Three Heroes (36 page)

And as you see, he now has a special relationship with Blanche. According to Beth, he wants to marry her, but Blanche thinks it unsuitable. She clearly thought speaking to me unsuitable, too. Sometimes our world does not please me.”

Especially having to play these silly games!

His brows rose at her sharp tone, but he said, “I see you as too much of a free spirit, Falcon, to be severely constrained by society.”

That could almost be an opening for her to propose to him, but Clarissa’s nerve failed her. What if he said no? What then? Perhaps he would say no on principle if she broke the rules so thoroughly.

She took a cowardly escape. “I’m trying to be good for Althea’s sake. We should rescue her.”

“From admirers? Will she thank you?”

“Definitely. She becomes flustered by too much flattery, and men will insist on saying the most absurd things.”

Unlike you. She’d felt so certain that he was at least pursuing her fortune, but now sickening doubt invaded. Was he slow to capture her because he didn’t find her appealing after all? Was she completely fooling herself?

“Perhaps men say absurd things because women like it?” he commented. “Would you be offended to be told you are like a golden rose?”

She stared at him. “Skeptical, perhaps,” she said with a dry mouth and a racing heart.

“You would accuse me of lying?”

“Of flattering.”

“In fact,” he said almost prosaically, “you do remind me of a golden rose. Not red, which is too deep and dark, nor white, which is too calm. Nor even pink, which is too coy and blushing, but golden, like warm sunshine, brightening what you touch.”

She had to lick her lips, and she knew she was blushing. She should protest again that it was not true, but she wanted it to be. She wanted him for any number of reasons, but she wanted to be loved by him more than anything in the world.

Because she loved him.

Breath-stealing, panic-building, but true. She loved him. She could not bear to lose him.

In the end, she simply said, “Thank you,” and prayed for more.

Hawk wondered what demented demon had taken control of his tongue. He’d come out today to learn more about Clarissa and the Ardens, and had succeeded beyond his hopes because of that chance encounter.

He had not come out to break her heart even more. He feared he could read the glowing expression in her eyes.

“Miss Trist,” he reminded her, turning toward her friend.

He sensed her disappointment, but after a moment she spoke calmly enough. “With such eligible men around her, you’d think Althea would be developing a preference.”

Strong Clarissa. If only… “Do you think that perhaps she dislikes the fuss of it?” he asked.

She looked at him in surprise, in control. “Dislikes being the toast of Brighton?”

“It is possible.”

“How else is she to find a grand husband?”

“Perhaps she doesn’t want one.”

“She does, Hawk. If she doesn’t find something better, she’ll have to go home and marry a stuffy widower with children nearly as old as she is.”

He couldn’t help but smile. “You are charmingly ardent in her cause. And kind.”

“It’s not kindness. It’s friendship. You understand that, surely. I hear that you and Lord Vandeimen are old friends.”

Yes, he understood that. “From the cradle.”

“Althea and I have been friends for less than a year, but true friendships can happen quickly.”

It was said with meaning, as a challenge to him. She was right. Over and above any emotions, they had discovered friendship. Friendship in marriage. It had been his ideal once.

Ah, well. Ideals often drowned in war.

She turned to study her friend. “You think she is not finding what she wants?”

“I don’t think she seems happy,” he said honestly, “but as you say, somewhere in Brighton the perfect man must exist.”

They moved in, and Miss Trist clearly was relieved to be rescued.

“Are you not happy here, Thea?” Clarissa asked quietly, studying Althea.

“Of course I am.” But she added, “I do miss the country a little, though.”

It was said quietly, but Lady Vandeimen heard. “We could drive out to visit Hawk in the Vale.”

“Why?” Hawk asked.

To Clarissa, that sounded rather sharp, and Lady Vandeimen was looking at him with surprise. “Why not? Trips to the nearby country are all the rage, and I would enjoy a chance to check on the work at Steynings. If we set off early tomorrow, we can enjoy a whole day.”

“It will probably rain.”

“Hawk, if we stayed at home for fear of rain, none of us would do anything this summer!”

Clarissa watched this exchange, wondering why the project displeased him. She longed to see his home.

The home she hoped would be hers. Did he think it wouldn’t appeal?

She wished she could reassure him. It could be a hovel and she wouldn’t care. After all, with her money they could build a better place, and it was Hawk she wanted.

Hawk.

Perhaps on a trip to the country, to his home, there’d be more opportunity to progress. Queen Cleopatra had given her very strange messages, but her advice to Miriam had been promising. Get the man apart, take off her gloves, and touch.

Perhaps, in the country, she could do that.

And now, with Hawk’s attention drawn to Blanche, she must succeed. She must bind him to their cause.

As they strolled back, Van said to Hawk, “Wasn’t that the White Dove you were talking to? Not done to introduce her to a proper young lady, you know.”

“What proper young lady? Clarissa introduced her to me.”

Van laughed, but didn’t look as if he entirely believed it.

“The White Dove?” Maria said. “Oh, the actress. We saw her play Titania, Van. Do you remember? She

’s very good. In fact, she’s playing Lady Macbeth here.”

“A violent change of roles,” Hawk said. “And it’s hard to see her as the bloodstained power behind the rotten throne.”

Maria gave him a look. “Are you saying that a beautiful woman cannot also be dangerous?”

He blew her a kiss. “No man of sense would.”

“Especially armed with a pistol,” Van said, which seemed to be a private joke.

Hawk, on the other hand, was thinking that classical beauty had little to do with it either.

It would be so damn easy to take the beckoning path. Marry. No, elope. He suspected he could get her to do it.

Roses. Hades.

Think of the three-day journey to the border, surrounded by her glowing enthusiasm, knowing he was leading her to the slaughter. Imagine a wedding night. Her innocent, trusting surrender.

God, no, don’t. Don’t even think of that.

Better by far that she simply hate him and be free.

Carpe diem, whispered the devil in his mind.

He could probably steal one more day before the morrow.

And he might as well be Hawkishly practical. He still didn’t know quite enough about her and the Ardens. If he played his cards right, he might learn the details he needed.

Tomorrow.

In Hawk in the Vale.

The next day, Clarissa looked excitedly out of the Vandeimen coach windows as it rolled over the humpbacked bridge into the village of Hawk in the Vale. She was full of curiosity, but also primed to take any opportunity to pursue her cause. If Hawk didn’t propose, she vowed she would do it before they left.

The ladies were in the coach, and the gentlemen— Hawk, Lord Vandeimen, and Lord Trevor—rode alongside. Althea had muttered that she did not need a partner, but Clarissa thought she was relieved it was Lord Trevor, who was excellent company without showing any sign of wanting to be a suitor.

Miss Hurstman was not with them, since today was her weekly meeting of the Ladies’ Scholarly Society, which she declared to be “an oasis of sanity in Bedlam.” She did not seem particularly different in her manner, and there had been no sign of Mr. Delaney. Clarissa was relieved, however, to be out of Brighton and safe.

The gentlemen were all superb riders, but Clarissa couldn’t help but smile at the cat riding proudly erect in front of Hawk. Jetta had refused to ride in the carriage, clearly thinking the company of other females inferior.

Hawk stroked her occasionally, and her eyes slitted with pleasure. Clarissa could rather imagine reveling in his touch in just the same way. She wondered if men ever stroked women the way they stroked cats.

During the journey, Lady Vandeimen had insisted that they all be on first-name terms. Clarissa had happily agreed, thinking that soon they would be true friends. The lady shared what she knew of Hawk in the Vale, and Clarissa savored every morsel, especially as it felt as if she was being welcomed into the community.

She now knew that Hawk’s family was the most ancient, and in many ways the most important, in the area, though there was no title except squire, which went with the manor house. If someone else were to buy the manor, he would become squire.

The other principal families were the Vandeimens and the Somerfords, headed by Lord Amleigh. Both families had estates outside of the village, but Hawkinville Manor was in Hawk in the Vale in the old style.

Maria had shared some interesting gossip along the way. “Lord Amleigh recently inherited the title of Earl of Wyvern. The seat is in Devonshire. However, it appears that the late earl might have had a legitimate son who has a prior claim. Quite a strange story. The earl and the woman—a member of a good local family—married in secret. They were both so displeased with each other, however, that they kept the matter secret, and she took up with a local tavern keeper, who is reputed to also be a smuggler!”

“And now the secret heir emerges?” Clarissa inquired. “It’s like a play. Or a Gothic novel.”

“Except that in this case the ‘wicked earl’ is Lord Amleigh, and he doesn’t want the inheritance at all.”

“That’s an interesting idea, however,” Clarissa said. “A trial marriage. I imagine any number of disasters could be averted.”

“Clarissa!” Althea objected, but she was laughing.

“Well, it’s true.”

“Indeed,” said Maria, and seemed to mean it.

It made Clarissa wonder about her first marriage, for there could surely be no disillusion with her second. “However, there is the matter of offspring,” Maria continued. “What if the trial has consequences?”

What, wondered Clarissa, if the trial was discovered?

Could she compromise Hawk?

“I have sent a message inviting the Amleighs to take lunch with us at Steynings,” Maria said. “If, that is, the dining room plasterwork is finally finished.”

Clarissa then learned more than she really cared to know about the trials of repairing a decade’s neglect of a house that had not been well built in the first place.

Hawk’s home was older. Was it in even worse repair? She, like Maria, had the money to repair it.

He’d ridden ahead to make sure all was ready for them. Already she was longing to see him.

The coach was lurching along a rough road around the central village green, past a row of ancient stone cottages that looked in need of as much care as the road.

Perhaps this was why Hawk was hunting a fortune.

A swarm of piglets suddenly dashed out between two cottages, chased by three barefoot children. It was fortunate that it was after the coach had passed, not before. Clarissa watched with amusement as the urchins tried to herd the piglets back home.

Maria directed her attention to the church. “Anglo-Saxon, of course.”

Yes, it looked it, complete to the square stone tower. Age made the village picturesque, but it was something more subtle that made it feel… right. Clarissa had never visited a place where the varied bits and pieces fit together so well, like the assorted flowers in a country garden.

Her eye was caught—hooked, more like—by a discordant piece, a monstrous stuccoed house with Corinthian pillars flanking its glossy doorway. There were other new buildings, buildings from every period over hundreds of years, but only that one seemed so appallingly out of place.

“What is that white house?” Clarissa asked.

“Ah. That belongs to a newcomer. A wealthy industrialist called Slade.” Maria pulled a face. “It doesn’t fit, does it? But he’s very proud of it.”

“Couldn’t he be stopped?”

“Apparently not. He seems to have ingratiated himself with the squire. Hawk’s father.”

The carriage halted, and the footman leaped down to assist the ladies out. Lord Trevor and Lord Vandeimen dismounted, and a groom trotted out through open gates to take the horses. Through those gates Clarissa could see an ancient building.

Hawkinville Manor. It must be.

She was astonished that she hadn’t spotted it more easily, but it did blend in with the row of cottages and other nearby buildings, and was surrounded by a high wall covered by a rampant miscellany of plants. Ivy cloaked the tower, too.

Wall and tower had doubtless been necessary for defense in the past, but now the double gates stood open, and Clarissa could glimpse a garden courtyard and part of the house—thatched roof and old diamond-pane windows. Roses and other climbing plants ran up the wall, making it seem more a work of landscape than architecture.

She vaguely heard the carriage crunch on its way to the inn, but she was moving forward, through the gates.

“How charming,” Althea said in a polite way.

“Yes,” Clarissa agreed, though the word seemed completely inadequate. Only a poet could do justice to the sheer magic of Hawkinville Manor.

The courtyard was sensibly graveled, but that was the only modern touch. In the center, an island full of heavy roses held in its very heart an ancient sundial. It was tilted in a way that surely meant that it couldn’t tell the time, but then she doubted that sundials had ever been accurate.

This place had formed before the counting of minutes or even precise hours had any meaning.

Both courtyard and house were bathed in sunlight. Warm sunlight, for a miracle, and it gave the illusion that the sun always shone here. Many windows stood open, as did the iron-mounted oak door. The view through the doorway gave a tantalizing glimpse of a tiled hall that seemed to run, uneven as the river surface and worn in the middle by many feet, to another open door and a beckoning garden beyond.