She looked at his friend. “Is he all right?”

“No more than you.”

“I’m in love with him, so even more than I want him, I want to make everything perfect for him. But I’m not sure what that perfect would be, and I am sure that I mustn’t… melt myself into him for his comfort and pleasure.”

“An extraordinary way of putting it, but I know what you mean. I don’t have any wisdom to offer.” After a moment he said, “I’m not even sure there is any wisdom when it comes to the heart, except the old nostrum that time heals. It heals, but healing is not always without scars, or even deformities.”

She stared at him. “I’m certainly not being treated as a silly child, am I?”

“Do you wish to be?”

“Doesn’t everyone wish to be, sometimes?”

“There you have an excellent point.” He opened his arms, and she went into them. It was fatherly, or perhaps brotherly. She, who had never had father or brother interested in holding her.

She remembered that after Deveril’s death, Nicholas Delaney had held her in the same way. But none of these men, even if full to brimming with goodwill, could solve her dilemmas for her.

“I suppose I have to return,” she said. “To Brighton.”

“Certainly Miss Hurstman will want to see you safe.”

“Miss Hurstman is a Rogue.” She said it firmly but without resentment.

“No, she’s not. She’s a Rogue’s aunt. Lord Middlethorpe’s aunt, to be precise. If you think she’s on our side against you, you don’t know her very well. She’s a fierce defender of women in any practical way. There’ll be skin lost over our mismanagement of this.”

She pulled free of his arms to look at him. “She didn’t know any of this?”

“Not unless she’s a fortune-teller. Nicholas asked her to take you on because he thought you needed special help to win your place in society. That’s all.”

“But she wrote to him. Reporting, I assume.”

“Ah, that. She wrote demanding his presence. She has an encyclopedic knowledge of society that exceeds Hawk’s. As soon as he appeared she remembered that his father had been born a Gaspard, and that Gaspard was the Deveril family name. It rang enough of an alarm bell for her to send for him, but not enough of one to take any action. She had no idea—probably still doesn’t—that Hawk’s father has the title now.”

“Then I’d like to go back there.” She stood up and brushed off her hopeless skirt. “Life goes on, but it hardly seems possible.”

Like a claw scratching at the back of her mind, she wondered what she would do if she was with child. All very well for Lord Arden to brush off her ruin, but a swelling belly would be a very obvious sign of experience.

Would that mean that she’d have to marry Hawk?

He’d argued with her about just this. About her changing her mind, being with child.

Had he really tried to resist? Or had that simply been more cunning on his part?

She wanted him too much to make sense. Wanting was not the guide.

A child can want to grasp the fire, an adult want to throw away a fortune on cards.

Something popped up from the jumble of her mind. “You mentioned fortune-telling… It’s tugging at something… oh, Mrs. Rowland!”

He frowned slightly. “The woman in the village with the invalid husband?”

“Yes, I felt as if I knew her, but now I see she reminds me of that fortune-teller in Brighton. Madame Mystique.”

Who had talked about the money not really being hers, and death if she did not tell the truth. She’d told the truth, but she still felt half dead.

“What is it? Are you faint?”

“No.” She couldn’t deal with another stir of the pot. “I think I need to eat something. And probably borrow a clean gown. Con,” she added as a mark of appreciation for his kindness.

He smiled. “Come along, then.” They began to walk back to the peaceful house.

Most people would prefer Hartwell, with its picturesque charms around a thoroughly modern and convenient interior.

But Clarissa knew that Hawkinville still held her heart.

Chapter Twenty-six

Hawk rode south almost by compass, driven by duty alone. It might be pleasant, in fact, to become lost. He’d looked into some cases of people who simply disappeared. Perhaps they too found themselves in a dead spot of life and went away. Went anywhere so long as it was not here.

He might collide with Van by pure accident on this journey, but that encounter could not be avoided. It really didn’t matter when. It mattered whether Van, like Con, could hold on to old bonds in spite of present insanity, but he couldn’t affect that.

He could affect Clarissa’s reputation, and he put his mind to that.

He made Hawk in the Vale without incident, and saw everyone in the village turn to stare.

The Misses Weatherby popped out of their house, agape. Good.

Grimly amused, Hawk touched his hat. “Good evening, ladies.”

They gaped even more, and he waited for them to frame a question.

But Slade marched out between his ridiculous pillars right up to his saddle. “Where’s your impetuous bride, Major? Fled to warmer arms?”

Rage surged. Barely resisting the urge to kick the man’s teeth in, Hawk put his crop beneath Slade’s wattly chin and raised it. “One more word, and I will thrash you. My father’s folly is to blame more than your greed, but you are very unwelcome here, sir. And your comments about a lady can only be attributed to a vulgar mind.”

As if breaking a spell, Slade dashed away the crop and stepped back, puce with choler. “Lady?” he spat, then stopped. “May we know where the charming Miss Greystone is, Major?”

Very well. Slade would do, and the Weatherbys were all ears.

“It’s none of your business, Slade, but she heard that her dear friend the Marchioness of Arden was in childbed and wished to be with her. As you said, she is somewhat impetuous.”

Slade opened, then shut, his mouth. “And the happy event?” he inquired with a disbelieving sneer.

“A son. The heir to Belcraven, born just before dawn.”

He heard the Misses Weatherby twittering, as women always did at these events, and of course at the slight vicarious connection to the birth of such an august child.

The birth was just the kind of incontrovertible fact that could glue together almost any lie.

Slade was certainly believing it.

“And the money?” he asked stiffly.

Hawk permitted himself a disdainful sneer. “Will be yours, sir, before the due date. I must thank you for being so obliging to my family.”

With that, he turned his horse toward the manor, which apparently would survive, along with the heart of Hawk in the Vale. At the moment, he felt no satisfaction. He did not dismiss the value of preserving the village, but he did not dismiss the cost, either.

As he dismounted in the courtyard the scent of roses met him—sickeningly. He left the horse to the groom and strode swiftly inside.

“George? Where’s your bride?”

His father stood in the doorway to the back parlor, leaning on a stick.

“Isn’t it more a case of where’s the money?”

“Definitely, definitely. You have it? If so, we can start planning the celebration.”

“Go to the devil,” Hawk snapped, then quickly reined in his temper before it drove him into something else to be ashamed of. “I have the money to pay off Slade, but there is no extra, my lord.”

“There is always more money, my boy! I thought a fete similar to that one Vandeimen threw for his wedding. But more regal. Full dress. A procession—”

Hawk turned to go up the stairs. “You will, of course, do exactly as you wish, sir. I have no interest in it.”

“Damn your eyes! And where is your bride, eh? Lost her already?”

Hawk paused on the landing. “Precisely, sir.”

He entered his room tempted to sink into the darkness, but he had done this for a cause, and the cause went on. He opened his campaign desk. The familiar paper and pens swept him back to his other life. He thought there might even be a trace of smoke and powder trapped in the wood.

Why had the skills that had carried him through challenging and even torturous tasks in the army failed him here?

He picked up the flattened pistol ball that had been his constant reminder that blind luck played a huge part in fate. Perhaps this time his luck had run out.

But, no, that wasn’t it. In the army he’d usually worked toward a single imperative. He’d had no personal stake, and a good part of his skill had been in blocking out all distractions of fact or sentiment.

In fact, this campaign was a resounding success.

Hawkinville was safe.

He deserved a medal.

He wrote a Spartan letter to Arden thanking him for his assistance and requesting that he arrange for the money to be available at his Brighton bank before the end of the month. Then, with distaste, he wrote a note to Slade requesting the name of the institution where his money should be deposited.

He went downstairs and sent a servant off with it.

And that, pretty well, was that.

All that was left was the rest of his life.

He walked out of the house at the back, and down to the river, but the ducks must have been enjoying some other part of the water, and heavy clouds were drifting between the earth and the sun. It seemed symbolic, but he knew the sun would shine another day and the ducks would return.

Only Clarissa would be perpetually absent.

Was there any chance that she would relent once the shock wore off? He couldn’t bear to hope. If he did, he thought he would be frozen in time, waiting.

He heard a footstep and turned.

Van’s fist caught him hard on the jaw and flung him backward into the river.

He sat up spluttering, hand to his throbbing jaw, tasting blood from the inside of his cheek. Van waited, icy.