THREE HEROES

by Jo Beverley

  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.

  It didn’t seem possible, but time must have an effect on that. What was the difference between a wild passion and an eternal love?

  Easier by far to play with the child than to tussle with adult problems.

  But then Mrs. Delaney insisted that it was bedtime. When she came to pick up her daughter, she said, “I understand that you are a Rogue now. I hope you will call me Eleanor.”

  Clarissa scrambled to her feet, not quite so comfortable with this informality, but she agreed.

  “And if you want a woman to talk to,” Eleanor Delaney said, “I am a good listener. No hand at good advice, you understand, but we can often work these things out for ourselves once we start, can’t we?”

  She carried the child away, and Clarissa glanced at the clock.

  “Still half an hour to go,” Nicholas said.

  She pulled a face, but said, “Then I think I’ll walk in the garden and talk to myself.”

  She expected a comment, but he only said, “By all means—if you promise not to sneak down to the village.”

  She glared, but the thought hadn’t occurred to her. It was a very little time to wait, and she knew it was wise to see if her forgiveness seeped away with the effects of the posset.

  When she left the room, the cat came with her. She looked down. “I thought I was the enemy.”

  The cat merely waited. Perhaps the clever animal had decided she was the key to Hawk. It would be nice if true.

  The Somerford Court gardens were pleasant, though rather formal. She crossed a lawn and wandered down a yew-lined path, greeted by a gardener busy keeping the hedges trim. It was a warm but heavy evening. Even the birds were quiet. Apart from the snick, snick, snick of the gardener’s shears, it was soundless.

  She came to a round fishpond dotted with water lilies and sat on the stone edge to trail her hand in the water.

  A fat carp came to nibble, then swam away, disappointed. Jetta crouched on the rim, also disappointed.

  No food.

  No fortune.

  Her slightly inebriated mind didn’t want to focus, not even on talking over her problem with herself.

  She looked around, but nothing offered wisdom or inspiration. The pond sat in the middle of a hedge-lined square, with four neat flower beds set with bushes in the center and lined with low white flowers. It struck her as amusing that Hawk of the neatly folded note had the lush, willful garden, while Con owned such precision.

  Both had been formed by previous generations, however.

  Each side of the square hedge had an opening leading to another path. None of them invited.

  Then a figure crossed over one of those paths. A maid in dark clothing with a large bundle. And Jetta rose to hiss.

  Clarissa looked at the cat. “Another rival for Hawk’s affections?” But the cat was simply twitching its tail restlessly.

  Clarissa frowned at it. “Now you have me twitchy.” She scooped it up and went down the path to catch another glimpse. The woman was far ahead, going briskly about her business, which was probably to take laundry to the village. Jetta gave another, almost huffy, hiss; the woman turned right and was out of sight.

  Clarissa turned back toward the house, but something about the woman was on her mind now. She hurried in a dir
ection that should provide another view, giving thanks for the straight lines of the garden. She came to the abrupt end of the garden, with countryside before her.

  The woman was already across a pasture and climbing a stile, bundle under her arm, to follow a footpath along the edge of a harvested field toward the village. It wasn’t a servant. It was that Mrs. Rowland.

  “Still don’t approve?” she muttered to the tense cat. “Misfortune turns some people miserable, you know. And see, she has to take in laundry to put food on the table.”

  Or she might be stealing. An unfair thought about the poor woman, who’d shown no sign of furtiveness, but Clarissa decided she had to tell someone. She turned back to the now rather distant house.

  Somerford Court was a rambling place, and when she eventually entered, she found herself near the kitchens. She stopped in there, faced by half a dozen female servants who didn’t know who she was, and feeling very foolish.

  “I’m Miss Greystone. A guest.”

  Then Jetta leaped down and was immediately the center of attention. “Wonderful mouser, it is,” said the woman who was probably the cook, smiling. “Can we help you, miss?”

  Clarissa felt that she had been properly introduced. She almost didn’t want to spoil it by saying anything, but she made herself speak.

  “I just saw someone in the garden. I think it was Mrs. Rowland, from the village. Does she take in laundry, or mending, perhaps?”

  And what business is it of yours? she could imagine the servants saying.

  “Her?” said the cook. “Not likely. She has been here now and then, to speak to her ladyship—the Dowager Lady Amleigh, that is. Begging, if you ask me, for all her airs. But not today, miss.”

  Protesting that would do no good. Perhaps she should speak to the dowager.

  She left the kitchen and headed toward the front of the house. The Court, however, was the sort of rambling place built in stages, where no corridor went in a straight line. She was beginning to think she’d have to call for help, but then she tentatively opened a door and found herself in the front hall.

  Now what? Her alarm about Mrs. Rowland was beginning to seem very silly, but she decided she would find the dowager.

  At the moment the house was as sleepy as the gardens, but she’d seen a bellpull in the small room where she’d talked with Nicholas. She was heading there when Nicholas came out of another room. “Ah, your hour’s up,” he said, smiling.

  If she’d wanted to block her decisions from her mind, she’d certainly succeeded. For the past little while she hadn’t thought of Hawk at all. Perhaps that was why her mind had eagerly clutched the little mystery.

  Now that the idea was back, it pushed out all others. “I still want to see him,” she said.

  “Very well—”

  “Nicholas!” They both turned to see Eleanor racing down the stairs, white-faced. “I can’t find Arabel!”

  Nicholas caught her in his arms. “She likes to hide—”

  “We’ve searched her room. The ones nearby. I’ve called.” She turned, searching the hall. “Arabel! Arabel!”

  He pulled her back into his arms. “Hush. She can’t have come down here. We’ll get everyone to search.”

  Con and Susan had emerged from the room where Nicholas had been. They immediately went off to set all the servants to the search, inside and out, and a message was sent to the village for extra people.

  The Delaneys hurried upstairs, calling their daughter’s name. Clarissa raced after them, caught up in the alarm at the thought of that sweet child perhaps stuck in a chest, or having tumbled down some stairs.

  It was only upstairs, wondering helplessly where to look, that the thought struck. It was too ridiculous to bother Nicholas with, so she ran in search of Con, finding him in the front hall marshaling affairs. Quickly, she told him about Mrs. Rowland.

  “You’re sure it was she?”

  “Mostly,” she said, less sure by the moment. She almost said, “Jetta hissed,” but that would make her seem a complete idiot.

  “But she was carrying something?”

  “I thought it was laundry. Or mending.”

  But then his eyes sharpened. “Didn’t you mention her earlier? That she reminded you of someone?”

  “Of the fortune teller.” But then she inhaled with shock. “She talked about Rogues. And she gave me Nicholas’s initials!” She quickly sketched that encounter.

  “Who could be interested in Clarissa’s money and in the Rogues?”

  Clarissa turned to see Hawk there, hat, crop, and gloves in hand. Their eyes met in a sudden collision of need and problems.

  Con said, “Madame Therese Bellaire.” But then he added, “It’s insanity. Why would she even be in England?” He was already turning to run upstairs, however. “We have to tell Nicholas. Dear God…”

  Clarissa and Hawk ran after him.

  They found the Delaneys opening and shutting drawers and armoires that had to have been searched before.

  Con told them, and they both turned impossibly paler.

  “Therese,” Nicholas said. “Please, God, no.”

  Eleanor clutched his arm, and then they were wrapped with each other. Clarissa remembered that Madame Bellaire was the woman who had gathered the money, then lost it to Deveril. She’d thought when Nicholas told her that there was more to the story.

  If only she had pursued. Or done something.

  “We have to follow it up,” said Nicholas, coming back to life. To Clarissa he said, “Which way did you see her go?”

  “Down to the village.” She described it exactly.

  Before she could say she was sorry, Hawk said, “That path splits three ways. And I doubt she took the village one. She moved her whole household out at crack of dawn.”

  “Where?” Nicholas asked.

  “No one knows, and we won’t until Old Matt returns to say where he took his cartload. Madame Mystique must have some base in Brighton, but there’s no saying she’s returned there. If it is she.” He added, looking at Clarissa, “Fortune tellers can be uncanny.”

  “I know! I’m not sure of anything.”

  Clarissa could almost feel Nicholas’s need to rush off, but he looked at Hawk. “I’m in no state to think, Hawkinville. I gather this is your forte. Will you take command?”

  Clarissa saw a touch of color on Hawk’s cheeks. She remembered then that he and Nicholas could be seen as on opposite sides in respect to her. All that was unimportant now.

  “Of course,” Hawk, said. “I’m sure you want to do something, however. Why not follow the route Clarissa described? Look for clues or people who saw the woman. Take a couple of Con’s grooms to follow other routes when it splits.”

  Nicholas hugged his wife and left. Susan went to hold Eleanor’s hand.

  Hawk turned to Con. “I’d like you to head for Brighton by the most direct route, looking for the Frenchwoman or Old Matt. If you get there without a trace, find Madame Mystique’s establishment and check it out. Take a couple of armed grooms—and be careful.”

  “Aye-aye, sir,” said Con ironically, but without resentment, and hurried out.

  The salute brought a slight smile to Hawk’s lips.

  “Shouldn’t someone check Mrs. Rowland’s place here?” Clarissa asked.

  “Yes, I’ll do that. It won’t take long, and it needs a careful eye. I’ll see if my father knows anything about the woman, too. He was mightily upset to hear of her leaving.”

  He turned to go, but Clarissa grabbed his sleeve. She wasn’t sure what to say except that she had to say something. “Find her.”

  He looked at her with deep darkness, then touched her cheek. “If it is humanly possible—”

  Then in a black streak, Jetta leaped in to sit on his boots, as if trying to pin him down. Clarissa wondered for a mad moment whether the cat knew he was going into danger. He picked it up and moved it, and strode out. After a shake, Jetta strode after him. There was no other word for it. Clarissa felt as if he had
a guard.

  But then she turned back and saw Eleanor’s face. “I’m sorry. I should have gone after her.”

  But Eleanor shook her head. “She would have killed you. Or taken you with her if she could.”

  “Then I should have raised the alarm! Immediately.”

  “Why?” Eleanor had lost all that placid calm, but she came to take Clarissa’s hands. “Why should you imagine anything so extreme? Life would be impossible if we all jumped to such conclusions every time we saw something out of the ordinary.”

  “But,” Clarissa said bitterly, “I should have learned from experience. Everyone who has anything to do with me ends up in disaster.”

  Eleanor gathered her into her arms. “No, no, my dear. Everyone who has anything to do with Therese Bellaire ends up in disaster. Really,” she added, with a touch of unsteady humor, “Napoleon would have been well advised to wring her neck.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  The women continued the search for a while—Clarissa even ran out to the fish pond in case the child had escaped the house and drowned—but no one’s heart was in it. They were all sure that Arabel had been stolen away.

  Clarissa took a moment in the garden to let out her tears, and she felt better for it, if drained. But, oh, the thought of that sweet, trusting infant, who seemed innocent of anything but adoring kindness, in the hands of “Mrs. Rowland”! If only she’d not acted sensibly for once. If only she’d been impetuous, and pursued. Perhaps she might at least be with the child and able to protect and comfort her.

  The only “if only” that mattered now, however, was if only she could do something to speed up the child’s safe return.

  She returned to the house and discovered that Hawk also had returned and taken over Con’s study for what could only be called a command post. She entered to find that he’d set the women to work, even the dowager and Con’s sister.

  A map was spread on the desk, and Hawk was studying paths and roads under the eye of a watchful cat. Eleanor was taking notes and seemed much steadier. Everyone else seemed to be drawing. Clarissa soon gathered that they were drawing rough sketches of routes, with churches, houses, streams, and such as markers.

  She was given a piece of paper, and Eleanor read off some details for her.