Three Heroes (43 page)

“It does look damned bad. How did Deveril die?”

“Knifed. Viciously.”

But then Van shook his head. “It still doesn’t fit. I know I don’t have your acute sense for truth and lies, but Clarissa Greystone makes an unlikely thief and an impossible murderer.”

“Appearances can be deceptive. Did I ever tell you about an innocent-looking, big-eyed child in Lisbon?

Never mind. You don’t want to know.”

Van’s brows rose. “Are you protecting Demon Vandeimen from sordid details, Hawk?”

Hawk sighed. “I would if I could. We none of us need more darkness in our lives. But I have to save Hawkinville. You must see that, Van.”

“Yes, of course. Perhaps I’ll simply cut Slade’s scrawny throat.”

It was a joke. Hawk hoped, but he shook his head. “No more blood if I can help it.”

“So, let’s sort it out.”

Hawk put up a hand. “Maria will be waiting. We can talk later if you want.”

“No, let’s deal with this now. If necessary we can stay the night and get Con in on it. You really think Clarissa Greystone committed a vicious murder and planted a forged will?”

“No, dammit, but that could be willful delusion.”

Van smiled slightly at the implied admission. “I’m not willfully deluded. Let’s consider this. If someone else was the murderer and thief last year, who could it have been? From what I’ve heard, she left school and went to London. She can’t have known many people who would kill and forge for her—” He broke off. “Talk about teaching a grandmother to suck eggs. You must have been through this.”

Hawk resisted for a moment, but he knew Van wouldn’t let it go. “Arden,” he said.

“Arden?”

“The Marquess of Arden was the killer. Last year he married a teacher at Clarissa’s Cheltenham school.”

Van’s jaw dropped. “The heir to Belcraven? Are you mad?”

“High rank means honor? You know better than that, Van.”

“It means hell’s fires if you meddle there and can’t prove it beyond doubt. And what motive could he have?”

“Maria has that pretty niece, Natalie. What if she were in the power of a man like Deveril? Couldn’t Maria persuade you into doing something illegal to rescue her?”

“I’d knife him in public if necessary.”

Hawk knew Van was speaking the literal truth. He himself would do it too. And so would a man like Arden, he was sure.

“If that was the way it was,” Van said, “give the man a medal.”

“Then how do I get the money?”

“How do you get the money this way?”

Hawk put it into plain words. “I blackmail him for it.”

Van braced himself against a worktable. “You’d destroy essentially honorable people?”

“Don’t get too misty-eyed. Disposing of Deveril was a virtuous act, but misappropriating his money was straight-out, deliberate theft.”

“How in God’s name do you think to go about this? Men like Arden and his father can destroy with a word.”

“Ah, yes, the Duke of Belcraven. He’s Clarissa’s guardian, by the way.”

“Zeus! They’re all in it? But why?”

“Simply protecting her, I assume. Which has my sympathy. But I must save Hawkinville, and I see no reason not to have enough of that money to also rebuild Gaspard Hall and get my father off my back.

And do something for the poor Deveril tenants.”

Van was looking slightly alarmed. It took a lot to alarm Demon Vandeimen. “You’ll have to convince the duke that you would make it public. And,” he added, “watch your back.”

“I’m good at that. Van, I’m depending upon the fact that these are essentially honorable people. Deveril was thought to be without an heir. Surely they’ll see that it’s wrong to divert all that money.”

“And Clarissa?”

“She’ll hardly be left penniless.”

“She’s an innocent party.”

“Innocent! She shows no guilty conscience over enjoying the ill-gotten gains.” Then another piece clicked into place. “Devil take it, the fortune is payment. She was present at the murder, so Arden arranged the forgery to pay her off. No wonder she’s as closemouthed as a tomb about it.”

“Hawk, this is wrong.”

“No, dammit, forgery is wrong. My father, damn his eyes, is right. The money belongs to Hawkinville, and I won’t see Slade destroy it because I was too squeamish to hurt Clarissa’s feelings!”

“You can’t do it.”

Hawk was about to wring Van’s neck when he saw the expression on his friend’s face. As if he’d suddenly seen an unpleasant vision.

Van straightened. “Arden will call your bluff.”

“He daren’t risk it.”

“Why not? If you prove anything, you will destroy Clarissa as well as him.”

“With any luck, he won’t know that’s a factor.”

“More to the point,” said Van slowly. “Arden is a Rogue.”

“What?”

“One of Con’s Company of Rogues. I can’t believe that slipped by your brain. Roger, Nick, Francis, Hal, Luce…” Van recited. “We heard enough about them. And Luce is Lucien de Vaux, Marquess of Arden.”

It had slipped by him. Devil in flames. Something about Arden had been niggling him, but Con had always talked about the Rogues by first names—unusual enough. Luce.

“And Hal Beaumont,” he said. “The man with Mrs. Hardcastle. Clarissa said he was an old friend of Arden’s. But being a Rogue doesn’t give Arden immunity.”

“No, but he has to know who you are. I’m sure Con spoke of us to them as much as he spoke of them to us. And there’s only two of us. Unless he has the brain of a sheep and the spine of a rabbit, he’ll have to know that you could not possibly attempt to destroy one of Con’s Rogues. However, perhaps Con can act as go-between.”

“No!” Hawk’s rejection was instinctive, but reason followed. “That’s an intolerable position to put him in. ‘Admit to murder and forgery of your free will and quietly move half of Clarissa’s fortune to my friend Hawk.’ No,” he repeated, standing among ruins. “I’ll come up with something else.”

“You don’t have much time. Why not simply tell Clarissa the truth? Perhaps she will be able to forgive your deception and overlook a future as Lady Deveril.”

“But how will Arden and his father feel about it? She still needs her guardian’s permission.”

“Damn.”

“Strange, isn’t it? I have all the cards in my hand, and yet it still seems possible that I might lose.”

“We have to tell Con. He can’t be left out of this.”

“Haven’t you thought that he might know? The Rogues don’t keep secrets from each other.”

“You think he knows that they set up a will that defrauded you?”

Hawk shook his head. “I haven’t told him anything about the debt or the Deveril title. Someone in the Rogues has to know, though, with my father chasing it through the courts.”

“I can’t believe Con would do nothing about a situation like that.”

“He’d be caught in the middle.”

“No,” Van said. “It’s more likely that they’re protecting him from it. He’s only recently started to recover from Waterloo and Dare.”

Hawk considered it and knew it might be true. “All the more reason not to tell him yet.” He went toward the door. “I need a little more time, Van. Perhaps if I shuffle the cards again. At the least I need to go down to the manor to get clean clothes.”

They emerged from the room and separated, but as Hawk walked to the manor, he couldn’t seem to shuffle the cards into anything but disastrous patterns.

Who should suffer? Himself, for certain, but he was choosing the pain.

What of Con, or Clarissa?

What of the Dadswells, the Manktelows, and the Ashbees? Was Granny Muggridge to have the roof torn down around her head?

But at what point did the price of Hawkinville become too high?

Cut the loss.

It was a process he’d done often in the war, even when it meant choosing between one set of soldiers or another. Perhaps if he thought of everyone as troops of soldiers.

The option with the least loss was to elope with Clarissa. He would have the money, or at least the expectation of it. He knew the will, and the money came to her at her majority, regardless of what she did or whom she married. As her husband, he could easily borrow against it.

Hawkinville would be safe.

There would be a fighting chance of happiness for them. There was something deep and true between them, and he would work to gain her forgiveness for the deception.

Van might never forgive him for breaking his word, but he could hope that time would heal that, especially if he could make Clarissa happy.

Con. At the moment, Con was an unknown. If he saw this as a betrayal of the Rogues, it could lead to a rift. The Rogues certainly weren’t going to like it. They were going to have to damn well trust him not to expose their criminal acts.

But it was the only way.

Gathering the detached purposefulness that had carried him through scenes of carnage, he went swiftly to his room to change, then gathered the money available in the house. He thought about leaving a note for the squire, but then knocked and entered his father’s room.

The squire was lying on his daybed fondling—there was no other word—some papers. “They have come,” he said, with shining eyes. “The documents. You may now officially call me Lord Deveril!”

Hawk had to stop himself from seizing the papers and ripping them to shreds. Pointless. Pointless.

This settled things, however. In moments his father could begin spreading the word. Since Clarissa was in the village, she would hear about it, and that would be the end of that.

“Congratulations, my lord. You may congratulate me, also. I am about to marry Miss Greystone.”

His father beamed. “There, you see. All’s well that ends well. And her money will pay to refurbish Gaspard Hall.”

“Not a penny of her money will go on Gaspard Hall, my lord. We will pay off Slade, but the rest will remain under her control.”

If he had to do this, it had to be that way.

“What? Are you mad? Leave a fortune in the grasp of a chit like that? I will not allow it.”

“You will have no say in it.” He turned toward the door. “I merely came to say that I will be gone a few days.”

“Gone? Gone where? We must arrange a grand fete to announce my elevation to the village! I outrank Vandeimen now, and I’ll see him recognize it.”

The fury boiling inside Hawk threatened to burst out of control, but he’d not struck his father yet. Now was definitely not the time to start.

“It will have to wait, my lord. I am off to Gretna Green.”

He closed the door on his father’s protests—not about the elopement but about delay in his fete—and ran down the stairs. Somehow he had to get Clarissa out of the Peregrine and on the road north before his father set the news spreading.

He fretted even over the time it took a groom to saddle up Centaur, imagining his father leaning out of his window above to shout the news. He wouldn’t do that, but he would tell his valet—might already have told his valet. His valet would tell the other servants and…

Perhaps a servant had already hurried home to spread the word.

He led Centaur up to the inn, considering how to steal Clarissa. Perhaps he’d have to snatch her on the way to the coach, like Lochinvar snatching his beloved from her wedding. .

So light to the croup the fair lady he swung.

So light to the saddle before her he sprung!

“She is won! We are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur;

They’ll have fleet steeds that follow,“ quoth young Lochinvar.

And that, of course, was the problem. He was dubious about young Lochinvar riding so rashly with a lady at his back, and he’d no intention of attempting it with Van and Con—especially Van, an incredible horseman now equipped by his rich bride with the finest horses—in hot pursuit.

He would have to go in and try to lure her out.

Then he saw Clarissa—beloved, unconventional, impetuous Clarissa—in the arch to the inn yard. Alone.

Her hat shaded her face again, and some order had been brought to her curls, but her dress was irredeemably stained.

When he reached her, she stepped forward. “I’ve told them all what I did with Slade and that I kissed you, not the other way around.”

If he hadn’t adored her already, he’d have crumpled then. He held out his gloved hand. “Elope with me.”

Her eyes widened, but she only said, “Why?”

“So that this can’t be snatched from us.”

She looked down and away, obviously flustered, but then back at him. “Do you love me, Hawk? Don’t lie. Please don’t lie.”

“I adore you, Clarissa. And that is no lie.”

Then she smiled and put her hand in his. “Then, of course. It’s a mad, impetuous notion, but that probably suits us both.”

He laughed as he swung his fair lady to the crupper and settled in front of her. “I used to be a very sane, thoughtful man,” he said. “Hold tight. We’re going over bank, bush, and scaur.”

And he set off, past a few startled villagers, along the road that would eventually take them north to Scotland, where minors could still legally marry without the permission of parents, guardians, or Rogues.

But he soon turned off, going west instead of north. He couldn’t outride Van. But, by heaven, he could probably still outthink him.

The rest of the party was in the entrance hall of the Peregrine, waiting with some impatience for Clarissa to return from the privy. Eventually, Maria asked Althea to find her, but Althea returned frowning. “She’s not there. I don’t know where she can have gone to. Perhaps she’s returned to the room upstairs.”

But then one of the Misses Weatherby trotted in, cheeks flushed. “My dear Lady Vandeimen!” she gasped. “Oh, my lords.” She curtsied around, clearly breathless with excitement. “Are you by any chance looking for your companion? We saw you earlier. My sister and I. Saw you on the green, and returning.

And the handsome major returning with the lady.”

“Miss Weatherby,” Maria interrupted ruthlessly. “Do you know where Miss Greystone is?”

“Why, yes,” said the lady, not well concealing her glee. “She’s just ridden off behind Major Hawkinville.”

Maria looked at her husband. “Van?”

He’d turned pale with anger in a way she’d never seen before.

He was actually moving when she grasped his sleeve. “Wait! Talk.” She smiled back at Miss Weatherby. “Thank you so much. I know I can trust you not to spread this around.”