THREE HEROES

by Jo Beverley

  “I was eight years younger than Cedric.”

  “It’s not the same.” Maria sucked in a deep breath. “I have to do it, though. Maurice swindled his father out of that money. Ruined him, and pushed him to suicide. I have to put it right, at any cost.”

  She leaned her head back against the satin squabs.

  “Did I mention that he is beautiful? Hair the color of primroses. Classic bones. Lips so perfect they could have been carved. A mess, of course, after the wild life he’s led recently, and scarred. But still, Lord Vandeimen is the most beautiful young man I ever stood face to face with.”

  And the world would think her turned idiot because of it.

  Harriette squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry, dear. While you’re pulling him back from the brink, I’ll look around for a suitable young lady for him, one with a strength of character and a generous dowry.”

  Maria smiled. “Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  She firmly ignored a betraying stir of dissatisfaction with that plan.

  Chapter Two

  Van woke when the clock persistently chimed. Damn it, he’d drifted into a daze or a doze. He sank his head into his hands. Wine and a sleepless night had given him a tantalizing dream. Twenty thousand pounds. If only it were true.

  He suddenly looked around the room. Had it been a dream?

  His pistol still lay on the table, but then, he’d taken it from her and put it there. She hadn’t conveniently left her shawl, or a glass slipper.

  The Golden Lily. Could his imagination really have conjured up a flesh-and-blood woman of such distinctive appearance? That long, sleekly curved elegance and smooth oval face. That creamy skin which flushed so delicately when another woman would have been beet red, and gone waxy with fear.

  Hell. He’d deliberately frightened her!

  But no one was mad enough to offer twenty thousand pounds for nothing. It must have been a dream.

  But what if—?

  He was trying to sift truth from fantasy when someone tapped tentatively on his door. His heart suddenly raced. Was she back, but more cautious now?

  “Yes?”

  The door creaked open, and his valet, Noons, peered around it. His ex-valet.

  Disappointment swept through him like a chill. “What the devil are you doing here?”

  Wizened Noons smiled tentatively. “Begging your pardon, my lord, but I went as you ordered. But I got to thinking about how you’d manage alone. You know you’re no hand with your clothes, my lord. I’d be more than happy to stay with you until things come right again. And then stay on,” he added hastily. “Begging your lordship’s pardon . . .”

  Van closed his eyes. If his pistol had worked, poor Noons would have returned to find the body, and after he’d dismissed him specifically to avoid that.

  Or no. Mrs. Celestin would have. Bad planning, Van. Very bad. You should at least have locked the door.

  He opened his eyes to see that the weatherbeaten creases on Noon’s face were crumpling even further. The man thought Van would dismiss him again.

  Making an impulsive decision, he surged to his feet. “I was just going to set the Runners to find you, Noons! Our fortunes are reversed. I have hopes of a rich widow, but I can hardly go a-courting without you to turn me out well, can I?”

  He’d go to Perry’s Bank. If the money was there, he’d have a start. If it wasn’t, he’d complete what Mrs. Celestin had interrupted. Somehow without hurting Noons more than he had to.

  Misery switched to blinding joy in the valet’s face. “My lord! My lord! Oh, this is such good news! I was so afraid ... I won’t tell you what I was afraid of—”

  His eyes, glancing around, had found the pistol.

  Van thought of lying about it, then shrugged. “It misfired. Faulty flint.” Then he saw the look on the valet’s face.

  Noons retreated. “I’m sorry, my lord. No, I’m not sorry! I couldn’t bear what you might do when I was out of sight. And see, I was right, wasn’t I?”

  For a moment, Van wanted to throttle him, but then he forced a smile. “Yes, by gad, you were right. For six weeks, at least.”

  “Six weeks, my lord?” Noons gingerly picked up the pistol and put it out of sight in a drawer.

  “Never mind. First order of business is to tidy me up so I can visit my bank.”

  “Bank, my lord?” Noons glanced at the empty decanter in concern.

  “A small loan to enable me to go fortune hunting. So, work your magic.”

  Three hours later, rested, shaved, and turned out to Noons’s satisfaction, Van looked in a mirror. He wished the signs of dissipation could be polished away like the scuffs on his boots.

  If the Golden Lily had been real, however, he’d polish up. Though he often felt like Methuselah, he was only twenty-five. His body must still have some repairing powers.

  He rubbed a finger down the scar on his right cheek. That wouldn’t go away, but that, at least, was honorable.

  He put on his hat and went out to test whether his visitor had been an apparition or real. A strange mission, almost like a trial. If he returned with no money and no hope, he would have to execute himself.

  With that in mind, he paused by a gunsmith’s shop and counted his few coins. Yesterday, he’d paid Noons and his bills, then taken the rest of his money to Brooks‘. He’d come home and bought that one bottle of good wine. Now he had just over a shilling.

  He left the gunsmith with a flint, a sixpence, one penny, and a farthing. All he possessed in the world.

  Oh, he could tease things out by selling bits and pieces, but after last night’s disaster, that would be stealing. Despite his words to the real or imaginary Mrs. Celestin, his estates would not completely cover his debt. Everything he owned, even to the clothes on his back, belonged to the men holding his IOUs.

  The only hope lay at the bank. With the careless acceptance of fate that had carried him to hell and back for nearly ten years, he walked on briskly.

  As he approached Perry’s, however, his steps slowed. Somehow, passing through busy streets, greeted by the occasional acquaintance, he had begun to slide back under the damnable seductiveness of life. It shouldn’t be difficult to stroll into the bank and ask whether an account had been set up for him there, but it had become the moment that would dictate whether he would live or die.

  He hovered, seeking alternatives, but he knew there were none.

  He’d inherited neglected estates drowning in debt. He had no skills but soldiering, and the war was over. Even if it wasn’t, he couldn’t go back. He knew now how Con had felt. Con had sold out in 1814, then returned for Waterloo, but after the break, he’d lost the habit of war, the crusty, protective shell. He’d come through the battle without serious physical wounds, but damaged in other ways. Van had known that. He should have found Con and tried to help. He’d been too wrapped up in his own problems.

  In some ways Van had enjoyed war, enjoyed the constant test by fire, but he’d never become hardened to death. Each death around him had spurred him to fight more wildly, as if picking up the banner of the fallen without caution or consequences.

  A clear form of madness. He’d been aware of that, and yet it had gripped him. No question of stopping, of backing away, with all the ghosts cheering him on.

  But that drug had gone, drained to the last, overdosing drop at Waterloo. Once gone, there was nothing left. He could not fight again. He could not help a friend.

  Why did a person live? What was the point? He’d carried on only because of another set of ghosts, his family preaching his duty to continue the line, to repair Steynings and restore it to the home it had once been.

  He’d turned to gambling. He had luck and he stayed sober, so he generally won. Paid his way, in fact. He’d never made enough to change anything, however, in part because he couldn’t bring himself to fleece the innocent or those who couldn’t afford it.

  Tiring of it, he’d made a bargain with the devil. He’d gamble the night
away without restraint or caution. If he emerged a winner, he would settle in the country and work at restoring his home. If he lost, he’d put an end to it.

  He’d lost. True to his bargain, he’d stayed through the night, even though the debts had mounted, actually welcoming the growing total that would remove any ambiguity.

  He mourned that moment when he had known exactly what he must do, so like the absolute of a forlorn-hope charge in battle. Then, with a muttered curse, he took up his last forlorn hope and walked into the bank.

  It was oak-paneled and sober, looking respectable and solid, as a bank must. Was it her bank? If she was real, if she had deposited the money, would everyone here know his account had been set up by the rich Mrs. Celestin?

  He had no reason for pride anymore, but it still stung.

  A neatly dressed clerk came forward, bowing. “How may I assist you, sir?”

  Van gathered generations of wealth and arrogance as armor. “Lord. Vandeimen. I have an account here, I believe.”

  For a wretched heartbeat he thought the clerk was staring at him in puzzlement, but then he smiled. “Yes indeed, my lord. Permit me to take you to Mr. Perry, my lord.”

  Van wondered if he staggered as he followed down a corridor and into the handsome office of the owner of the bank.

  Reprieve.

  He had six weeks more of life!

  He still felt dazed as he emerged, guineas in his pocket, wealth established, debts paid. Poor Mr. Perry had been disappointed to find that most of the fortune trusted to his care was to promptly leave it. Van still had a thousand pounds in the account, and nine thousand more if he could satisfy his employer.

  The Golden Lily.

  He took a deep breath of spring air, appreciating it like a fine wine. He blessed the warmth of the sun on his face.

  But as he strolled back to his rooms, wariness grew. For twenty thousand pounds Mrs. Celestin had to want more than his adoring escort. What? He’d swallowed the hook, so now he’d be reeled in.

  Despite her rejection, perhaps she was after coupling. He fought back a laugh. If so, he’d be the most overpaid whore in London, no matter what her tastes!

  In fact, he rather liked the idea. He’d like to warm that damnable, cool composure, see her flush and become disordered, unruly, wild . . .

  Madness. She was probably all cool composure in bed, too.

  When a ragged crossing-sweeper hurried to clear some horse droppings from his path, he dug out the sixpence, the penny, and the farthing, and dropped them into the lad’s hand. With the boy’s enthusiastic thanks loud in the air, he strolled on, a sparkle starting inside him.

  With difficulty, he recognized mischief and challenge. How long was it since he had felt that way? Despite his employer’s command that he not touch her without permission, surely in six weeks of adoring companionship, he could find out whether she was cool in bed.

  Even a servant deserved amusement.

  As he passed the gunsmith’s on the way home, however, he remembered the flint, and fingered it in his pocket. It comforted him. If the strange Mrs. Celestin demanded anything intolerable, he had the easy way out.

  The next night, Maria entered the Yeovil mansion in a state of unusual turmoil. Few would guess, for it was her nature to conceal her emotions, but she knew, and she knew why.

  He’d paid his debts. Everyone gossiped about that as much as they’d gossiped about his ruinous night at the tables.

  Where had the money come from? they’d asked.

  Had he gone to the moneylenders? If so, poor man.

  Would he lose again? Then what?

  A sad case, both men and women agreed. Hero in the war. Fine old family. No hope, though. Father ruined the properties, and the son doesn’t have the heart to start from scratch. Shame for such a promising young gentleman.

  A promising young gentleman.

  On hearing that, Maria had thought of the slack-lidded, stubbled man in the rumpled clothes, and the way he’d taken that pistol from her. Promising? Of what? Perhaps it was the fact that he was still a gentleman that had prevented him from shooting her.

  If he was a gentleman, he’d work off his debt to her. He’d be here tonight. That terrified her almost as much as him not being here. If he was here, she’d have to deal with him.

  For six weeks.

  He did terrify her, and only the smallest part was a fear that he’d attack her. Instead it was fear of the energy and intensity he’d given off. She’d wanted to back away. To be safe.

  Worse, she’d wanted to press closer, to inhale that energy, to absorb it, surrender to it. She’d surrendered to her physical nature once before, and lived to regret it.

  She would not make a fool of herself again.

  Harriette knew how she felt. Harriette was the one person who knew everything, and now her aunt glanced sideways and smiled—the sort of chins-up! smile given to someone before a trying experience.

  They greeted the duke and duchess—the duchess was Maria’s cousin, twice removed—and their daughter. Lady Theodosia, who was being launched here. Then they moved into a reception room, and on into the glittering ballroom.

  It was, of course, a most sought-after invitation, and therefore well on its way to being a “crush.” It might be hard to find her quarry. Or for him to find her. Maria felt an absurd temptation to climb on one of the chairs set around the walls, both to see and be seen.

  “I don’t see him,” said Harriette, who was indeed stretching on tiptoe.

  “Don’t make a fuss,” Maria hissed as she smiled and obeyed the beckoning Lady Treves. A pleasant lady, but she had a handsome, hopeful son, and so was destined to be disappointed.

  So many hunted her fortune. She hadn’t lied to Vandeimen about that, or that she’d pay a fortune to be able to attend these events without a swarm of what she thought of as her wasps. She saw two of the more persistent ones buzzing toward her now.

  Ten proposals she’d had so far. Ten. And she’d only been free of mourning for a few weeks.

  Of course it wasn’t just the money, she acknowledged as she greeted Lord Warren and Sir Burleigh Fox. She was a Dunpott-Ffyfe. Marrying Maurice had not done her credit any good, but he was, after all, dead, and had left her a very wealthy widow with excellent bloodlines. A jam pot for wasps.

  She smiled and chatted, trying not to favor any particular man and parrying the more clumsy attempts to flirt or flatter. Where was Vandeimen? Why wasn’t he here?

  She froze in the middle of an idle comment to the duchess. What if he’d paid his debts and gone home to shoot himself?

  “Maria?”

  “Oh! So sorry, Sarah. Of course I’ll be a patroness of your charity for wounded soldiers. The government should have done much more. And after all, Maurice made a great deal of money from supplying the army.”

  She’d be paying conscience money—to the soldiers who’d worn shoddy boots and uniforms, and to Lord Vandeimen who’d been ruined. Military charities were Sarah Yeovil’s passion, however, because she had lost her younger son at Waterloo. She was dressed tonight in dark gray and black.

  Maria remembered Lord Darius as a charming young rascal, always up to mischief, but her mind was presently fretting over another young man of about the same age. Was Lord Vandeimen lying in a puddle of blood?

  She itched to invade his rooms again, to prevent disaster, but she stayed where she was and smiled. If he was dead, he was dead, and discovering it would not repair matters.

  “Tattoos, Mama?” queried Lord Gravenham, the duchess’s older son.

  Maria paid attention and tried to guess what they were talking about.

  “Sailors have them,” Sarah said earnestly. “So if they drown, their bodies are more easily recognized. If soldiers had tattoos, it would serve the same purpose.”

  “It would do no harm,” said Lord Gravenham, but Maria suspected he was thinking as she was. There’d been more than ten thousand corpses to deal with after Waterloo, most thrown into mass graves to p
revent disease. One of them had been Dare’s, but in a situation like that, who was going to note tattoos for identification?

  “I had the idea from Lord Wyvern,” Sarah was saying. “A friend of Dare’s,” she added to Maria. “One of this Company of Rogues they formed at Harrow, though of course he wasn’t Wyvern then. Just plain Con Somer-ford. Such good friends, and such good men . . .” She pressed a black-edged handkerchief to her eyes and took a visible moment to collect herself. “He and two friends had tattoos done before going to war. On the chest. A G for George.”

  “That’s a very common name, though, isn’t it?” Maria said, trying to cover the moment and show an interest. “For true identification, it would need to be more distinctive. A full name?”

  “They were all called George.”

  Maria flashed Lord Gravenham a look, wondering if Sarah had finally slipped over the edge.

  “So of course they needed something else,” Sarah went on. “Wyvern has a dragon. It fits the title he’s inherited, though at the time he could not expect to. The other two men were a George Hawkinville—a hawk, and George Vandeimen, a demon. It goes with the sound of his title, of course, and it’s the family name too. But not a wise choice.” She shrugged. “But then, they were only sixteen. I’m so glad to hear better news of him.”

  “Vandeimen?” Maria asked, and it came out a little high. “The one who lost his fortune?” He had a demon on his chest?

  “I was saying to the duke that we should do something. He and the others were so kind to Dare last year. Professional soldiers, you know. But Vandeimen’s affairs seem to have sorted out. So, can you help me there, too, Maria? I will have to hire people who can do these tattoos, and obtain the cooperation of the Horse Guards . . .”

  The orchestra struck a louder note, alerting all that the dancing was to begin. Sir Burleigh hovered. Maria promised support for the foolish tattoo fund and gave the persistent wasp her hand.

  She loved to dance, though she knew she did it with grace rather than verve. They called her Lily because of her pale complexion and habit of wearing pale clothes, and Golden for her outrageous wealth. She knew they also called her the Languid Lily, and shared scurrilous jokes in the men’s clubs about whether she was languid in bed.