Fortune Favors the Sparrow

by Rebecca Connolly

  Hawk dropped his hands and exhaled shortly. “I need your help, my lord. You are a patron of the Miss Masters’ Finishing School, one of their greatest supporters.”

  Rothchild raised a brow. “I am. They named the rudimentary academy after me, which I take great pride in.”

  “Indeed.” Hawk cleared his throat. “You may know, perhaps, a teacher by the name of Miss Harlow.”

  “One of my girls’ favorites,” he answered with a nod. “She teaches French, I believe. And perhaps dance?”

  “Art,” Hawk corrected without thinking. “She was arrested not long ago, on what I believe are spurious charges. I have been riding all over Kent trying to find her and pay her bail, free her, if I can, and, for the life of me, I cannot find her.”

  “Find her?” Rothchild blinked, though his lips twitched a little. “Is she lost?”

  The hint of amusement was not at all appreciated, and Hawk scowled. “She shouldn’t be. She was taken by the magistrate to an inn, there to be transferred to a House of Correction. Only she was taken on instead, we think, to London. I have some influence in Kent, and perhaps in a few other counties, but I have no personal influence to speak of in London, and certainly not in any realm of law, justice, or diplomacy.”

  He swallowed hard and took two steps forward. “I am desperate, my lord, and throw myself upon your mercy. I must find Miss Harlow, and I cannot do it without your help. Please.”

  Rothchild stared at him for a long moment, then exhaled and moved to the sideboard at one end of the room. “Would you care for a drink?”

  Hawk nearly gaped where he stood, confusion running rampant. “What?”

  The man reached into the sideboard for two glasses and a decanter. “I asked if you would care for a drink.”

  He was a menace and a boor, and Hawk would have stormed from the house had he anywhere else to go. “No, I don’t bloody want a drink! I want your help!”

  Rothchild set the glasses down and began to pour, sighing. “Yes, I understand that, but I am about to shock you in a way that you cannot possibly imagine, so I think you had better have a drink.” He capped the decanter, then picked up both glasses, turning to face him. “In fact, I insist upon it. Please, sit.”

  Hawk did so as he watched him approach, utterly bewildered now, but took the glass when it was handed to him. “My lord?”

  “Drink up,” Rothchild encouraged. “Sip it, if you please. My wife does so hate a drunkard in the house.”

  The liquid burned its way down Hawk’s throat as he obediently sipped, though the temptation to toss the beverage back and let the fiery punishment commence was a great one.

  Rothchild watched him for a moment, then began to slowly pace. “I know more about your Miss Harlow than you think,” he began, his attention more on the drink in his hand than on Hawk. “I know that she was jilted, rather fortunately, it turned out, and that her family chose to cut her off. I know how she came to teach at Miss Masters’, and I know how she came to be at Kirkleigh.” He paused to give Hawk an impatient look. “Your timing was rather inconvenient, Your Grace, if I may say so. We were not anticipating your being there.”

  “I don’t understand,” Hawk admitted bluntly, tracking the man’s movements as though he were an animal likely to strike.

  “I know all about her playing Miss Moore,” Rothchild went on, not addressing Hawk’s statement. “I’m responsible for finding the connection there and getting her the details that allowed her to portray Miss Moore believably in the role we needed her to.”

  Hawk shot to his feet, the liquid in his glass sloshing onto his hand. “You did what?”

  Rothchild waved him back down, entirely unconcerned. “I and my colleagues placed her at Kirkleigh, along with an unnamed counterpart, and among the neighborhood for several purposes. The chief of these was to investigate the probability of rogue Frenchmen and their English sympathizers using the coast for their new smuggling enterprises, that of delivering agents and items strictly set aside to bring down the British government as we know it and furthering a long-held plan by several other rogue Frenchmen, and their English partners, to take control of all of Europe in a way only Napoleon has ever dreamed of.”

  Slowly, Hawk felt himself lowering back to the chair he had vacated, logic telling him to laugh at the plot he had just heard, while good sense told him that Lord Rothchild was in a position to know a great deal more about the goings-on in other countries and England herself than Hawk would ever hope to.

  And he was not laughing.

  Rothchild looked at him now, his expression almost severe. “I’ll let you draw your own conclusions, Kirklin, about what such a position and role implies about Miss Harlow. Suffice it to say, I know exactly why she was arrested, and what she accomplished in doing those things. I know what our country owes her for that sacrifice, and I can assure you that she will never see the inside of a jail cell unless she develops an interest in touring one.”

  Relief ought to have washed over him, but he was too stunned to feel anything at all. If what Rothchild said was true, and he was inclined to believe it was, Clara would have been some sort of government operative during the time she was at Kirkleigh. Considering all that had happened, and how it had transpired, it would have to be something covert, else several others would know about it.

  Clara was a spy?

  Several phrases and words continued to circle Hawk’s mind, when he suddenly seized upon one. “Never see a jail cell?” he repeated, looking up. “Do you know where she is?”

  Rothchild’s mouth suddenly twisted to one side. “Of course, I do. She’s upstairs.”

  Clara stared at Reeder without blinking, her knees tingling rather unnervingly. “What did you say?”

  “His lordship is currently speaking with the Duke of Kirklin in the green drawing room,” Reeder repeated, unflappable as ever. “It was suggested that you may wish to know that and come down.”

  “What…” She swallowed very carefully. “What did the duke want?”

  Reeder gave her a surprisingly sympathetic look. “I was not privy to that information, Miss Harlow. But what I would venture to ask is this: does it matter?”

  Clara stilled further at that. Did it matter? How in the world had Hawk found her here? No one knew of her presence here, not even Pippa and the others at the Convent, Weaver had made that very clear. Yet Hawk was downstairs speaking with him?

  No. No, it did not matter.

  All preparations to receive Martin again vanished from her mind and she shot to her feet, bolting past the butler without answering his question. She thundered down the stairs without grace or decorum, nearly slipping when she reached the bottom as she rounded the stairs quickly. Her breath began to race in and out of her lungs in a desperate panting, fearing this would all end in a dream as had happened so many times before.

  She tore into the drawing room without knocking, stopping stock still after doing so, her eyes finding a glorious figure standing just before a chair, an oddly empty glass in one hand.

  Hawk’s eyes widened as he saw her, the drawn nature of his countenance making her heart burn in agony.

  “I stand corrected,” Weaver mused in some amusement. “She is here.”

  Clara ignored him. She wet her suddenly parched lips, afraid to breathe. “Hawk?”

  A sound somewhere between a laugh, a sob, and a gasp erupted from him, then he moved, rounding a table and dropping the glass to the floor, where it shattered. “Clara,” he groaned. “Oh, Clara, my love, my darling girl…”

  Dissolving into tears, Clara rushed to meet him, flinging her arms about him as he caught her up, crushing her to him. His arms spanned entirely around her, his hands nearly reaching his opposite shoulders, so tight was his hold. He buried his face into her shoulder and neck, ragged breaths rasping against her skin with a tantalizing heat as she drenched his cravat with her tears.

  She trembled against him, racked by sobs of relief, of love, of shame, of utter release. At last, at
long last, she was in his arms. Was encased against him with an intensity that thrilled through her. Was entirely, wholly, and perfectly his.

  “Forgive me, my love,” Hawk pleaded, his lips rubbing against the skin of her neck as he held her still, his hold never slackening. “Can you ever forgive me?”

  “Yes,” she gasped as her fingers curled into his hair, turning to press a frantic kiss along his jaw. “Oh, yes. Can you forgive me, darling? Do you forgive me?”

  His arms moved then, his hands sliding to cradle her face, his fingertips grazing against her hair as his lips found hers feverishly. Again and again, he kissed her, deeply and tenderly, each pass of his lips weakening her legs and lighting her soul with fire. She clung to him with a desperation she had never known, caught up in everything he showered upon her and chased his passion with her own.

  “There is nothing to forgive,” he eventually breathed, his lips brushing against hers as he shook his head. He took her mouth in a long, lingering caress. “I’ve been lost without you, my love. Shattered and broken, and I haven’t been whole until this moment.”

  “I know,” she whispered, touching her brow to his, gripping his head as though it were all that kept her standing. “I love you so much.”

  He kissed her hard, making her whimper and sigh into the depths of him. “I love you,” he murmured between kisses, incinerating whatever remained of her sanity. “I love you. Do you hear me? I love you.”

  His voice hitched on the word, and Clara cradled his face, tears streaming down her cheeks, her lips dancing across whatever part of him she could reach. “I love you,” she whispered back, unable to say anything more.

  Hawk shuddered in her hold, his arms wrapping around her once more, softly this time, tenderly and intimately, folding her against his body until they might have been one.

  She could happily die thus, if she did not long for days and weeks and years of just such adoration.

  Sighing once more, she nuzzled against him, weak and pleasantly languid in his arms. Could anything be imagined more perfect than this?

  “I hate to interrupt,” a deep voice intoned with a clearing of a throat. “Hate to intrude on a moment like this but, erm… National security, fate of the kingdom, destroying evil, so on and so forth… We need to plan. No rush. Only lives at stake.”

  Hawk stirred against her, groaning again as he pulled back. His eyes searched hers, one hand brushing gently beneath her chin before he tipped her face up again to slowly and thoroughly kiss her.

  She’d have stumbled into him afterwards had there been space to do so. As it was, she followed and recovered by burying her face against his chest, fighting for breath.

  “What sort of a plan?” Hawk inquired in a stronger voice than Clara could have managed, his hand running over her hair as she rested against him. “Can’t I just take her away?”

  Clara exhaled shortly and shook her head, raising it to meet his eyes. “No. I have to see this through, Hawk. I have to see it ended.”

  His thumb stroked against her cheek, his mouth curving in a smile as he nodded. “All right.” He turned to face Lord Rothchild, keeping an arm firmly around her. “What do we do?”

  She wrapped both arms around him, now standing at his side, leaning her head against him as she, too, looked at Weaver.

  “Should be fairly straightforward,” Weaver mused, a faint pucker in his brow. “A team of operatives waiting within the caves and the house. Wait for the ship to move back out to sea and move in on the arrivals. We could even use Barcliffe for the interrogation and containment, make the necessary arrests.” He cast a wry smirk at Hawk. “Your eager Sir Henry would enjoy playing the hero. Pity this will never reach his ears, nor fall in his jurisdiction.”

  “I should not be there,” Clara suggested reluctantly. “If they see me, they’ll know, and it could all be ruined.”

  “Who?” Hawk pressed gently. “The Brownings?”

  She nodded. “They are working with the Faction, smuggling in goods and people. Alexandra Moore says Mr. Browning’s father had been engaged in smuggling for years…”

  “You met Miss Moore?” he interrupted, laughing quickly. “What a strange meeting that must have been.”

  “I don’t see why you shouldn’t be there,” Weaver observed with a thoughtful look, his dark eyes narrowed. “You certainly deserve to be. Perhaps you could assist in interviewing the French.”

  Clara brightened at the thought, nodding eagerly. “Could I? And I would love to see the ships and boats coming in. I’ve tried to picture it enough.”

  “Then see it you shall!” Weaver chuckled and winked at her. “If for no other reason than to satiate your curiosity. Very well, I will send out word and have it all arranged. It shall have to be soon. Second and fourth, yes?”

  “Yes.” Clara smiled wryly at this leader of spies. “The night before, if you please.” She exhaled slowly, shaking her head. “Then there is the matter of my employment.”

  Hawk looked down at her in surprise. “At the school? What about it? I’ve seen Miss Bradford recently; she’ll take you back.”

  “We can have that all arranged easily,” Weaver agreed in a very nonplussed manner. “Nothing to worry about.”

  Clara still shook her head. “I don’t regret what I’ve done for a moment, especially now, but how can we possibly recover my reputation enough for me to still teach at the school and expect the Society families to send their daughters there? My name is tainted in the neighborhood, no matter what Pippa or anyone else says. I’ll have to tender my resignation.”

  “I’ve a rather different idea, if I may speak,” Hawk broke in beside her.

  Weaver waved a hand in encouragement. “Go ahead, Kirklin.”

  Hawk pulled away from her just enough to take both of her hands in his. He smiled the beautiful almost-smile she loved most. “Marry me, Clara.”

  All her breath vanished from her lungs, her eyes searching his in disbelief. “What?”

  “Marry me,” he said again, more firmly. “You know I love you. I know you love me. I was going to ask you before you were arrested, but I daresay I mean it more now than I ever could have then. Marry me. Then we can donate our own amounts to the school and get a program named after us.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Weaver protested playfully.

  Clara simply stared at Hawk. “How?” she asked weakly, her hands cold in his. “How can you marry me when the rumors will just—”

  “With the special license I got when I first came to London,” he overrode, grinning now. “And I have no doubt your friend here knows a discreet vicar who can accomplish the task creditably.”

  “I know three,” came the helpful offer.

  “And the best part of being a duke, especially a reserved one,” Hawk went on, “is that I don’t have to care that much about what other people think. But Rothchild and his cohorts can recover your standing in the neighborhood somehow, if you wish it. Say that you’ll be my wife, Clara Harlow. Come and make every house a home, and every home heaven on earth.”

  Clara beamed with all the adoration in the world at the beloved man before her, squeezing his hands. “I will,” she told him, winning herself a blinding smile in return. “Yes, I will.”

  He swept her up into his arms, laughing and kissing her soundly. “I’ll adore you all my days,” he vowed softly. “Every single one of them.”

  She put a hand on his cheek, sighing in contentment. “And I you, my love. With all that I am.”

  Epilogue

  The ship slowly approached the shore in the dark of the night, with only a sliver of moon to guide her. A faint whistle echoed across the water, and three fishing boats appeared from the beach, rushing into the water and rowing out to meet her. When they arrived, goods were lowered into her, as were a dozen or so figures between the three boats.

  There was no hesitation on the part of any involved, each piece efficient and well-practiced. Had she not been witnessing it, Clara might have thought it all
impossible to occur in such a short space of time. Yet as the fishing boats rowed their way back to shore, she had to admit that there was a remarkable amount of skill and strategy involved in this venture. How else could it have gone on for the time that it had without any detection?

  It was a marvel, there could be no doubt about that.

  “Bloody genius,” muttered the man to her left. “You have to give them credit for that.”

  “I do not!” the man to her right hissed vehemently. “Smuggling would be bad enough, but this? Treason is too good for them.”

  Clara exhaled in exasperation, shaking her head. “I’m beginning to regret bringing either of you along.”

  “I have just as much a right to be here as you,” Brick replied from her left, his whisper doing nothing to hide his laugh.

  She’d give him that. Turning her head, she gave an inquiring look to the man at her right.

  He met her eyes without shame. “I’m your husband,” he said simply. “I go where you go.”

  There was something utterly romantic and desperately sweet in that.

  She grinned at him. “Yes, you are.” Leaning in, she gave him a soft kiss.

  “Now, now, Your Graces,” Brick scolded on a rasp. “No time for that. They’re nearing the shore. It’s almost time.”

  Winking at Hawk, Clara turned back to their observation, raising up just a little more on her elbows, the rest of her still flush against the ground.

  “Is the light out?” Hawk asked on a breath.

  Brick glanced behind them. “It is. Signaling the clipper to leave, no doubt.”

  “And we’re going to let it?”

  There was no accusation, no outrage in his question. Only inquiry, and Clara adored her new husband for that.

  He had taken her role in the covert world rather well as he’d learned more about it. The revelation of the school’s true purpose had taken some adjustment, given his sister’s attendance there, but when he’d realized the increased protection such a place had given her over the years, he’d accepted it well. His logic had proven valuable, and his gift for strategy almost unnerving.