It Takes a Hero Read Online Free PDF Page B

not heeding what he said. In his line of work, people either feared him or just wanted to avoid him.
    But they didn't mock him. And even if it took a few coins to get the truth out of them, they always told him what he wanted.
    Her slipper nudged at a bunch of blue flowers blooming at the foot of the gatepost. "It's just that none of the others went to the trouble to bring a packet, though one professed to have an offer of marriage, while the last one claimed she was a long lost relation. Poor Miss Briggs. Besieged by all sorts of knaves and imposters."
    She reached down and plucked a few of the wayward blossoms.
    "So which are you, Mr. Danvers?" she asked, straightening up and arranging the purloined stems into an orderly little nosegay. "For truly you don't look like one of her acolytes, those foolish young girls who forget the
Darby
tales are just fiction—" She paused and that assessing gaze ran from the toes of his less than polished boots to the top of his hat. "Then again you hardly appear the type to come ringing a righteous peel over her head either, like the vicar who arrived last month."
    "I have a business proposition for her," Rafe said, holding firm to the truth. It was a business proposition of sorts.
Stop writing or else
. "And if you don't mind, if you could finish escorting me to her, then I can be done with my business and return to London."
    Her glance seemed to say,
Where you belong
, though her good manners held sway. "Why we are already there."
    He glanced up at the yard, and then at the cozy vicarage sitting like a tidy mushroom beside the ancient stone church.
    The vicar's residence? Oh, Lord. This wasn't his day.
    He'd bet even money he'd been sent to break the arms of the vicar's spinster sister.
    If Spain hadn't been enough hell for one existence, then this day was proving itself a close second.
    "Here?" he managed to ask, trying to determine how far into Dante's rings of hell he was going to have to wade through after he'd "persuaded" some kind-hearted old lady to quit writing.
    She'd probably offer Cochrane a plate of sugared biscuits right before they got down to the business of wrenching a promise out of her never to write again.
    "Yes, right over there to the left," she said,, pointing across the yard to the far corner.
    And in the opposite direction of the house. He nearly sighed with relief until he saw where she was going.
    Having opened the gate, Rebecca was picking her way through the yard, her skirt swinging this way and that as she wove past the headstones and lichen covered stone monuments raised for Bramley Hollow's more illustrious former residents. She paused and glanced over her shoulder. "Come on. This is what you came all the way from London to discover."
    He followed, now convinced he was part of some great jest the postmistress and her friend liked to play on unsuspecting visitors.
    "Here she is," she said, pointing at a simple headstone.
    Rafe strode across the graveyard, ready to end this charade.
    "Careful as you go," Miss Tate said, pointing at his boot which hung in mid-stride. "You are about to step on Abigail Roundsfield, and she would be quite put out by the insult."
    Rafe moved his foot over, just avoiding trespassing on Mrs. Roundsfield's slumber.
    "If this is some kind of prank, Miss Tate," he said, "let me assure you I am not the kind to find such diversions amusing."
    She glanced him over again. "No, I suppose you aren't."
    Rafe bristled. Well, she needn't say it like he was some aged high-stickler. Why he'd have her know…
    "Here we are," she was saying, interrupting his silent outrage at being so summarily dismissed. "Though, I think you will agree, 'tis hardly a laughing matter."
    And when he glanced down, he realized that she hadn't been joking with him—just leading him to a dead end, quite literally. For at his feet was the very lady he sought.
     
    Mary Briggs, Spinster
    1732-1784
    Forgotten in life
    Forgotten no more
     
    And by the time he'd regained his