It Takes a Hero Read Free Page B

ride out of the bargain. In Spain, he'd spent weeks at a time in the saddle, scouting and hunting French troops. He missed the freedom of the open country, something London and his work afforded him little time to enjoy.
    "I've no mind to find myself married," Cochrane was repeating.
    "Then I promise I'll keep you well out of the matchmaker's way." As Rafe intended to do for himself as well. "But into Bramley Hollow we must go, and Bramley Hollow we shall brave."
    To locate the elusive author, Rafe had gone to the publisher, Ahey and Sons, to ask for directions to M. Briggs, but the esteemed Mr. Ahey had laughed outright at such a request. Undeterred, Rafe and Cochrane spent the next week frequenting the inn favored by the man's overworked and underpaid apprentices, and one night had treated the lot of them to a feast of beef steaks and bottomless tankards of ale. Before midnight, they'd had the directions that Mr. Ahey had declared "absolutely unavailable."
    And as luck would have it, the property that Lady Tottley had offered him wasn't that far afield from the little village of Bramley Hollow, so Rafe would be able to assess his payment and make good his promise to Lady Tottley to see the author properly persuaded to give up his profession.
    "I heard tell last night," Cochrane said, "that the East India Company upped their reward for finding Codlin's killer to two thousand pounds." The boy whistled. "You could pay the rent with that kind of blunt. You know, so we wouldn't have to duck out the back all the time."
    Rafe ignored the jab about his less than reliable finances and got to the point. "Where did you hear about the East India offer?"
    "I just 'eard it," the boy said, shrugging his shoulders and suddenly gaining a new appreciation for the scenery as if he'd never seen a tree in his life.
    Rafe made a note to keep better track of the boy's whereabouts. He could get into trouble wandering about London alone at night. Not that that had probably ever given Pymm a moment's pause.
    "Is this house you get worth more than two thousand pounds?"
    "Most likely."
    This seemed to cheer up Cochrane, though not enough to dampen his suspicious nature. "Don't you think it's rather a generous offer, giving you a house and all, when all we've got to do is to find some bloke and break his arms so he can't write?"
    "Cochrane!" Rafe sputtered. "We aren't in the business of breaking people's arms. We solve problems. Discreetly, professionally."
    "Like you did that Lord Harold last month?"
    Rafe sighed. He would have to bring up that case.
    Lord Harold, a worthless sot if ever there was one, had been attending house parties and using his hosts' homes as a playground for pilfering—stealing silver and other small items of value to pay off his gambling debts. His family, notably his brother, the Marquess of Carston, had wanted to avoid scandal at any cost, as had Lord Harold's equally well-heeled victims.
    Rafe and Cochrane had caught up with the unrepentant thief in Surrey about to leave a party with his pockets and trunks stuffed with his latest plunder. Instead, they'd seen the goods returned and "escorted" the young wastrel to the coast where passage had been booked by his brother for a one-way trip to the lonely reaches of Halifax.
    Needless to say, Lord Harold hadn't taken to this turn of events all that willingly, and Rafe had finally planted a facer to end the young man's caterwauling and whining.
    "Lord Harold was the exception," Rafe said.
    "What about that fellow who was beating up the girls at Madame Rochelle's? Or that bloke who thought he could run away with the viscount's daughter? You gave them a bit of the business, didn't you?"
    "They both needed a little more attention, that's all," Rafe admitted, wondering if these were the sort of moral lessons that Pymm had intended Cochrane to gain under his tutelage.
    Then he shot a second, more narrowed glance over at his assistant. "What do you know about Madame Rochelle's?"
    The boy