THREE HEROES

by Jo Beverley

  It hadn’t felt like that, but what did she know of the reality between men and women?

  But, oh, it hurt to think that all her money was not sweetening enough to make her palatable.

  She was sure that he was still coming along behind her, and she longed to turn and scream stupid, pride-salving things at him. That she didn’t want him. Didn’t need him. That she thought his kisses horrid.

  She bit her lip. As if anyone would believe that.

  All she could do was escape with the shreds of her dignity intact.

  And then what?

  No more Hawk.

  No Hawk in the Vale.

  No heaven for her. Ever.

  She came to a stile, and for a stupid moment the wooden structure seemed like an insurmountable obstacle, especially with tears blurring her vision. She gathered her skirts in order to climb it.

  Hawk suddenly stepped past her to climb over and offer her a hand. She had to face him again. Was she fooling herself that his eyes seemed to mirror her pain?

  She put her hand in his, realizing by sight that it was gloveless. Somewhere in the wilderness she had mislaid that symbol of the well-bred lady.

  As she stepped up on her side, he said, “I’m sorry. You know how to turn a man topsy-turvy, Clarissa.”

  “It’s entirely an accident, I assure you. I know nothing.”

  “I shouldn’t have criticized you for making that proposal.” He was blocking her way, but at a point where she was nearly a foot taller. Deliberately giving her that superiority?

  “I meant what I said,” he went on. “I’m dazzled. This has been an unexpected and remarkable day, and our adventures in the wilderness were enough to turn any man crazed. You must see that.”

  The splinters of ice in her heart started to melt, but he wasn’t really explaining. Or accepting her offer.

  “I can’t answer you now,” he said. “I told you about my parents. My mother flung herself into marriage with my father in a state of blind adoration, then clung to her disappointment for the rest of her life. Marriage is not a matter to be decided in emotion.”

  She stared down at him. “You’re likening me to your father? You, sir, are the fortune hunter here!”

  “Then why did you ask me to marry you?”

  She knew she was turning red again. “Very well. I, like your father, lust after Hawk in the Vale. At least I’m honest about it. And I won’t push you aside if you get in my way.”

  There was something to be said for anger, she realized, and for an additional foot of height!

  “And,” she added, “you went to Cheltenham looking for me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Checking me out before making a commitment?”

  A smile twitched his lips. “I liked what I found.”

  “And you suggested that I come to Brighton.”

  “Yes.”

  “And kissed me at the fair.”

  “Yes.”

  “And took me into the wilderness.”

  He looked rather as if she were raining blows on him. That didn’t stop her. She would not play coy games anymore.

  She stepped over the middle of the stile to loom over him even more. “So, Major Hawkinville, what happens next?”

  “You fly like the falcon you are.” He put his hands at her waist and lifted her, spinning her in a circle twice, then down to the grass beyond.

  She landed, laughing despite herself. “No one but you has ever done that to me, Hawk. Made me fly.” She meant it in many more ways than a spin through the air, and she knew he’d know that.

  What now? Should she risk devastation by asking him again… ?

  A scream severed the moment.

  A young child’s shriek.

  After a dazed moment, Clarissa realized that a splash had gone with the scream. Hawk was already running, already halfway across a field to the river—the river so deep it had kept the village on one side until the bridge was built. She picked up her skirts and raced after him, dodging around slightly startled cows.

  The child was still screaming, but she couldn’t see the riverbank for bullrushes. Screaming was good, but then she realized that there might be more than one child. One screaming, one drowning.

  Hawk could swim. She remembered that and thanked God.

  The screaming stopped, and she saw that Hawk was there, and a small child was pointing. Then he waded through the rushes.

  She ran the last little way, gasping, and took the girl’s hand. She could see a boy Sailing, but in quite shallow water near the edge. Hawk grabbed the boy’s arm and hauled him close.

  Safe.

  Safe.

  Clarissa sucked in some needed air, collapsing onto the grass with the little girl in her lap. “There, there, sweetheart. It’s all right. Major Hawkinville has your friend.”

  The dark-haired child was very young to be out without an adult, and the lad didn’t look much older. No wonder they’d fallen into such trouble.

  Wondering at the silence, she turned the girl’s face toward her and found tears pouring from huge blue eyes, but eerily without a sound. “Oh, poppet, cry if you want.” She raised her cream skirt to wipe the tears.

  A hiccup escaped, but that was all. But then suddenly the child buried her face in Clarissa’s shoulder and clung, shivering like Jetta that first day. Clarissa held her tight and crooned to her.

  She thought to look around for the forgotten cat and found it there, lying in the grass, eyes on the child in Clarissa’s lap. Clarissa made a little room, and Jetta leaped up.

  The child flinched, but Jetta pushed closer, purring, and the little girl put out a grubby hand to touch her. Then shivering little arms encircled, and tears fell onto the silky fur.

  Hawk had the other child out of the water and was hugging him too. He and she were both going to be muddy, but Hawk didn’t seem to mind, and she certainly didn’t. She was glad that he wasn’t wasting breath yelling at the frightened boy.

  Clarissa bid her face in the girl’s curls. She was besotted by everything about Major Hawk Hawkinville. She could even, in a way, admire him for not snatching the prize she’d dangled in front of him.

  He would be a wonderful father, though. She’d never thought that way before, but she wanted him as father to her children.

  He carried the boy over. “He seems to mostly speak French, and be of a taciturn disposition, but he’s one of Mrs. Rowland’s children, so this must be the other.”

  “Who’s Mrs. Rowland?”

  “A Belgian woman married to an invalid English officer. She has rooms in the village.”

  “Her children shouldn’t be out alone.”

  “No, but there’s little money. She has to go away sometimes, seeking an inheritance. People have offered to help, but she’s proud. We’ll take them home as we go.”

  Clarissa separated reluctant child and cat, then held out a hand. He helped her up with the little girl still clutching.

  “At least,” he said, looking her over, “no one is going to be commenting about stains on your dress now.”

  Clarissa chuckled. “I’m definitely not still tied down by mundane cares.”

  She didn’t want to think back to all that had happened, however, and she had no idea how to go forward. She focused instead on the fact that the little girl was barefoot, and the boy too.

  “Where are your shoes, little one?” she asked the girl in French.

  The dark curls shook, no.

  The boy said, “We were not wearing any.”

  “That’s not uncommon in the country,” Hawk said, “and even less so on the continent. But I suspect that these two slipped out of the cottage without permission. Their mother is probably frantic.”

  They crossed the bridge into the village, passing a sinewy woman with a basket who clucked her tongue. “Those little imps. Do you want me to take them, sir?”

  Hawk thanked her but refused, and led the way behind the clanging smithy to a door in the back of another building.

>   “Bert Fagg lets out these rooms,” he said.

  “A rough place for an officer and his wife,” Clarissa said.

  “I know, but she’s living on my father’s charity. She claims to be a connection of his. He certainly enjoys her company. He said he invited her to live in the manor house, but she refused. She’s a strange, difficult woman.”

  He knocked on the door of the very silent building. Rough cloths covered the windows, so Clarissa couldn’t see inside.

  “Perhaps she’s out looking for the children,” she said.

  But then the door swung open and a dark-clothed woman stepped out. The only brightness about her was a stark white cap that covered her graying hair and tied under her chin with narrow laces. She did not look well. Her skin was sallow, and dark rings circled her eyes.

  “Oh, mon dieu!” she exclaimed, snatching the little girl from Clarissa’s arms. “Delphie!” Then she went off into a rapid tirade of French that Clarissa could not follow.

  She heard a noise and looked down to see Jetta, back arched, hissing at the woman. She hastily picked up the cat. “Hush.”

  Jetta relaxed, but still looked at Mrs. Rowland with a fixed stare. Clarissa could almost hear a silent hiss, and knew just how the cat felt. Yes, any mother might berate a child who had fallen into danger, but there was something coldly furious rather than panicked about Mrs. Rowland.

  Clarissa glanced at the boy, whom Hawk had put down. He looked suitably afraid. Any child could be afraid after being caught in such naughtiness, and he had taken his baby sister into danger with him. All the same, there was something old about his fear. She desperately wanted to stand between the woman and her children, as she’d stood between Jetta and the duckling.

  Mrs. Rowland suddenly put the girl down and said in clear French, “Come, Pierre. Take Delphie inside.”

  Pierre walked over to his sister, head held high, and led her into the cottage,

  “Thank you, Major Hawkinville,” said Mrs. Rowland in heavily accented English. She sounded as if she’d rather be eating glass.

  “Anyone would have helped. May I ask that you not be too harsh on them, Mrs. Rowland? I think they have learned their lesson through their fright.”

  The woman did not thaw. “They must learn not to slip away.” She went back into her house and shut the door.

  Clarissa blinked, startled by such lack of gratitude, and also by a flash of recognition. Who? Where? She was certain she’d never met Mrs. Rowland before.

  Hawk drew her away. “There’s nothing we can do. Any family in the village would spank the pair of them for that.”

  “I know. But I don’t like that woman.” She stroked the cat in her arms. “Jetta hissed at her.”

  “Understandable. That’s only the second time we’ve spoken, and she makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I’d think she was avoiding me except that she avoids everyone except my father.”

  They walked back around the smithy onto the green.

  “She visits your father?”

  “Yes, and surprisingly he frets if she stays away too long.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  He glanced at her. “I told you once, I’m inclined to be suspicious of every little thing.”

  “I suspect your instincts are finely tuned.”

  His look turned intent. “At the time, as I remember, I was speaking of Miss Hurstman. You have reason to worry about her?”

  Clarissa almost told him. But no. At this point she wasn’t at all sure that he could be trusted with her secrets.

  “Surely Hawk Hawkinville can find out about a Belgian woman married to a British officer called Rowland.”

  “Hawk Hawkinville has been somewhat busy. But certainly the next time I’m in London I’ll check on them both at the Horse Guards. She rubs me the wrong way, but she’s probably simply a poor woman in a very difficult situation and with a prickly nature.”

  Then he said, “Gads, Maria is probably already at the Peregrine, steaming! Come on!”

  He took her hand and they hurried across the green. This was the moment when Clarissa had promised herself that she would propose.

  But she had, and she’d been rejected. It was so painful that she couldn’t imagine how men plucked up the courage to do it, especially the second time.

  She’d spiraled up to heaven in his arms, then plunged into fear at his violence, and then to hurt and furious shame at his rejection. But she still loved him. Silly, besotted fool that she was, she still loved, still hoped.

  They were almost at the inn. She said, “That is a horrid house,” meaning the stuccoed one next door.

  “Thoroughly.”

  “If your father owns the village, didn’t the builder need permission?”

  He stopped and turned her toward him. “Clarissa, I need to tell you something.”

  “Yes?” Her heart speeded. She sensed this was something crucial.

  “My father is deep in debt to Slade, the man who owns that house. That’s why he couldn’t stop it. My father has mortgaged Hawkinville Manor and all its estates to Slade. If we don’t get a lot of money soon, Slade will be squire here. And the first thing he plans to do is to rip down the manor and the cottages to build an even more monstrous house on the river.”

  She stared at him, struck by an almost physical sense of loss. “You can’t permit that! My money. It’s my money that you need, isn’t it? Then why… ?”

  He winced. “I can’t explain everything now, Clarissa. But I wanted you to know the truth. So you’d understand.”

  “But I don’t understand.”

  “Major Hawkinville! Good day to you, sir.”

  They both turned to the man who had come out of the white monster. He was middle-aged, fit, and well dressed. If Clarissa had been a cat, she would have hissed.

  Hawk put an arm around her as if in protection and moved to avoid the man.

  “A lovely day, is it not?” Slade persisted.

  “It is becoming less so.” Clarissa could feel tension in Hawk—the leashed desire for violence. The wretched Slade must know it and was deliberately tormenting him.

  “You and your lovely lady have had an accident, Major?” the man asked, narrow eyes flicking over them.

  Clarissa realized that in addition to being a mess she still had her hat hanging down her back, and her hair was doubtless rioting. A glance showed her that Hawk for once was almost as disordered.

  “Only in meeting you, sir,” said Hawk.

  “So I suspect,” said Slade in a voice full of innuendo.

  Clarissa felt Hawk inhale, and hastily stepped between the men. “You must be Mr. Slade. Major Hawkinville has told me how kind you have been to his poor father.”

  Slade froze, and his narrowed gaze flicked between her and Hawk.

  “Clarissa…” Hawk put his hand on her again to move her away.

  “How happy you will be,” she said, evading him again, “to know that soon your generosity will be repaid. I am a very wealthy woman.”

  It was delicious to see the odious Slade turn pale with shock and fury, but Clarissa didn’t dare look at Hawk. He was probably pale with shock and fury too, but she hadn’t been able to stand seeing him baited.

  “My congratulations, Major,” Slade spat out.

  “Thank you, Slade.” Hawk’s voice sounded flat. “It must be a great relief to know that your generous loans will be repaid in full, with interest, before the due date.”

  “A hasty marriage, eh? Doubtless wise.”

  Clarissa blocked Hawk again, facing the iron founder. “Not at all, sir.” She wanted to knock the man down herself! “It will take time to arrange a suitably grand affair. On the village green, no doubt, since Major Hawkinville’s family is so important here.”

  Oh, lord. She could feel Hawk’s anger blistering her back.

  “The loans come due on the first of August, young lady.”

  She assumed what she hoped was a look of astonished distaste. “If you insis
t on payment on the dot, sir, it will be arranged by my trustees. Under no circumstances will I permit Hawkinville Manor to change hands.”

  Hawk’s arm came around her then, pulling her to his rigid, angry side. “As you see, Slade, there is no point in your further residence here.”

  The man’s face was still pale, but now splotches of angry color marked his cheeks. “I believe I will wait to dance at your grand wedding, Major.”

  “If you insist.”

  Hawk turned Clarissa toward the inn, but Slade said, “Is the name of the bride a dreadful secret?”

  Clarissa twisted back to say, “Not at all, Mr. Slade. I am Miss Greystone. You might have heard of me. Some call me the Devil’s Heiress.”

  She was then swept away by an arm as strong as iron. Lord, that had been thoroughly wicked, but also thoroughly satisfying. Slade was probably drooling with fury.

  So was someone else. Not drooling, but furious.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Hawk dragged her not to the main door of the inn, but through the arch into the inn yard. Ignoring, or perhaps oblivious to, the various servants there, he thrust her against the rough wall. “What exactly do you think you are doing?”

  “Trouncing the odious Slade!” she declared, grinning even though her knees were turning to jelly with fear. Glory in the battle warred with memories of Beth’s bruised face. “Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy that.”

  “Enjoy being taken by the scruff and dragged through a bramble patch?”

  “Enjoy watching him drink bile.”

  Suddenly his furious eyes closed, and then he laughed, leaning his forehead against hers. “Zeus, yes. It was worth a thousand torments.”

  Clarissa knew she should feel hurt by that, but she didn’t. She was suddenly certain that all was right in her world. She didn’t understand his reluctance, but she was sure it could be blasted into dust. Above all, she was sure that she wanted him, and that he would be all she wanted and more.

  She poked him hard in the belly. “If you’re rude again about the prospect of marrying me, I’ll go right back and tell Slade he can have Hawkinville, every last post and stone.”

  He straightened to look at her, eyes still wild with laughter. “Clarissa, there is nothing I want more than to marry you.”