Rogue's Reward (25 page)

“But you displayed some very charming petticoats and a delectable ankle.”

“Which you should have refrained from noticing.”

Her eyes offered him no mercy. He might yet drown in those dark depths, chocolate and gold, her gaze barely disguising her desire and setting hot fire to his.

“Then you don’t think I should take you to my bed?” he asked very deliberately.

Eleanor took a deep breath. A tiny tremor ran over her lips—delectable, enticing.

“I think you are punishing me for coming here like this,” she said.

“No doubt you are right.”

Lee closed his eyes for a moment. She must never know what this cost him, for there was nothing he longed for more than to kiss her until she surrendered. He knew with his whole being that her response would be wanton and honest and passionate. His desire was compelling enough almost to unnerve him. And there lay his bedchamber, one door away, with the fresh herb-scented sheets on the great feather bed.

He had not enjoyed a lover since before that night at the Three Feathers. Had his bold Eleanor spoiled him for any other woman?

He loved her courage and her quick mind. He loved her humor and her brown eyes. She might not be society’s idea of a great beauty, but she entranced him. He loved her company—just to talk with her, laugh, argue. He
liked
her. Yet his hunger to explore the sweet curves of her body threatened every value he held dear.

Lee crossed his arms and focused on the hard edge of the mantel cutting into his back, until he felt his desire abate, just a little. He knew without question that if he took one step toward her, there would be no turning back.

Eleanor gazed at him, her heart in her eyes.

“I know I am right,” she said. “It seems to be a favorite pastime of yours to threaten to ravish whatever female is foolish enough to cross swords with you. What you don’t know is that I have a knife.”

He burst into genuine laughter. “Do you indeed? Then the gentleman who accosted you in the street was fortunate to escape with no more than teeth marks. Do you think you could prevail against me, should it come to a fight?”

“I never thought that for a moment. Obviously, the little blade my maid made me carry is useless against someone of your agility and training. But I could plunge it into my heart in order to save my virtue, couldn’t I? Death before dishonor?”

“Pray, do nothing so dastardly, dear lady! I should have to face your brother Richard over it. You win. You may keep your virtue. Now why did you really come here?”

“To show you this.” She pulled a letter out of her reticule and gave it to him. It was from the minister who had married his parents.

“For God’s sake!” he said after a moment.

“It is important, isn’t it?” Eleanor asked.

“Damnably so—if the man is correct. Or perhaps all this flowery imagery is just another chimera. You realize, of course, that I have passage booked to Belgium on a troop ship in a few hours, and that I have already delayed joining my regiment innumerable times this last month?”

“Then you will have to delay it again. You can’t go without knowing the truth about this. You owe it to Diana, whether you care or not for yourself.”

“And that I have already sent my horses and gear on ahead?”

“Surely a servant is with them?”

“And that if I miss this ship, the next one mightn’t take me there until after it’s all over?”

“The Duke of Wellington will have to win without you.”

“Without question he will do so. But I will have shirked my duty and earned his just displeasure.”

“Earls have other duties besides being slaughtered by Napoleon, and brothers have duties even more important than that. Wellington will get over it.”

“You don’t give up, do you, brown hen?”

“Diana is my friend.” With desperate bravery she stood up and faced him. “And in the meantime, you are stuck with an earl’s unblemished and importunate daughter in your rooms. Think of the scandal if it were found out! If you take advantage of the situation, my reputation is ruined. If you don’t, then yours is. But if you don’t promise to look into this right away, I shan’t go home and you will have to ravish me after all.”

The remembered taste of her mouth flooded his tongue and sent tension throbbing through his body. How exquisite to take this one last night to teach her the enchantment of abandonment! Why not abandon both honor and restraint—

As his father had done?

For God’s sake, it could not be long after he landed in Belgium that he would face Napoleon’s guns. Once again, he would greet Death to discover whether that gentleman intended only a passing salute or a permanent embrace. But this time, he must face Azrael celibate.

He did not speak the thought aloud. Instead, he forced heavy sarcasm into his voice.

“You
want
me to steal fire?”

“Like Prometheus? Why not? If you will only make things right by your sister, you can go to Timbuktu for all I care. I want you to find out the truth about your mother and free Diana to marry Walter Feveril Downe. If that means letting go of your damnable willingness to sacrifice yourself, then so be it.”

Lee forced himself not to move. He smiled with a mockery honed by years of practice.

“I surrender, brown hen. There are some members of a Highland regiment waiting now for passage to Belgium, who can perhaps give me a new translation of the Gaelic. I never had cause to doubt it before, but you are correct. The minister’s account of my mother’s death raises damnable questions. Yet it’s all hearsay, and whatever happens, I shall join the Highlanders on the ship exactly as planned. For though Wellington can do fine without me, he rather likes his officers to keep their word.”

“But if the minister is right—”

“Then I will at least send a message to Diana before I traverse the Sahara to such a dust-ridden hellhole as Timbuktu. Now, are you satisfied? I promise nothing else, for that’s all you will get. So if you will kindly gird up your maid’s charming cloak, I shall take you back to Acton House forthwith.”

“Unravished?” She pulled herself very upright, her chin tilted above her white throat. “You are noble, aren’t you, to sacrifice your reputation for mine? What if I should wish to be ravished very thoroughly and very expertly by an unmitigated rogue such as you? Would you still be so damned noble then?”

Desire flamed through his blood. If he did not stop her this instant, he would not be able to answer for the consequences.

“Don’t offer me your virtue, Lady Eleanor,” he said coldly. “I am not sure that I could handle such a plain brown virago in my bed, after all.”

The blood drained from her face, as with exquisite pain he watched his words wound her to the soul.

They did not speak again as they hurried through the silent streets. Lee helped Eleanor up onto the garden wall beside the stable, turned on his heel, and walked rapidly back to his lodgings.

The words that ran through his mind were Romeo’s: Why such is love’s transgression. / Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast.

There on his desk lay the letter from Scotland. What if the minister was right? The prospect made him dizzy to contemplate.

Yet what could it matter, when with Eleanor it was too late?

* * *

Diana came to call the next morning. The butler showed her into the sunny morning room where Eleanor sat at an embroidery frame. No stitches seemed to have been added for quite some time. Instead, what should have been gay little bunches of pink flowers around the bonnet of a shepherdess lay still innocent of their silk garnish, and Eleanor’s hands lay idle in her lap.

“I missed you at the rout last night,” Diana began. “Do say you were not ill?”

Eleanor looked up at her friend. “Oh, no! I was confined to my room. Haven’t you heard the news? Lord Ranking has offered for me.”

“Eleanor! You told your papa you would refuse him, I trust?”

“Well, of course! If I’d had any idea it would come to this when I agreed to your scheme at Hawksley, I’d have told you to take care of him yourself.”

“Oh, it is all my fault. I’m so sorry. And now your papa is angry?”

“Oh, pooh! He thinks I should be honored. Yet one earl’s daughter is much like another to Ranking, I’m sure. Luckily my mother seems to concur in our sentiments. It is Mama’s scheme that I avoid him, so I don’t have to refuse his offer to his face. She plans to thrust him into Papa’s company until the Earl of Acton decides he really doesn’t want Roger Waters for a son-in-law. In the meantime, I recline at home on a couch and refuse social engagements. Now, enough about me! When will you marry Mr. Downe?”

Diana flushed and clenched her hands together. “How can I? I am sworn to silence about Lee’s real birth, so I can’t tell anyone. Yet how can I marry Walter when he doesn’t know that I’m illegitimate?”

“Easily, you ninny. He wouldn’t care. And if it ever came out, he would understand that you had given your word to your brother.”

“And now Lee’s gone away. Oh, Eleanor, what if he should be killed? I can’t bear it.”

“Oh, fiddlesticks!” Eleanor said with more conviction than she felt. Surely now that she had been brave for so long, she could hold herself together for a few more days? “He’s been through years of campaigns. Why should one more prove fatal?”

There was a slight disturbance behind them. Lady Acton stood in the doorway. She turned and laid her hand on the scarlet sleeve of a man in uniform and said something to him. He had to bend down to hear her. Behind them, the dim light of the hallway shone on the blond hair of Walter Feveril Downe.

“They’re in here, Major,” the countess said.

The embroidery frame crashed into the hearth as Eleanor leaped to her feet.

“What are you doing here?” she cried, her heart in her mouth. “What have you discovered?”

“I have come, Lady Eleanor, to see that my sister marries this poor honest churchman.”

He turned to Diana who sat blushing in her chair. In his crisp uniform, he looked splendid. Eleanor had never expected to see him in his regimentals. It gave him an authority and a distance she had never imagined. Major Leander Campbell! A man that other men obeyed without question, not only because he had a natural power, but because it was backed by genuine compassion.

Yet the smile he gave them was still that of Diana’s impossible half-brother.

“Walter will take you, willy-nilly, Di, whether you are heiress or pauper, bastard or duchess. Since as it happens you are none of those things, he will happily take you as you are: the entirely legitimate half-sister to the present Earl of Hawksley, who will provide you with his blessing, his brotherly advice, and a suitable dowry.”

“What are you saying?” Diana asked faintly.

“I was right?” Eleanor’s pulse pounded in her ears. “About the minister’s letter?”

“You had better sit down, dear child. You are the color of table linen. I cannot allow a daughter of mine to succumb to the vapors.” Lady Acton took a chair and waved the gentlemen to do likewise. “It would seem that there’s no end to life’s wonderful surprises. You had better explain, Hawksley. My little brown hen is about to expire from suspense.”

His eyes met Eleanor’s. His expression was guarded, as if he still could not really accept what he was about to say.

“You were entirely correct, Lady Eleanor. The Highlanders had been carousing most of the night and were lost to the world. It was a splendid waste of time to wake most of them. Luckily the piper was sober enough to give me his expertise in his native tongue, then I had the good fortune to have it confirmed by one Captain MacDonald. Lady Augusta’s marriage to my father was perfectly in order.”

Diana seemed stunned. “You mean I am not a love child, after all?”

“Indeed, dear sister.”

“I don’t understand,” Diana said. “How can I still be legitimate, if you really are Lord Hawksley?”

“Ask your busy friend from Miss Able’s Seminary, sister. It was her doing.”

Diana turned to Eleanor, whose face still felt as white as the linen in her embroidery frame.

“I know it was none of my business,” Eleanor began slowly, “but I wrote to the minister who performed your father’s marriage to Moira Campbell. He sent me the marriage lines that I showed you, but he also wrote about Moira’s death. He said there were wildflowers laid on her grave and that the sea was blue and calm. Because of the English translation on the back of the original Gaelic document, we had all believed that Moira Campbell died in November, a month after Lady Augusta’s wedding. But how could there have been wildflowers blooming so late?”

“And surely the sea was never calm and blue in Scotland in November?” Lady Acton said gaily.

“The translation had only been confirmed by Sir Robert,” Eleanor added. “But obviously he couldn’t be trusted about this. So your brother took the original to the Highlanders and had them give him a correct English version.”

He walked over to his sister and gently kissed her forehead. “Moira did die when the flowers were blooming and the sea was blue. She died in June. So our rascally father was never a bigamist, after all. I wonder if he knew? His first wife had gone to her grave four months before he married the second. Thus, although I am indeed his legal heir, you are his entirely legitimate daughter, also.”

“Oh, good heavens! This will save Mama,” Diana exclaimed. “She’s still the rightful dowager countess, isn’t she? She’ll always be able to hold up her head in society now.”

“I have already informed her of that fact. She is rather put out that you have lost your inheritance, though I assured her that I would do right by you. Yet I think on the whole, relief that her marriage was honest overrides all other factors. She has confirmed her consent to Walter paying you his addresses and, though reluctantly, sends her blessing.”

“Yet it is your consent I need now,” Diana said. “You are head of the family. And there’s no money left for a dowry, so Walter will have to take me without one.”

Eleanor felt a sudden rush of envy at her friend’s clear-eyed confidence in Mr. Downe’s love. Walter had taken the seat next to Lady Diana Hart and had taken her hand in his.