Three Heroes

London April 1816

Glorious spring sunshine beamed through the open curtains, and the raised window let in courting birdsong. Nearby, people chattered amid their busy lives, and wheels rattled as a horse and cart hurried down the back lane.

The golden light danced on the disheveled hair and ravaged classic features of a young man lolling in the faded armchair beside the window. It glinted off half-lowered lashes and golden stubble that suggested a night without sleep or orderly waking, and dug deep into a jagged scar down one cheek that told of more dangerous adventures in the past.

His legs, in breeches and well-worn boots, stretched before him, and a half-full wineglass tilted in his lax, long-fingered hand.

On a round table by his elbow stood a decanter with an inch or so of pale amber wine, and a plain, practical pistol.

He raised the glass and sipped, seeming intent on the garden outside the window, but in fact Lord Vandeimen's gaze was directed at nothing close or visible. He looked at the past, both recent and far, and with increasing, slightly fretful curiosity, at the future.

Switching the glass to his left hand, he placed two fingers on the cold metal of the pistol barrel. His father's pistol, used for the same purpose nearly a year before.

So easy.

So quick.

So why was he waiting?

Hamlet had had something to say about that.

In his case, he decided, he was pausing to enjoy this particularly fine wine. After all, he'd spent nearly all his last coins on it. He must be careful not to drift away under its influence and waste this moment of resolution. One bottle hadn't put him under the table since he was a lad, though.

So long ago, those days of wicked youthful adventures. Was it really less than ten years since he'd been a carefree youth, running wild on the Sussex Downs with Con and Hawk?

No, not carefree. Even children and youths have cares. But blessedly free of the weightier burdens of life.

The three Georges. The triumvirate.

His drifting mind settled on the day they'd tired of having the same patriotic name and rechristened themselves. Hawk Hawkinville. Van Vandeimen. It should have been Somer Somerford, but Con had balked at such a effete name. He'd taken a variation of his second name, Connaught.

Con.

Con, Hawk, and Van. They'd grown up like brothers, almost like triplets. Back in those days they'd not imagined a time when they'd be so apart, but Van was glad the other two weren't here now, With luck, they'd hear of his death when it was history, the pain of it numbed. They hadn't seen each other since Waterloo.]]>

Con had returned home directly after the battle, but Hawk and Van had lingered awhile. Hawk was still with the army now, tidying up Europe. Van had been in England for four months, but he'd carefully avoided his home and old friends.

He drained the glass and refilled it, his hand reassuringly steady. It was strange that Con hadn't hunted him down. Any other time, that would have worried him, but not now. If Con didn't care, that was good.

No friends. No family.

Once, in another life, there had been so much more. When he'd left at sixteen to join his regiment, mother, father, and two sisters had waved farewell. Ten years later, all were shades. Did they watch him now? If so, what did their ghostly voices cry? Wouldn't they want him to join them?

"Don't protest to me, old man,” he said to his ghostly father. "You took the same way out when you were left alone. And what have I—? Oh, devil take it!” he snapped, slamming down the glass and seizing the pistol. "When I start talking to ghosts, it's time.”]]>

Impelled by some mythical urge, he picked up the glass and poured the remaining wine to stream and puddle on the waxed floor. "An offering to the gods," he said. "May they be merciful."

Then he put the long barrel cold into his mouth and with a final breath and a prayer squeezed the trigger.

The click was loud, but a click didn't kill. He pulled the gun out and stared at it with wild exasperation. A flick showed him the problem. The flint of the old-fashioned pistol had worn and slipped sideways.

"Shoddy work, Van," he muttered, desperately trying to think whether he had a fresh flint anywhere in his rooms, his hands trembling now. If he had to go out and find one, the moment might pass. He might try again to pull his life out of the pit.

He knew he didn't have a fresh flint, so he poked out the old one, sweat chilling his brow and his nape, and tried to fix it so it would work. He'd drunk enough to make himself clumsy.

"Plague and tarnation, and hell, and damnation, and—"

"Stop!"

He looked up, dazed, to see a figure standing in his doorway, draped in white, crowned in white, hand outstretched, looking like a stern Byzantine angel . . .

Smooth oval face, long nose, firm lips.

A woman.

She swept forward to grip the pistol barrel. "You must not!" He kept a hand tight on the butt. "What the devil business is it of yours, madam?" An elegant woman in high fashion, including a turban-style hat with a tall feather. Where the pox had she come from, and what business was he of hers?

Her steady eyes held his. "I need you, Lord Vandeimen. You can kill yourself later." He dragged the pistol out of her gloved hands. "I can kill myself anytime I damn well please, and take you with me!"

She straightened, looking down her long nose. "Not with only one pistol ball."

"There are many ways of killing, and I'll save the pistol for myself." He saw her pale and suck in breath, but when she spoke it was steadily. "Give me a few minutes of your time, my lord. Then, on my word, if you still wish it, I will leave you to your purpose." Such scorn. Such judgment in those blue-gray eyes. If the pistol had been working, he might have shot her to wipe away that scorn. He immediately put the weapon down.

She snatched it and retreated a few wise steps, pistol clutched to her creamy gown. Then she looked down at it, shuddered, and placed it on his open desk by the papers he'd carefully prepared.

Curiosity suddenly wiped out anger and urgency.

This woman knew him, but he had no idea who she was. Not surprising, since he hadn't been moving in fashionable circles.

Her gown was in the height of fashion, as was the long, pale cashmere shawl that looped over both elbows and almost trailed the ground. He knew enough of women's furbelows to price that shawl at a sum that would reroof Steynings.

It wouldn't fix the damaged plaster or the rotting wood, but the roof would be a start.

"Well?" he asked, linking his hands, ready to enjoy this interlude at the gates of hell.

She subsided into the chair that matched his, then jumped when it sagged down beneath her.

"It hasn't collapsed under anyone yet," he remarked. "Am I to know your name, or is this all cloaked in hoary mystery?"

Color blossomed in her creamy skin, making her look less like a plaster saint, and much more interesting in a fleshy way. He suddenly wondered what she'd look like far gone in sex, which was another thought he'd not expected to have again.

"My name is Maria Celestin."

His brows rose. The Golden Lily. The wealthy widow who had just emerged from mourning, causing every red-blooded fortune hunter to seethe with desire. Someone had suggested that he pursue the woman as the solution to his woes.

She'd have to be insane to marry him, however, and he'd no mind to marry a madwoman.

He knew the age of the Golden Lily. Thirty-three. That explained her composure and steady eyes. He knew her bloodlines. She'd been born a Dunpott-Ffyfe and married down to some upstart foreign merchant.

"And your purpose here, Mrs. Celestin? If you are seeking consolation of the flesh, I regret that I am neither in the mood nor the state to oblige."

"Then it is as well that I am not, my lord." She didn't blush. Perhaps she'd heard the same too often. Distressing to be cliché.

She too had linked her hands in front of her, and now she'd grown accustomed to the chair she was trying to be elegant and composed. She wasn't, though. She was wound tight as a watch spring like a raw recruit on the brink of battle.

Gad, he hoped she wasn't here to fight for his immortal soul.

"You lost ten thousand at Brooks' last night, my lord." It stung, but he hoped that didn't show. "And how did you find out about that, Mrs.

Celestin?"

"There were many people there. Word is out. You cannot possibly pay." He looked down at his hands before gathering enough will to meet her eyes coolly. "My estates, decrepit though they are, will probably settle the bill."

"I will pay that debt in return for your services for six weeks.” He hadn't expected to feel shock again. "You do want consolation of the flesh.” Now she did blush, though her tone was chilly. "It seems an obsession of yours, my lord.]]>

Unfortunately for you, I am not at all interested." She even dared to look him over, briefly, with patent lack of interest. "What I require is an escort and a bodyguard."

"Hire a dragoon, madam."

He began to rise, ready to throw her out, but something in her steady gaze pushed him back into his chair. Whatever this was about, she was deadly serious.

"A dragoon would not serve, my lord. To be precise, I wish you to pose as my affianced husband for the next six weeks, in payment for which I will give you ten thousand pounds. What is more, if you fulfill our agreement to the letter, I will give you a further ten thousand pounds at the end. You can drink it, game it, or use it to rescue your estates. That will be up to you." The little beat of excitement that started in his chest was a betrayal. He was as good as dead, dammit. He didn't want this now.

He was lying.

It was the chance, the new beginning he'd been hunting for months. He wouldn't show hope or excitement. He wouldn't reveal his need to this madwoman.

"Tempting," he drawled. "I have learned, however, that if a bargain appears too good to be true, it probably is."

Her neatly arched brows rose. "What trap do you foresee? That I hold you to our mock betrothal? Do you object to marrying a fortune?"

"Not at all. Why don't we simplify everything by marrying now?"

"Because you drink too much, and game too wildly, and, it would seem, choose the easy way out."

He knew he was turning red. "I see. So, what benefit do you find in your strange arrangement that is worth twenty thousand pounds?"

She rose with admirable smoothness, rearranging her fabulous shawl so it didn't drag on the floor.

He was suddenly aware of full breasts and round hips beneath the elegant vertical flow of her ivory gown.

Inappropriate for an almost-dead man to note such things but she was, in a chilly way, a very attractive woman.

"My purposes are none of your concern, my lord,” she said in a voice one might use to a greengrocer. "I merely require you to engage yourself to marry me, and to act for the next six weeks as if that were true. This does mean,” she added pointedly, "that you will have to act like a man I might wish to marry.”]]>

"Ah," he said, belatedly rising. The room wavered slightly, and he hadn't drunk enough for that. He wondered if the pistol had worked, if this was some heavenly illusion.

"What dreams may come. . . ."

The smell of spilled wine soured the air, however. Surely heaven could do better than that. "You will expect me to resist excessive drink and gaming, madam? Gad, will I have to squire you to Almack's? They'd never let me in."

"Almack's is boring. Balls, routs, breakfasts, masquerades ..." She gestured vaguely with a hand covered by fine cream kid in color remarkably like her fine cream skin. "I will require you to escort me to most events I attend, to stay by my side for the usual amount of time, and to be well mannered and sober. When not by my side, you will do nothing to shame my choice."

"Alas. I must avoid my favorite opium dens and wild wenches?"

"You must avoid anyone hearing about them." She looked him in the eye, despite being six inches shorter. "You are in love with me, Lord Vandeimen. For six weeks, and a payment of twenty thousand pounds, in the eyes of the world, you adore me."

"Do I get to kiss you, then?" he asked, advancing on her, suddenly furious at this demanding woman who thought she could buy him, body and soul.

And probably could.

He found himself looking down the barrel of his pistol, held in her steady, but tense, hands. "You will never, ever, touch me without my permission.” He smiled at the pointless threat. "Why not pull the trigger?” he drawled. "That will achieve my end, and save me from the sin of self-destruction.” Her eyes widened, and for the first time he saw overt fear. She'd put herself in a situation she didn't understand and couldn't control, and had the wit to know it.]]>

It was about time she learned some other lessons.

Glancing to one side to distract her, he snatched the pistol. She gasped and stepped back, pale becoming pallid.

He was tempted to seize her, press the useless pistol to her lush breasts, and claim the kiss he'd threatened. Disgusted by that, he snapped, "Leave.” She looked at him, breathing rapidly. "You are rejecting my offer?” He wanted to say yes, but the same impulse that had sent him to the tables ruled him here. "No.]]>