Three Heroes (48 page)

He spoke teasingly, but she sensed that the same need pulsed through him as her.

“No, you’re the man I love. If you went back to war and came home scarred and maimed, you would still be the man I love.”

“Why?” But then he put up a hand to stop her answer. “God, no. That’s another game that no one wins.”

She wanted to laugh. “Why wouldn’t any woman fall in love with you? You’re handsome, honorable, brave, strong…” But she moved down to kiss the hawk on his chest. “For me, though, the most wonderful thing is the way I’ve been able to talk to you from the first. You are my deepest, lifelong friend. I know you have other friends—”

He sealed her lips with his fingers. “None closer. Now.”

“Truly?”

His eyes were steady and deep. “Truly. For as long as you wish.”

She began to cry. She couldn’t help it. This was the most perfect moment of her life, but she was sobbing as if she’d lost everything that mattered. He gathered her close, rocking her and murmuring for her to stop. She tried, but she couldn’t.

“It’s all right,” she managed. “I’m happy, not sad!”

“Lord save me from you sad, then, love. Do stop, please.”

She laughed and wiped her face on the sheet. “I look a mess when I cry, too.”

He helped her dry her eyes and didn’t deny her statement. For some reason, that put the perfect finish on perfection.

This was all completely honest.

She ran a hand across Hawk’s wide shoulders, then down the center of his chest, just wanting to touch.

She traced the scar again, chilled by how close it must have been to fatal.

“It was a mere glancing blow.”

“I’m surprised it didn’t break your ribs.”

“Cracked them. Hurt like the devil.”

She stroked along the scar. “I’m glad you’re not at war anymore.”

“I was rarely in much danger. Unlike others.”

She looked up. “Why do you blame yourself? Your work was important.”

“I know.”

“But you still felt as if you were shirking,” she risked, sliding down and holding him, his head on her shoulder.

She thought he wouldn’t speak of it, and she didn’t dare to press him further. But then he began to talk, about his army life, but especially about others, including Lord Vandeimen and Lord Amleigh.

She listened, stroking his hair, blending deeper with him at every word. She kept feeling she’d found perfect happiness, only to rise up to more, and more. She truly felt she might fly away, but it would be to heaven.

Heaven. Ah, yes. No purgatory for her. Certainly no hell. Instead, miraculously, she had heaven.

Except for the small worm of her involvement in Deveril’s death.

It was time to tell her story. But not quite yet. This time was for him. He was talking about Hawkinville now.

“I went into the army to escape it. When I returned a few weeks ago, I planned to deal with whatever problems my father had and ride away. I didn’t intend to cut myself off from Van and Con, but I didn’t think I could live there.

“But when I rode in, people recognized me. God knows how, since most of them hadn’t seen me since I was sixteen. And I recognized them. Not always immediately, but within minutes it was as if the passing years had disappeared. Even my old nurse…”

He moved his head restlessly against her. “Nanny Briggs saved my life. She was my mother in all true senses of the word. Even after she left my father’s service, I spent more time in her house than at the manor. I sent her letters and gifts. But I hadn’t thought she really mattered to me anymore until I saw her.

“In ten years she’d gone from a robust woman to a frail one, shrunken, crooked, and in pain. And in ten years, I’d hardly given her a thought apart from casually sent packages. Of course, she’d treasured every one.”

He suddenly shifted, moving up to look at her. “Why am I boring you with all this? Come and be kissed for being such a good listener.”

The kiss was Hawk’s kiss, as skillful and delightful as ever, and yet afterward, cuddled against him, Clarissa pined for the links that might have been forged with the words he had left unsaid.

“I wasn’t bored,” she said. “I don’t think you should blame yourself for not thinking of them. When a person grows, he will often leave his home and start anew. And I’m sure war demands a man’s attention.

You would not have wanted to be distracted.”

His hand was stroking her back again, and she remembered him stroking Jetta, remembered wanting to be stroked that way. And now she had it. For as long as they both should live…

He nuzzled her hair. “I’ve never embarrassed myself with so much chatter before.”

She smiled against his skin. “You’ve never been married before.”

“We’re not now.”

“As good as. In the eyes of heaven. I’ve never felt like this, either, Hawk. I’ve never truly had someone to be with like this. It’s like catching sunlight and finding it can be held in the hands forever.”

“Or having heaven here on earth.”

“Perfect Perpetual Paradise,” she murmured on a laugh. This would be the moment to tell him. So at peace, so relaxed, so inextricably bound.

And yet, it would change things. They’d have to talk, to make sense, to leave the soft clouds. Better surely to sleep now, and do the telling in the morning.

Clarissa awoke to sunshine and warm, musky smells, to strangeness inside and around. And then to memory.

She turned her head slowly, but he was there, beside her, still trustingly asleep, turned away. He’d thrown the covers off down to his waist, so she could indulge in luxuriant study of the lines of his back, of his muscular arm bent close to her. She longed to ease forward and kiss it, taste his warmth and skin, but she wouldn’t wake him yet.

When he awoke she would have to tell him, and it pricked at her. It wasn’t precisely wrong not to have told him. It couldn’t make any particular difference to him. It wasn’t as if she was in danger of being arrested.

But she wished this moment was enshrined in perfect honesty.

On that thought, she reached out to touch his arm.

He stirred, rolled, then his eyes opened sharply. She saw that second of disorientation before he relaxed and smiled. But guardedly. Such shadows behind his smile. Why?

Ah.

She smiled for him. “I have no regrets. I love you, and this was the first night of our life together.”

He took her hand, the one wearing the rings, and pressed it to his lips. “I love you, too, Clarissa. This will be as perfect as I can possibly make it.”

She almost let go of why she’d awakened him, but she would not weaken now. “Almost no regrets,” she amended. As he became suddenly watchful, she added, “I have something to tell you, Hawk, and I think it requires clothing and cool heads.”

He kept hold of her hand. “You’re already married?”

“Of course not!”

“You’re not Clarissa Greystone, but her maid in disguise.”

“You’ve been reading too many novels, sir.”

He pulled her closer. “You eloped only because you were consumed with carnal lust for my luscious body.”

She resisted. “You’re beginning to sound like The Annals of Aphrodite,” she said severely, “and of course I lust. But I also love.”

“Then nothing troubles us.”

“I could have lost all my money on wild investments in fur cloaks for Africa.”

His smile deepened. “You’re a minor.”

“I gammoned my trustees.”

“I’m not at all surprised.” He gently tugged her closer. “Would you care to gammon me?”

She went, let herself be drawn to his lips, but in a moment she tugged free and clambered out of the bed.

“Later,” she said, but then froze, suddenly aware of her total nakedness.

Then she laughed and faced him brazenly.

He sat up equally brazenly, completely splendid, tousled, smiling.

“Carnal lust,” she murmured, and made herself turn away to search for her shift, her corset, and her lamentably muddy stockings.

When she looked back he was already into his drawers. “I wish I had a clean dress to wear.”

“We’ll find you one in London. Much though I’d like to linger here, beloved, we’d best have breakfast and be on our way.”

Awareness of the world, of pursuit, drained delight.

She hurried into her shift and corset, then went to him to have the strings tied. A sweet and simple task, and yet to have a man tie her laces seemed a mark of the complete change in her life.

As he tied the bow, she turned in his hands and started what must be done. “I was present when Lord Deveril died,” she said, intent on his expression.

It hardly seemed to change at all. “I guessed.”

“How? Why?”

“Perhaps because I’m the Hawk.” But his lashes lowered as if that might not be the whole truth.

She put that aside. “I need to tell you about it. I should have before, but I couldn’t until now. You’ll see why.”

His eyes were steady on her again. “Very well. But you wanted clothing and cool?”

She hurried to put on her dress and stockings, though she had to hunt for her second garter. He was dressed by then, and she went to him to have her buttons fastened. As he did the last one, he brushed her hair aside and she felt heat, wet heat, up the back of her neck.

“When I saw you in this dress, Falcon, you made me think of dairy cream, and I wanted to lick you.”

She laughed and turned, pushing him playfully away. Something she could do when she knew there would be tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

Even, perhaps, later. They’d clearly eluded any pursuit. There was no real need to rush on to London.

Once her conscience was clear.

She sat on the rather hard chair at one end of the table and indicated that he should sit on the other, at a safe distance. His brows rose, but he obeyed.

“You were present at Deveril’s death,” he said obligingly. “I assume he was doing something vile and his death was deserved. I also assume that you did not kill him, but if you did it would only make me admire you more.”

She bit her lip on tears at his understanding.

“You don’t have to tell me any more, Falcon. It really doesn’t matter.”

She smiled. “But I want to. I have many failings, and one is an incurable urge toward honesty.”

“I don’t see that as a failing, beloved.” And yet something somber touched him.

Beloved. She plunged into it. “I don’t need to tell you that Deveril was an evil man. After he kissed me, I ran away from him.”

“When you threw up over him.”

“Yes. Perhaps I should have been able to control myself better…”

“Not at all. We use what weapons we have to hand.”

She laughed. “I see what you mean. It certainly stopped him! Well, then, I escaped through the window in my brother’s clothes, but Deveril hunted me down and caught me at… at a friend’s house.” Even now she faltered about telling him everything. “He had two men with him, so we couldn’t do anything, and he threatened… He was going to do horrible things to us both, but he was going to kill my friend. So… he was killed.”

She paused for breath and pulled a face. “That wasn’t much of a tale, was it?”

“It does rather skip the who, the where, and especially the how—which I admit fascinates me. But I understand, and you bear no guilt.”

“You won’t feel obliged to pursue justice about it?”

He reached a hand across the table. “What is justice here? I award your noble defender the medal.”

She put her hand in his, knots untangling that she’d hardly been aware of. “I knew you would think like that. I’m sorry, Hawk, deeply sorry, that I didn’t tell you everything before.”

“Before?”

“Before we committed ourselves.”

He tugged, and she understood and went to sit in his lap, to be in his arms. “There is no shame in this, Falcon. But I confess to Hawkish curiosity. About the how, and how it was concealed.”

“The how comes mostly from Deveril’s being taken by surprise. And from reinforcements.” She reached out to touch a silver button on his jacket. “I’m not sure how much else I can tell, even to you.” She looked up. “There are secrets we are bound not to share. Does that apply to husband and wife?”

“Not if it affects both husband and wife. But take time, love. Our only urgency now is to eat and be on our way.”

“I long for complete honesty between us,” she said. “On all things. But would you tell me something truly secret that Lord Vandeimen shared with you?”

He thought for a moment. “I might not.” He touched her cheek. “Do what you think is best, love. I trust you.”

Trust. It was like a perfect golden rose. She sat up slightly and faced him. “Then I have to tell you one thing, Hawk. I did not behave at all like a Falcon last year. I was frozen with fear. Paralyzed. I did nothing. And afterward… Afterward, afterward I was heartless to the one who saved me. Shocked because others weren’t shocked—”

He put his fingers over her lips. “Hush. It was your first battle. Few of us are heroes the first time out. I threw up after mine.”

His understanding was so perfect. She took his face between her hands and kissed him, without words to express the wholeness that she felt.

She drew back at a tumultuous pealing of church bells. “Is it Sunday and I didn’t notice?” she asked.

“Not unless we’ve spent days in heaven instead of just one night. And it’s very early for a wedding.”

Hawk eased Clarissa off his lap and went to open the door. There were many innocent explanations for the bells, but his instinct for danger was at the alert.

It could be nothing to do with Van, surely.

A sparkle-eyed maidservant was just running up the stairs and paused to gasp, “Not to worry, sir! It’s the duke’s heir born at last and all safe! And free ale to be served in the tap in celebration!”

“Duke?” Hawk asked, alarm subsiding, but trying to think what ducal estate was in the vicinity.

“Belcraven, sir! Not the duke’s heir, of course, but his heir’s heir. His estate is here. A fine, handsome boy born to be duke one day, God willing, just as his father was born here twenty-six years ago!”

“A true cause for celebration,” Hawk said, amazed that his voice sounded normal.