Scoundrel for Hire (Velvet Lies, Book 1)

by Adrienne deWolfe

  "No mother," he ground out, "would lie in bed, pretending she had consumption, when she knew how devastating the news would be to her son. No mother would pretend she was dying and ask her son for money if love were her motivation."

  He spun to face her, his fists clenched, his chest searing. "Everything Fred and Fiona do is calculated to make a profit, Silver. Everything. That's why they took me into the troupe. That's why they tried to lure me back. Don't you see?" he choked. "They only care about the money I'll earn them. Money's all I've ever been to them."

  To his mortification, his voice broke. He swayed, gripping the table, fighting the grief threatening to unman him. There was nothing he could do to hide the raw emotion contorting his face; there was nothing he could do but be who and what he was. And in that moment, when he was his lowest, most pathetic self, Silver's arms wrapped around his waist.

  He shuddered. Had he the strength, or perhaps the self-discipline, he would have pushed her away as he'd pushed away so many others, thinking they'd despise him for his weakness. Never had he met anyone who cared about the real Raphael Jones. Never had he dreamed he might be worth some genuine affection.

  But Silver pressed nearer. She defied every moral convention to let the softness of her cheek rest against the stubble of his jaw, and the timid thumping of her heart beat against his chest. It was almost more than he could bear, the solace of her arms.

  Reason fled before the guttural sound that welled up in his throat. Before he could recall how undeserving he was, before he could think how crude his surge of primal longing, he pulled her mouth to his, devouring the sweetness that trembled open to appease him.

  Only he wasn't appeased. Three weeks of waiting, of wanting—not to mention the last eight hours of simmering jealousy—were unleashed in that tumult of feeling. Damning Aaron Townsend, Rafe kissed her the way he'd been craving her kisses, hungrily, passionately, relentlessly.

  He dug his fingers into her hair; he arched her spine back; gripped her buttocks and flattened her hips against his, reveling in the heat that spread like a prairie fire between his thighs and hers. He didn't buss her cheek like a Wilbur Chumley or peck her knuckles like some Shakespearean gallant. His kiss was pure Raphael Jones, smoking, scintillating, and sinful enough to make the angels blush.

  He might have lost himself completely in that sensual feast, baring her breasts, suckling her nipples, hoisting her, petticoats to sit astride him on the table. But she trembled in his arms. He recognized the taste of tears on his tongue, and they weren't his. Like a splash of cold water, he remembered the fear she'd tried so valiantly to disguise in the parlor. Cursing himself, he tore his mouth free. His loins were throbbing and his breath was sawing when he dropped his forehead to her shoulder.

  "Silver, I'm sorry," he gasped. "Honey, I'm sorry."

  Hushing her, he held her to his heart, molding her shrinking length to his as if the very thing she most feared could somehow end her quivers. "I've stopped," he said hoarsely, cursing himself again as he tucked her head beneath his chin. "It's over now. You're safe. I swear."

  The fist gripping his sleeve slowly, shakily unfurled. He wasn't sure in that moment who shuddered with more relief, him or Silver.

  I have to get away from here. I'm no good for her.

  She loosed a tremulous sigh, the tension in her body ebbing. When she shyly dropped her head to his chest, he filled his senses with the springtime scent of her; he marveled at the softness of her hair and the velvety crescent of her lashes. She was a rare beauty, he reflected poignantly, his arms jealously folding her closer. How could he have thought otherwise? With her lips red and moist from his kisses, her color a rosy pink from his ardor, she looked more inviting, more alive than the porcelain princess he'd admired so cynically at the Mining Exchange... and taunted so mercilessly at Max's engagement party.

  But for all her flesh-and-blood femininity, the Silver he held was still more fragile than resilient. He didn't know why a lover's embrace should unnerve her; he didn't know why she shrank from his caress as if his hand were a kerosene torch spitting flame. All he knew was her flawless cheek had been marred by the single, crystalline track of a tear.

  A tear he had caused.

  His insides writhed with the knowledge that he'd repaid her compassion with lust.

  Face it, Jones, you're not Maximillian Nichols. You're not even Aaron Townsend. You'll never be worthy of the fierce, committed, all-consuming love Silver is capable of.

  He burned with a soul-deep shame.

  For her own good, he had to leave Silver behind. Tonight.

  Silver squeezed her eyes closed, letting the steady thrumming of Rafe's heart mend her splintered nerves. She hadn't meant to grow skittish; she hadn't wanted to. She cursed the memory that, insidiously, had reared its ugly head and robbed her of Rafe's love.

  When she'd seen his tears, when she'd heard his pain, she'd wanted nothing more than to end his torment. For the first time in years, she'd yielded to instinct rather than alarm. She'd held him, stroked him, kissed him, offering the comfort she'd so desperately longed for that awful night five years ago when she'd run panic-stricken and confused from the man she thought she'd killed. The man she thought she loved.

  But Aaron had survived, and other than the scar he hid so artfully beneath his dashing new hair style, he'd remained unscathed, while she...

  She gulped a shaky breath.

  She relived the nightmare every time a man dared to touch her. She wanted so desperately to be held, to feel safe, to be loved. She wanted with every fiber of her being to be free of Aaron's ghost. A thousand Naheles couldn't haunt her half as cruelly.

  She wondered if it was possible to make Rafe understand.

  She stirred, gathering her nerve. "Rafe, I..."

  "Shh." His melodious baritone, now hoarse with feeling, crackled beneath her ear. "You have my word. It won't happen again."

  Not ever?

  Tongue-tied and frustrated, anxious that she might have lost her one chance with the man who had somehow come to mean more to her than any suitor she'd ever known, she withdrew, intending to explain. Somehow, she had to convince him she wasn't a tease, or a prude, or worse, disinterested in the kisses that made her head float and her senses spin with giddy longing.

  But when his mist-colored eyes touched hers, the shock of his misery was visceral. It poured into her so fast and deep that her heart wrenched, overwhelmed by its sheer oppressiveness. He was drowning in a whirlpool of despair, and for the life of her, she didn't know what to say or do to pull him from the undertow.

  A smile so melancholy that it made her eyes sting curved the sensuous lips that only moments ago had ignited her soul. With a whisper-soft caress, his thumb brushed the tear that dribbled past her lashes.

  "I hope you can forgive me, Silver."

  She nodded hurriedly, his tawny visage swimming before her. He sighed, kissing her forehead.

  "I don't deserve it," he whispered, "but thank you."

  He raised her hand, pressing his lips to her knuckles. Another fleeting smile, this one just as mirthless, touched his mouth. "I trust we'll both feel better tomorrow."

  She blinked, uncertain what he meant. For a precious moment longer, his fingers twined through hers. She could feel the pulse of him, the life of him that beat so forcefully beneath the onerous burden he'd shouldered since his birth. She knew he was wrong to call himself a failure. She knew he was more than he imagined himself to be.

  But before she could say as much, his palm softly rasped from her hand.

  And he walked down the stairs in the dark.

  Chapter 12

  If Rafe had believed in heaven as much as he did in hell, he would have blamed divine intervention for keeping him in Aspen. Only minutes after he'd vowed, for Silver's own good, to flee like a cur in the night, Max burst through the front door, all but singing with excitement.

  "Chumley, my boy," the millionaire boomed, stopping just short of bowling Rafe into Aphrodite, "I've
found it! The perfect wedding gift for Cellie! I'm gonna build her the biggest brand-spanking new theater this state has ever seen. And I'm going to do it before that nuisance, Horace Tabor, beats me to it!"

  Max chuckled, rubbing his chubby hands together. "Yep, she'll be able to enjoy her circus acts, Silver can watch her operas, and I'll get to hear a rousing Anvil Chorus every now and then. It's perfect!" Beaming, he linked his arm through Rafe's. "C'mon, son. I need your help. Do you know this Shakespeare fella the Trevelyans think is such a ripsnorter?"

  To his bemusement, Rafe spent the better part of four hours holed up in Max's study, smoking cigars, sketching plans, and trying not to seem too knowledgeable about the life he'd led since the age of fourteen.

  But that had only been the beginning. At the stroke of midnight, when he'd finally earned his reprieve from the exuberant theater builder, Rafe had stumbled across Jimmy's prone form, snoring outside his bedroom door.

  "Oh, yer worship sir!" Jimmy lamented, looking more distressed than rested after his snooze. "She's gone and done it again. I searched full-chisel through every inch of this house. Honest! But I couldn't find her anywhere. Miss Tavy's plumb absquatulated!"

  This news was made even more aggravating for its sheer inconvenience: rather than smuggling Tavy and all his other belongings out the back door before dawn, Rafe had been forced to enlist the aid of Max, Jimmy, and, eventually, an appealingly rumpled, sleepy-eyed Silver. They'd crawled under furniture, rummaged through drawers, and pulled books off shelves until three in the morning. Empty-handed and dejected, they'd finally huddled en masse around the scarred kitchen table and a steaming pot of coffee. Silver and Jimmy had each taken turns blaming themselves for Tavy's escape while a cigar-puffing Max had griped between yawns, "If Cellie were here, her spirits would tell her where to look."

  It had been clear to Rafe at that point he wasn't going anywhere. At least, not until I find Tavy, a petulant voice inside him whispered as he lay lonely and restless, watching dawn creep through the slats of his shutters. He hadn't thought it would be so hard, sleeping through a whole night without Tavy's wet little nose tucked under his chin.

  And he hadn't thought he'd grow so glum at the prospect of leaving behind easygoing, wily old Max.

  Then there was Cellie, spooky but kind-to-a-fault Cellie. Rafe had never dreamed he'd find a maternal confidante in the woman he'd set out to seduce. How could he leave Cellie to fend for herself, knowing that he was the only person who could persuade Silver to end her desperate scheme?

  But most of all, how could he walk out on Silver when she was quite possibly the woman he was falling in love with?

  He squeezed his eyes closed, groaning at the insidious suspicion that had been plaguing him for days. You're a sap, Jones. Look what love did to Romeo and Juliet.

  Then again, look what it did to Max and Cellie. What if Silver were his one chance for salvation on his otherwise bleak road to hell?

  He smiled with self-ridicule. He'd played one too many balcony scenes. Silver had never purported to be his divine deliverance; in fact, it had been her sheer humanness that had drawn him to her. She'd been an honest-to-goodness spade among all the conniving queens of hearts.

  He'd been intrigued that she'd allowed him to see her flaws from the first, and that those flaws—overprotectiveness, blind loyalty, and single-minded determination—had proven to be some of her most endearing characteristics. Silver put her whole heart and soul into love; if her relationship with her father was any indication, she would stand by her husband even if their whole world was going up in flames.

  Still, it was scary to love, he realized uncomfortably. It was scarier than standing nauseous and tongue-tied in the footlights, especially for a man with his prospects. After all, he was a lawless, penniless bastard. That was the truth, not the fantasy, of Raphael Jones. So why would he dare to believe a woman like Silver might let her feelings for him go beyond infatuation? Was it because he wanted her to love him? Because she'd held him when he'd cried?

  Rafe didn't have the answers to his questions. But he'd spent a lifetime as a professional scam artist. He knew how to calculate odds, and he figured they weren't stacked against him as high as the night he'd met Silver.

  That's why he decided to stay in Aspen. He had a séance to watch, a woman to woo, and an otter to scare up.

  That night, at the appointed hour for Cellie's extravaganza, Max greeted him in the dining room amidst a throng of skeptics and crucifix-clutching believers. Robustly red in his starched linen and swallow tails, the millionaire looked like a stuffed penguin who was in serious danger of coming unstuffed.

  "Evenin', Chumley," Max called jovially, his ever-present fog of smoke wreathing him from head to chest. "I hardly recognized you. No puce velvet and lace cuffs tonight, eh? Why, you're looking as drab as any regular old colonial, son. Silver must be rubbing off on you."

  Rafe inclined his head, his demeanor not quite as Chumleyfied as usual. His black-and-white formal attire was all part of his new plan to develop some sophistication in Chumley. He figured in one month's time, the ducal idiot that the Aspen Times so loved to lampoon would be gone forever, and he could start behaving in public like the kind of man Silver might want to marry. He'd even gone as far as dreaming up a new identity—Raphael Jones, undercover detective—who'd come to Aspen to investigate allegations of claims-jumping among the miners and had decided to wed and raise a family instead.

  He only hoped Silver would agree to the idea, especially the family part.

  "A good woman has that effect on a man, old chap," Rafe quipped, winking at his matchmaking cohort.

  Max chuckled, winking back. "Reckon you're right. Cellie badgered me for months to lose a couple pounds so she could get her arms 'round this ol' gut. Giving up Boston cream pie for four weeks liked to have killed me, but I did it. I wouldn't shave off my whiskers even for Cellie, though, son. A man's got to draw the line somewhere."

  Rafe couldn't help but laugh. "Oh, quite."

  Max beamed, linking his arm through Rafe's. "Say, have you met everyone here yet? This being a private séance, I only invited the bare minimum: Union leaders, our chief investors, Brady, the Trevelyans—oh. And Judge Gates. But he got detained in Leadville, so I reckon we won't see him 'til the wedding."

  "The, uh, wedding?" Rafe almost choked to hear there was an officer of the court, the federal court yet, coming to Max's wedding. "You know the good judge well enough for him to preside at your nuptials?"

  "Shoot, no," Max said, elbowing a path through the buzzing speculators. "Cellie invited him. Said they're long-lost cousins of some sort. But she invited him a week early, which befuddles the bejabbers out of me. I reckon she got her dates mixed up. Anyway, it turns out he likes spooks. Guess it runs in the family, eh?"

  Rafe nodded weakly. Of all the rotten luck, he groaned. Why had he fallen in love with a woman whose in-laws would soon number a federal judge!

  Well, there was no helping it, he told himself darkly. He'd never met Gates, and hopefully Gates had never met his wanted posters. Besides, he couldn't very well walk out of Silver's—or Cellie's—life now.

  He let Max drag him around the room. Most of the men seemed to be huddled around the elegant hors d'oeuvres buffet, stuffing their mouths until their chins dripped with foie gras, caviar canapés, cucumbers polonaise, and crab puffs—to name a few. Rafe barely had enough time to squint through the tobacco cloud at the ice-sculpted goose and the basket of "golden" deviled eggs dominating the sideboard before Max whisked him into another haze, this one enveloping the potted palms that shrouded the window seat.

  "There's a fellow over here I'd like you to meet," Max said exuberantly. "Hails from England, just like you. Got himself in a bit of a pickle a few days back, but he's a good enough sport. Meeting him was the damnedest thing, though. There I was, thinking to surprise Cellie by hiring a New York impresario to recruit acts for her wedding gift, a gift she doesn't even know about yet, mind you, when she pipes up out
of the blue, 'Max, dear, the spirits tell me what you're looking for isn't in New York but in Aspen.' Then she drags me off to Marshal Hawthorne's jail, and who should be twiddling his thumbs on a bunk but—"

  "Frederick Fairgate, Esquire," boomed an all-too-familiar voice. "Thespian, playwright, and impresario."

  The palms parted on cue, and Rafe's hackles rose as Fred made his grand entrance. Fred was attired in bootblacked swallow tails to hide their shabby elbows.

  "Good evening, Your Grace," Fred said, never missing a beat. He swept a formal bow, one of Max's cigars spewing between his fingers. "Seems like merry old England again, what with the Cornishman and the Irish Catholic itching for a fight, eh?"

  He jerked his head toward the Union leaders, who stood glaring at one another from opposite ends of the hors d'oeuvres table. "Why, the Missus and me were talking only yesterday about how you used to pay us poor sots a call when you had a mind to go slumming. It's been too long, Your Grace."

  Not long enough. Rafe clenched his teeth, biting back the uncharitable retort. The most civil response he could muster was a daggerlike glare.

  Max, meanwhile, was heartily thumping Fred on the back. In spite of the twelve years he had over his host, Fred's tall, muscular build, honed through boxing and stage carpentry, wasn't showing the same decline that Boston cream pie had wreaked on Max's squat frame. However, Max did have the advantage in hair, since Fred was balder than a cue ball above his drooping mustache and caterpillar eyebrows.

  "When Cellie and I met him," Max crowed, "Fred here had just sunk a hefty little sum, close to fifteen thousand dollars, into his own plans to build a theater. Imagine us having so much in common. Had to be divine providence. So, I bought out Fred's investment, and now he's working for me. Whaddaya think, Chumley? Could Cellie's spirits have been any righter?"

  Rafe smiled grimly. He didn't put much faith in spirits. Good old-fashioned chicanery was more likely to blame for the meeting of Max and Fred. After all, like Cellie, Fiona was ensconced at the Windsor Hotel. Fiona had probably convinced Cellie that "spirits" wanted Max to pay Fred's jail fines. The rest of the con had no doubt been inspired by gullible old Max himself, who'd rambled unabashedly about Cellie's wedding gift.