It Takes a Hero Read Free Page A

the inn serves the finest beef pie in all of Kent." Honestly, he had no idea if Bramley Hollow even had an inn, but if there was one thing his newly inherited assistant didn't fear it was his next meal.
    Cochrane bit his lip and eyed the village anew. Yet, after a few moments he shook his head. Apparently, not even his unrelenting appetite was enough to prod him into entering the infamous matchmaking village of Bramley Hollow.
    "I promise I won't let you be wed against your will," Rafe told him.
    The lad didn't look the least bit convinced. "I hear tell it happens afore you know it. One minute you are asleep in your bed and the next—you wake up married with a houseful of mouths to feed."
    "As long as they haven't your stomach to fill, you should be fine." Rafe nudged his horse forward and a few moments later smiled to himself when he heard the young man let out a long sigh and follow.
    Cochrane had previously been employed by Mr. Pymm, the Foreign Office's legendary spymaster. But with peace now at hand and Napoleon securely locked away on St. Helena, Pymm had finally gained his ever-sought-after retirement. With nary a glance back at Whitehall, Pymm had packed his bags and left London, though not before he'd sent Cochrane over to Rafe's lodgings—instructing Danvers to take the sixteen-year-old lad under his wing and see that the boy gained some gentlemanly manners.
    Not that Rafe knew much about being a gentleman, or how he was going to keep the still-growing adolescent in potpies and shoes.
    He suspected the infamously parsimonious Pymm had sent Cochrane into his care so as not to be beggared by the boy's rapacious appetite.
    "We could be in London," Cochrane grumbled. "Finding Codlin's killer and eatin' a decent meal."
    Rafe had to agree with Cochrane, he'd rather be back in town. He'd been dead set against Lady Tottley's offer. The house was probably a tumble down wreck and what did he care if the Marriage Mart had been declared officially closed for the Season?
    Say he did find this
Darby
author and put everything to rights? He'd be run out of town by every unmarried man in London for ruining what was turning out to be the Season of the century.
    Yet here he was, traipsing down this nearly forgotten country road in search of Lady Tottley's villainous author.
    In his defense, he would have stuck to his first reply to her offer, an unhesitant "No!" if Lady Tottley hadn't then gone to Georgiana, Lady Danvers, his illustrious sister-in-law, and complained vehemently about his refusal to help.
    Now Rafe loved Colin's wife, Georgie, but damnation she had a way about her that was more interfering than an excise man. As it turned out, Georgie was in a fine state over the entire problem for it seemed their daughter Chloe was being just as stubborn about this
Darby
mess as Lady Lucinda Witherspoon.
    To Rafe's credit, he'd held strong against Georgie's pleas and admonitions, until she'd demanded a family convocation.
    Rafe hated family convocations. They usually involved a long table with his brothers and their wives at one end, him at the other and a lot of arguing.
    Hardly his idea of an evening well-spent.
    He much preferred the lively pursuit of an eventually willing lady, a hackney waiting to take him home before she got any further ideas about him staying the night, and once home, a good bottle of port ready for his indulgent hand to pull the cork and measure out a healthy dose.
    No, instead, he'd squandered a perfectly good Thursday night listening to the Danvers' wives threatening him with all sorts of invitations, escorting Chloe all around town, not only at night, but during the day when he was more inclined to be sleeping.
    At this rate he'd never get any work done—pleasurable or rent paying.
    So in a moment of utter desperation, he'd agreed to solve Lady Tottley's case, if only to regain his blessed independence from female interference.
    If there was a blessing to this case, Rafe decided, he'd gotten a good day's