Scoundrel for Hire (Velvet Lies, Book 1) Read online

A tear spilled down Rafe's cheek. Angrily, he dashed it away. Tossing the scarf around his neck, he grabbed the shovel and plunged it into the snow. Dirt was hopelessly scattered throughout the drifts; still, he did his best to dig it up, to pack it down and make amends.

  "I know you're in heaven, Mama," he muttered. "Good people go there."

  That's why I won't.

  He bowed his head and rattled off his prayers. Mama had taught him the words. To hear him pray had made her happy, so for her sake, he recited every one he could think of. He knew he wouldn't be saying them again, not after this day.

  Shoving his hands in his pockets, he cleared his throat, searching for something real and meaningful to say. He told his mama he loved her. He told her he was glad she was in a happy place at last. He asked her not to worry about him anymore.

  Then he said good-bye.

  Turning from his mother's grave, Rafe forged a path through the snow away from the graveyard. He didn't have a plan in mind; he just walked down, down, down the hill, too stubborn to let the bitter blasts of night knock him off his feet.

  At least if I reach hell, I'll stay warm.

  A livery stable huddled at the end of the street. He'd helped paint the building, and he knew the animals well. He figured the owner would be drunk and snoring somewhere as usual, so Rafe decided to steal a horse. It would serve the old man right for beating his animals. Besides, what difference would it make? Stealing a horse, saving a horse—it was all the same when your soul was damned.

  "You're mine now, Belle," he told the filly after he'd saddled her and led her out into the moonlight. She didn't seem opposed to the idea, which made him feel better. Damned or not, he still had a conscience. He supposed he'd have to work a little harder not to care.

  Reining in at the town marker, he pulled up his collar and tightened his scarf. His teeth were chattering, and his hands were nearly numb. It occurred to him that he should have stolen food and some blankets, not to mention extra gloves and a box of matches. The problem was, he'd never stolen anything, excluding Belle. He'd never run away before either. Now what should he do?

  He squinted into the frosty luminescence of the wilderness. A tendril of smoke curled against the moon. He could just make out a caravan of wagons in the silvery drifts in the distance. His heart thumped faster with hope. He suspected he'd found the theatrical troupe Jedidiah had helped chase out of town two days ago. They must have been caught in the ensuing storm. "Thespians are harlots, liars, thieves, and drunkards," Jedidiah had thundered, no doubt still fuming over the actor who'd pretended to be a preacher and had turned him into a cuckold fifteen years earlier. "Let Satan's disciples peddle sin elsewhere."

  Blinking the flurries off his lashes, Rafe gave his horse a mirthless smile. "It seems kind of fitting, eh, Belle, that I join those lost souls now?"

  A good three miles later, he was shivering uncontrollably and beating his fist against the door of a painted wagon. Scantily clad cupids and sighing ladies adorned the mural, the focal point of which was the dimpled and derbied man who flexed exaggerated arm muscles on either side of the door. The portrait's face split open as the door swung wide, and Rafe blinked, dazzled by the starburst of light that silhouetted the behemoth looming over him. The man's head was hairless save for the drooping moustaches that covered his mouth.

  "Bloody hell, it's a beggar. Be gone, brat. You won't find any handouts here."

  Rafe raised his chin. A tantalizing blast of heat wafted out from behind the Brit—that and the mingled smells of mincemeat and rum. He had to get inside. It was inside or freeze, because he was not going back to the town of Blue Thunder.

  "I'm no beggar. I'm here about the job."

  The behemoth snorted. "We aren't any Punch-and-Judy show. Get on with you, now."

  A painted female face, afloat in a stiff cloud of blonde hair, appeared beside the door. The matron looked Rafe up and down, paying particular attention to the body parts below his waist. Her cagey green eyes lit appreciatively.

  "Aw, the tyke looks cold, Freddie luv. Let 'im in. It's Christmas Day."

  "We aren't a bloody orphanage, Fiona."

  "He said he's here about the job," she cooed.

  "That's right," Rafe said quickly, pointing to the wind-ripped billboard that flapped beside the door. "It says here you're looking for a Falstaff. I'm your man."

  The two thespians seemed to find this uproariously funny, and Rafe fidgeted beneath their guffaws. He had to admit, he didn't know what a Falstaff did, but he was good with a hammer and a paintbrush. Anything else he could learn.

  "Know a lot about Shakespeare, do you?" Fred asked.

  "Oh yes," Rafe lied, and quite well too, he thought, considering how little practice he'd had. "He wrote some very fine plays."

  Fiona snickered. "He's got nerve enough for the footlights."

  "Hmm. Maybe you're right." Fred was smirking as he rubbed his chin. "'Fraid that's an old billboard, lad. That job's already been taken. By me." When Rafe's face fell, Fred added smoothly, "But you just might fit the bill for another show we're putting on in Louisville." He winked at Fiona.

  She grinned. "Why, sure. He'd be perfect—once the swelling in his eye goes down."

  Fred stepped aside, motioning Rafe up the step into the wagon. "What's your name, lad?"

  Rafe loosed a ragged breath. The coals on their brazier had made the interior so toasty that he could feel a thaw moving through his limbs. "Rafe. But I can't leave my horse—"

  "I'll see to your horse," Fred drawled, closing the door behind him. He laid a beefy arm across Rafe's shoulders. "So tell me. What do you know about Romeo and Juliet?"'

  Chapter 1

  Aspen, Colorado

  June, 1881

  At last!

  Silver Nichols eagerly reread the letter in her hand. For what seemed like an eternity, she'd been waiting for this kind of response to the inquiries she'd mailed across the nation. She'd hired bank examiners, Pinkerton agents, lawyers, even a retired Civil War spy. She'd turned them out in droves to help her build a case against Celestia Cooper, a modern-day witch who anyone with a lick of common sense could see lusted after her papa's fortune, not his love.

  But not one of Silver's informants had uncovered anything quite like this. She hugged the parchment to her chest, half-tempted to kiss it. At last! Here was the proof she needed—proof of a deed so dastardly, so despicable, that the mere mention of it would make the angels weep. It had taken a church organist, writing in a fit of evangelical outrage, to finally bring to light this Celestia Cooper atrocity. The skeleton this letter had exhumed would put to an end that wretched woman's social climbing in Aspen. Now Silver could prove to her father beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was planning to marry a monster.

  She grinned at her reflection in the polished mahogany of her prized box piano. Good things do come to those who wait!

  Feeling a lightness that she hadn't known for years—at least not since the night she'd fled her maternal aunt's boardinghouse—Silver hummed a Stephen Foster ditty and struck a match, watching the stack of her more benign letters ignite in the urn on her piano. The vessel was fashioned of sterling silver, a king's treasure dug from the richest of her father's four mines. So were the bookends, wall frames, doorknobs, and a variety of other bric-a-brac that adorned her lavish sitting room.

  She'd taken pains to convert the downstairs parlor into a sort of entrepreneurial trophy chamber, mainly to impress investors and potential clients. Although she entertained often in her father's Hallam Street mansion, she hosted business functions far more than social ones. Papa owned the most prosperous silver mining company in Colorado, and helping him maintain his social status required the ability to decorate and entertain with extravagance.

  However, keeping Papa from frittering away his fortune required skills of a different nature.

  Silver sighed as her soaring spirits were checked by the thought. Unbridled generosity might earn her father a place in heaven, but it wasn't going
to feed him or keep a roof over his head. The man had never tempered his goodwill with practicality.

  Before she had arrived five years ago from Philadelphia, he'd already let himself get hoodwinked into portioning off one of his most promising claims. Fortunately, his partners couldn't raise the capital to develop it, and she'd persuaded them through some savvy negotiation to sell back their shares. That mine, Silver's Mine, as Papa had called it, had turned out to hold his wealthiest vein, a bonanza that had brought him worldwide acclaim—and the attention of a fortune-teller-turned-hunter who billed herself as "Madam" Celestia.

  Silver wrinkled her nose, waving away smoke. Thank God for conscientious, letter-writing citizens like that church organist from Kentucky. Otherwise, in six weeks' time, she might have been forced to call a circus sideshow act Mother.

  The bell jangled over the front door. Silver started as her butler's staccato footsteps echoed in the foyer. Who on earth could be calling at this early hour?

  Perhaps it was her driver. She had been a bit distracted last night as she'd instructed him regarding the Leadville journey. Papa had disappeared as usual after dinner, and she'd been forced to see to his traveling bags as well as her own. She'd so wanted this journey to go without a hitch; indeed, nervous anticipation hadn't let her sleep past the first rays of dawn.

  For the first time ever, a woman had been invited to speak before the board of directors of the Leadville Mining Exchange. She, who had once been so penniless that she'd been reduced to cooking meals at the boardinghouse, would address some of the wealthiest brokers and stockholders in the mining industry.

  But even more importantly, Silver thought with a bubbling sense of excitement, she'd have Papa all to herself for two days. It was a dream-come-true for the girl who'd been forced to grow up nearly a continent away from the daddy whom she adored.

  Dumping the ashes into the unlit hearth, Silver hastily replaced the urn and stepped into the foyer. She left the parlor in time to see the front door bang open and her chubby father stand huffing on the threshold. Oddly enough, he was dressed in last night's dinner suit.

  "Let me help you with that, sir," the butler said as Papa struggled over the threshold, his arms and back weighted down by bulging satchels.

  "No thanks, Benny," Papa called jovially, listing to the left as he kicked the door closed. Oblivious to the heel mark he'd left behind, he grinned up at the solemn Englishman. "I've gotta get used to toting loads again so I can hoist my bride over the threshold."

  Benson had the good grace not to smirk. Silver pressed her lips together. Celestia Cooper was one load Papa would never carry, if she had anything to say about it.

  "Papa, for heaven's sake, you'll hurt yourself," she chided, hurrying to lend a hand. "Those knapsacks look much too heavy—"

  "Now daughter, I'm a miner. And miners don't let a couple of rocks get the better of them." He doubled over, his ruddy face turning a shade redder as he hauled his bags toward the parlor. "'Sides, this here's a special lode. And you know what that means, don't ya?"

  "A special lode needs special care," she chimed in dutifully.

  He chuckled, and her heart warmed. She loved Papa's laugh. The sound always reminded her of sleighing and Christmas and chestnuts roasting over the fire. Maybe those images came to mind because for most of her lonely childhood, Papa had only come home to Philadelphia when the snows had made it too hard to prospect.

  She trailed behind him. When Papa swung the knapsack from his back, she tried not to mind that Benson had to grab a priceless Oriental vase out of the way. And when Papa banged his satchels onto her table, she did her best not to worry whether the cloud of rock dust could be brushed out of her prized Persian carpet.

  "Let's see what we've got," Papa said, rubbing his hands together.

  Benson stood gravely at attention, but she moved closer, her heart quickening. Papa's enthusiasm had always been infectious. Even in the days when she'd preferred rag dolls to nuggets of ore, she would run to sit by his knee and help him paw through bag after bag of quartz for the glimmer of gold he'd sworn he'd found.

  She held her breath. But when he unbuckled the fastenings and dumped out the satchels, she could tell in an instant he'd been prospecting a dream lode. She supposed some things never changed.

  "Papa," she said gently, "these are nothing but country rocks."

  He squinted, holding a particularly plain piece of granite to the window. "'Course they are, daughter. They're spiritkeepers."

  "Spiritkeepers?" she repeated dubiously.

  He nodded, his blue eyes twinkling above his salt-and-pepper beard. "Yep. Cellie says we need a whole barrel full so we can choose the best ones for the séance."

  "Séance!" Silver nearly choked in an effort to bite back her oath. Ooh, that woman and her cockamamie schemes. "Papa, why on earth would you want to hold a séance?"

  "'Cause I want to talk to that dead Injun and make him quit spooking our miners." Chucking the first rock back on the table, Papa reached for a second and shook it, hopefully, next to his ear. "Hmm. Nothing," he muttered. "I wonder how you're supposed to tell which ones the spirits live in?"

  Silver almost groaned aloud. When she glanced at her butler, his stony, straight-ahead gaze was belied by his dry smile.

  "Uh, Benson, would you be kind enough to close the parlor doors when you leave?"

  "Of course, madam." Once again the model of imperturbability, Benson bowed and backed into the hall.

  The cherrywood panels closed with a snick, and Silver turned to her father. He was fishing inside his coat pockets for something, most likely his ever-present magnifying glass. As she watched his crumpled vest strain across his well-fed belly, a feeling of such profound tenderness washed over her that for an instant, she was moved to tears.

  Just five short years ago, when he'd finally made good on a lifetime of promises and sent for her to come live with him beside his "mother lode," he'd been bonier than a half-starved sparrow. Maximillian Nichols had sustained himself on dreams for forty-four years, sacrificing his own needs to send her and Aunt Agatha what little money he could scrape together to help keep them off the streets.

  Now, hale and hearty and wealthier than even he had ever imagined, Maximillian Nichols was still living on dreams. She understood that it wasn't the pot of gold but rather the rainbow- chasing that made him happy. And she wanted him to be happy. Her papa was her whole world. If he needed to believe in some silly ghost and the mythical treasure he'd hired Celestia to help him find, then Silver was willing to pretend she believed in them, too.

  However, she was not willing to stand by and watch her papa be made a public laughingstock because he was too kindhearted to conceive that Celestia Cooper might prey upon his fantasies by turning the old Indian legend of the Medicine Man, Nahele, to her advantage.

  "Papa," Silver said, "I'm sure we can find a way to avert a miner's strike without holding a séance. We don't want to fuel the men's fear of Nahele."

  "Not to worry, daughter." He opened the eye he'd squeezed closed to peer at his rocks. "We'll keep it small. You, me, the Union leaders, and maybe Brady from the Times. 'Course, there's no telling how many spirits'll show up around here, if you know what I mean."

  She smiled weakly. To her discomfort, she knew exactly what he meant. That's why she'd never told him about her nightmares. The last thing she wanted was for Papa to decide Nahele was haunting her boudoir and then enlist Celestia to perform some sort of exorcism rite on her bed. Silver could just imagine the snide editorial Brady Buckholtz would pen for the Aspen Times about "the Sterling Spinster," as he'd dubbed her.

  Shrugging out of his coat, Papa rolled up his shirtsleeves and rummaged once more through his rocks. "It turned out to be a fine day, eh, daughter? A fine day for hunting treasure. Cellie says I'm on the right trail now. That cache ol' Nahele extorted from the citizens of Cibola ain't but another blast or two away. Say, you want to ride to the mine? I'll show you where Cellie and me are gonna dig next."
r />   Silver's heart cringed. She didn't know what was worse, watching her father's face light up when he mentioned that dreadful woman's name, or imagining what else might "light up" if Celestia got her hands on a stick of dynamite.

  "Uh, thanks, Papa. But there really isn't enough time."

  "Hmm." He squinted at his pocket watch. "I reckon you're right. Dang, I gotta get me into some dungarees. Can't very well go digging in broadcloth, eh?" He winked cheerfully. "Leastways, that's what you always tell me."

  For a moment, Silver was too stunned to do anything but blink. Did Papa mean to imply he wasn't going to Leadville?

  "Well, gotta hurry," he said, sweeping his rocks back inside the satchels and slinging the packs over his back. "Burning daylight and all that. Cellie's waiting for me to come back to her hotel room."

  "Wait a minute!" Silver grabbed his arm, indignation overcoming her shock. "What do you mean, Cellie's waiting for you to come back?"

  He gazed at her as if she'd gone daft. "Didn't you hear me? Cellie says I'm on the right trail. Shoot, if our luck holds out, we might even find a clue that'll lead us to Cibola!"

  Silver gaped. She didn't know whether to be outraged by his change of plans or scandalized by the notion that her sainted Papa was wearing last night's suit because that horrible woman had seduced him in a hotel!

  "Papa," she sputtered, "surely Cibola can wait. We're scheduled to leave for Leadville in twenty minutes."

  His brow furrowed. When he continued to look baffled, she added, "The directors' meeting. At the Mining Exchange, remember?"

  "Oh." His ruddy face fell. "That's today?"

  "It's tonight. But you know we'll need most of the afternoon just to ride across the pass and get dressed for dinner. It's going to be quite a formal affair."

  His good humor returned. "Well, you go ahead then, daughter. I never did care for formal affairs. You know more about stocks and dividends anyway, and you've always been better at hobnobbing with investors. That's why I made you my partner."

  "But Papa," she protested, unable to take pleasure in what she would normally have considered high praise. "I was going to give the speech tonight."