Three Heroes (7 page)

"Of course he wants to,” Sarah hissed. "You're rich as Croesus. But what else can you offer him? You're old and barren.” It was so cruel that Maria froze. But then she realized that Sarah was thinking of her lost son, a man of the same age. She was reacting as if Maria had trapped Dare. She hadn't trapped anyone, but the thought of herself and Dare, whom she'd known when he was a gap-toothed child, made her shrivel with shame.]]>

She longed to explain, but she didn't want to reveal Maurice's sin to anyone. Perhaps she was more like him than she'd thought, always trying to keep the facade in place.

"We suit,” she said rigidly. "He's excellent company.” Sarah was hectically red. "You met him less than a week ago! Gravenham should never have introduced you.”]]>

Maria had to stifle laughter at this reversal of Gravenham’s discreet warning, but she ached for her cousin's pain.

"You must release him,” Sarah said. "You know he cannot draw back.” Nor can I. "But we suit very well.”]]>

Sarah stared at her as if she were a worm, and walked away.

Maria let out a breath, praying that her cousin not make this a public estrangement.

Vandeimen came over. "You look upset."

She forced a smile. "The duchess still mourns her son. She sometimes says things she doesn't mean."

"We all mourned Lord Darius. He had the gift of merriment." She looked at him. "She said you and your friends were kind to him."

"A despairing sort of kindness, though his joie de vivre was a gift just then, before Waterloo. But you don't want to speak of war. Come, the abbey choir is about to sing

‘Palestrina.'"

She went, mainly because it would remove any need to talk for a while. She suspected that was his idea, too.

To her, it was as if something pleasant had suddenly been spoiled. It surprised her that it had been pleasant, but she had begun to enjoy the season in the past few days. Her wasps had flown after other jam pots, but the true magic was that she'd enjoyed Vandeimen's company.

He was unfailingly courteous and an excellent, efficient escort. He wasn't a wit, but he held up his end of a conversation. He knew how to acceptably flirt with the ladies and joke with the gentlemen.

People were slowly looking past the shocking match and his reputation, and beginning to accept him as simply a gentleman, which he clearly was.

Now, however, the thought of Dare rose up to corrode everything. Her family had regularly visited Long Chart, the Duke of Yeovil's seat, and she could remember Dare still in a toddler's skirts.

She'd only been eleven, but that picture stuck because he'd managed to escape his nurse and climb a tree, causing pandemonium.

He must have been eight when he'd recruited most of the children in the area to dig a moat around the castle folly in the grounds. The duke had been impressed enough to complete the job, but at sixteen and on her dignity, Maria had thought him a grubby menace.

She'd last met him when he was a lanky, grinning youth passing through London on his way to Cambridge.

She'd been married a few years by then, a matron and mistress of her own home. She'd also been veteran of awareness that she'd been duped by an imaginary love, and suspicion that she was barren. She had faced a difficult, dutiful life, whereas he had been practically bouncing with anticipation of a limitless future. She'd felt old then, and she felt old now.

Listening to the angelic voices of the choir—she'd probably been dancing at a ball when Dare's voice broke, when Vandeimen's voice broke—she reminded herself that this engagement was completely imaginary.

She glanced sideways at her youthful responsibility, at the strong, clear lines of his profile, and the vibrant health of his skin. In only days, the marks of dissipation had disappeared, but it would take longer for the inner wounds to heal.

She'd begun to let him choose where they went, and he seemed to prefer the more cultural events. He'd chosen this one and was enjoying it. He'd been at war for so long that much of society's routine pleasures must be fresh to him.

Her personal reaction to him was her problem—hers to control and hers to conceal.

As the days turned to weeks, control never became easy, but she managed it, helped by the fact that he kept his word. He never again tried to kiss her, or to touch her in any way other than courteously.

The worst times were those spent quietly together— lingering over breakfast, or sitting in the Chinese room, or strolling in the summer garden. Sometimes they talked, but often they were each involved in reading or even thought.

It was too much like husband and wife, and she liked it very much. She told herself that he was on best behavior for the six weeks, and she knew it was true, but she still thought that they rubbed together surprisingly well.

Vandeimen could listen as well as talk. Maurice's breakfast table conversations had mostly been monologues on whatever issue of the day interested him. She had been his attentive audience.

He could endure a silence. Maurice had seemed to feel obliged to throw words at any lingering silence as if it were a rabid dog.

He liked to read. They did not have a great deal of time for reading, but he appeared to enjoy it. He picked seemingly at random from her excellent library—again chosen by Maurice for effect.

Oh yes, he had become a pleasant part of her life.

Thank heavens Harriette was their buffer. She went nearly everywhere with them, treating Vandeimen like another son, and gave off relaxing warmth like a good fire. The healing was all Harriette's work.

But then, one day, Maria realized that her aunt's healing powers were not working.

They were chatting before dinner when Harriette said something about Vandeimen's home. He snapped at her and left the room.

As the door clicked shut, Harriette pulled a face. "I shouldn't have pressed him for his plans, but—"

"But why not?" Maria asked. "We have spent four of our six weeks. It's time he made plans to restore Steynings."

"My dear, have you not noticed that he never speaks of the future?" Maria sat there, hands in lap, searching back over four weeks. "Never of the future, and rarely of the past. He talks easily of the present."

"Because the present offers no threat."

"Threat? I thought it was going well."

"Oh, he seems whole,” said Harriette with a sigh. "He is healthy, polite, even charming. But it's like a lovely shell around . . . around nothing.” Nothing? Maria suddenly felt as if she were trying to inhale nothing, as if there was no air. "But I can't hold him beyond the six weeks.”]]>

"No, you probably can't. So you must find a way to get beneath that shell."

"If there's nothing there?" It was a protest of sorts. She'd fought so hard to keep apart.

"Something must be put there. What about those friends of his?"

"Con and Hawk? He seems willing to talk of their boyhood pranks."

"Precisely. Where are they? He needs old friends, friends who will make him face the difficult past and plan the difficult future."

"You think he's avoiding them? Oh, heavens. He never goes to manly places such as Tattersall's, or Cribb's, does he? Or to clubs or coffeehouses. I've been pleased, thinking it safer. But it keeps him from his friends.”]]>

"Or his friends are avoiding him," said Harriette. "Find out. Find them." A footman announced dinner and Maria rose, flinching under those instructions. She didn't want to get involved like that. She feared getting too close.

As she left the drawing room she wondered what to do about the theater party she had planned for the evening. She had invited guests to her box at Drury Lane to see Mrs. Blanche Hardcastle play Titania.

There was no reason not to go, except that she and Vandeimen had never been apart in an evening, and she worried what he might do.

What did he do when alone in his room?

He wasn't drowning his sorrows. Though she hated to, she'd questioned the butler, and the decanters in his room were being used sparingly. She knew, however, that he wouldn't need to be drunk to kill himself, and he probably still had his pistol.

She'd have to stay home tonight, though if he lurked in his room and shot himself, she couldn't see how to stop him.

He appeared however as they crossed the hall, ready to escort both of them into dinner. Of course, she thought as she placed her hand upon his arm. He would always punctiliously give the service for which he had been paid.

She ate a dinner for which she had no appetite, wondering if she could use his powerful sense of duty and honor to save him.

Harriette, bless her, picked up conversation as if nothing had happened, and talked about plans for the garden.

The play was doubtless excellent, and ethereal Mrs. Hardcastle with her long silver hair was perfect as the fairy queen, but Maria paid little attention. She sat in her box seeking ways to put Vandeimen in contact with his past, his future, and his friends.

As Sarah had said, they had been born neighbors in Sussex and all called George. A patriotic gesture, he'd explained, in response to the actions of the French sansculottes against their own monarch.

"We were lucky, I suppose,” he'd said. "We could have all been called Louis. That would have been too much for our staunchly English fathers to stomach, thank God.” They'd been christened on the same day, in the same church, and been playmates in the nursery years. As lads they'd been inseparable, and in the end, they had all joined the army at the same time. Their talents and inclinations had differed, however, and their military careers had swept them apart.]]>

Con had chosen the infantry, Van and Hawk cavalry. But then Hawk had been seconded to the Quartermaster's Division.

They hadn't seen a great deal of each other during their army years, but he didn't talk about them as if they were estranged. So why weren't they in touch, at least by letter?

Lord Wyyern was probably busily involved with his new estate in Devon, but he could still write.

Hawk was Major George Hawkinville, heir to a manor that went back to the Domeday Book. His father, Squire John Hawkinville, was still alive, living at Hawkinville Manor. Her gazetteer had described it as

"an ancient, though not notable house in the village of Hawk in the Vale, Sussex.” The same gazetteer had described Vandeimen's home as "a handsome house in the Palladian manner,” and Somerford Court as "Jacobean, adapted and adorned, not entirely felicitously, in the following centuries.”]]>

The main word used to describe Crag Wyvern in Sussex was "peculiar." Wyvern had been a second son, but Vandeimen and the major were both only sons. Strange that they had joined the army.

Major Hawkinville was still at his duties abroad, apparently, but Wyvern must know of the heavy losses Vandeimen had suffered—mother, two sisters, then father—so why was he doing nothing to help? If only one of these friends was here to help hold Vandeimen together . . .

The curtain fell, signaling an intermission, and she must leave her thoughts to smile and talk as her footman served refreshments. Everyone was enchanted by the play and delighted with the Titania.

"Mrs. Hardcastle's hair is naturally white, they say," said Cissy Embleborough,

"though she's still under thirty. And she always dresses in white." Cissy leaned closer and whispered, "They say she was mistress to the Marquess of Arden until he married last year. So not quite as pure as the white suggests." Maria had never imagined it.

Her guests were the Embleboroughs, including Cissy's son and daughter. Natalie was here, too, and Harriette, of course. Maria was mostly able to let talk flow around her. She noted Vandeimen doing the same thing. Did he generally do so, or was this part of his dark mood? She suspected she had been very unperceptive these past weeks.

There was a knock on the door. Her footman opened it and turned to announce, "Major Hawkinville, ma'am."

Maria stared at the tall man in uniform, feeling as if she'd performed a conjuring trick. Then she thought to look at Vandeimen. He was already on his feet. "Hawk!" There was joy there, but a great many other things too.

He was smiling, and it was a heartaching flash of boyishness she'd never seen before.

Now he was grasping his friend's hand, and she had the feeling that he'd like to embrace him. They weren't estranged, and whatever magic had brought the major here, it was good magic.

Everyone was watching them, doubtless sensing an important moment, then Vandeimen turned to her.

"Maria, I've spoken of Major Hawkinville, an old friend and neighbor. Hawk, my lovely bride to be, Mrs. Celestin."

She held out her hand. "I'm very pleased to meet you, Major." He was hawkish, though a second later she wasn't sure why. No hooked nose, no yellow eyes.

His face was lean, his hair a soft brown, and worn a little long with a wave in it. He was, above all, elegant, making even Van look a little rough around the edges.

He took her hand and actually raised it to his lips. She felt their pressure through her glove. "How unfair of Van to steal you before I had a chance, Mrs. Celestin." She started to smile, amused by his flirtation, but then she caught a hard glint in his deeply blue eyes.

Hawkish indeed. But why was he turning a predatory eye on her?

"You are still in the army, Major?" she asked, to fill the silence, though it was inane, given his scarlet and braid.

"Easing my way out, Mrs. Celestin."

"They'll be reluctant to let him go.” Vandeimen's smile said that if there'd been any ambivalence, it had gone. "We chargers and marchers are two-a-penny, but organizers like Hawk are treasured more than gold. Quartermaster Division,” he added in explanation to everyone. "Got the armies to the field, with weapons and supplies intact. To the right field at the right time, even, if they were really good.” The teasing look between the two men suggested it was an old joke.]]>

"And tidied up afterward," said the major, "which is why I get home a year late and find all the loveliest ladies taken."

He flashed Maria another look, but then turned to Natalie and to Cissy's blushing, seventeen-year-old daughter to express relief that some lovely ladies were still available.