never—"

To which she snorted rather inelegantly, rose from the bench and stalked toward the cottage.

He couldn't help noticing that the defiant swing in her hips wasn't so unlike Ajax's victory wave.

«
^
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In the military there are two methods of waging a campaign: a direct assault or subterfuge. Both work well on the battlefield of love.

Miss Darby to her dearest friend,

Miss Cecilia Overton

in
Miss Darby's Daring Dilemma

R
afe was still clinging to his denials the next morning as he rode over to inspect Bettlesfield Park.

Miss Tate had so thoroughly and decidedly set him on his ear before she'd retreated to the safety of her cottage, he'd been unable to utter another word…

But there was little defense when she'd stated the truth. He'd been about to kiss her.

Still, the lady didn't realize she'd only thrown down the gauntlet before him. And now he was more determined than ever to prove his case.

He was going to enjoy seeing how she fared tonight over dinner at Lady Finch's—without her wretched tomcat to protect her.

Oh, he'd break down Miss Tate's defenses, it was just going to take some careful planning. And perhaps a kiss or two…

In the meantime, he'd inspect his payment, if only to determine if the prize was worth the trouble. Not that he didn't suspect that a kiss from Rebecca Tate's lips would result in all kinds of mayhem.

The troublesome ones, he mused, were always worth the bother.

His horse whinnied and he reached down to pat its neck. "Not that much further, my friend," he told it in Spanish.

The small estate of Bettlesfield Park bordered the Finch lands, and so he rode cross-country, following the landmarks Jemmy had detailed for him with military precision.

After years in Spain riding with his guerilla troop, he'd never been one for taking the open road when he didn't need to. He'd crisscrossed Spain's lonely expanses without the aid of roads, so the English countryside was a wealth of bounty in comparison.

Around him flowers bloomed, peeking out from around fence posts, giving the thorny hedges a deceptively inviting blush, while the grass glowed with a vibrant shade of green.

A low stone wall marked the end of the Finch holdings and the beginning of Bettlesfield Park.

He kicked his horse and it sprang forward, clearing the wall with little effort, dancing in protest as Rafe slowed its pace once they'd gained the other side, for there in the distance was his first glance of the house Lady Tottley was offering.