Three Heroes (53 page)

Clarissa smiled. “He’s only eight hours old and you’re already at war.”

“I’ve been establishing the rules for months, but they still must be implemented.” She grinned, however, as she sat down in a rocking chair, her baby in her arms.

Once settled, she gave Clarissa a clear look. “Now, tell me everything.”

“Won’t we wake the baby?”

“Not unless you plan to shriek. Anyway,” she said, looking down at her child, “I won’t mind if he wakes.

He has the most beautiful huge blue eyes. I’m feeding him, you know. It’s a bit sore at the moment, but it

’s wonderful.” She touched the baby’s cheek, and he made little sucking movements but didn’t wake.

Clarissa was sure Beth didn’t really want to hear about the distressing debacle. But then Beth looked up, all schoolteacher. “Out with it, Clarissa. What have you been up to?”

By the end of the story the baby had awakened, squawked a little, and been put to the breast, with some winces. Beth had told her to keep telling her tale.

Now she asked, “What is your intention now?”

“Not to take any of that money. I’m resolved on that. I still can’t believe the Rogues would steal.”

She thought that Beth was wincing at the suckling, but then she said, “It was my idea, actually. Forging the will.”

“Yours!” Clarissa exclaimed, close enough to a shriek for the baby to jerk off the breast and cry. By the time Beth had him soothed and on the other breast, Clarissa was calm again. Astonished, but calm.

“Why?”

“Why not? Everyone said Deveril had no heir. You needed money. I was afraid even Lucien wouldn’t be able to stop your parents from selling you in some way or another.”

“But it’s a crime.”

Beth pulled a laughing face. “I must be of a criminal inclination, then. I even took part in the planting of the will at Deveril’s house. Blanche and I acted the part of whores.”

Clarissa gaped, and Beth chuckled. “Lucien was dumbfounded too. I wore a black wig, lashings of crude face paint, and a bodice that just barely covered the essentials.”

“Dumbfounded” summed it up, especially since Beth seemed to be recalling a delightful memory.

“Do you think I should keep the money, then?”

Beth sobered. “It is more complicated now, isn’t it? There is a new Lord Deveril, and without our interference he would have inherited it all.” She considered Clarissa. “I am not clear how you regard Major Hawkinville at this time.”

“Probably because I’m not clear either. My heart says one thing. My mind shouts warnings. We were warned often enough at school about the seductive wiles of rascals and the susceptible female heart.”

“True,” said Beth, but with a rather mysterious smile. “But it’s as much a mistake to expect perfection from a man as it is to tumble into the power of a rake. After all, can we offer perfection? Do we want to have to try?”

“Heaven forbid. He wrote me a letter.”

“What did it say?”

“I haven’t read it yet.”

“There’s no need to make a hasty decision, my dear, but reading the letter might be a good start.”

The door opened then and Lord Arden walked in. He halted, and looked almost embarrassed, perhaps because he was in an open-necked shirt and pantaloons and nothing else. Not even stockings and shoes.

But then he looked at his wife and the baby, and Clarissa saw that nothing else mattered.

As he went over to Beth, she slipped out of the room, certain of one thing. She wanted that one day. To be a new mother with the miracle of a child and a husband who looked at her and the child as Lord Arden had looked.

And she wanted it to be Hawk.

She went back to her cold soup to read his letter, then cooled the soup some more with tears. Neat, crisp folds and neat, crisp phrases, but then those poignant perhapses.

Or were they simply the pragmatic analysis of the Hawk’s mind?

If only she had some mystical gift that would detect the truth in another person’s heart.

The trip by carriage took a lot less time than the wandering journey that had carried Clarissa and Hawk to the fateful village. Con, wonderful man, did not attempt conversation, but eventually she weakened and asked him about Hawk.

His look was thoughtful, but he talked. She saw their childhood from another angle. The bond was still there, and the fun, but they were shaded by Con’s exasperation with his wilder friends. Lord Vandeimen, it was clear, had always been given to extremes, inclined to act first, think second. Hawk, on the other hand, had thought too much, but relished challenges. He had also lacked a happy home.

She learned more about his parents. Though Con was moderate in his expressions, it was clear that he despised Squire Hawkinville and merely pitied his wife.

“She was hard done to,” he said, “but it was her own folly. Everyone in the village agrees that she was a plain woman past any blush of youth. Would the sudden appearance of a handsome gallant protesting adoration not stir a warning?”

He clearly had no idea how his words hit home to her.

“He must have been very convincing,” she said.

“Such men usually are. When the truth dawned, she would have been wiser to make the best of it.”

“Why? To make it easier for him?”

He looked at her. “That was her attitude, I’m sure. But she only made matters bitter for herself, her child, and everyone around her. There was no changing it.”

“And she couldn’t even leave,” Clarissa said. “It was her home.” And perhaps she, too, had loved Hawkinville.

Con said, “It’s made Hawk somewhat cold. Not truly cold, but guarded in his emotions. And he’s never had a high opinion of marriage.”

Clarissa was aware of the letter in her pocket. Guarded, perhaps, but not well. And not cold. And he wanted marriage.

Could it all be false?

She didn’t think so.

Con called for the carriage to stop, and she saw they were at a crossroads. “We can turn off here for Hawk in the Vale,” he said.

“No.”

She wasn’t ready yet. She was determined to be thoughtful about this.

“I was thinking more that we could go to my home, to Somerford Court. We don’t even have to go through the village to get to it from here. Nicholas Delaney is there, and I’m sure he’d like to speak to you. We can send a note to Miss Hurstman and go on to Brighton tomorrow.”

Clarissa was certainly in no rush to return to Brighton. “Why not? I wouldn’t mind a word with him, either.”

The Court was almost as charming as Hawkinville Manor, though centuries younger, but Clarissa was past caring about such things. Con’s wife, mother, and sister were welcoming—Con’s wife insisted on being Susan— but it couldn’t touch her distraction. Nothing in the world seemed real except her and Hawk and her dilemma.

And stopping where he was mere minutes away had not been a good idea.

Nicholas Delaney took one look at her and suggested that they talk, but ordered a wine posset for her.

As she went with him into a small sitting room, she said, “I’m not hungry.”

“You need to eat. You can’t fight well on an empty stomach.”

“I’m likely to fight you. This is all your fault.”

“If you wish, but I think the blame can be well spread around. There’s nothing so weak as ‘I meant well,’

but in this everyone meant well, Clarissa.”

“Not Hawk. Hawk wanted my money. I’m not touching it.” That should shake his complacency.

“As you wish, of course,” he said. “I’m sure Miss Hurstman can find you a position pandering to a not-too-tyrannical old lady.”

She picked up a china figurine and hurled it at him.

He caught it. “It would be foolish to be wantonly poor, Clarissa, and no one has a greater right to that money than you.”

“What about Hawk’s father?” She made herself say it. “The new Lord Deveril.”

“Only by the most precise letter of the law.” He put the figurine on a small table. “Sit down, and I’ll tell you where that money came from.”

She sat, her revivifying anger sagging like a pricked bladder. “From Lord Deveril’s unpleasant businesses, I assume.”

“He might have increased it a bit that way, but even vice is not quite so profitable in a short time.”

Clarissa listened in amazement to a story of treason, embezzlement, and pure theft.

“Then the money belongs to the people this woman got it from. Except,” she added thoughtfully, “they would hardly want to claim it, would they?”

“They could be found. Therese happily gave up a list of their names once she had no more use for them.

In the end the government settled for letting them know that they were known. Many of them fled the country, and I don’t think those that remain would want to be reminded of their folly.”

“The Crown, then.”

“The Regent would love it. It would buy him some trinket or other. But by what excuse can the money be given to the Crown?”

She was arguing for the sake of arguing, because she was angry with them all. “When I’m twenty-one, I can do with it as I wish.”

“Of course. I arranged it that way. In retrospect, that was an indulgence. It apparently gave Hawkinville reason to doubt the will.” He smiled. “It does seem unfair that women at twenty-one are considered infantile, when men at the same age are given control of their affairs.”

“That sounds like Mary Wollstonecraft.”

“She made some good points.”

There was a knock on the door, and a maid came in with the steaming posset. When she’d left, Clarissa decided not to be infantile. She sat at a small table and dipped in her spoon.

Cream, eggs, sugar, and wine. After a few mouthfuls she did begin to feel less miserable. “This will have me drunk.”

He sat across the table from her. “Probably why it’s excellent for the suffering invalid. There are times when a little inebriation helps.”

She looked at him. “What do you want me to do?”

He shook his head. “I have put you in charge of your own destiny.”

She took more of the posset, and the wine untangled some of her sorest knots.

“I’m afraid of making a fool of myself.”

“We all are, most of the time.”

She glanced up. “For life? How does anyone make choices?”

“Of marriage partners? If people worried too much about making the perfect choice, the human race would die out.”

“Not necessarily,” she pointed out, and he laughed.

“True, but it would be a chaotic system. Marriage brings order to the most disorderly of human affairs.”

“But there are many bitter, corroding marriages. Hawk’s parents, for example. And mine.”

“True fondness, goodwill, and common sense can get us over most hurdles.”

She spooned up the last of the sweet liquid, and the wine probably gave her courage to ask a personal question. “Is that what your marriage is like?”

He laughed. “Oh, no. My marriage is one of complete insanity. But I recommend it to you, too. It’s called love.”

Love.

“Perhaps I should see Hawk,” she said, a warm spiral beginning to envelop her in betraying delight.

But Delaney shook his head. “I think we’ll wait an hour or so to see if that’s only the wine talking.” He rose. “Meanwhile, come and meet my insanity. Eleanor, and my daughter, Arabel.”

As they went to the door he said, “Would you be able to call me Nicholas?”

“In what circumstances?” she teased.

“Damned tenses. I would like it if you would call me Nicholas. I think you are by way of being an honorary Rogue.”

Con, and Nicholas. New friends. And her acceptance of it was something to do with Hawk, and with Lord Arden.

“Nicholas,” she said, but she added with a giggle, “I’m not sure I can call Lord Arden Lucien, though.”

“Definitely the wine,” he said, guiding her out of the room. “The number of people to call Arden Lucien is small. If not for the Rogues it might be down to one— his mother.”

“And Beth, surely.”

“Perhaps.”

She understood. Without the Rogues, Lord Arden might not be the sort of husband Beth would call by his first name. He might be the sort who expressed every sour emotion with his fists.

“Perhaps I should call Hawk George,” she said. “Less predatory. But then he wouldn’t call me Falcon.”

Nicholas shook his head. “We must definitely wait an hour.”

Eleanor Delaney was a handsome woman with a rooted tranquility that Clarissa admired. Of course, it must be easy to be tranquil with a husband such as Nicholas. Clarissa was sure he had given her no trouble, told her no lies.

Arabel was a charming toddler in a short pink dress showing lace-trimmed pantalettes. Her chestnut curls were cut short, and she was playing with a cat that Clarissa recognized.

“Jetta!”

The cat reacted to the name, or perhaps to her. Whichever, Clarissa certainly received a cold stare. Lord above, was a cat capable of fixing blame for the loss of its hero?

“It was thought to be in danger from the manor dogs, so I brought it up here.” Nicholas swooped up his daughter and carried her, laughing, over to be introduced. Clarissa saw identical sherry-gold eyes.

Arabel smiled with unhesitating acceptance. “ ‘Lo!”

“Not the beginning of an ode,” said Nicholas, “but her greeting.”

The child turned to him, beaming, to say, “ ‘Lo! ’Lo! ‘Lo!” But then she said, “Papa. Love Papa.”

Clarissa almost felt she should look away as Nicholas kissed his daughter’s nose and said, “I love you too, cherub.”

Insanity.

Love.

Heaven.

But then Arabel turned to her and stretched out. Astonished, Clarissa took the child and duly admired the wooden doll clutched in one fist. Nicholas went to talk to Eleanor, and the child didn’t turn to look.

What blithe confidence in love that was, that never doubted, or feared the loss of it. Would she ever feel that way?

Then Arabel squirmed to get down and led the way back to the cat and some other toys. Clarissa sat on the carpet and played, discovering one certainty.

She wanted a child.

She wanted to be married to Hawk and have Hawk’s children, but if that didn’t happen, she wanted to be a mother. A married mother.

She tried to imagine being married to someone else.