THREE HEROES

by Jo Beverley

  She’d known she was no beauty, and would have no dowry to speak of, but she’d dreamed of suitors, of handsome men courting her, flirting with her, kissing her, and eventually, even going on their knees, begging for her hand.

  Instead, there’d been Lord Deveril.

  She stopped and thrust him into the darkest depths of her mind. Loathsome Lord Deveril, his foul kiss, and his bloody death. At least he didn’t wait for her out in the frightening world.

  She knew everyone was right. She couldn’t stay here forever.

  She glanced down at her clothes, the beige-and-brown uniform all the girls wore here. She had nothing else to wear other than the London gowns that lay in trunks in the attic. She would never wear them again!

  But she could hardly go on like this. She bit her lip on a laugh at the thought of herself—plump and fifty— trotting around Cheltenham in brown and beige, that eccentric Miss Greystone, with a fortune in hand and nowhere else to go.

  But she had nowhere else to go. She would certainly never again live with her family.

  She needed someone to talk to and knocked on the door of her friend Althea Trist. Althea was the junior mistress who had come last September to take Beth Arden’s position.

  The door opened. Clarissa said, “I’m going to have to—”

  But then she stopped. “Thea, what’s the matter?”

  Her friend had clearly been crying.

  Althea pressed a soggy handkerchief to her eyes and tried for a smile. “It’s nothing. Did you want something?”

  Clarissa pushed her into a chair and sat nearby. “Don’t be silly. What is it? Is there bad news from home?”

  “No.” Althea grimaced, then said, “It’s just the day. June eighteenth. The anniversary. Waterloo.”

  Realization dawned. “Oh, Thea! You must feel the pain all over again.” Althea’s beloved betrothed, Lieutenant Gareth Waterstone, had died at the battle of Waterloo.

  “It’s foolish,” Althea said. “Why today rather than any other day? I do grieve every day. But today…” She shook her head and swallowed.

  Clarissa squeezed her hands. “Of course. What can I do? Would you like some tea?”

  Althea smiled, and this time it seemed steadier. “No, I’m all right. In fact, I am to take the girls out soon.”

  “If you’re sure.” But then it dawned on Clarissa. “Thea, you can’t. You can’t go to the parade! Miss Mallory would never have asked you if she’d thought.”

  “She didn’t. Miss Risleigh was to do it, but she wished to attend a party. She is senior to me.”

  “How callous! I will go and speak to Miss Mallory immediately.”

  She was already up and out of the door as Althea was crying, “Clarissa! Stop!”

  She hurtled down the familiar stairs, back to the parlor to knock upon the door. The parade was in honor and memory of the great victory at Waterloo. Althea could not possibly be expected to go there and cheer.

  The knock received no response, however. She made so bold as to peep in and found the room deserted. She ran off to the kitchen, but there found that Miss Mallory had gone out for the afternoon. There were a great many parties taking place, and the better folk of Cheltenham had been invited to choice spots from which to watch the parade.

  What now?

  The school was closed for the summer, and only five girls lingered, awaiting their escorts home. There were only three teachers—Miss Mallory, Althea, and the odious Miss Risleigh.

  What could be done?

  The girls could do without their trip to the parade, but Clarissa knew that dutiful Althea would never permit that. There was only one solution. She ran back upstairs to her room, put on the brown school cloak and the matching bonnet, and returned to Althea’s room.

  Althea was already dressed to go out.

  “Take that off,” Clarissa said. “I am going to take the girls.”

  Althea stared. “Clarissa, you can’t. You’re not a teacher! In fact, you’re a paying guest.”

  “I was a senior girl until last year. We often helped out.”

  “Not as escort on a trip like this.”

  “But,” said Clarissa, “I’m not a senior girl anymore. I’m only a few months younger than you are.” A lock of hair tumbled down, and she went to Althea’s mirror to tuck it back in. If she was going to do this she had better try to look mature and stern. Or at least sensible.

  She pushed some more hair in and tried to straighten the bonnet.

  “It is my responsibility,” Althea protested, appearing behind her in the mirror.

  Clarissa couldn’t help wishing she hadn’t done that. Althea was a rare and stunning beauty, with glossy dark hair, a rose-petal complexion, and every feature neatly arranged to please.

  She, on the other hand, had unalterably sallow skin and features that while tolerable in themselves were not quite arranged to please. Her straight nose was too long, her full lips too unformed, and even her excellent teeth were a little crossed at the front. Her eyes were the dullest blue, her hair the dullest brown.

  It shouldn’t matter when she had a hundred thousand pounds and no need of a husband, but vanity does not follow the path of logic.

  She put that aside and turned to put an arm around her friend. “There are only five girls left, Thea. Hardly a dire task. And you cannot possibly attend the Waterloo Day parade and cheer. If Miss Mallory knew, she would say the same. Now, go and lie down and don’t worry. All will be fine.”

  She rushed out before Althea could protest anymore, but only ten minutes later, she could have laughed aloud at that prediction.

  One, two, three, four—she anxiously counted the plain brown bonnets around her—five. Five?

  She whirled around. “Lucilla, keep up!”

  The dreamy ten-year-old turned from peering at a gravestone in Saint Mary’s churchyard and ambled over.

  Unaware, she caused one hurrying woman to stumble back to avoid running into her.

  Clarissa rolled her eyes but reminded herself that a noble deed lost its luster if moaned over. “Hurry along,” she said cheerfully. “We’re almost there!”

  At least the youngest girl was attached to her hand like a limpet. It would be nice, however, if Lady Ricarda weren’t already sniveling that she was scared of the graves, she was going to be sick, and she wanted to go back to the school, now.

  “We can’t possibly go back now,” Clarissa said, towing the girl out into the street. “Listen—you can hear the band.” She glanced back. “Horatia, do stop ogling every man who walks by!”

  Horatia Peel was fifteen and could be expected to be some help, but she was more interested in casting out lures. She’d pushed her bonnet back on her head to reveal more of her vivid blond curls and had surely found some way to redden her lips.

  At Clarissa’s command, she turned sulkily from simpering at a bunch of aspiring dandies. She was not a hard-hearted girl, however, and took Lucilla’s hand to make sure she didn’t wander off again.

  Clarissa’s other two charges, Georgina and Jane, were devoted eleven-year-old friends, arm in arm and in deep conversation. They were no trouble except for their slow pace.

  Afraid to speed ahead in case someone disappeared, Clarissa gathered her flock in front and nudged them forward like an inept sheepdog. It would be wonderful to be able to nip at some dawdling heels!

  What would the world think if it could see her now? The infamous Devil’s Heiress, with a dubious past and a fortune, dressed in drab and in charge of a bunch of wayward sheep.

  “Walk a little faster, girls. We’re going to miss the soldiers. Horatia, keep going! No, Ricarda, you are not going to be crushed. Lucilla, look ahead. You can see the regimental flag.”

  She blew a corkscrew curl out of her eyes, reminding herself that this was a good deed. It would be horrible for Althea to have to be here. For her part, she didn’t mind some cheering and celebration. It was exactly one year ago today that loathsome Lord Deveril had died. One year since she’d b
een saved. Bring on the flags and drums!

  She counted heads again. “Not long now. We’ll find a good spot to watch our brave soldiers march by.”

  Her forced good cheer dried up when they popped out of the lane and into Clarence Street. People must have come in from the surrounding countryside for the festivities. The place was packed with a jostling, craning, chattering, pungent mob and all the hawkers and troublemakers that such a throng attracted.

  A bump from an impatient couple behind them moved her on into the thick of the crowd with everyone around pushing for a good spot.

  One, two, three, four, five.

  “Let’s go toward the Promenade, girls. The crowd may be thinner there.”

  “I want to go home!”

  “Ricarda, you can’t. Hold tight to my hand.”

  Hawk had a flock of schoolgirls in his sights.

  After intensive investigations in London, he had come to Cheltenham in search of the heiress herself. She was clearly key, and she was being kept out of sight. He’d discovered that she wasn’t living with her family, or with her guardian, the duke.

  He had eventually learned that she was supposed to have spent the past year back at her very proper Cheltenham school. He had trouble imagining the Devil’s Heiress at Miss Mallory’s School for Ladies at any age— though he gathered her education there had been the work of her grandmother—but certainly not at nearly twenty. Surely it was a blind for some other, more lively, lodging, but it was where he had to start.

  He had spent the day hovering, watching for someone willing to gossip about school matters. He’d had no luck, since the school was officially closed for the summer, though he had learned from a butcher’s boy that there were some staff and a few girls still there.

  Now, at last, he had possibilities. The pupils all wore a kind of uniform of beige dress, brown cloak, and plain brown bonnet, but two of the flock were within flirting age—a lively blonde and the plain young woman who seemed to be in charge.

  He focused on the plain one. Plain ones were more susceptible. As he followed them into a churchyard, however, he began to think that the blonde would fall more ripely into his hand. On leaving the school, she’d begun to push her bonnet back on her head, gradually revealing more and more curls. Even with a plump child by the hand, she was lingering behind with the clear intent of flirting with any man who showed interest.

  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.