THREE HEROES

by Jo Beverley

  She was almost certain that no hiding place of any substance could have been built in. She made her eye seek for any thickening, any unusual crack or line....

  “Looking for something?”

  She spun around to see Con standing in the doorway watching her.

  “Cobwebs,” she said hastily. “It’s one of my housekeeperly duties.”

  “Poor spiders. Mr. Rufflestowe is suitably shocked by the books and manuscripts, and thoroughly enjoying himself. I’ve left him to it. How are we doing with the fountain?”

  We.

  She put that aside. “I’ve set your men to the task. You could go and discuss it with them.”

  “Why don’t we go together?”

  Oh, no. She glanced at the fob watch dangling from her high belt, though there was no duty hovering. “I am needed in the kitchens, my lord.”

  She expected some further argument but he merely said, “Very well,” and walked out.

  She blew out a breath, accepting that there was regret in her as well as relief. She wanted to spend time with Con, but she was determined to be sensible, which meant she must avoid him whenever possible.

  Since the drawing room had only the one door out into the great hall, she waited a few minutes before cautiously leaving.

  Con wasn’t lurking.

  She was a little disappointed about that, too.

  Truly, she was in a perilous state of mind, and the sooner she was away from here the better.

  Having said she was needed in the kitchens, she felt obliged to go there. As she crossed the hall, however, she glanced out of a window, and saw Con in the garden down to his shirtsleeves, helping his men raise the dragon off its unwilling bride.

  It would appear that the parts of the fountain were separate, but it did look strangely as if they were forcing the monster off the woman. Rescuing her.

  She changed direction and ran up the circular stairs and along the corridor to the nearest room. She sneaked up to the window to watch.

  The dragon was lying on the ground now, on a path, thank heavens, not on a bed of plants, but the woman still sprawled there. Free of water and rapist, she looked embarrassingly rapturous.

  Were fear and rapture so close? Was rapture from the same root as rape? She must look that up. It certainly would cast a strange light on things.

  Con leaped agilely onto the stone rim of the fountain and extended a hand for some tool. He’d unfastened his cuffs and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. He’d taken off his cravat too, so his shirt was open at the neck.

  He looked stunningly loosened, vulnerable, powerful, approachable....

  She breathed deeply as she watched him begin to work on something, a bolt probably, to release the figure.

  Susan realized her hand was tight on the silk curtains—black silk embroidered with dragons. She was in the Chinese bedroom—the room where Con had slept the first night. This was the same window from which Con had watched her that first morning.

  Yesterday morning. A lifetime in a day.

  She should go. She shouldn’t expose herself to this, and she certainly shouldn’t let him see her here, watching him as he had watched her.

  But she only eased back slightly. He seemed unlikely to look up. He was intent on his task, as if freeing the bronze figure was crucial to him.

  Of course. In Spain he had almost raped a woman. Now he was freeing one. She ached for his obvious anguish, but rejoiced over it too. It must be easy for soldiers to grow numb to violence, but he hadn’t.

  Of course he hadn’t. He was Con.

  She realized she was crushing the precious curtain and carefully unclenched her hand, then smoothed it out. These Chinese dragons were a symbol of spirit and joy, but Con didn’t have a Chinese dragon on his chest. He’d chosen a Saint George dragon, the evil oppressor who demanded the innocent as tribute. The dragon like the one in the fountain that violated all that was pure and good.

  Why?

  Why, when he’d always wanted to be Saint George?

  She watched him toss the tool back to young White, then begin to lever the figure up off the base, legs braced, forearms taut with muscle. He wasn’t a heavy man, but he was all muscle.

  She realized she was licking her dry lips.

  The big man, Pearce, used a thick stick to help, and then grabbed the woman’s spread ankles so that she could be lifted over the side and onto the ground beside her slain tormentor.

  Con threw his jacket over her.

  Susan stepped back, taking what seemed to be her first deep breath in minutes. Even if Con had a dragon on his chest, he was still the heroic George. He could never be anything else.

  And she must wish him happy with his chosen bride.

  She couldn’t resist one last temptation, however.

  She left the room and went back downstairs to the library, hoping that neither Rufflestowe nor de Vere was there. She had every right to enter, but guilty conscience makes an innocuous task suspect, and she planned to check on Con’s beloved.

  The place was somnolently empty. Almost dormant, in fact.

  Though full of books the library had been little used. The earl had kept his favorite books in his room like a squirrel hoarding nuts. The library had been given a thorough cleaning recently, but it had a sad air of neglect.

  It contained a reasonably recent Peerage, however, and she took it down and opened it on the table.

  Lady Anne Peckworth ...

  She soon had the entry. Middle of three daughters of the Duke of Arran. She was twenty-one years old, and both her younger and older sisters were married when this book was compiled two years before.

  She frowned slightly, wondering why Lady Anne was still on the shelf. Idiotic to fret whether she was worthy of Con—he’d made his choice—but Susan did. He must have the best, a sterling woman who adored him. The prosaic details on the page revealed nothing about Lady Anne’s qualities, however, or about her feelings.

  How could she not adore Con?

  Was it a long-standing engagement, delayed by the war? But in that case they would surely have married as soon as possible, not still be unwed nearly a year after Waterloo.

  No matter how long she looked at the closely printed page, it offered no more enlightenment. She closed the heavy book, creating a flurry of paper dust, and tried to close her pointless and intrusive curiosity. All the same, she was thinking that if she left Crag Wyvern and went a-traveling, she could go to Lea Park and investigate Lady Anne. If she wasn’t worthy of Con, she could ...

  What? Murder her?

  With a wry laugh, she placed the book back on the shelf. This was no more her business than was the good government of India.

  She turned to leave the room, then realized that she might as well search for the gold.

  She’d recently supervised the spring cleaning, and every book had been taken out and wiped over; every shelf had been dusted. She had surreptitiously checked at the time for false compartments behind the books.

  She went over to the window seat and opened it to check it again. Of course, the space inside was still the right size for the external dimensions.

  She straightened, hands on hips and frustrated. Where the devil would the demented earl have hidden his gold? Probably closer to the Wyvern rooms, but that meant the whole upper floor, including the corridors, and the hidey-hole could have been built before she was born, perhaps even into the very fabric of the Crag.

  Searching for it was beginning to look like a labor of Hercules.

  She glanced out into the garden again, wondering how the fountain project was going. And yes, she admitted, hoping for another glimpse of Con. From the ground level she didn’t have a clear view, but it looked as if Con and the men had gone.

  Curious, she opened the doors into the courtyard and went out.

  Yes, they’d definitely gone. She walked to the center and found that the dragon and the maiden had been taken away, but the chain remained, still connected to the rock at one end, the oth
er end trailing limply into the dry basin. She wondered idly what Con would do with the two bronze figures. She almost felt the bride should have a decent burial.

  All that remained was the rock in the middle upon which the bride had lain, and a simple metal pipe sticking up at one side where it had fed into the dragon. She wondered if they could still have the music of the fountain without the figures. The water would just splash onto the rock.

  She went to the valve and began to turn the wheel.

  It took about three complete turns before the water passed through, and it had to be fully open for the fountain to operate properly. She turned it quickly.

  A spout of water exploded up. It pulsed roof-high then rained down again to hit the rock and splash out in a crazy pattern all around. Thoroughly soaked, she danced back, but she couldn’t help laughing with childish delight. She looked up at the tall spout, then down at the diamond-sparkling water shooting erratically around, spraying grateful flowers and bushes.

  And then she saw Con watching from the other side of the courtyard.

  He was still in shirtsleeves, and suddenly, he smiled.

  At her, probably, at her being wet and laughing at the water, but she didn’t mind. He was smiling a smile she remembered with joy.

  It was silly, it was nothing, but she couldn’t help the laughter bubbling up and bursting free like the fountain water. She put her hand over her mouth, but couldn’t stop.

  It could only have been moment, but her stomach was beginning to ache when she heard him say, “Don’t you think you should shut it off?”

  Gasping, she saw that he’d come close, over to the other side of the basin, but carefully in a spot between two arms of spray.

  “It seems a shame,” she managed to say.

  “Such untrammeled pleasure in Crag Wyvern?”

  The mad hilarity was simmering down. She wanted to say something about untrammeled pleasure, but had sense enough not to. She turned toward the wheel, but paused.

  The deflected jet that had first caught her was still spraying the wheel, as if to prevent anyone putting an end to its freedom. She looked back at Con but he merely raised his brows, still grinning at her. She took a deep breath, prepared, and ran for the wheel, turning it despite the drenching spray.

  The water stopped hitting her, but she heard a yell.

  She turned and saw that the pattern of spray had changed now that the pressure was lower, and Con had been completely drenched.

  Laughter won again, but then turned into a smile of simple delight. His hair was flattened to his head, water ran all down him, but he was standing there as if welcoming it, arms spread.

  Shirt plastered to him. Breeches plastered to him ...

  She grabbed the wheel, but her hands seemed slippery and somehow weaker. Perhaps the water was truly fighting to be free. Suddenly hands were there to help her—strong hands, brown hands, hands marked with scars. Together they turned the wheel, shutting off the water completely.

  In the last splashes and into silence, she looked up at Con.

  He was no longer smiling, though something of it lingered in his eyes.

  “Revenge of the water?” he said.

  “I think it hated being forced through that fountain.”

  “Perhaps it just hated being forced.”

  His shirt showed every contour of his chest, and was almost transparent. It showed a dark shadow on the right side.

  It could not be ignored.

  She wanted to touch it but did not dare. She had to speak of it, however. “A dragon, I understand.”

  He seemed puzzled, but then his faced cleared. “Ah, the lusty maid saw it. Diddy, yes? We all had tattoos done—Van, Hawk, and I. The idea was that if we were searching for one another’s mangled bodies, we’d find the task easier. Not a bad notion, as it turned out.”

  The sudden bleakness was not because of Crag Wyvern or herself.

  “Who could you not find? Lord Darius?”

  “There were so many dead and dying,” he said, looking away again, but not in a way that broke the magic, “and some had been stripped, or trampled, or blown apart.” He shook his head. “You don’t want to talk about such things.” He turned to the fountain. “What do you think we should put in place of the dragon?”

  She wouldn’t let the connection break without a fight. There would be only brief moments like this, when once they might have been eternal. “He was a Rogue, you said. I remember you speaking of them.”

  He looked back at her, dark, but not because of her, not directed at her, thank heaven. “You remember a great deal.”

  She hesitated a moment, then said, “I remember everything, Con.”

  His lips twisted. “So do I.” But then he inhaled. “Yes, he was a Rogue. He wasn’t a soldier, though. He shouldn’t have been there. I should have stopped him.”

  “Perhaps he didn’t want to be stopped.”

  “I should have stopped him anyway. Or prepared him better. Or—” He suddenly looked her over, and she knew, with clarity, that he’d remembered everything, and firmly closed a door. “That gray stuff would hide a tattoo, but it isn’t hiding much, you know.”

  She looked down and saw that of course her dress was molded to her body as much as his shirt was to him. Her corset shielded her upper body, but her belly, her thighs, the indentation between her thighs . ..

  Face flaming, she pulled the cloth away, flapping it to try to make it not adhere. She glanced at him and couldn’t help a shiver of excitement at the look in his eyes, even though it wasn’t proper, or respectful, or even particularly kind.

  “You’re not hiding much either,” she said, and let her eyes look at his breeches.

  “I know.”

  Her heart started to pound.

  “Are you as curious as I am, Susan? To know what it would be like? Now.”

  Curious and more than curious. A warm heaviness grew inside her, an ache... .

  After a moment she managed to say, “What of Lady Anne?”

  “She isn’t here, is she?”

  Ah. Her throat tightened. She made herself swallow.

  Curiosity. That was all it was for him.

  For her it was a longing which went much deeper, but she wouldn’t do this. She wouldn’t be a convenient release and she wouldn’t offend against the woman he had chosen, even if she wasn’t here. She wouldn’t reduce herself to a whore, not even for Con. It would destroy them both.

  “She is here in spirit,” she said, and stepped back. “I must go and change, my lord.” She looked at the fountain behind him, however.

  “I think it should be a Saint George,” she said. “Crag Wyvern needs a hero to vanquish the dark.”

  Then she walked briskly into the house.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Con turned and leaned his hands against the rough, cold rim of the basin, looking down at the inches of water glimmering there.

  Saint George.

  A hero.

  Where had that youthful idealist gone?

  Susan had hurt him deeply but she hadn’t killed the hero. The war had done that. Oh, officially it had made him a kind of hero. He hadn’t been the dashing sort to attract a lot of notice, but he knew he’d done his job well for the benefit of his men, his general, and his king. Hawk had told him that Wellington had referred to him once as a “damned fine officer,” which was praise enough for any man.

  But the endless years, though full of excitement, triumph, and even pleasure among the bleaker times, had killed the saint. He didn’t fear what the future would do to him, but what he might do to others in his soulless state.

  Some fortune-tellers claimed to be able to reveal the future from reflections in water. What would anyone make of his?

  He’d summoned Lady Anne as his defense, and now she was a barrier. Susan wouldn’t come to his bed because of Lady Anne.

  That was what he wanted, wasn’t it?

  What he wanted, ferociously, was Susan.

  The sight of her l
aughing uncontrollably at the unpredictable spray had cracked something and carried him straight back to the sun-shimmered past. Then the sight of her body, lusher, more womanly in its mysteries, but still Susan, had undone him.

  He couldn’t let himself be used again, and despite the soulless need throbbing in him, he wouldn’t use her. But could he bear to leave here without experiencing Susan as she was now?

  He could always tell her that Lady Anne was a possibility rather than a commitment. Tempt her with the chance of winning Crag Wyvern for herself. She’d claimed she didn’t want it anymore, but it must be a lie. Why else was she here?

  He suddenly had a wicked vision of Susan—womanly, experienced Susan—setting her mind to seducing him....

  But Lady Anne was more than a possibility. He’d sent that letter.

  And she was the perfect, ideal wife for him.

  If Susan married him, it would be for Crag Wyvern. Since he had no intention of spending more than a duty week or so a year here she would be miserable.

  No, Susan would never wallow in misery. She’d fight for what she wanted. He’d seen men married to women determined to change them and their circumstances to suit. Seen them nagged into joining the army, leaving the army, changing regiments, spending beyond their means, saving beyond sanity.

  No peace in those homes. He’d told Susan the truth about his ambitions. What he longed for above all was peace. Peace and gentle pleasures in Somerford Court, where he thought he might eventually rediscover his soul, and perhaps even his youthful ideals.

  He leaned down, scooped some of the water, and splashed it over his face. It was warm from the sun by now, however, and did no good.

  He pushed away from the fountain and walked back into the house. He’d change and ride out again. It was the only safe thing to do.

  Susan was shivering by the time she stripped off her wet dress, and it wasn’t entirely from the cold. She’d never expected to feel such urgent, physical need for a man. She hadn’t known it existed!

  With Con all those years ago it had been an unknown, a mystery. With Rivenham it had been a plan. He’d brought her to desire, but it had been a deliberate path for both of them.