Three Heroes (18 page)

Could this actually be Miss Greystone? He’d not expected to find her in the school at all, never mind in schoolgirl clothes, but she seemed the type. Pretty, and a complete minx. She didn’t look nineteen, but such things were often deceptive. Nor did she look evil, but in his experience, that meant nothing. He could certainly imagine Deveril drooling over such a tender morsel.

The girl slowed even more to dimple at a group of young would-be gallants.

Hawk moved in.

He was within five feet when the plain one turned. “Horatia, do stop ogling every man who walks by!”

“I wasn’t ogling, Clarissa. You’re so mean!” But the minx did rejoin the others.

Hawk fell back to regroup. The plain one was Clarissa Greystone? He’d had a clear look at her face when she turned, and she was definitely nothing special to look at.

As he discreetly followed, he realized that it had been an error to assume beauty. “Lord Devil” wouldn’t have had much choice in brides. Few upper-class families would consider such a fate for a daughter. The Greystones were just the type that would.

They all gamed, and father and sons were drunks as well. Lady Greystone was a wanton. She was growing virtuous with age, but only because her raddled looks were ceasing to attract. When he’d struck up a conversation with her in the course of his investigations, the damn woman had propositioned him!

He’d assumed Clarissa Greystone would be like the rest of her family, but she seemed to be a cuckoo in that nest.

Or, more likely, she was brilliantly disguising her true nature.

That explained it, and it pointed right at guilt. Most people who stole gave themselves away by immediately enjoying their spoils. Not clever Miss Greystone. Perhaps she was even pretending to be in mourning.

The old excitement stirred. The excitement of challenge, of a worthy opponent. It was comforting, too.

With a clever enemy, there was no need to feel squeamish about tactics.

Clever, but guilty as the devil. A week in London sifting fact from fallacy had proved his father right. That will—in fact, everything surrounding Deveril’s death— stank to high heaven. Strings must have been pulled for it not to have been investigated more closely.

Lord Devil had not been accepted in society until nearly two years ago when he’d suddenly acquired a fortune. No one knew the source of it, but everyone assumed it was dirty money.

He’d been partner in a popular bordello run by a woman called Therese Bellaire, which was an interesting tangent. Hawk happened to know that Therese Bellaire had been part of Napoleon’s inner circle—mainly pandering for his intimates and senior officials. She had been in England in 1814 as a French spy, working for the reinstatement of her master.

Madame Bellaire had fled before she could be arrested, presumably leaving the bordello to her partner, but its sale would not have produced a fortune. Deveril had been involved in other things, however.

Gaming hells. Opium dens. White slavery.

Regardless of where the money had come from, it had gained him an entree with the less discriminating members of fashionable society. He’d leased a handsome house in the best part of town, and not long afterward, his betrothal to Miss Greystone had been announced.

Soon after that, he’d been murdered.

It had all the marks of a cunning and cleverly executed plot, and far beyond the talents of the Greystones.

He didn’t yet know who was behind it, but he would.

In a mere week he had some threads in his fingers. The forger was probably too clever to reveal himself, but Hawk had found the names of the two missing witnesses on the records of a ship bound for Brazil.

Strange destination for a couple of London roughs, but they’d presumably been paid off and told to make themselves scarce. It would be interesting to follow up on it, but he didn’t have time now.

He’d dug up another of Deveril’s henchmen. They could hardly be called servants. After a jug of gin, the gap-toothed man had remembered some prime whores Deveril had sent to the house while he’d been on duty there.

“Night of the big celebration, it was,” the man had remembered. “When we heard about Waterloo and the whole of London set to celebrating. We were stuck there, and these prime titties came knocking, but then their men came and dragged ‘em away. One of ’em knocked Tom Cross out with a skillet, she did!

He called her Pepper, and she certainly made him sneeze.”

Lazily, Hawk had asked, “Why did she do that, do you think?”

“He paddled her for being saucy. I bet her pimp paddled her harder. Seems as if they were off trying to do a bit of business of their own. Shame, though,” he said, sagging lower over his drink. “Never so much as got a feel, I didn’t.”

“You didn’t look them up later?”

“No names. Anyway, the next day they found bloody Deveril’s body and that were the end of that.

Duchess,” he said. “Her sister called her Duchess because of her airs and graces. Wanted to drink out of a glass, she did.”

For a wild moment, Hawk had thought of the Duchess of Belcraven, but she was an exquisite middle-aged Frenchwoman. He still wondered about the role of the Duke and Duchess of Belcraven in the Deveril affair. The duke was widely known as a man of dignity and principle.

Pieces that didn’t fit always told a story, however, and that one would too, in time.

Time was so damnably short.

Those whores had been a distraction for the planting of the will, however. He was sure of it. And it seemed likely that Clarissa Greystone had been one of them.

The one called Pepper and Duchess, who’d knocked a man out for daring to spank her for being saucy?

It had fit.

Until now.

He contemplated the harried figure ahead of him, dragging one whining child along the crowded street, chivying the others in front of her like a demented sheepdog, rattails of hair escaping from her bonnet.

Could there be more than one Clarissa in Miss Mallory’s School?

“I can’t see!” Ricarda screeched, still clinging.

They were in the Promenade, a much wider street, but could still see only a solid line of backs. Clarissa was ready to admit defeat, but then the adults in front made way and a smiling countrywoman said, “

Come on forward, luvs. We can see over your sweet heads.”

With the music coming closer and the drums shaking the air, Ricarda transferred her clutch to Lucilla’s hand and slipped forward. Georgina and Jane went too. Then the adult ranks closed between Clarissa and most of her charges.

Oh, no!

She went on tiptoe to watch the four girls. They were standing still with other children at the front, but Lucilla was capable of wandering off in any direction, and now she would probably take Ricarda with her.

Constantly checking the four brown bonnets, Clarissa was aware of the parade only as approaching drums. She glanced once and saw the lord mayor still some distance away, marching along in his robes and chain of office accompanied by his mace-bearer. Beyond, she saw the aldermen, a cart or two, and the magnificent scarlet of the local regiment.

The sight of the redcoats did catch her for a moment. So many brave men, and so many others, like Althea’s Gareth, lost in the wars against the Corsican Monster. More than ten thousand dead at Waterloo alone.

How did one imagine ten thousand dead, all in one place?

She pulled her mind back to simple things, to counting her charges. One, two, three, four—five Horatia. Where was Horatia?

With a puff of relief, she saw her right beside her. Horatia couldn’t have much of a view—she was shorter than Clarissa—but of course the minx was not interested in the mayor, or even the soldiers. She was dimpling at the handsome man by her side.

A handsome, dangerous man. Horatia was trying out her flirtatious techniques on a rake of the first stare.

Clarissa was frozen, not knowing what to do.

Then the man glanced over Horatia’s bonnet to meet Clarissa’s eyes, his own shadowed by the tilted brim of his fashionable beaver hat. His slight smile deepened. It was an insolent, blatant challenge to her ability to protect her charges.

She seized Horatia’s wrist and dragged her sideways, taking her place and then pointedly ignoring the scoundrel.

To Horatia she hissed, “Admire the soldiers. They’re doubtless safer.”

Much safer!

She would have liked to claim immunity to handsome rakes, but her nerves were jangling like a twanged harp. Who was he? Certainly no provincial dandy. Beautifully cut olive coat. Complex, snowy cravat. An indefinable but unignorable air. Her brief stay in London had taught her something about judging men of the ton and he was top of the trees.

Another quick glance confirmed her assessment. All the gloss and arrogance of a London beau, and a handsome face as well.

He suddenly looked sideways, catching her, and that amused challenge returned to his eyes.

She jerked her eyes away, away toward the approaching parade, grateful for once for the close bonnet that would hide her blushes. She remembered to go on tiptoe and check. One, two, three, four.

Horatia by her side, an older couple beyond her.

Safe for the moment.

All safe.

Apart from the something from the man on her other side. She’d met handsome beaux and wicked rakes in London and been able to laugh at the folly of other females. That was remarkably easy when neither beaux nor rakes paid her any attention.

This rakish beau should be the same, and yet she felt a prickling awareness—as if he was studying her.

She would not look to see.

Then the sway of the crowd suddenly pushed her against him, and he put his hand on her arm to steady her. She felt it. She felt his hand, felt his whole body— arm, hip, and leg—against her for a shocking moment before she pulled away.

She suddenly felt like Ricarda, panicked and longing for the safety of the school.

Which she had to leave soon.

Very well. She would soon have to leave the school, have to venture into a world full of handsome men.

She must learn to cope. After all, she had a fortune. There would be fortune hunters.

She swallowed and focused on the passing parade, on a cart carrying a portly man dressed as Napoleon, looking beaten and downcast. On another containing men dressed as the Duke of Wellington, Nelson, Sir John Moore, and other heroic leaders.

A Saint George passed in front of her in Roman armor, spear in hand, foot on the neck of a vanquished dragon that wore the French tricolor. She rather thought Saint George was Mr. Pinkney, who ran a small circulating library and was the least martial man imaginable.

“No stop,” said the man, who was still pressed by circumstances too closely beside her.

She had to turn her head. “I beg your pardon, sir?”

“His spear is a throwing spear, not a dragon-killing one. It has no crossbar. A common mistake in art. If he managed to impale a dragon, the beast would run up it and eat him. Of course, the maiden might applaud.”

“What?” Clarissa was beginning to fear that the man was mad as well as bad. But, Lord, he was handsome, especially with that twinkle in his eye!

He glanced at the white-robed woman at Saint George’s side, presumably the rescued maiden, but also managing to look like Britannia. “If her rescuer died in the attempt, she would be free without having to be the victor’s prize.”

The maiden was the mayor’s pretty daughter, and she certainly wouldn’t want to have to be too grateful to Mr. Pinkney. Clarissa was unwillingly beguiled by the man’s nonsense—and by the effect of teasing humor on already fine features—but she firmly turned her attention back to the parade.

All around her the crowd was booing Napoleon and applauding the heroes. Then it burst into huzzahs for the real heroes, the veterans of the great battle who marched to cheerful fife and the demanding, tummy-quivering thump of the drums.

She joined in, waving her plain handkerchief.

“Clarissa! Clarissa! Did you see that? He blew me a kiss! He did! Oh, wasn’t he the most handsome man you have ever seen?”

Horatia was literally bouncing up and down, her curls dancing and her cheeks bright red. Clarissa smothered a laugh. The officer in question was quite ordinary, and much older than Horatia’s usual practice ground, but he was in a moment of glory and he had noticed her, and so he was an Adonis.

But then a sudden squeal sent panic shooting through her. Ricarda! She stretched on tiptoe again, but the girl seemed all right. The scream had probably been caused by a horse dropping a steaming mound on the road in front of her.

“They are all quite safe,” said the rake. “I can see them easily and will tell you if anything untoward occurs.”

It was most improper for two strangers to be talking like this, and yet the situation made it impossible to object. She turned to him again. “Thank you, sir.”

The angle of his head moved the shadow of his brim and she was caught by startlingly blue eyes.

Cornflower blue made brighter by skin that was browner than fash ion approved. That, a silly detail like that, was probably what made him seem more dangerous than the general London beau.

Or perhaps not.

She seemed trapped, and then those intent eyes crinkled slightly with humor that she was invited to share.

She hastily turned her own boring gray-blue eyes forward, but she suddenly felt completely unlike herself.

As if she might do something outrageous.

With him.

By gemini! Was he flirting with her?

But men didn’t. Even during her horrible time in London, men hadn’t flirted with her.

So what was the rake up to?

Ah. Trying to get around her to Horatia, of course Not while she had blood in her body.

Horatia, however, craned past Clarissa. “You’re very kind, sir! Little Lucilla, the plump one, daydreams so. she took it into her head to wander in front of the horse she’d do it.”

“No, she wouldn’t,” Clarissa said. “Ricarda would scream the heavens down.”

“Ricarda is scared of horses, sir,” said irrepressible Horatia, innocently smiling in a way designed to invite man to her bed.