He closed the door, leaving them alone in the corridor. “You can’t fight with Mrs. Celestin without picking a fight with me, you know. And I always win.”
He said it lightly, but Hawk would understand that he was serious.
“Only because you’ve always been a madman.” The tense look eased, however. “I probably did go a bit beyond the line.”
“Why?”
“She said you lost ten thousand in one night. What the devil have you been up to?”
Van hadn’t wanted any of his friends burdened with his problems. “My father left debts.”
“And you decided to add to them?”
“I was trying to recoup them. You know I’ve always been lucky. Hawk, why were you picking a fight with Maria?”
After a moment, Hawk said, “I suppose it’s mostly because of her husband.”
“Celestin? You knew him?”
“Only as a name. He was one of the worst suppliers of shoddy goods and short measure, but we could never pin anything on him. Very clever use of middlemen. It galls me to think of all that money on a woman’s back.”
“Will it help to think of me benefiting from his ill-gotten gains?”
Hawk laughed. “Zeus, yes! Can’t think of a better use at this point.” After a moment, he added, “Look, don’t throw a punch, but is it worth the money to marry a woman so much older?”
Van thought of explaining. He didn’t mind revealing his follies to Hawk, but he didn’t want to put Maria in a worse light. Then he recalled an amber light, and a ravishing kiss that hadn’t been repeated....
“So,” Hawk said, smoothing over the silence, “at least you’ll be able to restore Steynings to all its former glory.”
If Hawk thought this was a love affair, all the better. “That’s the idea. Look, I’d better go back in. Come round tomorrow and we’ll have more time to catch up. Have you seen Con yet?”
“I’m fresh off the boat. Heard about your engagement and set off—”
“—to save me, like George and the dragon? I don’t think poor Maria should be seen as a dragon.”
Hawk grinned. “And you’re no trembling maiden. As for tomorrow, perhaps you’d better come to me. I’m staying at Beadle’s Hotel in Prince’s Street.”
Clearly the disagreement between Hawk and Maria had been unpleasantly sharp. “Very well. Have you heard from Con at all?”
“No. Haven’t you?”
“No.”
“Have you tried?”
Van shrugged. “I didn’t want to clutter his life with my problems. Since Waterloo, since Lord Darius died, he has enough.”
“Perhaps your clutter would have been a distraction.”
It was a reproof, and perhaps warranted, but Van said, “He’d have felt obliged to lend me money, and his family’s never been wealthy.”
“What about the earldom?”
“I still wouldn’t want to dun off him. Forget it. Perhaps you should have come home sooner instead of playing around Europe.”
“Playing around—?” Hawk sucked in a breath.
Van knew he should apologize. Hawk had been cleaning up the bloody mess left by the battle, by mounds of corpses, by destroyed property, by allies turned to arguing among themselves over responsibility and reparation and even what to call the battle.
