Scoundrel for Hire (Velvet Lies, Book 1)

by Adrienne deWolfe

  "We have more in common than you might think," she said with another one of her mysterious little smiles.

  Now that was a disturbing notion, Rafe mused dryly. Poor Cellie was going to hell, too.

  As if guessing his thoughts, she reached up and patted his cheek. "You're a dear boy," she crooned. Then she ran a critical eye over his sideburns. "I'll have Max send you to his barber. Mr. Perry knows just what Silver likes."

  Once more, Rafe was taken aback. Before he could make sense of this peculiar comment, though, he heard a rather testy throat-clearing going on behind him.

  Speak of the devil, he thought in growing amusement.

  "Papa," Silver said crisply, "you mustn't hoard Celestia all night long. Not after your guests came all this way to meet her."

  "'Tis true," Rafe said jovially. "You two lovebirds need to run along and share your joy with the Trevelyans. And the Underhills. Or were they the Overhills? Dash it all, I can't recall. Say, Miss Pennies"—he gave her a lascivious wink—"are you ready to show me how to hoof it?"

  She stiffened, her eyes flashing in that fiery way he was coming to relish. "I don't 'hoof it,'" she bit out.

  "Why the devil not?"

  "Silver's not much good at having fun, are you, my dear?" Cellie asked kindly.

  Max nodded, rolling his eyes for Rafe's benefit.

  Silver tossed Celestia a withering glance. "I assure you, Celestia, under the appropriate circumstances I am quite capable of having fun—which polkas are definitely not. But perhaps you would care to dance with His Grace. I understand a minuet is next on the program."

  Cellie laughed. It was a warm, breezy sound with none of the rancor Rafe had assumed she must reciprocate toward Silver. "What would I know about the minuet, my dear? I've never set foot in a finishing school."

  Silver made a disgruntled noise. Intrigued by this byplay, Rafe glanced at Max. His eyes were wistful, even sad, until Silver caught him watching her. Then he donned a cheerful smile.

  "Hey, Chumley," Max said. "You know where we might find some spiritkeepers? Cellie and me collected a whole slew out by the mine, but it's the damnedest thing. The whole lot of them upped and disappeared."

  "Spiritkeepers?" Rafe asked politely, noticing that Silver had turned a charming shade of pink, much the same way she always did when Max mentioned something occult.

  "Yep. Can't have a séance without at least twelve good ones—"

  "Papa," Silver interrupted hastily, "I really don't think the Duke of Chumley is interested in rummaging through a sack of ordinary rocks—"

  "Now, daughter, those rocks aren't ordinary, as I keep trying to tell you. Fact is, I got a slew of their cousins in my study. Not to mention a box of superior cheroots imported out of Turkey."

  "You don't say?" Rafe quipped, suspecting he now knew what Silver had really been doing with that picnic basket.

  "They're damned fine with cognac," Max added like a man who knew of what he spoke. "What say you, Chumley? Are you game?"

  Rafe grinned to see Silver fume. "By all means, old chap, lead the way."

  Max's study proved to be a departure from the austere elegance of the rest of the mansion. The room looked less like a millionaire's sanctum sanctorum than a mining camp's general store.

  Rolls of maps, geological studies, and engineering reports littered Max's desk so thoroughly that Rafe was unable to guess what wood lay underneath. Picks, shovels, and a whipsaw ornamented the walls; earth-stained satchels spilled nuggets of galena onto the winged chairs, which looked comfortably shabby.

  Rafe's lips quirked as Max cleared a seat, only to cough, waving away a cloud of dust, after he'd plumped a tasseled cushion.

  "There," he announced with a sheepish grin. "Right enough even for a duke, I imagine."

  Rafe nodded absently. His attention had already wandered past the rickety, sawbuck table with its collection of butterfly wings to alight on Max's bookshelves. In addition to the requisite Gold Seeker's Manual and the inevitable Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Max owned five other titles: Don Quixote, Ragged Dick, and three adventure novels by Jules Verne. Judging by their tattered corners, the novels were well loved.

  "I say," Rafe drawled, flipping through Journey to the Center of the Earth and wrinkling his nose to keep from sneezing on the dust, "you've read quite a bit of Verne."

  "The man's a damned visionary." Uncorking a decanter, Max jerked his head over his shoulder as he poured. " Journey there is my favorite, although I sure do like From the Earth to the Moon. Silver thinks space travel is all poppycock, but I think Verne's onto something with his rocketship idea. You ever think about flying to the moon, Chumley?"

  Rafe considered, replacing the volume on its shelf. If God had made the sun, moon, and stars like the Bible claimed, then he figured it wouldn't be worth his trouble to fly anywhere. God had a long arm, and the way Rafe understood it, Hell was waiting for him no matter where he wound up dying.

  "Odds fish." Careful not to let his cynicism undermine his foppery, Rafe sauntered toward the battered humidor Max was holding open for him. "You can't mine silver out of celestial Swiss cheese, old chap. Only that bloody earl of Sandwich would relish a vacation to the moon."

  Max pinkened at Rafe's pun, but he laughed good-naturedly and selected a cigar for himself. "Well, I reckon it'll be another hundred years before anyone gets to taste moon cheese, anyway. At least, that's what Cellie says."

  Rafe cocked a brow, puffing his cigar against the match Max had struck for him. "Your lady sees folks dining on the moon, does she?"

  Max waved noncommittally, a swath of smoke unraveling in his hand's wake. "Oh, she sees all kinds of things. You know what this is?" Rounding his desk, he swept aside a jumble of documents and stabbed a finger at an X on a hand-scrawled map.

  Rafe had to admit, he didn't have a clue.

  "Why, that's where Nahele cached his treasure. Right smack dab at the center of the earth. Well, almost at the center," Max added exuberantly. "It's at the bottom of Silver's Mine. Legend says Nahele lived deep in the earth, in a crystal cave. The prettiest thing you've ever seen, with an underground river that leads straight to the surface. Shoot, that's why I started digging down there in the first place. Never reckoned I'd strike the mother lode. And now, I got more sterling than I got uses for, at least in this lifetime."

  Rafe smiled to himself. Apparently the discovery of Max's richest vein was yet another example of the man's uncanny luck. It boggled the mind to think Max didn't give one whit for anything his miners unearthed except for a few baubles some Indian had stashed in a mythical cave.

  "I say, this Nahele fellow sounds like a queer fish," Rafe drawled. "I didn't think Indians had much use for treasure, being the migratory sort."

  Max shrugged, continuing to squint at the X. He looked like a chubby chimney, the way he was puffing on his cigar. "I reckon he wasn't one of them honest Injuns. The legend says Nahele was an outcast from his tribe, a shaman who spent all his time working magic. He could talk to plants and animals—mountains, too. And one day the mountains told him about a City of Gold being built in the foothills.

  "So Nahele journeyed to Cibola," Max continued solemnly, "and didn't like what he saw: great gaudy spires blocking the sun from the sky, withered trees, and empty creek beds. Nahele told Cibola's king to stop building temples because the plants and animals were suffering. When the king laughed, Nahele got so riled, he put a spell on the city to make it invisible. Caravans bringing diamonds and gold from the mines, or fruits and grains from the valley, couldn't find the city gates. And Nahele would only tell the poor caravan drivers how to get home to their valley if they left their treasures in his cave."

  Rafe thought Nahele was a bit of an opportunist.

  "A lot of folks in Cibola starved," Max continued gravely. "Others who left the city to seek help never found their way back. In the end, nobody knew where Cibola was but Nahele. And he took the secret to his grave."

  Rafe was hard-pressed not to snort at
this last piece of melodrama.

  "I say, old chap, where do you suppose this Cibola is?"

  Max darted him a cagey look. "Now there's a question for the sages. Nahele must have worked one helluva spell, eh? 'Course, as you and I both know, Chumley, no wrong deed goes unpunished. Cellie calls it The Law of Threes." Max puffed out his chest, intoning grandly, "'That which you do, be it good or evil, comes back to you three times.' At least, that's what Cellie says happens in the realms of magic. Nahele might have walked away with a king's ransom, but he didn't get to enjoy it. He spent all his time worrying, jealously guarding it from other thieves. Finally, he was buried alive with it in an avalanche. I reckon that's the moral to the story."

  Rafe shot Max a keen glance.

  The millionaire's only reaction was a sip on his cognac.

  Rafe decided that Max couldn't possibly suspect him. After all, he'd been playing the role of ducal idiot to perfection.

  He reached for his snifter of cognac. "From what you've told me, my dear fellow, Nahele has good reason to haunt your mine."

  Max nodded. "I'm glad you can see the sense in all this, Chumley."

  Rafe wasn't sure he'd go that far. He did believe that Max believed he had a ghost problem and that Cellie could fix it for him. The poor sot had fallen hook, line, and sinker for the lady's con.

  Knowing Max was so easily duped made Rafe uncomfortable. He hadn't set out to like Silver's father. Hell, he knew better than to feel anything but contempt for suckers. But Max was a loveable old fool, and Rafe was beginning to see Silver's dilemma.

  Cursing himself for a sap, he flashed his most inane smile and racked his brain for a subtle way to discredit Celestia. "Between the moors and the castles, ghosts are a dime a dozen in Britain, old chap. Cranky, noisy, dispirited buggers, if you ask me. Not a one of them is fond of mortals. They're more likely to wreak havoc than lend a hand. No, I wouldn't put much faith in what this Indian spirit tells you. Nahele sounds like the last ghost on earth who'd tell Cellie where to find his treasure."

  Max chuckled, giving Rafe a wink. "Not to worry, Chumley. Cellie knows lots of spirits. I'm sure she can find one who'd love to spill the beans on Nahele's big secret. There's really not much honor among thieves, 'specially the dead ones."

  "Oh, jolly good. Or perhaps I should say Jolly Roger. Dead men do tell tales, what?"

  Max joined him in a hearty guffaw, which was more than Rafe's abysmal pun deserved. He felt the flush of elation from being so appreciated by his audience. At this rate, he'd be juggling for Max by midnight.

  "I like you, Chumley." Still grinning, Max dropped into a leather captain's chair and propped his feet on the map-littered desk. "You're funny. And laughter's in short supply around this house. You have any children?"

  Caught off guard, Rafe felt the momentary constriction in his chest. Hell, children. He tried not to think about them. After Gabriel's death eight years ago, Sera had insisted that Rafe keep a secret correspondence with her. He'd agreed because he loved her; even so, he couldn't help but worry about his influence over an impressionable kid sister, or any child, for that matter. His was a doomed soul. What kind of legacy could he leave a child—other than shame?

  "No," he admitted, his tone betraying more longing than he'd intended. "No children."

  Max sighed heavily, twirling his glass stem and watching the flash of amber highlights. Rafe had never seen the man so pensive; indeed, moments earlier, he would have sworn Max didn't have a melancholy bone in his body.

  Intrigued, he lowered himself onto the lumpy, green-and-blue plaid of a wing chair. Not until the rock dust finally settled did Max rouse himself to speak.

  "Silver's... well, she's changed. She's not as happy as she used to be. Back in Philly, I mean. Out east, she'd caught the eye of a bright young man, he'd come from good stock..." Max's voice trailed off, and he shook his head. "Everything seemed to be going well, judging by her letters. But then, like a bolt out of the blue, she wanted to move west. I never could understand why. She wouldn't talk about it much."

  Max waved toward the inky, star-speckled night beyond the window. "I mean, look around you, Chumley. I'm a grizzled old miner, and Aspen's not exactly high society. There's not much here to offer a well-bred city girl like Silver. Hell, five years ago when she came here, the best lodging I could offer was a tent. Meanwhile, Townsend-—that was her sweetheart's name, Aaron Townsend—he was building on his daddy's ironworks fortune. Folks said he had a knack for politicking. He's already snared a congressional seat in the Pennsylvania legislature."

  Rafe arched an eyebrow. So Silver had left her hoity-toity beau to live with her papa? In a tent? Interesting. Rafe couldn't help but wonder why. He had a hard time picturing a mining-camp Silver, hammering stakes into the earth, scrubbing clothes on a boulder, pouring flapjacks on a flame-licked griddle...

  "Silver must be devilishly fond of you," Rafe murmured as these visions began to fade. The genuine warmth in his voice surprised him.

  Max's eyes twinkled, hinting at their old mischief. "That's just it, Chumley. My daughter's too fond of me." He rubbed out his cigar on his boot heel. "I reckon Silver means well, but we don't see eye to eye. Especially about Cellie. Silver wants me to be respectable in this pissant town. Hell, I just want to hunt treasure and love my woman. A son would understand a man's needs, but a daughter..." He grimaced. "It's gotten so that I have to sneak out the back door of my own house!"

  Rafe nodded sympathetically, somehow managing not to laugh. That sounded like Silver, all right.

  "It's a sad state of affairs," Max grumbled, "when a man can't even, uh, entertain his fiancée in the privacy of his quarters. Here I am, walking around as guilty as a schoolboy, and I'm the parent in this house!" He reddened, smiling sheepishly at his outburst. "What it all comes down to, I reckon, is that Silver needs a distraction."

  "A distraction?" Rafe asked mildly.

  "Sure. Something to take her mind off fornicating—well, off mine, anyway. Don't get me wrong, Chumley. I love my daughter. Think the world of her, in fact. She's sharp as a tack. Knows her way around a dig. Good company in a rainstorm, too. It's just that... well, these days, she's a bit of a nuisance."

  Rafe did a masterful job of keeping the grin off his face. "I daresay a grown daughter would be a tad inconvenient," he commiserated. "Females can get persnickety when it comes to a gentleman's romance."

  "You catch my meaning?"

  "Oh, quite."

  "Good." Setting down his cognac, Max leaned across his desk. In an uncharacteristically bold manner, he raised his eyes and drilled Rafe with a stare of sapphire steel. "Chumley," he said bluntly, "how'd you like to marry my daughter?"

  Chapter 7

  Rafe nearly choked on his cognac. "Marty her, you say?" How he kept from laughing at this latest proposition from a humbugging Nichols, he'd never know.

  "Silver's a helluva gal," Max insisted. "You won't find any better. And I saw the way you eyeballed her. You're not opposed to her looks."

  Rate's jaw nearly hit the carpet. Max had watched him leer at Silver? And Max hadn't run for the nearest shotgun in paternal outrage?

  "Why, this... this is all very sudden," Rafe managed to gasp.

  "You saw the kind of shindig she throws," Max countered hastily. "I hear shindigs are popular among you blue bloods back in London. And Silver's real refined. She's got class. You won't have to worry about her dancing a reel when she should be dancing a jig, or some such thing. Why, she graduated with honors from Miss Trudy Pureheart's Finishing School in Philadelphia. She can play the piano, and bake tea cakes, and embroider like a dream. She's even got a knack for arranging flowers. You can't hardly go wrong with references like that."

  "I daresay you're right," Rafe agreed, dangerously close to guffawing. Imagine Silver's father handing her over to him on, well, a silver platter!

  "What's more, my Silver's got a heart of gold. Loyal to a fault, she is," Max boasted, his swelling chest straining the buttons of his wai
stcoat. "And she's strong. Healthy, too. You won't find her swooning at the drop of a hat or boo-hooing when the going gets tough, like some of those whey-faced, East Coast debutantes. Criminy, I don't know how that fool Townsend let her slip through his fingers. But Townsend's loss'll be your gain, my boy. That girl of mine'll be richer than King Midas after I pass on.

  "Not that I plan on kicking the bucket any time soon," Max amended hastily. "But she'll have a sizeable dowry, one big enough even for a duke, I reckon. Shoot, I'll even throw in one of my mines. You've been wanting to learn the business, right, Chumley? Well, I can teach you. We'll be partners. You, me, and Silver. God knows, that girl knows more about smelting and assaying than I do. Whaddaya say, Chumley? You game?"

  Rafe struggled to keep a straight face. He thanked God Max could only read his expressions, not his mind. Poor Papa hadn't yet realized he was offering his lamb to the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing!

  If he had one whit of conscience left, Rafe chided himself, he would confess immediately that he was a cad and a playactor.

  Fortunately, he was clean out of whits.

  "Sink me." Rafe dabbed at his eyes. They were trickling with mirth. "I'm moved, old chap. Genuinely touched. That you would consider me a candidate for your son-in-law is... well, more than I deserve."

  "Like I said, Chumley, I like you. You're the best thing that's happened to Silver in a long time."

  "I am?"

  "Sure. I saw how she looks at you."

  Both of Rafe's eyebrows arched at that. He was almost tempted to ask when. Fortunately, even his vanity had its limits. A fortune was at stake. He had to play his cards carefully. Staying on Max's good side might be the only thing that saved him from the penitentiary when Silver tipped his hand.

  If Silver tipped his hand, he mused, his ready humor rising to the fore. After all, he wasn't the only one with everything to lose in this game.

  "There's just one other thing, Chumley," Max said so solemnly that Rafe's survival instincts snapped to attention. "We ain't got any kind of deal unless you make my little girl happy."