THREE HEROES

by Jo Beverley

  “We’re going to send out riders along all these routes,” Eleanor said. “It will cover everything from here to a five-mile radius.” She glanced at Hawk. “He is very meticulous, isn’t he?”

  Clarissa looked at him too. “He has that reputation.” She couldn’t help adoring him for his control and discipline. Knowing him, she realized that inside he was probably as achingly worried and anxious as they all were, but he was intent on his goal. Rescue.

  He said something to Eleanor, looking up, and his eyes found Clarissa. Something flashed there—a need, she hoped—but immediately it was controlled. “The Henfield road goes through two tollgates,” he said to Eleanor. “The second should be far enough. The river blocks any roundabout route. Who has that one?”

  Eleanor looked at her list. “Susan.” She went to relay the instructions to Susan, who was using the deep windowsill to work on.

  Then Nicholas returned, looking exhausted but better somehow for racing around. She realized that Hawk had sent him for exactly that reason, and had probably put Eleanor to work to help her, too. So many threads in his fingers, each one to be done perfectly, because failure was impossible.

  Then the maps were finished, the waiting grooms summoned, instructed with crisp precision, and sent off.

  “They can be back within the hour,” said Hawk, but he glanced out of the window at the overcast sky. “If the weather holds.” He looked at Nicholas. “The woman may have gone to Brighton, but it might be too obvious. What do you want to do?”

  “Ride hell-bent for Brighton, of course,” said Nicholas. “Or to London. Or to the Styx to bargain with Charon—” He stopped himself. “We will wait until the riders return, and hope there’s a clear path. It would be worse, after all, to go in the wrong direction entirely.”

  “Then we must eat,” Hawk said. “Susan?”

  Susan left, and everyone moved restlessly, waiting for something that could not come for a while.

  “If Con finds anything along the road,” Hawk said, “he’ll send back word. What’s the woman like? From all I’ve heard of her, devious but not stupid.”

  Nicholas rubbed his hands over his face. “No, not stupid. But she can be foolish. She prides herself on her arcane plans, but then gets lost in them. Certainly following a straight line is unlikely to find her. You’re going about it the right way. Spin a web.”

  Now that the immediate work was done, Eleanor Delaney had sunk into a chair, staring into nowhere. Nicholas went to her.

  Clarissa turned to look out of the window. Evening was beginning to mute the day. Realistically speaking, it was no more terrible for the child to be in the hands of a madwoman at night, but it felt as though it was.

  Hawk came to stand nearby. She knew it even before she looked.

  “Is she mad?” she asked.

  “Probably not. But there’s a kind of madness that thinks only of itself. All controls to do with decency or humanity are lost, and only the desires and pleasures of the person matter. I suspect she is that sort of woman. What do you think?”

  “I think of her with her children.”

  He put out a hand to her, then stopped it, lowered it. She did not protest. There was no place in this for them, for the tangles and dilemmas still to be sorted out.

  Susan returned, followed by maids with trays holding tea, wine, and plates of hastily made sandwiches. Certainly, thought Clarissa, sitting down to dinner would be macabre. The maids left, and everyone was busy for a moment, pouring, passing, taking plates. But then stillness settled.

  “Eat,” Hawk said. “You can get it down if you try, and strength is needed. And don’t get drunk.”

  After a moment, Nicholas put down his wineglass and picked up a sandwich. Eleanor was drinking tea, but she started to eat too.

  Hawk ate two sandwiches, but he seemed to be thinking throughout the meal. Then he said, “The most likely situation is that the Bellaire woman has taken the child to hold for ransom. I gather she has reason of sorts to think that Clarissa’s money is hers. My father was under the illusion that she was going to marry him as soon as she was widowed. No illusion, actually. That doubtless was her plan once he had the money. I suspect I was her hunting dog, sent to sniff out the villains. An interesting mind. I assume that my elopement told her the plan was dead—so we have this.”

  Nicholas put down his food. “But we only arrived yesterday. This has to have been an impulse. Had she no other device? It is unlike her.”

  “She prefers multiple plans?”

  “She adores them.”

  “Mrs. Rowland had two children,” Hawk said, “a boy and a girl. Are they hers?”

  Nicholas laughed. “Therese? Impossible to imagine, and two years ago she boasted of the perfection of her body, unmarked by birth. Good God, has she kidnapped others?”

  “Or adopted, to be fair. She’s been here for months with them. A strange ploy if she took them for money. No,” Hawk said.

  He picked up Jetta and stroked the cat as if it helped him think. “I suspect the children were simply disguise. Perhaps poor Rowland was too. Intriguing, really. She must have been left in a very difficult situation after Waterloo. Stranded in Belgium, without her powerful protectors, and thinking of her money in England. If she found a wounded officer and persuaded him to claim her as his common-law wife—perhaps in exchange for nursing him—and acquired a couple of the stray orphans that always wander after battle, she would have an excellent cover for a Frenchwoman to enter England.”

  “You sound as if you’re falling under her spell.”

  Hawk looked at Nicholas. “I’ll wring her neck if need be. It’s often necessary to enter into the mind of villains to decide what they will do. And villains rarely see themselves that way. They see themselves as clever, as entitled to what they seize, as justified in the evil that they do. You’re right about her having some other plan. Knowing what it is would be useful, but the main point is that she will demand money. A great deal of money and in short order. Can you raise it?”

  Clarissa stood. “I wish I could give her all of mine! I don’t want it. She was right when she said it was poisoned.”

  “But you can’t get it in a day or two,” Hawk said, as if the money was of no importance to him. “Arden offered me twenty thousand, so I assume he can put his hands on that quickly.”

  “The Rogues,” said Nicholas, suddenly alert.

  But then pounding feet had them all turning to the door. It burst open, and a panting groom raced in. He looked around the crowded room in confusion. “Sirs, letter from his lordship!”

  Hawk took it and opened it. It contained another sealed paper. “She went through the Preston toll,” he said, reading. “A woman fitting her description in a fast carriage. Bold. And, even bolder,” he added. He looked at Nicholas. “The woman paid the tollkeeper to give this letter to anyone who asked.” He held it out. “It’s addressed to you, but of course Con read it.”

  Nicholas was already reading. “She wants a hundred thousand pounds before eight o’clock tomorrow evening.” He gave it to Eleanor.

  “Impossible,” gasped the dowager Lady Amleigh.

  “And she has her other string,” Nicholas carried on, looking strangely stunned. “She claims to have Dare.”

  Clarissa looked around in confusion. Hawk said, “It’s not possible—” But then he breathed, “Lieutenant Rowland.” He cursed, which, given the presence of ladies, showed how deeply shocked he was.

  “She wouldn’t lie,” Nicholas said. “It has to be true. Pray God it doesn’t make Con do something wild. We have to go.”

  “Yes, of course.” But Hawk held up a hand. “What of the money? We have to think now how to raise it.” But then he looked at Nicholas. “If it’s Dare, he’s in bad shape. Van saw him briefly. He thought he was dying.”

  “We get him and Arabel back,” said Nicholas flatly. “By all means, let’s think how to get the money. If Therese can be easily found in Brighton, Con and Vandeimen will do it.”
>
  Hawk sat at the desk and put a clean sheet of paper in front of him. “You have all I can raise, but it’s precious little, even with jewels included. Arden’s twenty thousand, of course.”

  Clarissa bit her lip, thinking what that meant for Hawk in the Vale, but there was no choice.

  The dowager suddenly stood and took off her rings and a brooch, putting them on the desk. “I’ll go and get my jewel box.”

  Con’s wife and sister did the same. Eleanor said, “Everything I have with me, of course. But most is back in Somerset. There’s not time, is there?”

  Nicholas took her hand. “We can try. But there are those closer. Arden,” he said to Hawk. “He’s good for more. Beth has diamonds worth a good part of the amount.”

  Clarissa had seen Beth’s diamonds. They were part of the ducal estate and not really Lord Arden’s to give, but she knew he would.

  “Leander’s probably in Somerset, but we’ll send to his Sussex estate in case. Francis. Hal’s in Brighton, but he has little. I think Stephen’s in London. If there are ways of raising money, he’ll find it. We have to contact the Yeovils too.”

  “Dare’s parents?” Hawk said. “Yes, of course. Though he may not be a pretty sight.”

  “If he’s alive, do you think that matters?”

  “No.” Hawk added the name.

  The two Lady Amleighs and Helen Somerford returned and put jewel boxes on the table, Clarissa didn’t think the contents would be worth a vast sum, but they would be treasured pieces given up in this cause.

  “I have some jewelry in Brighton lent me by the Duke of Belcraven,” she said. “You can have that. When I come of age,” she added firmly, “Deveril’s money will go to repay all these debts. I am determined on it.”

  She said it looking at Hawk, afraid of objection, but he nodded. “I hope to get through this without paying a penny, and with the woman locked up for her crimes.”

  “Not wise.”

  They all looked at Nicholas. “We really don’t want Therese on trial. She knows or guesses far too much. I’m sure she’s counting on that. Of course, if she harms Arabel in any way, I will kill her. I hope she’s counting on that, too.”

  The first grooms began to return with their pointless reports on their routes. They were sent to eat while Nicholas wrote letters to the Rogues and the Yeovils, asking for the money and jewels, and a message to his home in Somerset instructing a trusted servant to bring the contents of his safe.

  Clarissa couldn’t help thinking that some lucky highwaymen might make the strike of their lives.

  “Where shall we ask that it be sent?” Nicholas asked.

  After a moment, Hawk said, “Van’s house in Brighton,” and gave the address. Once the letters were on their way, he said, “And now we can go. She’s gone to ground in Brighton, but by God, there has to be a way to find her.”

  Clarissa, Eleanor, and Susan jammed into the Amleigh phaeton, Eleanor driving, the gentlemen on horseback. Again Jetta insisted on riding with Hawk, sitting upright in front of him.

  “She’ll fall off at speed,” Clarissa said.

  “I doubt it,” said Nicholas, his horse sidling impatiently, doubtless a reflection of the rider. “The Chinese trained cats to ride into war exactly like that. They would leap at opponents and blind them.”

  Clarissa shivered at the thought, but all in all, the more protectors Hawk had, the better.

  Then they were off. Five grooms not needed for other duties rode with them. Heads turned as the speeding cavalcade whipped past. Clarissa could only think of all the people with small problems, all the parents whose children were safe.

  In a short while Nicholas drew alongside to tell Eleanor he was riding ahead, and she gave him her blessing.

  “If I were any rider at all, I’d go with him. It is so intolerable not to be racing to do something, no matter how futile.” She cracked her whip, and the horses picked up pace as the sun set sulkily behind heavy clouds.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Brighton. Clarissa remembered entering Brighton a short while before, full of nerves and hope. How different now, with so much at stake. How trivial all her earlier anxieties seemed. The past hours of stress had scoured away her uncertainties about Hawk. In this uncertain world, what did twenty, forty, sixty years matter?

  Carpe diem, for indeed, one could not know what the morrow would bring.

  The sunlight had almost gone by the time they entered Lord Vandeimen’s house, finding the Vandeimens there, along with Con and Nicholas. Con seemed afire with new purpose, and it was all to do with Lord Darius.

  “Madame Mystique has a house on Ship Street,” he said, “but it seems deserted. I hesitated to break in.”

  “Good,” Hawk said. “We can’t be precipitous. We risk triggering her to do something undesirable. No sign of Old Matt?”

  Clarissa had to think who that was. Oh, the carter who had transported Lieutenant Rowland and the children.

  No, she corrected. He’d transported Lord Darius Debenham and the poor waifs picked up from who-knew-where and subjected to Therese Bellaire’s cold heart for a year. She desperately regretted returning the children, but couldn’t see how she and Hawk could have done anything else.

  “Not on the road,” Con said. “I’ve sent the grooms to check on all the inns and taverns. He likes a drink. But how do we search all Brighton?”

  “Meticulously,” said Hawk with a hint of a self-mocking smile.

  “We don’t have enough people to comb thousands of households!”

  There was a rap on the door and they all turned. They were all, Clarissa realized, still standing in the narrow hall.

  The nearest person opened the door—Susan.

  Blanche and Major Beaumont came in. Blanche went straight to Eleanor and put a bundle in her hands. “Lucien’s necklace is the most valuable piece, but I’ve put in some stage trumpery too. Perhaps she won’t have time to study it.”

  “Good idea,” said Nicholas. “Maria, which jewelers here are most likely to keep paste for people to wear?”

  Everyone flowed into the front parlor and soon Maria had a list, but it was too late to visit jewelers today.

  “We have to do something,” said Eleanor fiercely, desperately. “Dear heaven, if she’s awake, she will be so frightened!” Nicholas went to her, but he was haggard with the same need.

  “We try to find her,” Hawk said steadily. “Maria, may I have some of your servants?”

  “Of course! Which ones?”

  “A few who are Brighton born and bred.”

  She hurried out and soon returned with a maid, a sturdy young man, and a frightened-looking boy, whose eyes seemed to be trying to go all ways at once.

  “Listen carefully,” Hawk said in a clipped, military voice. “We need to find a woman in Brighton. The main thing is that she is French. She was last seen looking sallow and dressed in black, but she may have changed. She’s slim, dark-eyed, and about thirty. She will probably have one or three young children with her. We’re also looking for a very sick officer, who might go by the name Lieutenant Rowland. The last person is a carter called Old Matt. Old Matt Fagg. He might simply be drunk in one of the taverns. All three people are somewhere in Brighton. You are to alert as many people as possible— children too—that anyone who brings me news of where any of these people are will receive ten guineas.”

  The maid and groom came to sharp attention. The lad gaped. That was probably his yearly wage.

  “What’s more, if any of these people are found by anyone, you three will each receive ten guineas for yourself. Mind, though, everyone is to be careful. We only want to know where she is. We do not want her disturbed. Do you understand?”

  All three nodded, though “dazzled” might have better described their state than “comprehending.”

  “Do you have any questions?”

  The lad said, “Ten guineas, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  The three servants backed out, but then Clarissa
heard one set of running footsteps. She was sure they were the boy’s.

  “I do hope no one will get hurt,” she said.

  “You wouldn’t make a general, love.”

  It slipped out and they looked at one another.

  “I have this constant urge,” said Nicholas, pacing the room, “to go and search the streets. It’s irrational.”

  “But perfectly reasonable,” Hawk said. “Waiting—and watching—are always the hardest parts.”

  Clarissa guessed that he referred to his army career.

  “What about Madame Mystique’s house?” she asked.

  “She might try to hide in open view?” Hawk asked. “I doubt it. It would be a trap. But it certainly should be checked. Who’s best at housebreaking?”

  “I’ve done it,” said Nicholas with a wry smile, “but I wouldn’t say it’s a skill of mine.”

  “I’ll do it, then,” said Hawk, picking up a satchel he’d brought and taking out a ring of strange-looking keys.

  “You must have had an interesting war,” Nicholas remarked.

  “That’s one way of looking at it. As I pointed out recently, however, it was nothing so dramatic as chasing down spies. More a question of checking out warehouses.”

  Clarissa remembered, and knew he’d said it deliberately, as a kind of connection.

  He took Nicholas with him, as a kindness, she was sure, and Jetta by necessity, but they were soon back to say that the house was deserted and no clue could be found there. “Except traces of opium,” Hawk said. “So she probably does have Lord Darius and the children drugged.”

  “It can be so dangerous,” Eleanor whispered. “I’ve never given her it. Not even for teething.”

  The door suddenly opened and Miss Hurstman stood there. “Ha!” she exclaimed, fixing Clarissa with a dragon’s eye. “Maria, I told you to tell me if she turned up.” But then she looked around. “What’s the matter?”

  Nicholas went and took her hands. “Therese Bellaire has kidnapped Arabel.”

  Miss Hurstman, who Clarissa had thought was made of pure steel, went sickly sallow and sat down with a thump. “Oh, heaven help the poor angel!”