The Devil's Heiress

Chapter One

June 1816, Sussex

Home. It had been a word without much meaning, but today, with his village en fete for his friend’s wedding, the contact, the bone-deep belonging, was like a cannonball for Major George Hawkinville—one slamming into earth far too close and knocking the wind out of him.

Following Van and Maria out of the church into the midst of the bouncing, cheering crowd, he felt almost dazed by the familiar—the ancient green ringed by buildings new and old, the row of ramshackle cottages down by the river, the walled and thatched house at the end of the row…

Hawkinville Manor, his personal hell, but now, it would seem, his essential heaven.

“Welcome home, sir!”

He pulled himself together and shook hands with beaming Aaron Hooker. And with the next man, and the next. Soon women were kissing him, not all decorously. Hawk grinned and accepted the kisses.

This was Van’s wedding, but Con was introducing his bride, Susan, here, too. Clearly the villagers were making it into a return festivity for all three of them.

The Georges.

The plaguey imps.

The gallant soldiers.

The heroes.

It wasn’t the time to be wry about that, so he kissed and shook hands and accepted backslaps from men used to slapping oxen. In the end, he caught up to the blushing new bride and the very recent bride, and claimed kisses of his own.

“Hawk,” said Susan Amleigh, Con’s wife, her eyes brilliant, “have I told you how much I love Hawk in the Vale?”

“Once or twice, I think.”

She just laughed at his dry tone. “How lucky you all are to have grown up here. I don’t know how you could bear to leave it.”

Because a tubful of sweet posset could be soured by a spoonful of gall, but Hawk didn’t let his smile twist. He’d been desperate to leave here at sixteen, and didn’t regret it now, but he did regret dragging Van and Con along. Not that he’d have been able to stop them if their families couldn’t. The Georges had always done nearly everything together.

What was done was done—wisdom, of a trite sort— and they’d all survived. Now, in part because of these wonderful women, Con and Van were even happy.

Happy. He rolled that in his mind like a foreign food, uncertain whether it was palatable or not. Whichever it was, it wasn’t on his plate. He was hardly the type for sweethearts and orange blossoms, and he would bring no one he cared for to share Hawkinville Manor with himself and his father. He had only returned there because the squire was crippled by a seizure.

If only he’d died of it.

He put that aside and let a buxom woman drag him into a country dance. Astonishing to realize that it was shy Elsie Dadswell, Elsie Manktelow now, with three children, a boy and two girls, and no trace of shyness that he could see. She was also clearly well on the way to a new baby.

Somewhat alarmed, he asked if she should be dancing so vigorously, but she laughed, linked arms, and nearly swung him off his feet. He laughed too and ricocheted down the line off strong, working-women’s arms.

His people. His to take care of, even if he had to fight his father to do it. Some of the cottages needed repairs and the riverbank needed work, but prizing money out of the squire’s hands these days was like getting a corpse to release a sword.

A blushing girl missing two front teeth asked him to dance next, so he did, glad to escape mundane concerns. He’d dealt with mass army movements over mountainous terrain, through killing storms. Surely the squire and Hawk in the Vale couldn’t defeat him. He flirted with the girl, disconcerted to discover that she was Will Ashbee’s daughter. Will was only a year older than he was.

Will had spent his life here, growing children and working through the cycles of the seasons. Hawk had lived in the death cycle of war. Marching, waiting, squabbling, fighting, then dealing with the broken and burying the dead.

How many men had he known who were now dead? It was not a tally he wanted to make. God had been good, and he, Van, and Con were all home.

Home.

The fiddles and whistles came to the end of their piece, and he passed his partner to a red-faced lad not much older than she was.

Love. For some it seemed as natural as the birds in spring. Perhaps some birds never quite got the hang of it, either.

He saw that a cricket match had started on the quiet side of the green. That was much less likely to stir maudlin thoughts, so he strolled over to watch and applaud.

The batter said, “Want a go, Major?”

Hawk was about to say no, but then he saw the glow in many eyes. Damnable as it was, he was a hero to most of these people. He and Van and Con were all heroes. They were all veterans, but most important, they had all been at the great battle of Waterloo a year ago.

So he shrugged out of his jacket and gave it to Bill Ashbee—Will’s father—to hold, then went to take the home-carved bat. It was part of his role here to take part. As son of the squire and the future squire himself, he was an important part of village life.

He wished he weren’t their hero, however. Two years after taking up a cornetcy in the cavalry, he’d been seconded to the Quartermaster General’s Department, and thus most of his war had been spent out of active fighting. The heroes were the men like Con and Van, who’d breathed the enemy’s breath and waded through blood. Or even Lord Darius Debenham, Con’s friend and an enthusiastic volunteer at Waterloo who’d died there.

But he was the major, while Con and Van had made only captain, and he knew the Duke of Wellington. Rather better than he’d wanted to at times. He took the bat and faced the bowler, who looked to be about fourteen and admirably determined to bowl him out if he could. Hawk hoped he could.

The first bowl went wide, but Hawk leaned forward and stopped it so it bumped across the rough grass into a fielder’s hands. He’d played plenty of cricket during the lazy times in the army. Surely he could manage this so as to please everyone.

He hit another ball a bit harder to make one run, leaving the other batter up. The bowler bowled that man out. Disconcerting not to be able to put a name to him. After a little while, Hawk was facing the determined bowler again, and this time the ball hurtled straight for the wicket. A slight twist of the bat allowed the ball to knock the bails flying, raising a great cheer from the onlookers and a mighty whoop of triumph from the young bowler.

Hawk grinned and went over to slap him on the back, then retrieved his coat.

Ashbee helped him on with it, but then stepped back with him out of the group around the game. “How’s the squire today, sir?”

“Improving. He’s out watching the festivities from a chair near the manor.”

Sitting in state, more likely, but Hawk kept his tone bland. The villagers didn’t need to feel a spill of bile from the Hawkinville family’s affairs.

“Good health to him, sir,” said Ashbee, in the same tone. Folly to think that the villagers didn’t know how things were, with the servants in the manor all village people except the squire’s valet.

And after all, men like Bill Ashbee could remember when handsome Captain John Gaspard arrived in the village to woo Miss Sophronia Hawkinville, the old squire’s only child, and wed her, agreeing to take the family name. They would also remember the lady’s bitter disillusion when her father’s death turned suitor into indifferent husband. After all, Hawk’s mother had not suffered in silence. But she’d suffered. What choice did she have?

And now she was dead, dead more than a year ago of the influenza that had swept through this area. Hawk hoped she had found peace elsewhere, and he regretted that he could not truly grieve. She had been the wronged party, but she had also been so absorbed in her own ill-usage that she’d had no time for her one child except to occasionally fight his father over him.

He realized that Ashbee was hovering because he wanted to say something.

Ashbee cleared his throat. “I was wondering if you’d heard anything about changes down along the river, sir.”

“You mean repairs.” Damn the squire. “I know there’s work needs doing—”

“No, sir, not that. But there was some men poking around the other day. When Granny Muggridge asked their business, they didn’t seem to want to say, but she heard them mention foundations and water levels.”

Hawk managed not to swear. What the devil was the squire up to now? He claimed there was no money to spare, which Hawk couldn’t understand, and now he was planning some improvement to the manor?

“I don’t know, Ashbee. I’ll ask my father.”

“Thank you, sir,” the man said, but he did not look markedly satisfied. “Thing is, sir, later on Jack Smithers from the Peregrine said he saw them talking to that Slade. The men had stabled horses at the Peregrine, you see, and Slade walked them from his house to the inn.”

Slade. Josiah Slade was a Birmingham iron founder who’d made a fortune casting cannons for the war. For some devil-inspired reason he’d retired here in Hawk in the Vale a year ago and become a crony of the squire’s. How, Hawk couldn’t imagine. The squire came from an aristocratic family and despised trade.

But somehow Slade had persuaded the squire to permit him to build a stuccoed monstrosity of a house on the west side of the green. It would not have been so out of place on the Marine Parade in Brighton, but in Hawk in the Vale it was like a tombstone in a garden. The squire had brushed off questions rather shiftily.

All was not right in Hawk in the Vale. Hawk had come home hoping never to have to dig in the dirt again, but it seemed it wasn’t to be so easy.

“I’ll look into it,” he said, adding, “Thank you.”

Ashbee nodded, mission complete.

Hawk headed back into the crowd, looking for Slade. The trouble here was that he was damnably impotent. In the army he’d had rank, authority, and the backing of his department. Here, he could do nothing without his father’s consent.

By his parents’ marriage contract, his father had complete control over the Hawkinville estate for life. He’d heard that his mother had been mad to have dashing Captain Gaspard, and had been the indulged apple of her father’s eye, but he wished they’d fought for better terms.

It was all a pointed lesson in the folly that could come from imagining oneself in love.

He saw Van and Maria dancing together, looking as if stars shone in each other’s eyes. Perhaps sometimes, for some people, love was real. He smiled at Con and Susan too, but caught Con in a contemplative mood, a somberness marking him that would have been alien a year ago, before Waterloo.

No, he’d been changed before Waterloo, changed by months at home, out of the army, thinking peace had come. That change, that gentling, was why the battle had hit him so hard. That and Lord Darius’s death. Amid so many deaths one more or less shouldn’t matter, but it didn’t work like that. He could remember weeping on and off for days over the loss of one friend at Badajoz.

He wished he could have found Dare’s body for Con. He’d done his damnedest.

He saw Susan touch Con’s arm, and could tell that the dark mood fled. Con would be all right.

He spotted Slade over by a beer barrel, holding court. There were always some willing to toady to a man of wealth, though Hawk was pleased to see that not many of the villagers fell into that category. Colonel Napier was there, and the new doctor, Scott. Outsiders.

Hawk had to admit that Slade was a trim man for his age, but he fit into the village as poorly as his house did. His clothes were perfect country clothes—today, a brown jacket, buff breeches, and gleaming top boots. The trouble was that they were too perfect, too new—as real as a masquerade shepherdess.

Hawk had heard Jack Smithers commenting on the horseflesh Slade kept stabled at the Peregrine. Top-class horses, but the man was afraid of them and when he went out riding he sat like a sack of potatoes. Slade clearly wanted to exchange his money for the life of a country gentleman, but why, in the name of heaven, here?

And what new monstrosity did he have planned?

Replace the old humpbacked bridge over the river with a copy in miniature of the Westminster one?

He strolled over and accepted a tankard, and a kiss, from Bill Ashbee’s wife.

“A grand affair, Major,” declared Slade, smiling, though Hawk had noted before that the man’s smiles to him were false. He had no idea why. Van and Con had both complained of the way Slade beamed at them, obviously trying to insinuate himself with the two local peers. A mere Hawkinville wasn’t worth toadying to?

“Perhaps we should have more such fetes,” Hawk said, simply to make conversation.

“That will be for the squire to say, will it not, sir?”

Hawk ran that through his mind, wondering what it meant. It clearly meant something more than the obvious.

“I doubt my father will object as long as he doesn’t have to foot the bill.”

“But he won’t be squire forever,” said Slade.

Hawk took a drink of ale, puzzled. And alert. He knew when people were running a subtext for their own amusement. “I won’t object either, Slade, on the same terms.”

“If that should arise, Major, you must apply to me for a loan. I assure you, I will always be happy to support the innocent celebrations of my rustic neighbors.”

Hawk glanced at the “rustic neighbors” nearby, and saw some rolled eyes and twitching lips. Slade was a figure of fun here, but Hawk’s deep, dark, well-tuned instincts were registering a very different message.

He toasted Slade with his tankard. “We rustic neighbors will always be suitably appreciative, sir!” He drained the ale, hearing a few suppressed chuckles and seeing Slade’s smile become fixed.

But not truly dimmed. No, the man still thought he had a winning hand. What the devil was the game, though?

Hawk turned to work his way through the crowd to where his father sat near the manor’s gates, his valet hovering. A few other people had brought out chairs to keep him company—newer village residents who doubtless saw themselves as too good to romp with their “rustic neighbors,” even for a lord’s wedding.

Hawk put that thought out of mind. They were harmless people. The spinsterish Misses Weatherby, whose only weapon was gossiping tongues. The vicar and his wife, who probably would prefer to be in the merriment but perhaps felt obliged by charity to sit with the invalid. That Mrs. Rowland, who claimed her husband was a distant relative of the squire’s. She was a sallow, dismal woman who dressed in drooping black, but he shouldn’t be uncharitable. Her husband still suffered from a Waterloo injury and she was in desperate need of charity.

The squire had given her free tenancy of some rooms at the back part of the corn factor’s, and freedom of produce from the home farm. In return, the woman was a frequent visitor, and she did seem to raise his father’s spirits, heaven knows why. Perhaps they talked of past Gaspard glory.

Hawk remembered that he’d meant to look in on Lieutenant Rowland to see if anything could be done for his health. No one in the village had so much as seen him. Another duty on a long list.

At the moment he was more interested in Slade. There was something amiss there.

So badly amiss that Hawk changed his mind and turned back to the celebration. He didn’t want to confront his father in public, but confront him he would, and squeeze the truth out of him if necessary. Whatever Slade was up to could be blocked. All the land in the village was owned by the manor.

He’d learned to put aside pending problems and grasp whatever pleasure the moment held, so he joined a laughing group of young men, who had once been lads of his own age to play with or fight with.

He kept an eye on the squire, however, and when his father was finally carried back into Hawkinville Manor, Hawk eased away from the revels and followed. He crossed the green and the road that circled it, and went through the tall gates that always stood open these days. Once those gates and the high encircling wall had been practical defenses. A tall stone tower still stood at one corner of the house, remnant of an even-sterner medieval home of the Hawkinvilles. He was aware of a strange instinct to close the gates and man the walls.

Against Slade?

The door opened and Mrs. Rowland came out, a basket on her arm. “Good evening, Major Hawkinville,” she said, as if good was an effort of optimism. She was a Belgian and spoke with an accent. “A pleasant wedding, was it not?”

“Delightful. How is your husband, Mrs. Rowland?”

She sighed. “Perhaps he grows a little stronger.”

“I must come and visit him soon.”

“How very kind. He has some days better than others. I hope it will be possible.” She curtsied and left with a nunlike step that made him wonder how she’d produced two children.

A very strange woman.

He shook his head and crossed the courtyard, evening-full of rose perfume and bird twitter. The hounds greeted him at the door, still not entirely used to him. Only old Galahad dated from his boyhood. Hawk had named him, in fact, to his father’s disgust at the romantical name.

The squire called him Gaily.

Perhaps it was a miracle that his father’s dogs didn’t bite him on sight.

When he walked in through the oak door his boots rapped on the flagstoned corridor. Strange the things that a person remembers. When he’d returned here two weeks ago, that sound—his boots on the floor along with the slight jingle of his spurs—had been a trigger for explosive memories, both good and bad.

There were other triggers. The smell of wax polish, which this close to the door blended with the roses in the courtyard. There had always been, as now, roses in the pottery bowl on the table near the door. In the winter, it was rose potpourri.

Hawkinville’s roses had perhaps been his mother’s savior. Over the years she had abandoned everything to her husband except her rose garden. Wryly, he could remember being jealous of roses.

When he was young. When he was very, very young.

He had always been practical, and had soon learned to do without family fondness. Anyway, he’d had the families of his friends to fill any void.

It would be different now. Perhaps that was what had tinged the day with slight melancholy. By some miracle, the close friendship of the Georges seemed to have survived, but it could never be the same, not now that Van and Con had another special person in their lives. Soon, no doubt, there would be children.

But it was still there, the rare and precious friendship. As close as brothers. As close as triplets, perhaps.

Perhaps that was the tug of Hawk in the Vale. It was the home of his closest friends. But here, in the entrance hall of the house in which he had been born, he knew it was more than that.

The Hawkinvilles had been here far longer than the house, but even so his family had worn tracks in these flagstones for four hundred years, and doubtless cursed the damp that rose from them when heavy rain soaked the earth beneath.

Perhaps his older ancestors hadn’t needed to duck beneath some of the dark oak lintels, though at least one had held the nickname Longshanks. Hawkinvilles had made marks in the paneling and woodwork, sometimes by accident and sometimes on purpose. There was a pistol ball embedded in the parlor wainscoting from an unfortunate disagreement between brothers during the Civil War.

He’d thought he didn’t care. Over the years in the army, he could not remember experiencing homesickness. A fierce desire at times to be away from war, a longing for peace and England, but not homesickness for this place.

It was a shock, therefore, to be falling in love like this. No, not falling. It was as if an unrecognized love had leaped from the shadows and sunk in fangs.

Hawk in the Vale. Hawkinville Manor. He reached out to lay his hand on the oak doorjamb around the front parlor door. The wood felt warm, almost alive, beneath his hand.

My God, he could be happy here.

If not for his father.

He pulled his hand away. Bad luck to wish for a death, and he didn’t actively do so. But he couldn’t escape the fact that his dreams depended on stepping into a dead man’s shoes. There’d be no happiness for him here as long as the squire lived.

He went up the stairs—too narrow for a gentleman, his father had always grumbled—and rapped on his father’s door.

The valet, Fellows, opened it. “The squire is preparing for bed, sir.”

“Nevertheless, I must have a word with him.”

With a long-suffering look, Fellows let him in. God knows what the squire told his man, but Fellows had no high opinion of him.

“What now?” the squire demanded, his slightly twisted mouth still making the words clearly enough. Perhaps it was the damaged mouth that made him seem to sneer. But no, he’d sneered at Hawk all his life.

The seizure had affected his right arm and leg, too, and he still had little strength in either, but at a glance he did not appear much touched. He was still a handsome man in his late fifties, with blond hair touched with silver and the fine-boned features he’d given to Hawk. He kept to the old style, and wore his hair tied back in a queue. On formal occasions he even powdered it. He was sitting in a chair in his shirtsleeves now, however, his feet in slippers. Not particularly elegant.

Hawk was blunt. “Is Slade planning more building here?”

His father twitched, then looked away. “Why?”

Guilt, for sure.

But then the squire looked back, arrogance in place. “What business is it of yours? I still rule here, boy.”

Eleven years in the army teaches self-control. A number of those years spent working close to the Duke of Wellington perfects it. “It is my inheritance, sir,” Hawk said, “and thus my business. What is Slade planning, and why are you permitting it?”

“How should I know what that man intends?”

“ ‘That man’? You had him to dinner two nights ago.”

“A politeness to a neighbor.” He didn’t look away again, but Hawk had questioned more skillful deceivers than his father, and he could see the lie behind it.

“I was told that there were men here who sounded like surveyors studying the area along the river and that they later spoke to Slade. What interest could Slade have down here? There is no available land.”

His father glared at him, then snapped, “Brandy!”

Fellows rushed to obey, protesting all the while that brandy was not allowed. The squire took a mouthful and said, “Very well. You might as well know. Slade’s planning to tear down this place, and the cottages too, and build himself a grand riverside villa.”

Hawk almost laughed. “That’s absurd.”

Into the silence, he added, “He does not have the power to do that.”

Doubt and fear stirred. His father, for all his faults, was not a fool, nor had his illness turned him mad. “What have you done?”

The squire took a sip of brandy, managing to look down his long, straight nose, even in the chair. It was posing, though. Hawk could see that. “I have gained a peerage for us.”

“From Slade?” Hawk couldn’t remember ever feeling so at a loss.

“Of course not. You are supposed to be clever, George. Use your wits! It is a title from my own family. Viscount Deveril.” He rolled it off his tongue. “It was thought to be extinct when the late Lord Deveril died last year, but I proved my descent from the original viscount.”

“My congratulations,” Hawk said with complete indifference, but then his notoriously infallible memory threw up facts. “Deveril! By God, Father, the name’s a byword for all that is evil. Why the devil would you want a title like that?”

The squire reddened. “It’s a viscountcy, you dolt. I’ll take my place in Parliament! Attend court.”

“There is no court anymore. The king is mad.”

Like his father?

The squire shrugged. “I am reverting to my rightful family name as well, of course. I am now John Gaspard, soon to be Viscount Deveril.”

“Are you also leaving here?” Hawk asked. He kept his tone flat, but it was hard. Unlikely sunshine was breaking in. My God, was all he wanted about to drop into his hands?

But then he remembered Slade.

“What has Slade to do with this? You can’t—” Words actually failed him for a moment. “You aren’t allowed to sell the estate, Father.”

“Of course I have not sold it,” his father declared haughtily. After a moment, however, he added, “It is merely pledged.”

Hawk put out a hand to the back of a nearby chair to steady himself. He knew every word of the besotted marriage settlement that had given his father power here. His father could use the estate to raise money.

It wasn’t an outrageous provision, since the administrator of an estate might have need to raise money for improvements or to cover a disastrous season. His grandfather had been sensible enough to have it worded so that Hawkinville could not be staked in gambling, or used to pay off gaming debts. Not that that had ever been an issue. His father’s flaws did not include gambling.

“Pledged against loans?” he asked.

“Precisely.”

“I must admit, sir, that I am at a loss as to how you have sunk into debt. The estate is not rich, but it has always provided for the family adequately.”

“It is quite simple, my boy,” said his father almost jovially. It was a mask. “I needed money to gain the title! Research. Lawyers. You know how it is.”

“Yes, I know how it is. So you borrowed from Slade. But surely if you have the title, you have property that comes with it to pay him off.”

“That was my plan.” The squire’s face pinched. “Deveril—rot his black heart—willed most of his worth away.”

“It wasn’t entailed?”

“Only the estate.”

“Well—”

“Which seems unproductive.”

Hawk took a breath. “Let me get this clear. You have mortgaged this estate to Josiah Slade to get money to claim one that is valueless.”

“It’s a title! My family’s title. I would have paid more.”

“Borrowed more, you mean. How much?”

Over the first shock now, Hawk was beginning to arrange facts and make calculations. He had some money of his own. He could borrow elsewhere to pay off Slade.

“Twenty thousand pounds.”

It was like being hit by a pistol ball. “Twenty thousand pounds? No one could possibly spend that much to claim a title.”

The Hawkinville estate brought in only a few thousand a year.

“I have been pursuing Deveril’s money as well, of course.”

“Even so. Your lawyers would have to have been eating gold quills for breakfast.”

“Investments,” the squire muttered.

“Investments? In what?”

“All kinds of things. Slade does well off them. There was a foreigner here a while back—Celestin. He’d made a fortune at it. Then Slade turned up with some good ideas…”

Maria’s dead husband, who had led Van’s father to ruin this way. But Slade—Slade was the active villain here.

“So Slade lent you money and then lent you more to invest to earn it back?”

Twenty thousand pounds.

An impossible sum, and throttling Slade would not fix the disaster.

Hawk forced his mind to look for any possibility.

“How much did Deveril leave that was willed elsewhere?”

“Close to a hundred thousand. You see why I had to have it!”

“I see why we have to have it now. What reason do you have for thinking you can overturn the will?”

“Because it gave everything to a scheming chit he planned to marry, by a handwritten will that was certainly false.”

“Then why don’t you have the money?”

The squire knocked back his brandy and held the glass out to be refilled. “Because the poxy chit has all the Deveril money to pay for lawyers, that’s why! And some plaguey high-flying supporters. Her guardian’s the Duke of Belcraven, no less. The Marchioness of Arden, wife to the duke’s heir, stands her friend. I wouldn’t be surprised if the little whore has the damned Regent in her pocket.”

“It would have to be a very large pocket,” Hawk remarked, his mind whirling on many levels.

Twenty thousand pounds. It couldn’t be borrowed, even from friends. Especially from friends. Even if they could raise it, it would take Hawkinville a generation to pay it off, and only by squeezing the tenants hard.

His father laughed at his comment. “I have to say, you’re taking this better than I expected, George.”

Hawk looked at his father. “I am taking this extremely badly, sir. I despise you for your folly and self-indulgence. Did you ever give a thought to the welfare of your people here?”

“They are not my people!”

“You’ve been pleased enough to call them such for over a quarter century. Families have lived in those cottages for centuries, Father. And do you care nothing for this house?”

“Less than nothing! It’s a plaguey farmhouse, for all you like to call it a manor.”

Hawk wished his father was well. Perhaps then he might feel justified in hitting him. “And Slade will be squire here, since the title goes with the property. You are selling everyone here for your own petty ends.”

His father reddened, but raised his chin. “I do not care! What is this place to me?”

“So what is? The Deveril estate? It’s going to be a damn chilly comfort with no money to go with it, isn’t it?”

His father glared, but said, “You have a point. That is why I have come up with a solution. You are not a bad-looking man, and you have a certain address. Marry the heiress.”

Hawk laughed. “Marry a ‘poxy chit’ to rescue you? I think not.”

“To rescue Hawk in the Vale, George.”

It hit home, and his father knew it.

All the same, every instinct revolted. He had made one vow, many years ago—that he would not repeat his parents’ mistake. He would not marry unless he was sure of harmony. He’d accepted that it meant that he would likely never marry, but that would be better for everyone than more bitterness and bile.

“I have a better idea,” he said. “Do you have any cogent reasons to believe the will is false? What arguments have your lawyers made in court?”

His father glowered, but he said, “It was handwritten, and it left all his money to this girl, to come under her complete control at twenty-one.”

“Absurd.”

“Quite. And the heiress is one Clarissa Greystone. You may not have heard of the Greystones. Drunkards and gamblers, every one.”

“And yet you failed to break it. Why, apart from better lawyers and influence in high places? Our courts are not so corrupt, I hope, that they would overrule reason.”

“Because the will was in Deveril’s hand and found in his locked desk with no sign of a break-in.”

“Witnesses?”

“Two men in his employ, but they went missing after his murder.”

“Murder?” Hawk repeated. “How did he die?”

“Stabbed in a back slum in London. His body wasn’t found for some days.”

“Good God. So he was murdered and this Greystone chit has all his money and no one has been able to prove she did it?” He laughed. “And you think I will marry a woman like that?”

“That, or lose Hawkinville, dear boy.”

Hawk gripped the back of the chair tightly. “You’re finding a kind of satisfaction in this, aren’t you? Does it give you so much pleasure to see me wriggling on this hook?”

The twisted smile was definitely a sneer now. “It gives me pleasure to see you taken down a peg or two. So superior you’ve been, especially since returning home. You’ve always despised me for marrying for money, haven’t you? Well, what are you going to do now the shoe’s on your foot, eh?”

“What am I going to do?” Short of throttle you? “I’m going to prove that damn will false, and if possible see the Greystone creature hang for murder. And then, I hope, I’ll see you out of here, and begin to repair the lifetime’s damage that you’ve done.”

The sneer became somewhat fixed, but his father disdained to answer.

“When does the loan come due?” Hawk asked. His father laughed. “The first of August.”

“Two months!” Control. Control. Hawk carefully let go of the chair. “Then I had best get on with it, hadn’t I?”

It was only as he left the stuffy room that another disastrous aspect hit him. Titles were hereditary. One day he would have to be Lord Deveril.

For the first time he sincerely wished his father a long, long life.

But away from here. At his precious Deveril estates. Instinctively he sought his mother’s rose garden, even though this mess was her fault. He’d heard that there had been solid, reliable local men courting her.

He shook his head. That was all past history. For the present and the future, the Hawk had one more hunt to fly, and as reward, a golden future tantalized.

If he could prove the will a forgery and get the money for his father, the new Lord Deveril would move away from here. After paying off Slade, of course.

Twenty thousand pounds. It was a sum that staggered him, but he put it aside. Five times that much waited if he did his job right.

Then he would have Hawkinville. His father called it a farmhouse, and he was right. It was two stories and contained only four bedchambers. The ceilings were low, the fixtures practical, the “grounds” merely the courtyard and a garden at the back.

But it was his piece of heaven. He would not let it be torn down, nor would he let Slade rip the heart out of Hawk in the Vale village.

He walked back out onto the green. A few people called to him, waving, with no idea that their world was threatened. He waved back but turned to look at the manor house and the line of cottages.

Most of the front doors were open, with children running in and out. Old people, who had lived in their cottage for most or all of their lives, sat hunched on chairs, watching their generations enjoy themselves. Mothers, babies on hip or even at the breast, chatted together as they kept an eye on their families.

None of the cottages had a straight line, and most of the thatch needed work, but that was all the responsibility of the manor, not the tenants. No roses bloomed at the front because the cottages opened right onto the road around the green and faced north, but he knew that in the long gardens running down to the river roses bloomed among the well-tended vegetables that fed these families. He watched Slade strolling around, beaming, clearly— in his own mind at least—already the master here. Perhaps he was envisioning a tidy clearing, a modern improvement.

A pure and simple urge to murder held Hawk rigid for a moment. But no. That would not serve. What if he couldn’t prove the will false? Then he would prove the Greystone chit a murderess. That would work just as well to throw doubt on the will. It probably wouldn’t even be hard for a man like him. His work in the war had included investigations, and he’d been very good at it.

He’d hoped never to unleash the Hawk again. Those investigations had left unpleasant memories, and sometimes pushed the borders of his honor.

But this, again, was war. He made a silent vow that greed and folly would not destroy Hawk in the Vale. Chapter Two

June 18, 1816, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Clarissa Greystone stared at Miss Mallory in shock. “You are saying I have to leave?”

Miss Mallory, neat and round, took her hand to pat it. “Now, now, dear. I am not throwing you out into the street. You have been welcome here for the past year, but that year is nearly over. And this is a school, not a home for stray ladies. I have been in communication with the duke, and with Beth Arden, and both agree that you must begin to take your place in the world.”

They were in Miss Mallory’s private parlor in the school, a cozy room warm with potpourri and lavender linen that had always held pleasant memories for Clarissa. Miss Mallory had an office, and that was where a girl went to be scolded for misbehavior. The parlor was for special teas and treats.

“But where am I to go? The school has been as good as a home to me since I was ten.”

“That is what you must think about, dear. I’m sure Beth would be glad of your company in time.”

In time, because Beth Arden was expecting her first child soon. But even in time, Clarissa didn’t want to live with the Ardens. She was fond of Beth, who had been her favorite teacher here, and who had helped her last year in London, but she disliked Lord Arden. He was a terrifying brute.

“Or the duke has offered you a home at Belcraven Park.”

Clarissa almost shuddered. She’d visited there once to meet the man who had taken over her guardianship from her father. The duke and duchess—especially the duchess—had been very kind, but they were strangers, and Belcraven was a place of such massive magnificence she could never imagine living there.

“I think I would prefer a small house with a companion. Perhaps here in Cheltenham.”

“No.” Miss Mallory’s voice was the one that all girls in the school learned to heed. “Not here in Cheltenham. You must start afresh. But a house and a suitable companion is a possibility. In London, perhaps. You should rejoin society, my dear.”

“Rejoin society!” Clarissa heard her voice climb too high. “Miss Mallory, I was never part of it. I was a Greystone, and Lord Deveril’s betrothed. Believe me, few doors were open. No, I will live quietly. Perhaps in Bath.”

It was a dismal prospect. She’d spent most of her school holidays with her grandmother in Bath. Lady Molson was dead now, but the place was doubtless as stuffy as ever.

But safe. Perhaps.

“Or in a little village,” she added. That was better. There she’d be less likely to be recognized as what society called the Devil’s Heiress.

A shudder passed through her at the memories the name brought back. She rose. “I will think about it, Miss Mallory. When must I leave?”

Miss Mallory rose too, and gave her a hug. “Oh, my dear, there is no great hurry. We simply want you to begin to think on it. But I advise you not to try to hide. You have your life before you, and your fortune can make it a good one. Not many young women have the choices you have. It would be a sin to waste them.”

Miss Mallory was a follower of Mary Wollstonecraft, author of The Rights of Woman, and she judiciously shared those beliefs with the pupils in her school, so Clarissa knew what she meant. Beth Arden was also an adherent, and had discussed these matters in more detail last year. After Deveril’s death.

She should be delighted to be free.

It was all very well in theory to rage against the shackles of masculine oppression, but as Clarissa left the parlor she couldn’t help thinking that it might be nice to be taken care of now and then. First a father, and then a husband—if one had a good father, not one like Sir Peter Greystone.

As for a husband, she sighed. She had little faith in the notion of a good husband. A woman put her fate so completely in his hands, and he could be a tyrant.

Like Lord Arden.

Clarissa would never forget the awful argument she had overheard, and running into the room to find Beth on the floor, clearly having been driven there by Lord Arden’s blow. The next day Beth had had an awful bruise.

She’d said it was over, was a problem that had been dealt with, but it had been a lesson to Clarissa. Handsome men could be whited sepulchers. On her twenty-first birthday she would have a hundred thousand pounds or more. Folly indeed to put it into the hands of a man, and herself totally in his power.

Up the stairs and along the familiar corridor, every corner of the school was familiar. She wouldn’t exactly say precious. Last year she’d been desperate to leave here and take up her life. Even though she’d known her parents didn’t care for her, she’d leaped at the chance to go to London. To have a season. To attend balls, routs, parties.

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 been 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.

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.

“Watch the parade, Horatia,” Clarissa commanded “It’s nearly over.”

Horatia pulled a face, but obeyed.

After a few moments Clarissa risked a glance at the rake. He was looking ahead, not at her.

Victory! He knew his evil plans were thwarted.

She smiled to herself at sounding like a character in an overly dramatic play, but she was feeling victorious. See, it wasn’t so very difficult to deal with importunate men.

One skirmish won was enough for the day, however. Thank heavens this would soon be over and she could herd her flock back to the school.

As soon as the last marchers passed and the crowd began to break up, she pulled the four younger girls into a bunch around her, making sure that Horatia stayed close too. The rake moved on without a backward look.

Folly to feel disappointment at that.

“Come along,” she said briskly. “It’s all over now.”

Anxious to be done with this, she nudged her group into the thinning crowd. It wasn’t as easy going as she’d expected. The crowd had not truly thinned out. Instead, it swirled chaotically.

When they’d hurried here everyone had been streaming in one direction, but now people went all ways at once. It was market day and many were heading there, but others wanted to get to the taverns, to homes, or to the fairground that had been set up on the outskirts of town.

The mob pushed and pulled, like a monster with a hundred hands snagging at one child or another. Ricarda began to cry again. She let go of Lucilla and clutched Clarissa’s skirts. Clarissa reached out to keep Jane and Georgina close.

Then a mighty voice rang out. The town crier. “Oyez! Oyez! Mr. Huxtable, landlord of the Duke of Wellington, is rolling out three casks of free ale so all can toast our noble heroes!”

Oh, no! As the crowd’s mood changed, Clarissa was already gathering her flock close. Lucilla, her butterfly attention caught by something, swirled off between an enormous man and two elbowing lads. Clarissa just man-aged to seize the back of the girl’s cloak and haul he close—at some risk to the poor child’s neck!

She shed her own cloak, letting it fall to be trampled “Hold tight to my skirt!” she commanded. “Jane, Georgina, do the same. Horatia, help me keep everyone together. We’ll stay still for a moment to let the crowd pass.”

She put every scrap of calm and confidence that she could muster into her words, and the girls did press close but staying still was easier said than done. Most of the crowd seemed hell-bent on the free ale, and the rest were struggling to get free.

Rocked and buffeted, she was seized by blank panic.

Cries and screams all around flung her back to other screams, and blood.

To the thunder of a pistol.

Shattering glass.

Blood, so much blood…

And a woman quoting Lady Macbeth. “Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?‘

Darkness crept in at the edge of her vision.

No. Stay in the present. The girls need you. You will not fall apart again in a crisis!

She pinched her left hand hard to get her wits back then clutched terrified Ricarda close. She began to ease her little group sideways to a nearby brick wall when perhaps the mob would flow past them.

“Stay close!” she yelled. “Hold on!” Her voice seemed swallowed by the cacophony around, but the girls were all with her, clinging, dragging on her arms and gown.

The press of squirming, elbowing bodies had he sweating with heat and terror, but she would not weaken Lose their footing here and they could be trampled. The stench turned her stomach. Her foot slid on something squishy, almost making her fall. She prayed it was a: innocent as a piece of dropped fruit.

One, two, three, four, five.

Horatia—good girl—had wrapped an arm around her waist so they were locked into a huddled unit.

Then her bonnet was knocked forward over her right eye, so she couldn’t see from that side at all. She didn’t dare raise her hand to straighten it for fear of losing one of the children. The crush was so tight, she’d never get her arm down again.

All the younger girls were wailing now, and she wanted to wail herself. But she was the protector here. “It’s all right,” she said meaninglessly. “Hold tight. It will be all right.”

When someone crushed into them from behind, she didn’t hesitate to jab back with her elbow.

There was an “Ooof!”; then a strong arm came around them and a voice said, “Hold back, hold back, make way, make way there.” He didn’t shout—in the tumult there would be no point—but somehow his commanding tone seemed to cut through and create a moment’s pause so they could slide sideways.

The crowd sealed tight behind them, but his voice opened the way until they landed entangled against the wall.

There was no indent here, however, no doorway to press back into. No barrier except a simple iron lamppost. Had they fallen out of the pot into the fire? They could be crushed. Terrified screams said that might be happening elsewhere in the maddened crowd.

But the man grasped the lamppost and made himself a barrier that the crowd must flow around, creating a tiny pocket of sanity.

Clarissa held her crying charges closer, trembling. “It’s all right, dears,” she said again. “Don’t be afraid. This kind man is making sure we don’t get hurt.”

It was, of course, the wicked rake, to whom she’d been so cold. Horatia had better instincts. He was a true hero. He had rescued them and was now their protector. Chapter Three

Clarissa could see only the man’s back, for he was facing the throng. She could see the faces of the passing crowd, however—young, old, angry, fearful, excited, greedy, impatient. She watched them see him, see him as a barrier to the direction they wanted to take, then shift away as if he wore spikes.

She wondered what expression he was using to warn them off, but she could only be grateful. Now that she had a measure of safety her knees felt like limp lettuce. If not for the girls she might have sagged to the ground and given in to tears herself.

But she’d done it! She’d been terrified, the memories had tried to overwhelm her, but she hadn’t collapsed. Instead, she’d surely helped save them all. Though still shaking and close to tears, she felt as if great weights had fallen away, leaving her light enough to fly.

She could face fear and survive.

A woman was suddenly pushed beside them. A desperate young countrywoman in coarse, disheveled clothes with a screaming baby in her arms. She did collapse, her legs giving way so that she sank down, back against the wall. Even Ricarda stopped wailing to stare at her.

Clarissa couldn’t help thinking about fleas, but the mother needed help as much as she and the girls did. As the woman lowered her dirty shift and put the frantic baby to her big breast, Clarissa looked away, looked again at their savior and guardian.

She didn’t generally allow herself to study men, but since his back was to her, she could indulge.

He was tall—her head barely came up to his shoulders. His olive coat lay smooth across broad shoulders and down his back, suggesting a lean, strong body. He stood with strong legs braced apart.

She ripped her gaze away. Studying a man like that was not only immodest, it was dangerous. Looks said nothing about a man’s true qualities, but they could weaken a woman’s mind.

Yet she couldn’t resist sneaking another look. He’d lost his hat in the riot, revealing disordered honey-brown hair.

She remembered earlier assessing him as a London beau. She’d sensed that danger, but never imagined him the stuff of which effective heroes are made. Another lesson about judging by appearances.

She suddenly realized that the nature of the crowd had shifted like a change in the air, danger fading, shock lingering. Pressure eased as people began to mill around, many pale and dazed while others sharpened to bring order and assistance. Through wails, and the cries of parents trying to locate their children, she heard the beat of a drum, doubtless calling the soldiers to riot control.

She quickly counted, even though she knew they were all safe. One, two, three, four, five. She found a smile for Horatia, whose bonnet was down her back, revealing all her lovely curls, but who clearly was not thinking of that at all. “Thank you. You were magnificent.”

The girl smiled back, proud but a bit wobbly.

Horatia, too, had probably learned in a test of fire that she was braver than she’d thought.

“Quite an adventure, girls,” Clarissa said in as light a tone as she could manage. “Let go of me now and help one another to straighten bonnets and bodices.”

They did so, and with Horatia’s encouragement, even began to giggle a bit as they repaired one another’s appearance. Clarissa made sure her own gown was straight, wondering what had happened to her cloak. She took off her crooked bonnet, using it to fan herself for a moment before putting it back on.

The man turned.

She was caught hatless and staring, because there was nothing grim and indomitable about him. Instead, he was all rake again, with a wicked glint in those blue eyes and a slight smile on his well-shaped lips.

And a wavery, warm feeling skimmed over her.

None of that! No amount of willpower, however, could halt her blush, so she turned away as she settled her bonnet back firmly on her head.

No amount of willpower could stop her from wishing she looked her inadequate best. She tried to at least tuck her hair away neatly, knowing it was a forlorn gesture. It was unruly by nature, and it had just been given an excellent opportunity to riot.

She firmly tied the ribbons, then looked at him. “I don’t know how to thank you, sir. We might have been in terrible trouble without your assistance.”

“I was pleased to be able to help.”

She was braced to resist flirtation, but he hunkered down in front of the countrywoman. “Are you all right, ma’am?”

Well, of course.

Men didn’t flirt with her.

All the same, a foolish part of her envied the mother, who was blooming under his attention. “Oh, yes, sir,” she said in a country accent. “So kind, sir! I thought for sure I was to be crushed to death, or have poor Joanie here torn from my arms.”

But then her eyes widened and she paled as she tried to push herself up one-handed.

He helped her, not seeming conscious of her half-exposed breast or the attached suckling infant.

“My littl’uns!” she gasped, her hand going up to push straggling brown hair off her face. “They’re out there somewhere. I must go—”

“No, no,” he said calmly. “Tell me what they look like and I’ll find them for you. What of your man?”

“He’s back tending the cows for Squire Bewsley, sir. There be three of ‘em, sir. Three boys, and they do stay together if they can. Four, seven, and ten. All brown hair.”

Clarissa wondered how anyone could find three urchins on that description, but the man didn’t seem daunted.

“Names?” he asked, as Clarissa looked out at the street, hoping three young brown-haired lads were in sight.

“Matt, Mark, and Lukey,” the woman said, and even produced a smile when she added, “Little Joanie was going to be John.”

The man grinned. “Stay here, and I’ll return soon to report. Hopefully with your little evangelists in tow.”

His grin, Clarissa discovered, could shatter a lady’s common sense. How fortunate that Horatia wasn’t looking. She’d be in a swoon.

He turned to leave, but suddenly Clarissa couldn’t bear for this strange encounter to end like that. “Sir, could I know the name of our rescuer?”

He turned back and bowed. “Major Hawkinville, ma’am.” He raised his hand to his hat, then said, “The deuce. I wonder where it is.”

“Wherever, I fear it will be sadly flattened.”

Then she found herself sharing a smile that left her feeling positively light-headed.

“Better a hat than people,” he said, those richly blue eyes on hers, making her heart race.

How rash she had been to come to names with a man she knew nothing about. Especially with one who seemed able to spin her out of common sense with a look.

It was done now, however, so she curtsied and gave him her name in return. Suddenly at a loss to describe her status, she added, “Of Miss Mallory’s School here.”

He turned to the wide-eyed girls. “As are you all, I suppose. All right?”

“Yes, sir,” the girls chorused adoringly.

Oh, no. Horatia was gazing at him as if he were a god, and now the man could probably claim to have been introduced. Clarissa realized that she’d rashly created a very improper situation, and she winced at what Miss Mallory would think of this whole affair.

“Were you at Waterloo, Major Hawkinville?” Horatia asked breathlessly.

“Yes, I was.”

“In the cavalry?” asked Jane.

“No.”

Before anyone else could ask a question, however, he bowed farewell. “But now, ladies, I must be off to other battles.”

And thus he was gone, striding away through the dazed stragglers, looking, to Clarissa’s dazzled eyes, like a hero among lesser men. Finding three young strangers in the chaos seemed impossible, but if anyone could do it, Major Hawkinville could.

Definitely a hero, but judging by his swift departure, one who sought no glory in war.

Not cavalry, so infantry. He had shown great steadiness in the face of the crowd. She could imagine him leading his men to assault the walls of an impenetrable fortress, or keeping them steady in the face of a French cavalry charge.

“Wasn’t he handsome, Clarissa?” Jane sighed. “And one of our noble soldiers!”

“A warrior angel,” Georgina said. “I shall draw a picture of him as Saint George when we get back.”

Clarissa didn’t point out that Saint George was not one of the angels. This wasn’t the right time for a lesson, and she wasn’t a teacher, thank heavens.

“A major,” sighed Horatia. “Mentioned in dispatches a dozen times. He must have met the Duke of Wellington.”

“Doubtless.” But Clarissa was shocked that her thoughts had been so like those of the younger girls. “Come,” she said crisply. “We must return to school. If news of this crush has reached them, they’ll be worried.”

After their fright, the girls made no trouble on the return journey. Clarissa chose a roundabout route that should avoid any problems and determined to put any thought of handsome Major Hawkinville out of her mind.

That was hard to do when the others were determined to chatter about him. There was a great deal of romantic babble, despite their youth. Horatia was silent, probably drifting in a true hero-worshiping ecstasy.

Clarissa supposed that wouldn’t hurt. She’d certainly done the same at times.

Florence Babbington’s handsome brother had rendered half the school breathless when he’d come to take his sister out to tea. Clarissa remembered writing a poem in his honor, and she’d only been twelve at the time.

O noble man, tall, chaste, and bold. So like a gallant knight of old, Turn on me once, lest I expire, Those obsidian orbs full of manly fire.

Her lips twitched at the memory. What nonsense people could create in the throes of romantic fervor.

Then there’d been the groom at Brownbutton’s livery.

The stables were behind the school, separated by a high wall. From the attic windows, however, a person could see over the wall, and it was a wicked amusement for the senior girls. A stalwart young groom had been a special treat two years ago. He’d generally worked without his jacket, and with his sleeves rolled up, revealing wonderfully strong brown forearms.

One deliciously naughty day Maria Ffoulks had caught him working without his shirt. She’d run to gather as many of the senior girls as she could, and they’d pressed to every available window for about ten minutes until he’d gone into the stables and emerged covered again.

That hadn’t been infatuation, however. It had been more like worship from afar. Worship of the male of the species, and of the mysterious, forbidden feelings he stirred in them all.

That sort of thing was probably why she’d been such a ninny as to hope when her parents had finally summoned her for a London season.

A ninny. She’d been in danger of being ninny over Major Hawkinville, too. “Come along, girls,” she said briskly. “Cook was making Sally Lunns when we left.” Mention of cakes removed any tendency to dawdle.

Hawk moved swiftly down the Promenade, following the flotsam of the crowd toward the Wellington Inn. The innkeeper deserved to be flogged for causing this mayhem.

He guessed the three boys would have gone along with the crowd, and as long as they kept their feet would have come out of it all right. He passed some people being attended to, but none of the injuries seemed serious. The only boy he saw among them was clearly being attended to by his mother.

A bunch of lads ran by, but they all seemed happy and purposeful, and none particularly fit the description of the evangelists. A wail caught his attention and he turned to look, but then a man scooped up the crying child and carried her away.

There were people scattered around, many of them disheveled or dazed, some on the ground. Since they were all being cared for, he followed the trail again, part of his mind scanning for the boys, part assessing the puzzle that was Clarissa Greystone.

A thief and a murderer?

Not a whore called Pepper, that was for sure, not even by deception.

The image of her face rose up, blushing, freckled, frankly thanking him for his help. No, she wasn’t a beauty, but astonishingly, his heart had missed a beat there. One of these quirks that comes after battle, and she had been remarkably gallant.

Damnation, he must not let her under his guard! What was to say she hadn’t played the whore, and wasn’t playing a part now?

Because no one played a part in battle. In battle, the truth about a person spilled along with the blood and guts, and that riot had been a minor battle.

He paused to question two brown-haired lads hunkered down to play with ants in the road, but they said they lived in a nearby house. A blond urchin wandered by eating a plum, not seeming to be in distress other than the juice all over her hands and dress. Hands on hips, he looked over the untidy groups of people but didn’t see any children who seemed likely.

He spotted a young brown-haired boy standing tearfully alone and went over to him. “What’s your name, lad?”

The boy looked up, knuckling his eyes. “Sam, sir.”

Hawk suppressed a sigh. “Who were you with, Sam?”

“Me dad, sir. I lost ‘im, sir. He’ll be cross.”

This wasn’t one of his targets, but he couldn’t leave him here. Hawk held out a hand. “Why not come along with me? I’m going to check out the Wellington. Perhaps your father’s having a drink there.”

A damp, sticky hand wrapped trustingly around his, and they progressed down the street. Soon he gathered two frightened sisters, and another lad who was older but seemed slow-witted. Then stray children began to attach themselves like burrs collected during a march through rough country, and he eventually found the evangelists.

“Your mother’s worried about you,” he told them.

“We couldn’t help it, sir,” the wild-eyed eldest said. “And we stuck together.”

Hawk ruffled his hair and looked around at his collection, all putting their absolute trust in him.

Clarissa Greystone would probably trust him too—if she was as honest as she seemed to be. The encounter had tangled all his threads, but she was still his only lead to the heart of the conspiracy, and he had to pursue her.

Once he dealt with his present duties.

He and his burrs turned a corner and faced the Duke of Wellington Inn. The Great Man would not be amused.

The place was jam-packed, with free-ale patrons spilling out into the street in all directions, many of them already drunk. He spotted the town crier leaning boozily against a horse trough, and guided his squadron there.

He pulled out a notebook and began to take down names.

When he had them all, he ripped out the page and commanded the town crier’s attention. “These children are lost. You are to go around town announcing their names, and that they are to be found here.”

He used his military voice, and the rotund man stood straight. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Start with the Lord Wellington.”

In moments, the man’s mighty bellow was breaking through the din. Hawk turned to the children. “Stay here. Your parents will find you.” He put the oldest boy in charge of making sure the little ones didn’t wander, then took Matt, Mark, and Lukey back to their mother.

He was not surprised to find that the heiress and her charges had left. That was no problem. He now had an excellent excuse to call on the school. Chapter Four

Clarissa settled the girls at their tea under the eye of the cook, then carried a tea tray upstairs. She hoped Althea was recovered enough to talk.

As she put down the tray on the small spindle-legged table by the window, she thought of how much she would miss this room. She’d once itched to be out of school and in the world. Now it and the walled garden were her comfort and safety.

But then she realized that the wall was the one around Brownbutton’s livery stable. From this low level, however, she couldn’t see into the yard. Muscular men could be wandering around there stark naked and she wouldn’t know.

Safer so.

Safe. But she was going to be forced to leave.

Someone knocked at the door, and Clarissa opened it. “Come in, Thea. I was just going to invite you for tea.” But then she realized that there was something different about her friend. “You’ve put off your mourning.”

Althea was in a pretty gown of cream sprigged with pale blue flowers, and she looked lovely. Even more lovely. Suave Major Hawkinville would probably trip over his feet if he set eyes on Althea looking like this.

Clarissa didn’t like to examine why that depressed her.

It was over. They would never meet again.

“It’s been a year,” Althea said, smoothing the soft fabric. “Gareth would not have wanted me to wear dull colors forever. He… he liked this dress.” She pulled out a handkerchief and pressed it to her eyes, then blew her nose. “It will get easier.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” said Clarissa helplessly. “Come and have some tea.”

Althea sat and Clarissa poured. “Today must be difficult for you.” She offered the cake.

Althea took a piece, her eyes still glossed with tears. “For you, too.”

Oh, lord.

Clarissa had let Althea think they shared a bond of mourning. It had just happened, and then she hadn’t known how to set things right. It had been impressed upon her that no one must know the truth about Lord Deveril’s death, and that it would be better if she didn’t show her relief over it.

Now, suddenly, however, it was intolerable to be lying to Althea, and after all, who could think that she didn’t loathe Lord Devil?

“An anniversary,” she said, “but not a sad one.”

Althea stared.

“I’m sorry for letting you think otherwise. I— I never wanted to marry Lord Deveril. He was my parents’ choice. I have never grieved for him.”

“Never?” Althea asked, eyes widening. “Not at all?”

“Never.” Clarissa thought for a moment and then admitted a little more. “In fact, I was glad when he died. More than glad. Over the moon.”

Althea just looked at her, and it was clear that her Christian soul was shocked.

“Lord Deveril was my father’s age,” Clarissa hurried on, beginning to wonder if she should have kept silent after all. “But age wasn’t the problem. He was ugly. But that wasn’t it either.” She met her friend’s eyes. “Put simply, Thea, he was evil. Despite his wealth and title, he was accepted hardly anywhere. Nobody spoke to me of such matters, but I couldn’t help realizing that he indulged in all kinds of depravity.”

She started at the touch of Althea’s hand. “I’m sorry. I wish you’d told me sooner, but I’m glad you’ve told me now. It explains so much. Why you’re here. The way you think about men.” After a moment, she added, “Not all men are like that.”

Clarissa laughed, her vision blurring a little. “It would be an impossible world if they were. Truly, Thea, I doubt you’ve ever met anyone as foul. The mere thought of him makes me feel sick.”

Althea refilled Clarissa’s teacup and put it into her hand. “Drink up. It’ll steady you. Why did your parents permit such a match?”

Clarissa almost choked on a mouthful of tea. “Permit? They arranged it and forced me to agree. They sold me to him,” she went on, hearing the acid bitterness in her voice, but unable to stop it. “Two thousand upon my betrothal in the papers, and two upon my wedding. Then five hundred a year as long as I lived with Deveril as a dutiful wife.”

“What? But that’s atrocious! It must be illegal.”

“It’s illegal, I think, to force someone into marriage, but it’s not illegal for parents to beat a daughter, nor for them to mistreat one in all kinds of ways.”

Instead of distress, Althea’s eyes lit with outrage. “Though it may not be entirely in keeping with the Gospels, Clarissa, I, too, am delighted that Lord Deveril died.”

Clarissa laughed with relief. “So am I. Glad he died, and glad I told you. It’s been a burden to lie to you.”

Althea cocked her head. “So why did you tell me now?”

Clarissa put down her cup. “I dislike dishonesty.” She sighed. “Miss Mallory says I must leave, and my guardian agrees.”

“What will you do?”

“That’s the puzzle.”

“What do you want to do?”

Clarissa rubbed her temples. “I’ve never quite thought of it like that. Last year I wanted balls, parties, and handsome gallants.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“But now I’m a walking scandal. The Devil’s Heiress. And a Greystone to boot. I don’t think I’m going to receive many invitations. And of course, any gallants I do attract will be after my money.”

“Not all of them, I’m sure,” Althea said with a smile.

“Thea, please, be honest. No man has ever shown interest in my charms.” Then she winced at Althea’s distress. “I’m sorry. It’s all right. I truly don’t want to marry, and with money I don’t need to.”

“But you want the balls and parties.”

“Not anymore,” Clarissa said, aware that it was a lie. If it could be done without scandal, she still wanted what most young ladies wanted—a brief time of social frivolity.

Althea fiddled with her sprigged muslin skirts. “I might be leaving Miss Mallory’s, too.”

“But you’ve been here less than a year.”

Delicate color enhanced Althea’s beauty. “A gentleman from home has approached my father. A Mr. Verrall.”

Though Clarissa had just talked about leaving, this felt like abandonment. “Approached your father? Isn’t that a little cold-blooded?”

“Bucklestead St. Stephens is seventy miles from here, and Mr. Verrall has four children to care for.”

Worse and worse. “A widower? How old?”

“Around forty, I suppose. His oldest daughter is fifteen. His wife died three years ago. He’s a pleasant gentleman. Honorable and kind.”

Clarissa knew it was a reasonable arrangement. Althea would live near her beloved family, and this Mr. Verrall would doubtless be a good husband. As Althea’s father was a parson with a large family, she wouldn’t have many desirable suitors. All the same, Mr. Verrall sounded like dry crumbs to her.

“Don’t you think perhaps you should look around more before committing yourself to this man? You attract all the men.”

Althea shook her head. “I will not love again.”

“You should give yourself the chance, just in case.”

Althea’s eyes twinkled. “By all means. With whom? Mr. Dills, the clock mender? Colonel Dunn, who always raises his hat if we pass in the street? Reverend Whipple—but then, he has a wife.”

Clarissa pulled a face. “It’s true, isn’t it? We don’t meet many eligible men. At this time of year, there aren’t even any handsome brothers passing through.”

“And handsome brothers are usually dependent on their fathers, who would turn up starchy at the thought of marriage to a penniless schoolteacher.”

“Surely not quite penniless,” Clarissa protested.

“When it comes to eligible gentlemen, I am. My portion is less than five hundred pounds.”

It was virtually nothing. Clarissa took another bite out of her bun and chewed it thoughtfully. If only she could give Althea some of her money—but her trustees were sticklers for not letting her be imposed upon. And it didn’t sound as if Althea would wait until Clarissa was twenty-one.

“Beth Armitage married the heir to a dukedom,” she pointed out, “and though I admire her a great deal, she has not a tenth of your beauty.”

Althea laughed gently. “The sort of story to make idiots of us all. Such things cannot be relied on.”

“True,” said Clarissa, remembering the dark side of the fairy tale.

Althea was right. She had nothing but her beauty and good nature to recommend her. The world would say she should be grateful for any suitable offer, even that of an elderly widower with a daughter not many years her junior.

“I came to thank you again for taking the girls,” Althea said, clearly changing the subject. “I’m so sorry you ended up in such trouble.”

“It wasn’t too bad.”

“The girls seem to see it as a wonderfully perilous adventure, including rescue by Saint George, complete with halo.”

Clarissa laughed. “Hardly, but Major Hawkinville did help us, yes.” She gave her account of the event. “I wonder if he found the woman’s lost evangelists. He seemed capable of it.”

Althea cocked her head. “Heaven, purgatory, or hell?”

“I’m a nonbeliever, remember? No marriage for me.”

“Nonsense. I’m sure Lord Deveril was as hellish as you say, but when you meet heaven you’ll change your mind.”

“I won’t trust heaven.” Major Hawkinville somehow merged in her mind with handsome Lord Arden, afire with rage. “Any man, if angered enough, can turn into hell.”

“Not Gareth,” Althea said firmly.

Clarissa couldn’t hurt her by arguing. “Perhaps not, but how are we to know?”

“A decent period of courtship. Gareth and I had known each other for years, and been courting for two.”

Clarissa pounced. “So you shouldn’t consider marrying this widower without a decent period of courtship.”

“But I’ve known Mr. Verrall for years too, and I like him.”

Balked, Clarissa still protested, “You need to meet some other men first.”

“Perhaps it’s a shame I didn’t take the girls to the parade and fall into an adventure with the handsome major.”

Clarissa chuckled, but a plan stirred. Althea needed to meet eligible men, and, as she’d said, that was unlikely here in the school. Once the last girls went home, Althea would return to Bucklestead St. Stephens and marry her doddering widower.

What was needed was what the army called a preemptive strike.

“I wonder where I should go?” she mused. “ ‘The world’s mine oyster…’ ”

“ ‘Which I with sword will open’?” Althea completed.

“With money, perhaps. It frightens me, Althea. Miss Mallory says I should not stay in the familiarity of Cheltenham, and Bath is so dreary.”

“London, then.”

“No.” It came out rather abruptly, but then Althea would guess that London had bad memories for her. “Anyway, it’s the end of the Season there. The place will soon be empty.”

Clarissa still hadn’t worked around to her true purpose—persuading Althea to accompany her for a few weeks and meet a suitable husband. “Where would you go if you were me?” she asked.

But Althea shook her head. “I’m a country mouse. I like life in a village.”

“I think I might, too,” Clarissa said, “though I’ve never tried it. My father sold his estate when I was in the cradle to pay debts and buy a London house.”

A village, however, would be an unlikely place in which to find Althea a prime husband.

Her frustrated thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. Clarissa answered it and the school’s upstairs maid said, “There’s a gentleman inquiring for you, Miss Greystone.” Her expression was a combination of disapproval and interest. “Miss Mallory isn’t home yet…”

“A gentleman?”

“A Major Hawkinville, he says.” Mary added with disapproval, “But he’s not wearing a hat.”

Clarissa actually squeaked with surprise, but managed to compose herself. The major. Here!

Then she saw Althea’s smiling interest and realized that this was a chance to introduce her to at least one eligible man. He must be eligible, mustn’t he, and Althea clearly favored a military man.

“Major Hawkinville lost his hat saving me and the girls, Mary. We cannot turn him away. Miss Trist and I will be down in a moment.”

As soon as the maid left, Clarissa whirled to the mirror. She could hear one of Miss Mallory’s favorite admonishments: Only God can give beauty, girls, but anyone can be neat. It had usually been accompanied by a pained look at Clarissa. God had neglected to give her tidiness, too.

She began pulling the pins out of her hair.

Althea came over and pushed her hands away. After a few moments with the brush and a few more with the pins, Clarissa’s hair was pinned in an orderly, and even slightly becoming, knot.

“I don’t know how you do it,” she said somewhat grumpily.

Althea just laughed again. “Don’t you have any ribbons?”

“No, and they’d look silly with this plain gown.” Clarissa felt that she’d exposed enough folly for now. “Thank you for tidying me. Now let’s go and thank the hero of the day.”

“Don’t you have any other clothes?” Althea asked, frowning at the beige dress.

Clarissa ignored the trunks in the attic. “No. Come along, Althea. It hardly matters what I look like.”

“No?” Althea teased.

Certainly not as long as I’m with you, Clarissa thought without acrimony, leading the way downstairs. Despite that, her heart was racing on nervous little feet, and she tried to command her senses. The major was here out of courtesy. Despite his earlier behavior, there was no chance that he had been slain by her wondrous charms.

And, of course, she did not desire any man’s serious interest.

He was just the sort of man, however, likely to shock Althea’s heart out of the past and into thinking beyond the hoary ancient awaiting her back home.

They arrived in the neat front hall, and after a steadying breath, she led the way into the parents’ parlor—so called because it was where parents were taken when they visited.

Oh, my. Speaking of wondrous charms…

The image in her mind had not been fanciful.

Even without a hat, he was strikingly elegant, not just in the quality of his clothes but in the way he wore them, and the way he moved. There was all the straight-shouldered authority of the military, but surprising grace as well.

He bowed—perfectly. “Miss Greystone. Excuse my intrusion, but I wished to be sure that you and the girls were not harmed in any way.”

Clarissa dropped a curtsy, commanding her heart to settle so that she could think clearly. Her heart, however, was a rebel, as was her awestruck mind. “So kind, sir. We are all safe.” She introduced Althea and then took a seat on the sofa, inviting him to take a chair.

They talked of the riot and the consequences—apparently two people were seriously injured, but most had merely been frightened. All the time, Clarissa was fighting her tendency to be dazzled, and observing Althea to see how she was reacting to this gem.

Althea was sparkling, which was a truly remarkable sight. Clarissa thought she was seeing the Althea that Gareth Waterstone had loved, and she was amazed that the major managed to pay herself any courteous interest at all.

Yet he did. He seemed to share his attention between them, and when he looked at her— Clarissa fought for reason, but his attentive eyes, his quick smiles seemed meant for her.

She didn’t need a man.

She didn’t want a man. And she must be mistaken. Such men were never interested in her.

But she wouldn’t mind the company of one if, amazingly, he did find something about her to admire.

Perhaps it was her behavior during the riot. She had done well. Was it possible that he admired her?

Her heart scurried again. “Do you live in Cheltenham, Major?” she asked.

Those eyes. Those eyes that seemed to like looking at her. “No, Miss Greystone. I am passing through on my way to visit a family property. My home is in Sussex, not far from Brighton.”

“Have you seen the Pavilion?” Althea asked with interest, drawing his attention.

“A number of times, Miss Trist, as a youth. I have been out of the country with the army for many years, however.”

Clarissa saw thoughts of the army, and of Gareth, mute her friend’s spirits, and spoke quickly, “Brighton is the most fashionable place to be in the summer, isn’t it, Major?”

“Indeed it is, Miss Greystone. I recommend it to you.”

She stared at him. “To me?”

“To anyone who would like a pleasant place in which to pass some summer months,” he responded smoothly, but she didn’t think that was quite what he had meant.

Was he a mind reader? Here she was, in her well-worn schoolgirl clothes, and he was suggesting a move to the most fashionable, and expensive, resort in England.

Some of the glow disappeared from the room.

“Cheltenham is delightful,” he went on, “but it does not have the sea, never mind the Prince of Wales and most of the haut ton.”

“How true.” She met his smiling eyes, sorting through her tumbling thoughts.

Althea broke in. “Miss Greystone is to leave here soon, Major, and enter fashionable life.”

Clarissa felt herself color, and knew it did nothing to improve her looks. Althea meant well, but Clarissa wished she hadn’t said that.

The major smiled as if he’d received good news. “Then perhaps you and your family will visit Brighton, Miss Greystone.”

Her family. Mustn’t such a man-about-town know the Greystones? And know about the Devil’s Heiress.

Hiding foolish hurt, Clarissa retreated behind a formal smile and a slightly cool manner. “I doubt it is possible to move there this late in the year, Major Hawkinville. Perhaps next year—”

She rose to hint that the visit was at an end.

He rose too, with admirable smoothness. “You are thinking of the difficulty of finding good houses to rent, Miss Greystone?” He took out a card and pencil and wrote something on the back. “If you should think of visiting Brighton, apply to Mr. Scotburn and mention my name. If there is a house to be had, he will doubtless find it for you.”

Clarissa took the card, though she felt it would be safer to take nothing tangible from this encounter. How could she refuse, however, short of pure incivility?

Then he was gone, and that should have been the end of it, except that she had his card, and his even, flowing handwriting. She turned it and confirmed what she suspected.

She also had his address.

Major George Hawkinville, Hawkinville Manor, Sussex.

Major George Hawkinville, who almost certainly was a fortune hunter who knew exactly who she was and what she was worth. Whose admiration had been stirred by her money, not her charms.

But, she thought, looking at the card again, that admiration had been deliriously enjoyable. Why should a lady not play games too, and enjoy such company, especially if she was awake to all his tricks?

Hawk left the school and didn’t allow himself a pause to savor success. People leaving were often watched.

His quarry had cooled for some reason, but he didn’t think she was beyond reach. In fact, he’d be willing to bet that she was already thinking of a move to Brighton. If not, he could come up with some other ways to persuade her. It was the obvious resort for a wealthy young lady in search of social adventure in the summer, and he was sure that Miss Greystone was in search of social adventure.

In fact, she was ripe for trouble, and his pressing instinct was to protect her! Damnation, why couldn’t she be the harpy he’d imagined?

He wasted a few moments seeking other ways to the Deveril money, but knew he’d worn that path bare. He simply didn’t want to be doing what he was doing, playing on an innocent young woman’s vulnerability.

Hawkinville, he reminded himself.

And no matter how innocent she was, that money was not hers by right.

He decided, however, to move on immediately to inspect Gaspard Hall. He knew how useful a strategic absence could be. Before seeing his father’s new property he loathed it, but if there was something to be made of it, perhaps they could survive somehow without the Deveril money.

Twenty thousand pounds?

And, damnation, that will was a forgery. It galled him to think of anyone, even that lively young woman, benefiting from it!

For the first time in his life he was being deflected from battle by a pretty face. Not even pretty, but with power all the same.

Hawkinville, he reminded himself.

But even for Hawkinville, was he really willing to see Clarissa Greystone hang?

Clarissa retreated back to her room, card in hand. “Brighton,” she announced.

“Clarissa! You can’t. You hardly know the man.”

Clarissa laughed. “I’m not going to marry him, Thea, but it is the obvious place to go. Think of it. I’m the Devil’s Heiress and no matter where I go, sooner or later people will learn of it. I might as well be brazen and enjoy myself in a fashionable spot.”

“But that doesn’t mean the major—”

“Of course not. He merely put the idea into my mind. However,” she added, twirling the card, “if we happen to meet it will not be unpleasant.”

“What if he’s a fortune hunter?”

Even though it put Clarissa’s own thoughts into words, it stung. “Oh, he probably is,” she said lightly. “As I said, I have no intention of marrying him. If he wants to play escort and charming companion, well, why not?”

“If he is a fortune hunter, I wish nothing more to do with him.”

Althea had what Clarissa thought of as her Early Christian Martyr face on. Clarissa was trying to work around to the topic of Althea’s accompanying her, and this was not the right direction. Unless she gave it a twist.

“I do have to leave and join the world, Thea,” she said meekly, “but it will be hard. I did nothing wrong, but I am a Greystone, and I was engaged to marry Lord Deveril, and he did meet with a very unfortunate death—”

“He did?” Althea asked, disapproval thawing to curiosity.

“Stabbed in a very poor area of town.”

“Stabbed!” Althea gasped.

Clarissa tried to stay focused on the part she was playing, and not let memories of the truth invade to overset her.

“Doubtless something to do with the company he kept,” she said, “and well deserved. The point is, Thea, that I’m a little worried about being accepted by society.”

Althea took her hand. “None of it was your fault.”

“That is not how people will see it. What I am thinking,” Clarissa plunged on, “is that I would feel easier with a companion. A friend.” She looked at Althea, realizing that her words were true. “With you. If I go to Brighton, Thea, I ask most sincerely that you accompany me for a little while.”

“Me?” Althea gasped, eyes wide. “Clarissa, I couldn’t! I know nothing of fashionable circles.”

Clarissa gripped her hand. “Your birth is respectable, and you have excellent manners, and unquestioned beauty.”

Althea broke their handclasp. “I’m only twenty. I’m not old enough to be your chaperone in a place like Brighton.”

“But I don’t want you to be that. I want you to come as a friend, to enjoy Brighton with me. Do say you will.”

Althea blushed and covered her cheeks with her hands. “It’s still impossible, Clarissa. I don’t have the sort of clothes that are needed in a place like Brighton, and I certainly can’t afford to buy them.”

Clarissa absorbed the truth of that. She knew her trustees would not allow her to buy Althea new clothes. She considered sharing, for she would have to buy a new, fashionable wardrobe herself. But she and Althea did not suit the same colors, and her friend was a good few inches shorter.

An idea burst upon her. She seized Althea’s hand and dragged her out of the room.

“Where are we going?”

“To the attic!”

“Why?”

“To look at my London clothes!”

They clattered up the narrow stairs into the storage rooms. In the dusty gloom, Clarissa eyed the two hardly used trunks. She didn’t want to open them and stir revolting memories, but she’d do it. For Althea.

At the very least Althea deserved a few weeks of pleasure in Brighton. At the best, with her beauty, virtue, and sweet nature, she might attract a wonderful husband.

A lord. A duke, even!

So she lifted one heavy lid and pushed back plain muslin to reveal a froth of pale blue trimmed with white lace.

“If you’re going into society, you’ll need these clothes,” Althea protested.

Clarissa pulled out the blue and passed it over. “I’ll never wear these again.” She tossed aside that layer of muslin and unfurled the second. The pink.

She shuddered. She’d been wearing that when Deveril had kissed her. Her mother had screeched about the trouble of getting the vomit stains out of it, but it seemed someone had managed it.

“These were all chosen by Lord Deveril and paid for by him,” she said, tossing the ruched and beribboned gown to Althea. “Anything connected to that man revolts me, and they don’t even suit me. Imagine me in that shade of pink! If you don’t take them, I’m giving them to the maids for whatever they can get for them.”

Althea put down the blue and studied the pink. “The color would suit me, but it’s a bit…”

“Overdone? In bad taste? Oh, definitely.” Overcoming her distaste, Clarissa held the dress in front of her friend. “The shade is lovely on you, though.”

“Won’t it bother you to see me in these dresses?”

Foul memories were swirling with the attic dust, but Clarissa pushed them away. “Everything will have to be altered. You’re slimmer and shorter. We can strip off the trimming at the same time.” She gave Althea the dress. “A wardrobe is here for you, if you’re brave enoughs to come adventuring with me.”

“Adventuring?” echoed Althea, but her eyes were bright and her color high.

Heartbreaking that her Gareth wasn’t here to enjoy the Thea he’d known and loved, but Clarissa resolved that she would find her friend someone almost as good. Not just an adequate husband, but another chance at heaven.

“Well?” Clarissa asked. “Will you do it?”

Althea stared into a distance, and perhaps for a moment she thought of Gareth, for she sobered. But then again, perhaps he spoke to her, for she smiled in a steadier, no less glorious way. “Yes. I’ll do it.”

The next day Hawk rode slowly down a driveway clumped with foot-high weeds, taking in his father’s hard-won inheritance. One chimney of Gaspard Hall had crashed down onto the roof, partly accounting for the broken and missing tiles. A substantial crack ran up one wall, suggesting that the foundations had given way, and the wood around the broken windows flaked with rot.

He directed Centaur carefully around the side of the house, keeping to the grass rather than the drive. Less danger of potholes or falling debris.

A couple of years ago, with farming prices high and industry profitable, this place might have been worth something for the land alone. The end of the war had brought hard times, however. Trading routes were open to competition, and prices had fallen, sometimes to disastrous levels. In various parts of the country farms were even being abandoned.

Gaspard Hall in its present state was nothing but an extra burden. There must be tenants here still, and others dependent on the place, all hoping that the new Lord Deveril would help them.

At the back of the house he found the deserted stableyard. He swung off the horse and led it to a trough and pump. As expected, the pump was broken.

“Sorry, old boy,” he said, patting Centaur’s neck. “I’ll find you water as soon as possible.”

He looked around and called out, “Halloo!”

Some birds flew out of nearby eaves, but there was no other response.

A quick check of the stable buildings found only ancient, moldy straw and rat-chewed wood. From here, the back of the house was in as bad a state as the front.

It offended his orderly heart to see a place in such condition, but it would take a fortune to restore it. He wondered why the late Lord Deveril hadn’t spent some of his money here. He assumed he simply hadn’t cared.

Hawk could easily go back in his mind fifty years or so, however, and see a pleasant house in attractive gardens and set amid excellent farmland. A family had lived here and loved this place as he loved Hawkinville Manor. That raised the strange notion of there once being a pleasant, wholesome Lord Deveril. Lord Devil had likely been born here fifty years ago or so. Had he been a normal child? What had his parents been like? His grandparents?

He put aside idle speculation. The plain fact was that Gaspard Hall offered nothing. No money to pay off even part of the debt. No home for the squire without a fortune being poured into it. He was back to the duty he was trying to escape.

He led Centaur back the way they’d come. There’d be an inn in the nearby village where he could stay the night. Tomorrow…

Tomorrow he should return to Cheltenham and seduce the secrets out of Clarissa Greystone. But he turned and ran from that. He’d return to Hawk in the Vale and hope that she came to Brighton. It might be easier to hunt and destroy her amid that tinsel artificiality. Chapter Five

July, Brighton, Sussex

Clarissa and Althea arrived in Brighton in a grand carriage with outriders. Her guardian, the Duke of Belcraven, had sent his own traveling coach and servants to ensure her comfort and safety. Her trustees, Messrs. Euston, Layton, and Keele, whom she called the ELK, had arranged every other detail in magnificent style.

This was all rather unfortunate when she still didn’t have any stylish clothing, and Althea did. At every stop, innkeepers and servants had groveled before Althea and assumed that Clarissa was the maid. She’d found it funny, and at one place had even slipped off to hobnob with the servants in the kitchen. Poor Althea, however, had been mortified.

The problem should be fixed soon. A stylish Brighton mantua-maker had all her measurements and should have a complete wardrobe, chosen by Clarissa herself, ready except for the final adjustments.

Despite a number of fears, she could hardly wait for any of this adventure. Now, looking out at the lively, fashionable company strolling along the Marine Parade in the July sun, she felt like a bird taking its first terrified but exhilarating flight.

Or perhaps like a bird being pushed out of the nest and desperately flapping its wings!

From the first, impulsive decision, everything had been snatched from her control. Miss Mallory had completely approved. Althea had bubbled with excitement. The duke and the ELK had immediately put the idea into operation. All that had been left for her to do was consult fashion magazines and samples of fabric and choose her new clothes.

Major Hawkinville’s recommendation had not been necessary. The ELK had assured her that there were always houses available for people willing to pay handsomely for them, and they had engaged Number 8 Broad Street, which boasted a dining room, two parlors, and three best bedrooms.

It seemed a lavish amount of space for two people— but then there was also the lady hired to be chaperone and guide to society, a Miss Hurstman. Clarissa had been somewhat surprised that the lady was a spinster rather than a widow, but she had no doubt that the ELK would have chosen the very best. The lady had been described as “thoroughly cognizant of the ways of polite society and connected to all the best families.”

The ELK had also arranged for a lady’s maid and a footman in addition to the staff that came with the house. Clarissa had chuckled over this entourage, but in truth it made her nervous. In her parents’ penny-pinched household, one overworked upstairs maid had had to attend to the house and play lady’s maid as well.

In fact, she was still rather uncomfortable with all the lavish spending, especially when she didn’t really feel she deserved Deveril’s money. She’d loathed the man, and it was only a quirk in the wording of his will that had led to her inheriting it. At least there was no one else entitled. When she’d expressed her doubts, she’d been told that he’d died without an heir. Without the will, the money would all have gone to the Crown.

To provide more gilded onion domes, perhaps, she thought, catching a glimpse of the Prince Regent’s astonishing Pavilion. She couldn’t wait to visit it, but she couldn’t regret not having funded it.

She couldn’t regret any of this, and in part that was because of the secret anticipation of meeting Major Hawkinville again. She’d discouraged Althea from talking about him, pretending that he was of little interest, but now, as the carriage rolled along the Marine Parade, the sea on one side and tall stuccoed buildings on the other, she surreptitiously fingered the oblong card that she’d tucked into the pocket of her simple traveling dress.

Hawk in the Vale, Sussex. She’d looked it up in a gazetteer. It lay about six miles out of the town. Not far, but perhaps he didn’t visit here very often.

Or perhaps he did.

Perhaps they wouldn’t meet. Perhaps when they did she would find him less fascinating, or he would not be interested in her.

Or perhaps not.

After all, if he was a fortune hunter he would find her and pay her assiduous attentions.

She did hope so!

The gazetteer had mentioned his home, Hawkinville Manor, an ancient walled house with the remains of an earlier medieval defense. Picturesque, the author had sniffed, but of no particular architectural elegance.

Would she see it one day?

Then she noticed the attention they were attracting. A number of tonnish people were turning to watch the grand coach and outriders pass along the seafront, ladies and gentleman raising quizzing glasses to study it. Mischievously, Clarissa waved, and Althea pulled her back, laughing.

“Behave yourself!”

“Oh, very well. Did you see the bathing machines drawn into the water? I intend to sea-bathe.”

“It looks horribly cold to me, and they say men watch, with telescopes.”

“Do they? But then, men bathe too, don’t they? I wonder where one buys a telescope.”

Althea’s eyes went wide with genuine shock. “Clarissa!”

Clarissa suppressed a grin. She loved Althea like the sister she had never had, but like sisters, they were different. Althea would never feel the wild curiosity and impatience that itched in Clarissa. She didn’t understand.

But Clarissa knew she had to control that part of her. It would be hard enough to be accepted by society. For Althea’s sake, there must be no hint of scandal.

The coach began to turn, and she looked up to see the words “Broad Street” painted on the wall. “At last. We’re here.”

“Oh, good. It’s been a long journey, though it seems ungrateful to complain of such luxury.”

“And not a highwayman to be seen.”

“Praise heaven!” Althea exclaimed, and Clarissa hid her smile.

Despite its name, the street was not very wide, and the massive coach took up a great deal of it. The terraced houses on either side were three stories high, and with bay windows all the way up. All that stood between the house and the road, however, was a short flight of stairs and a railed enclosure around steps down to the basement servants’ area.

Clarissa had glimpsed even narrower streets nearby, however, and knew this was indeed grand by Brighton standards.

The coach rocked to a stop outside number 8, an ELKishly perfect house, with sparkling windows, lace curtains, and bright yellow paint on the woodwork. The door opened to reveal an ELKish housekeeper, too. Plump and cherry-cheeked.

One of the outriders opened the door and let down the steps, then assisted them from the coach. Clarissa went toward the house feeling rather like a lost princess finally finding her palace.

“Good afternoon, ladies,” said the housekeeper, curtsying. “Welcome to Brighton! I’m Mrs. Taddy, and I hope you will feel perfectly at home here.”

Home.

Clarissa walked into a narrow but welcoming hall with a tile floor, white-painted woodwork, and a bowl of fresh flowers on a table. Home was a singularly elusive concept, but this would do for a while; indeed it would.

“This is lovely,” she said to the woman, but then found that Mrs. Taddy was looking at Althea, also assuming that she was the heiress. What a powerful impression clothes made.

“I’m Miss Greystone,” she said with a smile, as if merely introducing herself, “and this is my friend, Miss Trist.”

She covered the housekeeper’s fluster with some idle comments about Brighton’s beauty, wondering where their chaperone was.

“Ah, you’ve arrived,” a brusque voice barked. “Come into the front parlor. We’ll have tea.”

Clarissa turned to the woman standing in a doorway. It couldn’t be!

She was middle-aged, with a weather-beaten face and sharp, dark eyes. Her graying hair was scraped back into a bun unsoftened by a cap, and her gown was even plainer than Clarissa’s simple blue cambric.

“Don’t gawk! I’m Arabella Hurstman, your guide to depravity.”

The ELK must have run demented. This woman could never gain them entree to fashionable Brighton!

“I’ll bring tea, ma’am,” said Mrs. Taddy to no one in particular and hurried away. Clarissa felt tempted to go with her, but Miss Hurstman commanded them into the room.

It was small but pretty, with pale walls and a flowered carpet, and Miss Hurstman looked completely out of place. This was ridiculous. There must have been a mistake.

The woman turned and looked them over. “Miss Greystone and Miss Trist, I assume. Though I can’t tell which is which. You”—she pointed a bony finger at Althea—“look like the heiress. But you”—she pointed at Clarissa—“look like the simmering pot.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Don’t starch up. You’ll get used to me. I gave up trying to act pretty and pleasing thirty years ago. Someone described Miss Greystone as a simmering pot, and I see what he meant.”

“Who?”

“Does it matter? Sit. We have to plan your husband hunt.”

Clarissa and Althea obeyed dazedly.

“I gather you’re a protegee of the Marchioness of Arden,” Miss Hurstman said.

Clarissa didn’t know what to do with that statement.

“Lady Arden was a teacher at Miss Mallory’s School,” Althea said, filling the silence. “She was kind to Clarissa last year in London.”

Clarissa supposed that summed up a very complex situation.

“That explains Belcraven, then,” said Miss Hurstman. “He must be thanking heaven to see his heir married to a woman of sense.”

Mrs. Taddy hurried in then with a laden tea tray and put it in front of Miss Hurstman.

“London,” continued the lady, pouring. She handed Clarissa a cup. “Lasted all of two weeks there, and got yourself engaged to marry Lord Deveril. At least you ended up with his money, which shows some wit.”

“He was hardly my choice,” Clarissa stated, wondering what would happen if she ordered the woman out of the house. She had a burning question first. “Why would anyone describe me as a simmering pot?”

A touch of humor flashed in the dark eyes. “Because a simmering pot needs to be watched, gel, in case it bubbles over. ‘Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble’? Oh, I expect trouble from you two.” Miss Hurstman switched her gimlet gaze to Althea, who almost choked on a cake crumb. “You’re a beauty. Here to catch a husband?”

“Oh, no—”

“Nothing wrong with that, if it’s what you want. If you don’t like your choices, I can find you a position. One where you won’t be abused. Bear that in mind. There are worse things than being a spinster.”

“Thank you,” said Althea faintly.

“What about you?” Miss Hurstman demanded of Clarissa. “You want a husband too?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Why should I? I’m rich.”

“Sexual passion,” said Miss Hurstman, causing Clarissa and Althea to gape. “Don’t look like stuffed trout. The human race is driven by it, generally into disaster. If you wait long enough, it cools, but in youth, it simmers.”

Clarissa felt her face flame. Surely whoever had said she was a simmering pot could never have meant that.

Who could it be? The duke? Hardly. Lord Arden? She didn’t think so.

Major Hawkinville?

That thought proved her mind was spinning beyond reason.

“There’s all the romantic twaddle as well,” the astonishing woman continued. “That alone can turf man or woman into an unwise marriage.”

She surveyed the plate and chose a piece of seedy cake. “I was young once, and reasonably pretty, though I doubt you believe it, and I remember. I decided early not to marry, but I was still tempted a time or two. And I wasn’t fool enough to visit Brighton in the summer, where romantic folly is carried on the breeze. What’s worse,” she added with a look at Clarissa, “you’re an heiress. You’ll have to fight ‘em off.”

Clarissa eyed the woman coldly. “Isn’t that your job?”

Miss Hurstman gave a kind of snort. “If you really want me to. You probably won’t. You’ll probably scramble after the most rascally ones around. Young fools always do. I’ll have no scandal, though. No being caught half naked in an anteroom. No mad dashes to Gretna Green. Understand? Now, you two go off and settle yourselves in. There’s nothing we can do today.”

Clarissa found herself on her feet, but regrouped. “Miss Hurstman, my trustees employed someone”—she emphasized the word—“to gain us entree to the highest circles. I appreciate—”

“You think I can’t? Don’t judge by appearances. If there’s a member of the ton here I’m not related to, they probably have shady antecedents. And though I don’t spend much time in their silly circles, I know most of ‘em, too. If you want to waltz with the Regent at the Pavilion, I can arrange it. Though why you’d want to is another matter.”

“Even though I’m the Devil’s Heiress?” Clarissa challenged.

“Stupid name. Concentrate on the heiress part. That’ll open every door. A hundred thousand, I understand.”

Clarissa heard Althea gasp. “More. It’s been well invested, and I’ve been living simply.”

“Obviously.” Miss Hurstman looked her over. “With a fortune to hand, why are you dressed like that?”

“You are,” Clarissa pointed out sweetly.

“I’m fifty-five. If you want to be a nun, enter a convent. If you want me to introduce you to Brighton society, dress appropriately.”

Clarissa desperately wanted to state that she’d wear plain gowns forever, thank you, but she could see a pointless rebellion when it was about to cut off her nose. She admitted to the clothes waiting for her at Mrs. Howell’s.

Miss Hurstman nodded. “Good. We’ll go there first thing tomorrow and hope no one of importance sees you before you’re properly dressed. You should have borrowed something from Miss Trist. Off you go.”

Clarissa longed to sit down again and refuse to be removed, but that was pointless too. As she went upstairs with Althea she muttered, “Intolerable!”

“Perhaps she’s able to do what she’s supposed to do,” Althea suggested.

“If so, she can stay. Otherwise, out she goes.”

“You can’t!”

Clarissa wasn’t sure she could either. Moving Miss Arabella Hurstman might require the entire British army and the Duke of Wellington to lead it. But could she endure much more of Miss Hurstman? The woman was going to turn this delightful adventure into misery.

She went into the front bedroom that Mrs. Taddy indicated, finding their luggage already there and a sober-faced maid beginning to unpack.

“Who are you?” Clarissa demanded.

The woman dropped an alarmed curtsy. “Elsie John, ma’am. Hired to be maid to Miss Greystone and Miss Trist.” She, too, was clearly having trouble deciding who was who.

“I’m Miss Greystone,” said Clarissa, beginning to lose patience with this farce. “That is Miss Trist.”

The maid rolled her eyes and turned back to her work. Clarissa sucked in a deep, steadying breath. She had failed to stand up to Miss Hurstman, so she was taking out her anger on the innocents.

Then Althea said, “Would you mind if I lie down, Clarissa? I have a headache.”

“No, of course not. It’s probably because of that dreadful woman.”

Clarissa knew, however, that it was as much her fault as Miss Hurstman’s. She reined in her temper, and even found a smile for the maid. “Elsie, you may go for now.”

She helped Althea out of her gown and settled her in the bed with the curtains drawn, but then didn’t know where to go. She couldn’t stay here and be quiet. She didn’t feel at all quiet. She needed to pace and rant.

She left the room, closing the door quietly. There were supposed to be three bedrooms, and there were three doors. What if the third was the housekeeper’s? She crept downstairs, but she suspected the only rooms below were the front parlor and the dining room. She headed for the dining room.

“Ah, good!”

Clarissa jumped.

Miss Hurstman had emerged from the parlor like a spider from a hole. “Come back in here.”

“Why?”

“We have things to discuss. Believe it or not, I’m your ally, not your enemy.”

Clarissa found herself too fascinated to resist.

“You’re strong,” Miss Hurstman said, as Clarissa reentered the room. “A bit of brimstone, too. That’s good. You’ll need it.”

“Why?”

“You’re the Devil’s Heiress. And you’re a Greystone. Even under my aegis, you’ll receive some snubs.”

“I don’t care, except if it hurts Althea.”

“It’ll hurt her if people are cruel to you. She can’t take any fire at all, can she?”

“She doesn’t like discord, but she can be strong in fighting for right and justice.”

“Pity we don’t have lions to throw her to. She might enjoy that.”

Enough was enough. “Miss Hurstman, I’m not at all sure you will suit, but if you are to be caustic about Miss Trist, you certainly won’t.”

The woman’s lips twitched. “Think of me as your personal lion. Now sit down. Let’s talk without a delicate audience.

“I like you,” Miss Hurstman said as she returned to her straight-backed posture in her chair. “Don’t know what fires you’ve been through, but it’s forged some steel. Unusual in a gel your age. Your Althea is doubtless a lovely young woman, but tender lambs like that give me a headache. They can always be depended on to say the right thing and to suffer for the stupidity of others.”

“It wasn’t stupidity that killed her fiance.”

“How do you know? War is stupid, anyway. Do you know we lost ten times as many men to disease as wounds? Ten times, and a regiment of women with sense could have saved most of ‘em. Enough of that. I want to have things clear. We’re to find her a good husband, are we?”

Clarissa imagined that Wellington’s troops must have felt like this before battle, and yet there was a starchy comfort in it. Miss Hurstman, despite her unlikely appearance, radiated competence and confidence.

“Yes.”

“Any dowry at all?”

“A very small amount.”

Miss Hurstman humphed. “The right man will find that romantic. What’s her family?”

“Her father is the vicar of Saint Stephen’s in Bucklestead St. Stephens. He’s brother to Sir Clarence Trist there. Her mother is from a good family, too. But there’s no money and seven other children.”

“Where did the fine clothes come from, then?”

“I gave them to her.”

“Why?”

Clarissa considered her answer. “Do you know Messrs. Euston, Layton, and Keele, ma’am?”

“Only by repute and a letter.”

“Thorough,” said Clarissa. “Conscientious. Determined to pass over my fortune when I’m twenty-one with scarcely a nibble out of it.”

“Very right and proper.”

“Carried to ridiculous lengths. I can buy what I want and they will pay the bills, but they allow me virtually no money to spend on my own. They would never have let me hire Althea to be my companion—and you have to admit that having her here will be much more pleasant than being here alone.”

“You have me,” said Miss Hurstman with a wicked smirk.

Clarissa swallowed a laugh, and suspected it showed.

The truth was that she was beginning to like Miss Hurstman. There was no need to pretend with her. With Althea, dear though she was, Clarissa always felt she had to watch herself so as not to bruise her friend’s tender feelings. With Miss Hurstman, she could probably damn the king, pick a fight, or use scandalous language and stir no more than a blink.

“Clothes,” Miss Hurstman prompted.

“Oh, yes. The ELK didn’t object to my bringing Althea as a friend, but she needed fashionable clothing. They’d not pay for that, but they’d pay for new clothes for me.”

“Shady dealings, gel.” Miss Hurstman waggled her finger, but the twinkle might be admiration.

Clarissa was surprised to feel that Miss Hurstman’s admiration might be worth something. “It wasn’t a noble sacrifice. I would never have worn those gowns again. They were bought for me to parade before Lord Deveril.”

“Ah. And that shade of blue wouldn’t have suited you any better than the one you’re wearing now. Hope you chose better this time.”

Clarissa looked down at the tiny sprigged pattern that had been the best material Miss Mallory’s seamstress had to hand. “So do I. I chose rather bold colors.”

“Bold seems suitable,” said Miss Hurstman dryly. “If they don’t suit, we’ll choose again. Won’t make a dent in your fortune. So, Miss Trist needs to marry money. And generous money, at that.”

“What she needs is a man who loves her.”

Miss Hurstman’s brows rose. “When she can’t love him back? She’d go into a decline under the guilt of it. And if she doesn’t marry money, she’ll feel she’s let down her family.”

Clarissa wanted to object, but the blasted woman had clearly taken Althea’s measure to the inch. She needed to be of service to all.

“I want her to be happy.”

Miss Hurstman nodded. “She’ll be content with a good man and children, and plenty of worthwhile work to do. You, on the other hand, need a man who loves you.”

Major Hawkinville, Clarissa thought, and reacted by stating, “I don’t need a man at all. I’m rich.”

“You’re obsessed by your money. Guineas are uncomfortable bedfellows.”

“They can buy comfort.”

Miss Hurstman’s brows shot up. “Planning to buy yourself a lover?”

“Of course not!” Clarissa knew she was red. “You, ma’am, are obsessed with… with bed! My trustees cannot have known your true colors.”

Despite that, she could see the wicked twinkle in Miss Hurstman’s eyes, and felt its reflection in herself. She’d never known anyone so willing to say outrageous things.

“Why are you my chaperone?” she demanded. “You are clearly a most unusual choice, even if you are well connected.”

“Nepotism,” said Miss Hurstman, but that twinkle told Clarissa that there was more to the word than there seemed to be. “And you come into your money at twenty-one,” Miss Hurstman carried on. “Unusual situation all around. Unusual that Deveril leave you anything. Even more unusual that he arrange for you to be free of control at such a tender age.”

“I know, and sometimes I wish he hadn’t.” After a moment, Clarissa admitted something she’d never told anyone before. “It frightens me. I’ve tried to learn something about management, but I don’t feel able to deal with such wealth.”

Miss Hurstman nodded. “You can hire Euston, Layton, and Keele to manage your affairs, but it will still be a tricky road. It’s not just a matter of management. A woman is not supposed to live without male supervision, especially a young unmarried lady of fortune. The world will watch every move you make, and scoundrels will hover with a thousand clever ways to filch your money from you.”

Major Hawkinville, she thought, though she couldn’t see him as a scoundrel. “Fortune hunters. I know.”

“At the end of a few weeks with me,” Miss Hurstman stated, “you’ll be more ready, and in ways other than administrative. But don’t put the thought of a husband out of your mind entirely. There are good men in the world, and one of them would make your life a great deal easier. I don’t see you as content with celibate living.”

Put like that, Clarissa wasn’t sure she would be content, either, and she knew part of that feeling was because of the heroic major, even though he hadn’t touched her in any meaningful way. She wasn’t ready to expose such sensitive uncertainties to Miss Hurstman’s astringent eye, however.

Her companion rose in a sharp, smooth motion. “There’s a lot about you that I don’t understand. I won’t pry. As long as it doesn’t affect what we’re doing here, it’s no business of mine. But I’ll listen if you want to talk, and I can keep secrets. You probably won’t believe it, but I can be trusted, too.”

Clarissa did believe it. She was tempted to lay all her burdens on the older woman’s shoulders—Lord Deveril and his death; Lord Arden’s cruelty to Beth; even the Company of Rogues, Lord Arden’s friends, who had helped her, whose burden of secrets she carried, who frightened her in vague, elusive ways.

That the idea tempted her was alarming in itself. Chapter Six

Hawk rode into Brighton at half past eight, before the fashionable part of town was stirring. He turned into the Red Lion Inn and arranged to stable Centaur there. He had a standing invitation to stay with Van and his wife, who’d taken a house on the Marine Parade, but he wouldn’t disturb them at this hour.

He wasn’t sure why he was here so uselessly early except that he’d wanted to get on with his pursuit of Miss Greystone. Time was shortening before Slade’s deadline, but more than that, like a novice before battle, he feared losing his nerve.

Miss Greystone might seem innocent, but he couldn’t imagine how she could not have been involved in Deveril’s death and that forged will. She was, as far as he could see, the sole beneficiary. Anything he discovered was likely to lead to her destruction, and quite simply, he balked at that. He’d spent the past weeks seeking some other way of claiming the Deveril money.

He’d failed.

If he’d failed, he doubted it was possible. He’d used every angle and connection to try to find the forger, or a hint of the killer. Nothing, which meant he was up against a clever mind and that line of inquiry was dead, especially given his shortage of time. One day, however, he hoped to know who had constructed the deceit, and how.

And why. That in particular puzzled him. The heiress had the money. Why had a clever mind gone to such illegal lengths for no obvious profit?

A lover? He didn’t want to think he’d been as deeply fooled by her as that.

From servants and gossips, he’d compiled a list of people Clarissa had been seen with during her time in London, but it was short and unhelpful. The Greystones and Deveril had only been tolerated, so her social circle had not been wide. The highest-born connection was Lady Gorgros, a vastly stupid woman who couldn’t be the genius behind anything.

Viscount Starke had hung around Deveril, but he’d shake hands with anyone for another bottle of brandy, and his hands perpetually shook on their own, anyway. There’d been others of his sort, and a couple of upstart families who had wined and dined the Greystones under the illusion that it was a step toward the haut ton.

After Deveril’s death, however, she’d been taken up by the Marchioness of Arden. That had struck him as strange enough to be interesting until he’d discovered that Lady Arden had been a teacher at Miss Mallory’s School. Obviously, in time of need Clarissa had turned to her. Hawk would have spoken to the marchioness to see if she had anything to tell, but the lady was living in the country, expecting to be confined with her first child at any moment.

It was perhaps as well. Poking in such high-flowing waters was likely to be dangerous. That explained, however, why the heiress’s guardian was the Duke of Belcraven, Arden’s father. Her own father had been persuaded to sign away all his rights for five thousand pounds. With the Greystones, it would appear, everything was for sale.

So, after weeks of work, he had facts but no clue about Clarissa Greystone’s mysterious partner in crime. Thus his only key was Clarissa herself. Perhaps her honesty and innocence were a deep disguise, and she was a thorough villain. Perhaps she was the puppet of some undiscovered manipulator.

Whatever the truth, Hawk was going to uncover it, and he would do whatever it took.

As soon as the post office opened he went to speak to his obliging informant there. Since Hawk was from a well-known local family, Mr. Crawford had made no difficulty over accepting a crown to send word when Miss Clarissa Greystone arrived in town.

“Came to register with me yesterday, Major Hawkinville,” the rotund man said with a wink. “Miss Greystone, a pretty friend, and their chaperone.”

“Any other notable arrivals?” Hawk asked, attempting to mask his interest a little.

Crawford consulted his book. “The Earl and Countess of Gresham, sir. Mrs. and Miss Nutworth-Hulme…”

When the man had run down the list, Hawk thanked him again and left, pausing to allow a couple to enter the room. An arresting couple.

The woman was a silver-haired beauty in pure white, from the plumes on her bonnet to her kid slippers. Somehow she tweaked at his memory, though he didn’t know her. Certainly no man would forget her. Her companion was a tall, darkly handsome man with an empty sleeve tucked between the buttons of his jacket. Military, Hawk guessed, but again, no one he knew.

“Mrs. Hardcastle!” Mr. Crawford exclaimed, coming around his counter to bow to the lady.

Ah, he remembered her now. She was the actress they called the White Dove of Drury Lane. She’d been playing Titania when he’d tracked Van down in the theater a while ago. His mind had been entirely on Van’s danger, but even so, her grace and charm had made an impression.

She was irrelevant to his current concerns, however.

As he continued on his way he heard Crawford greet the man as Major Beaumont, confirming that he was military and a stranger. All the same, that irrelevant name would now have slotted into his mind.

He found it tiresome to have nearly every detail stick, even something like a chance-met actress and her escort, but he’d learned to live with it, and it was the basis of his skill. He still had time to kill, so he walked over to the seafront, hoping the brisk breeze would clear his mind.

He wasn’t used to having a tangled mind, but Clarissa Greystone had achieved it. Looked at from the angle of the evidence, she could not be an innocent. Hell, she was a Greystone, and even if she had spent most of the recent years at Miss Mallory’s School, that had to carry a taint.

As well, he knew better than most that appearances could be completely deceptive. He remembered a wide-eyed child in Lisbon who had mutilated the soldiers he had murdered and robbed.

The ethereal White Dove was probably a foulmouthed wanton, and wholesome Clarissa Greystone was neck-deep in slime. He need have no qualms about pleasing her and wooing her until she let something slip that would open the puzzle-box of Deveril’s affairs.

If only he felt that way.

He watched the dippers lead their horses down to the beach and harness them to the bathing machines, getting ready for the first bathers of the day. Business might be light, given the clouds graying the sky. Even so, perhaps he should sea-bathe despite the weather, and try to be washed clean of the stink he felt creeping over him.

Maudlin thought, but he’d never used lovemaking as a weapon before.

He suddenly remembered recruiting someone to do just that, however—if coupling with a notorious whore could be called lovemaking. It had been two years ago, just after the taking of Paris. Napoleon had abdicated, and Richard Anstable, an inoffensive British diplomat, had been found stabbed to death.

The man who’d found him had been Nicholas Delaney, and Hawk had recognized the name. Delaney had been the creator and leader of the Company of Rogues, Con’s group of friends at Harrow School.

Hawk, curious about a person he’d heard so much about, had immediately wondered what Delaney was doing at the liberation of Paris. He’d sought Delaney out, and there’d been an instant liking, though Hawk had instinctively blocked the man’s charisma.

That charisma, however, had landed Delaney with the very devil of a job, and because of their acquaintance, Hawk had been given the task of putting it to him.

The Foreign Office, the Horse Guards, and the military command all had files on a woman called Therese Bellaire. A daughter of the minor nobility, she had risen in wealth and power as mistress and procuress to Napoleon’s most important men. In 1814, with Napoleon abdicating, she had turned to Colonel Coldstrop of the Guards, and begged his help in fleeing to England. No one thought her purpose innocent.

It had been decided to support her plan so as to find out what she was up to and whom she contacted. The files showed that a few years before, Delaney had been her resident lover for months. The files also said that he’d left her, not the other way around, and that she still cared.

Hawk’s orders had been blunt. “She’s up to something,” General Featheringham had said, “and we need to know what. Only idiots think Boney’s going to sit on Elba growing violets, and there are Bonapartist sympathizers everywhere, including Britain. Tell Delaney to get back into the woman’s good graces and rut the truth out of her.”

Hawk had put it more politely, but Nicholas Delaney’s eyes had turned steady and cool. All he’d said, however, was, “And to think I felt guilty about not fighting in the Peninsula.”

Hawk had tried to sugar the pill. “I hear she’s a very beautiful woman, and skilled at the erotic arts.”

Delaney had stood up at that. “Then you do it,” he’d said, and left.

It hadn’t been a rejection. Hawk had known that, and within days he’d heard that Delaney was part of a wild circle including Therese Bellaire. Soon after that, he’d left for England with the woman, presumably doing his noble service.

Hawk had heard no more of it, and hadn’t cared to, but when Napoleon, as predicted, had returned to France and power, the Bellaire woman had reappeared in the inner circle. She’d disappeared around the time of Waterloo, and now, surely, her goose must be cooked.

It had all come back to him because he’d met Delaney again recently—in Devon, at Con’s place there. Delaney’s country estate lay not far away, and he’d come to look over the strange collection left by Con’s predecessor and to help Con with a dilemma to do with Susan.

Delaney and Hawk had both pretended not to have met before, and it hadn’t seemed that Delaney held a grudge. All the same, Hawk wondered how many thorns from his past would turn up to jab him.

Thorns from his present, as well.

He returned to the Red Lion and ate a mediocre breakfast, waiting for fashionable Brighton to emerge. Waiting for Clarissa Greystone to become vulnerable to his Hawk’s eye and talons.

The fashionable throng kept earlier hours at Brighton, so by eleven he could go out to stroll among them. He circled the open grassy area called the Steyne, chatting to the occasional acquaintance, many of them military, casually keeping an eye out for his quarry.

He recognized Miss Trist first. Or rather, he was alerted by a swirl of attention around a lovely lady in a white dress trimmed with periwinkle blue, and then saw who it was. It took him a moment to recognize the lively creature beside her as Clarissa Greystone.

No sign of the unsophisticated schoolgirl now. What an excellent actress she was.

She wasn’t wearing a bonnet. Instead, a daringly elegant hat with a small curved brim revealed all of her face and quite a lot of her stylishly dressed curls. It didn’t make her a beauty, but it gave a vibrancy to her features. To protect her complexion, she carried the latest thing, a pagoda-style parasol. Or, to be precise, she twirled it. Even at a distance she looked confident, full of the zest of life—and dangerous.

Her gown was an off-white color strongly trimmed with rust-colored braid and edged around the hem with a deep fringe. As she walked, that fringe swung, giving tantalizing glimpses of shapely ankles emphasized by cream-and-rust-striped stockings.

Every man on the Steyne was doubtless looking at those ankles.

He jerked his own eyes up, steadied himself, and planned his intercept. He saw others making a direct line, including a number of military men. The last thing he wanted was the heiress in the protection of another man. Disguising his urgency, he moved in swiftly for the kill.

“I say, Aunt Arabella, fancy seeing you here! And in such charming company!”

Clarissa started. She’d been so intent on looking carefree and confident despite feeling sick with nerves that she hadn’t noticed the dark-haired, dark-eyed young officer until he was upon them.

Miss Hurstman stopped and looked him up and down. “Afraid the mold’ll rub off on them, Trevor? You were a big-eared gawk when I saw you last. Heard you did well at Waterloo, though. Good boy. You don’t want to chatter to me, I’m sure. I know what you want. Miss Trist and Miss Greystone. Consider yourself introduced. Lieutenant Lord Trevor Ffyfe. He’ll be a safe flirt for you because he knows I’ll cut his nose off if he ain’t.”

The young man laughed. “Remarkable woman, my aunt. Are you new to Brighton, ladies? You must be. I couldn’t possibly have missed two such beauties…”

After a few moments of his flattering, chattering company, Clarissa’s nerves began to settle, and tentative joy crept in. Was it really going to work? Was Miss Hurstman going to perform the miracle and gain her entrance to society? This was what she’d dreamed of—becoming clothes, a fashionable throng, and a gallant, even titled, flirt.

She and Althea had lived in seclusion for two days while Mrs. Howell and her assistants rushed backward and forward doing final fittings on the gowns. They hadn’t been bored, because there had been the hairdresser, the dancing master, and Miss Hurstman’s own drill in perfect, confident behavior.

“Never fluster!” she commanded Clarissa. “Althea can be as demure and uncertain as she pleases, but if you are, they’ll eat you alive. Look them in the eye, remember your fortune, and dare them to turn their backs.”

Now she was being hatched, and in very fine feathers. She loved the bold colors of this one, and the deep, daring fringe. Perhaps in fine feathers she became a little bit of a fine bird?

She kept her chin up, her smile in place, and prepared to look anyone and everyone in the eye.

“Do say that you’ll give me a dance at the assembly on Friday, Miss Greystone.”

Clarissa focused on handsome Lord Trevor, and her smile became genuine. “I’d be delighted to, my lord.”

“I consider myself the most fortunate of men, Miss Greystone!” He was attempting to sound sincere, but she could tell that his dazed attention was more on Althea than herself. She didn’t mind. That was the true purpose of this adventure.

More or less.

She couldn’t resist glancing around in search of Major Hawkinville. There was no reason under the sun for him to be here today, but she couldn’t help but look.

Imagine being able to talk with him at leisure.

Imagine him asking her to reserve a dance.

But then, perhaps the dazzling appeal had been a figment of the moment and here, among so many fine military men, he would be ordinary.

There was only one way to find out.

Another survey showed no sign of him. Patience, she told herself, and concentrated on the increasing number of fine military men. It was as if Lord Trevor had breached the walls—they were surrounded by uniforms, all seeking introductions.

Only one said to Clarissa, “Oh, I say, aren’t you—?” and then shut up, turning red.

“Dunce,” said Lord Trevor with a reassuring smile at Clarissa.

But her nerves started to churn again. She was still the Devil’s Heiress. It was all very well to be swarmed by young officers. Would other parts of society accept her?

The officers all had excellent manners, at least, and shared their attention between Althea and herself. Since all she wanted from them was the lightest flirtation, it was heavenly.

But what about the major? She glanced around again, searching the clusters of people dotting the fashionable gathering place. She was sure that if he was here he would stand out for her…

And he did!

After just one glimpse, her heart started a nervous patter.

She instantly turned back to the group, smiling brightly at a lieutenant whose name had flown right out of her head, chattering to him in what was probably a stream of nonsense.

Remember, he is a fortune hunter. This is only for amusement, not for life.

“Miss Greystone. Miss Trist. How delightful to see you here.”

Clarissa turned, putting on what she hoped was a merely warm smile. “Major Hawkinville. What a lovely surprise.”

His smiling eyes held a distinct hint of wickedness. “Not entirely a surprise, Miss Greystone. We did speak of it.”

A little shocked by that betrayal, Clarissa was still seeking the right response when a poke in her side alerted her to Miss Hurstman, expecting to be introduced. She grasped the escape, and her chaperone asked a few pointed questions before giving him the nod. Clarissa was surprised to detect something negative in her dragon. Wariness? Concern? Was there something wrong with his family? His reputation?

But then she had it. Probably Miss Hurstman knew him to be a man in need of marrying a fortune. Sad to have that confirmed, but not a shock. She could still enjoy him. In fact, it could be seen as educational. Once word escaped, she was bound to be swarmed by fortune hunters. She would learn from the major what to expect, and how to handle it.

“Major Hawkinville!” Lord Trevor said. “I say, sir, how good to see you again. And now you meet my redoubtable Aunt Arabella.”

Miss Hurstman’s eyes narrowed. “Been gossiping about me in the mess, Trevor?”

Lord Trevor went red and stammered a denial.

“He was singing your praises,” said the major, “about some work you did helping young workhouse girls.”

Miss Hurstman looked between them. “Strange topic for officers.”

“We try to be eclectic. Educate the subalterns, you know.” Hawk turned to Clarissa. “Are you enjoying Brighton, Miss Greystone?”

“Perfectly,” she said, adding a silent now.

She’d wondered whether he would seem as special away from riot and adventure, but if anything, he was more so, even when surrounded by other eligible men. He was remarkably elegant, without being foppish. She wasn’t sure how that came about, but she would be happy to study the question.

What was her fortune hunter going to do next?

He chatted to the other men for a moment or two, then he held out his arm to her. Concealing a smile, she put her hand on it, and let him cut her out of the group to stroll about the Steyne.

A simple and direct first step. She approved.

How would he open his wooing?

“You’ve acquired a formidable dragon, Miss Greystone.”

She looked at him in surprise. “Miss Hurstman? She was hired by my trustees, Major.”

“Ffyfe’s aunt?”

“Is that so extraordinary?”

“Ffyfe’s aunt, I believe, is actually cousin to his father, the Marquess of Mayne, rather than sister. However, she’s sister to one viscount, aunt to another, and granddaughter of a duke. Hardly the type to hire herself out for the season.”

“You’re surprisingly well informed, Major.” She supposed a fortune hunter needed to gather information about his quarry, but such blatant evidence of it dismayed her. And where was the amusing flattery and charm she had anticipated?

But then he smiled rather wryly. “I’m blessed—or cursed—with a retentive memory, Miss Greystone. Facts stick. You may wish to be a little on your guard.”

“Against your retentive memory?”

It came out rather snappishly, and he looked startled. “Against Ffyfe’s aunt.” But then he added, “Ignore me, please. Someone who’s been in battle often jumps at loud noises. My active service had more to do with puzzles than cannon fire, but I’m left with a sharp reaction to things and people that seem amiss.”

“You see Miss Hurstman as amiss?” Clarissa asked, beginning to be intrigued by the puzzle. “I’d think her eminent background would put her beyond reproach.”

“High rank doesn’t always go hand in hand with virtue, Miss Greystone. I would think you would know that.”

“I?” she asked, a nervous tremor starting. Was he referring to her family?

“I could not help but be curious about you, Miss Greystone, and I learned that you were betrothed to Lord Deveril.”

Despite the sun, Clarissa felt as if a chill wind blew around her. Something must have shown on her face, for he said, “Have I offended you by mentioning it?”

She looked at him. He did not seem repentant. Only watchful. Was this really how fortune hunters behaved? And, she suddenly thought, if he was honest about his curiosity, had he not known in Cheltenham that she was rich?

“It is common knowledge, Major.”

“As was Lord Deveril’s vice. I confess to being curious as to how you came to be committed to him. It cannot have been by choice.”

She silently thanked him for that, but could not, would not, talk about it. It made her almost physically sick.

“My parents compelled me, Major. But it is a matter I prefer not to discuss. I must thank you for the name you gave me, though it was not required. My trustees have found me a pleasant house in Broad Street.”

“A good address. Close enough to the Steyne for convenience, but not so close as to be affected by rowdiness. What with bands, parades, and donkey races, this is often not a restful place.”

She glanced at him. “But do I want to rest?”

He returned her look, and it was suddenly like the time when they had been watching the parade, when he’d silently challenged her. Had he not known then who she was? It seemed crucial, but she had no way to be sure.

“I see,” he said. “You enjoy riot and mayhem?”

She twirled her parasol, sending the fringe dancing at the edge of her vision. “Not precisely that, but some little adventures…”

“You could creep out of your house tonight to explore Brighton with me in the dark.”

“Major!”

But he was teasing, and she loved it.

His smile crinkled his eyes and dug deep brackets beside his mouth. “Too extreme? Or simply too early?” Before she could find a reply, he added, “We must establish boundaries, Miss Greystone. Could I tempt you to stroll beyond this treeless space and find more privacy?”

“To do what?” she asked, glancing away, but as if she might consider something so outrageous.

“Part of the adventure, Miss Greystone, is the mystery involved.”

She looked back. “But a mystery, Major, might prove to be pleasant, or very unpleasant.”

“There would be no excitement otherwise, would there?”

She met his eyes. “No danger, you mean.”

His only response was a slight deepening of his tantalizing smile.

Suddenly she wanted to say yes. To go off with him and discover just how dangerous he could be. If this was a fortune hunter’s trick, then she could begin to understand why some ladies fell victim to them!

Time to be wise. She looked back toward Miss Hurstman, Althea, and the group of red coats around them. “I think we had best return, Major. I cannot afford to endanger my reputation, for Althea’s sake. I hope she will make a good connection here.”

He turned back without complaint. “You do not seek a husband yourself?”

It pleased her to be able to say, “No.” How would he deal with that?

“That is unusual in a young woman, Miss Greystone.”

“I am an unusual woman, Major Hawkinville.”

She meant merely that she was—or soon would be— independently wealthy, but when he said, “Yes, you are,” it seemed to mean a great deal more.

Despite reason, warmth stirred within her, and it was caused by the admiration in his eyes. She tried to dismiss it as a fortune hunter’s trick, but she could not.

“Your good sense and courage during the riot made a strong impression upon me, Miss Greystone. It also cannot have been easy to be put into such a situation with Lord Deveril, and yet you have survived unscathed.”

She wished he would stop referring to that, but said, “Thank you.”

“You are free of your parents’ cruelty now, I hope?”

“I am under the guardianship of the Duke of Belcraven.” Then she remembered his curiosity, and her wits sharpened. “You did not find that out, Major?”

A quirk of his lips seemed to be acknowledgment of a hit. “Yes, but not why. Or how.”

“Then that puzzle can lend excitement to your life, Major.”

His brows rose. “I am newly back from war, Miss Greystone. I am in no need of excitement.”

She stopped to face him. “That was an unfair blow, sir!”

“Are we duelists, then? I thought us conspirators against your dull world.”

“My world is not at all dull.” Especially not with you in it!

“Ah, of course. You are new to Brighton. Perhaps I should return in a week or two when the novelty has worn off.”

A second too late she knew she had let her dismay at that show. She had forgotten that he didn’t live here. When would she see him again, enjoy his sparring again?

From inside a posy of scarlet coats, Althea flashed Clarissa a speculative look. Clarissa realized that she and the major were standing face-to-face in a way that must look particular. What now? She didn’t know how to do this any more than she knew how to swim. Was she being wooed, or simply toyed with? How should she react? How far could she go without endangering her liberty?

She fell back on frankness. “When you do return, Major, I hope you’ll call. Broad Street. Number eight.”

He bowed, and by accord they moved on to join her party. “When in Brighton, I am based at number twenty-two, Marine Parade. It has been taken by my friend Lord Vandeimen and his bride.” He glanced past her. “Ah, and here they are, lured by curiosity. Or,” he added softly, “your delectable fringe-veiled ankles.”

Stupidly, she looked down at her fringe as if she wasn’t aware that it effectively made her skirt three inches shorter. By the time she looked up again to greet his friends, she was thoroughly off-balance.

Delectable? He thought her ankles delectable?