Rogue's Reward (5 page)

Eleanor, who up until that moment had never heard her mother express such a sentiment, looked up in surprise. Lady Acton was far more likely to be amused by an elegant promenade past the shops in Bond Street. But she assented willingly enough.

The presence of Lady Acton would prevent further intimacy with Diana for a moment. Eleanor wasn’t sure she wanted to have to hear more from her friend about the perfection of the Honorable Mr. Feveril Downe, though she had liked him immediately when they had briefly met the previous evening. Instead she wanted to think about the dastardly Mr. Campbell, for though she had determined that she would ask Diana nothing about him, she couldn’t get him out of her mind.

Diana seemed to worship him. Though he had been sent away to school, he had spent the rest of his childhood here at Hawksley. It must have been difficult to grow up in a beautiful place like this and know that you had no right to any of it. Perhaps he was bitter about it. Eleanor’s own childhood had not been particularly warm, except for the love of her older brothers—but to know that your father had so cruelly abandoned both you and your mother! As the by-blow of such a man, no wonder he was irresponsible! Even her mother had heard of his reputation.

She wasn’t to have the opportunity for further reflection. The ladies had barely entered the woods when three gentlemen in stylish jackets and tall boots could be seen striding toward them.

Eleanor’s attention was caught immediately by the object of her musing. He carried his hat under his arm, so the breeze tossed his dark hair about his forehead and sunlight glanced over his face as he made some comment to Walter.

For heaven’s sake, she said to herself, to have such stunning good looks hasn’t helped either. No wonder he’s become a profligate! He probably never did a worthwhile thing in his life.

She forced herself to look away from Mr. Campbell and studied with frank curiosity the distinctly military gentleman who accompanied him and Mr. Downe. His graying hair betrayed him to be a generation older, but he seemed to be hard and fit, and his vigorous stride was no slower than theirs. A splendid mustache dominated his face.

“Sir Robert!” Lady Acton exclaimed, holding out her hand as bows and nods were exchanged. “So delightful to see you again! My daughter Lady Eleanor and I had the pleasure to meet Mr. Downe and Mr. Campbell last night.”

Eleanor curtsied to Sir Robert. He had already bowed low over her mother’s hand. It even seemed that Lady Acton was in no particular hurry to remove her fingers from his and was blushing a little, but then the countess was an accomplished flirt and the major was an extremely distinguished-looking escort.

“Do the young gentlemen stay with you long, sir?” the countess asked as she took Major Crabtree’s arm and they began to stroll forward.

Eleanor immediately attached herself to her mother and the major, allowing Mr. Campbell to walk with his sister and friend.

“They come to look at some books I have for sale, Lady Acton. Your ladyship might not know that Mr. Campbell is considered quite an authority on early editions.”

“Oh, everyone in London has heard about Mr. Campbell’s collection, Sir Robert. Lord Acton wished to purchase part of it for the library at King’s Acton, but I understand that Mr. Campbell was not in a selling mood.”

“He is never in a selling mood, my lady.” The major laughed. “He only collects; he doesn’t trade. I believe he loves the books like children.”

Eleanor had to choke back her reaction to this surprising revelation. With an effort she forced herself not to look at the rake and gambler who apparently spent his winnings on old books. Now they all walked in the shelter of the hedgerow, he had put on his hat.

It ought to have been simple to ignore him, but it took a great deal of resolution not to watch his broad shoulders and listen to his infectious laugh as he walked ahead of her with Diana and Walter. In the next moment, she was forced to acknowledge him. They had reached a stile and Walter helped Diana to climb it. At the same moment, her mother and the major hung back, leaving her face-to-face with Mr. Campbell. She had the infuriating feeling that he was laughing at her.

“May I assist you, Lady Eleanor?” he asked politely.

“No thank you, sir. I am perfectly capable of stepping over a stile by myself.”

“Then you are more cruel than I thought.”

“I can’t think what you mean, Mr. Campbell.”

It was impossible to know if he was serious. “You rob me of the opportunity to act like a gentleman, of course. It is common practice, isn’t it, for gentlemen to assist the ladies with such small obstacles when walking?”

“But I thought we had determined that you don’t belong to that class of males.”

“And you condemn me to remain there, like Hercules in the Underworld. Very well! By all means climb the stile by yourself.”

To her dismay, Eleanor saw that Diana and Walter had disappeared up the path ahead of them, and that her mother and Sir Robert had turned back, apparently to admire a patch of violets. As she watched, they stepped though a gap in the hedge and were gone.

Leander Campbell leaned against the stile and crossed his arms. His tall hat was tilted a little, so the brim shadowed his face.

“Only you will have to pass by me to do so,” he added very gravely.

“Do you take pride in being impossible, sir?”

He laughed, creating the tiniest crinkles at the corners of his eyes. “I assure you, Lady Eleanor, that I can be a great deal more impossible than this.”

She refused to look away. “What do you want?”

“I want to know why Lady Acton is here in Norfolk when most of the
beau
monde
are hastening to Town.”

“She came to visit the dowager countess, of course.”

“Did she?” Lee said. “I can’t think why. They are no more than social acquaintances, and Lady Augusta is one of the most unpleasant people I could think of choosing to visit. Your mother is a renowned beauty and sought after by every London hostess, yet she buries herself in East Anglia with beauty and the beast. The
ton
will be lost without her.”

“I suppose Lady Augusta is the beast?”

“And Diana the beauty, of course.”

“Then why aren’t they also hastening to London?”

“Because Lord Ranking will stop here to escort them very shortly. My stepmother hopes he will propose in the hall as soon as he arrives and make Diana the future Duchess of Maybury.”

“And will he?”

“Very probably.”

“Diana will never accept him.”

“Ah,” Mr. Campbell said. “Because she’s in love with Walter Downe. Quite the quandary.”

“You seem to think they should elope, which you must know perfectly well Diana would never do. What can you possibly hope to gain by such advice?”

The violet eyes were looking at her quite guilelessly. “I rather hoped she would take it.”

“And have Lady Augusta disown her and make you heir to Hawksley?”

He seemed to find the idea extremely amusing. “Alas, Lady Eleanor, that’s absurd and not possible.”

“Is it? I find it despicable that you should try to use them for your own ends. You seem to me to be entirely selfish and ruthless. How can you make light of their distress? Diana will never love again like this.”

“Thus speaks the schoolgirl. Yet I fear you may be right. Walter is certainly besotted enough. But what can you know of love between men and women, brown hen?”

“Nothing, of course. Though I imagine you’re an expert—on seduction, if not on love.”

He laughed. “Really? For such an infamous libertine, I’m not doing very well with you, am I? You seem strangely immune to all my renowned and deadly charm, when the loveliest ladies in London are at my feet whenever I beckon. But no doubt you have more romantic ideas about love than the depraved notions of a rake.”

She glared at him. “I don’t think I wallow in absurd sentiment, Mr. Campbell. But I do see what my brother and his wife share together, which is the most beautiful thing I have ever witnessed.”

“I’m very glad to hear it.” To Eleanor’s immense surprise, it sounded as if he meant it. “Now,” he said after a moment. “I wish you would let me hand you across this stile.”

Eleanor was very angry, though she wasn’t sure why. She would never allow him so much as to take her hand again.

“If you will kindly stand aside, sir?”

“I’m not actually a monster,” Mr. Campbell said suddenly. “I am quite capable of giving you my hand without ravishing you.”

“Or even kissing me?”

“Of course. Unless you should wish it?”

Eleanor almost stamped her foot. “I don’t wish it. But perhaps I should feel better about the entire situation if you would just once apologize for your behavior at the Three Feathers.”

“Now that,” Leander Campbell said with a sudden genuine grin, “I can’t do.”

“Why not?”

“Because only a gentleman would admit that he was sorry. A profligate like me would take pride in stealing a lady’s kiss and feel no remorse at all, don’t you think?” He stepped aside and made her a small bow. “By all means, climb the stile, Lady Eleanor.”

Eleanor gathered her skirts in one hand. The other was occupied with her parasol, which left her no free hand to grasp the top of the little wooden obstacle. Blushing with chagrin under his merciless gaze, she managed to mount the step and put one foot awkwardly over the top.

“You have the most elegant petticoats, ma’am,” Mr. Campbell said.

She instantly dropped her skirts. But that left her in danger of tripping over them. So she set her parasol down in the hedge and grasped the top of the stile with both hands as she jumped down the other side.

“And a very neat ankle,” he continued.

Blushing to her eyebrows, Eleanor ignored him, took up her parasol, and marched away up the path.

Leander Campbell sat on top of the stile and watched her retreat.

“Damnation,” he said suddenly to himself and laughed. And then, as if for only his own amusement, for there seemed to be no one to hear, he began to quote aloud from Hamlet:

“‘But, you may say . . . he’s very wild; / . . . And there put on him what forgeries you please; marry, none so rank as may dishonor him; take heed of that; / But, sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slips as are companions noted and most known to youth and liberty.’”

A soft voice behind him filled in Reynaldo’s response: “‘As gaming, my lord.’”

Lee looked around to meet the arch smile of the Countess of Acton.

Without hesitation, he quoted Polonius’s answer: “‘Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing, quarreling, drabbing: —you may go so far.’”

The countess had the grace to blush. Though the Elizabethan expression for harlotry had gone out of use, she obviously understood its meaning perfectly well.

“I wish you good day, my lady,” the lawless Mr. Campbell continued. “Have you lost the major? Oh, no, I see he’s coming. And he brings violets—the symbol of Napoleon. How very quaint!”

The path came out into an open meadow. There was no sign of Diana and Walter. Eleanor started across the grass and saw that there were three possible ways out of the field. In one corner a gap had been pruned in the hedge and fortified with wooden posts. It allowed just enough room for a person to slip through sideways while not allowing passage to a cow—an obstacle known as a “lady-squeezer.”

Farther along the hedgerow, a wooden stile gave entrance to a small birch spinney. And to her left, a five-barred gate led into a lane. Any exit would leave her equally lost. To her relief she noticed that a rustic in leather gaiters and a sturdy smock was walking up the lane. Eleanor ran over to the gate.

“Excuse me,” she said, leaning on the top bar. “Have you seen a lady and gentleman pass by?”

The man shifted the pruning hook on his shoulder and looked at her.

“Oh aye,” he said. “Lady Diana Hart and that young gentleman as came with Mr. Campbell, making for Little Tanning by way of the footpath. And who might you be, ma’am?”

“I’m a friend of Lady Diana’s, Lady Eleanor Acton.”

The rustic chewed slowly on his briar pipe. The breeze blew away the smoke in thin eddies past his hat.

“And what might have become of Mr. Campbell, then? The gentlemen all went a-calling this morning together.”

“I have no idea,” she said, trying to sound dignified.

The shrewd Norfolk gaze gave her no quarter. “I’d like to see him and have my say, my lady. Perhaps you could convey a message, like?”

What on earth could this honest old fellow possibly have to say to Leander Campbell?

“I can’t be sure to do so, sir,” Eleanor said kindly. “But I will try. Is it urgent?”

The bland eyes were still fixed steadily on her face. “You might tell him from Frank Garth that the extra coal and the flannel petticoat for our Betsy was like to have saved her from being carried off this winter.”

Eleanor swallowed hard. “Flannel petticoat?”

“Aye, best red flannel—stopped the cold getting on her chest—always very delicate about the chest, our Betsy. And Mrs. Pottage would think it a kindness to kiss his hand for the purchase of her new cow when the old one took up and died.”

“Mrs. Pottage’s cow?”

“Aye, and then there’s the little matter of our roof.”

“You mean Mr. Campbell repaired your roof?” Eleanor felt completely at a loss.

“Sent for it to be done, like. We had the rain down the wall beside the chimney and it’s been a hard winter, quite froze out my rosemary. We’d many of us at Little Tanning be closer to our graves if it wasn’t for Mr. Campbell.”

“But Little Tanning is part of Hawksley, isn’t it?” Eleanor asked. “Doesn’t Lady Hawksley pay for fixing your roof?”

“The dowager countess’s steward keeps a tight purse, beggin’ your pardon, my lady, though the old biddy means no harm. It’s Leander Campbell as sees to repairs.”

“But it’s not his estate,” Eleanor said a little desperately.

“More’s the pity, my lady. He’d be a fine master, all right. Lee Campbell always looks like the devil’s in his pocket, but it’d be hard on folks hereabouts if it weren’t for him. He helps us from his own purse. The lad doesn’t get a penny from the land. As you said, it’s not his.”