Rogue's Reward (24 page)

Eleanor idly played with the quills on her desk and scratched little ink doodles on her writing paper. Her eyes stupidly blurred with tears, so she dashed them away.

How had she fallen in love with him? It seemed now that she had felt this way ever since that night at the Three Feathers on the Norwich road, when he had kissed her the first time. But perhaps it had started when he rescued her parasol from the barn roof, or when he rode the cob bareback to fetch the carriage for her mother.

She closed her eyes and pictured the dark hair blowing about his forehead and the long lines cut deeply beside his mouth when he laughed. The shapes made by her pen had turned into a sketch of the cut of his nostrils and the shape of his chin. Furiously, she tore it up.

Women are only too vulnerable to such rogues, aren’t they? Just as Moira Campbell had fallen prey to his father. What had the minister said?
If anyone could be said to be sick with love, it was she.

Eleanor reached into her desk and pulled out the letter from Strathbrae. Slowly, she began to read it again. Poor Moira, who never saw her own baby, dying alone by Loch Linnhe and being laid in her grave by the Highland villagers. At least they had brought flowers.

She read over the words again: wildflowers from the hills—while the local piper played the pibroch and the music carried away over the calm blue water. She could picture it as clearly as if she had been there.

And then it struck her. Shaking with excitement, Eleanor read the entire letter again.

Could the minister be right? Was it possible that all their distress and all the sacrifice had been unnecessary? She would be forced to interfere again and he might truly never forgive her this time, but Lee had to know this! And if she didn’t act, she’d never see him again anyway, so what could it matter?

It would mean going to his lodgings this instant, for by tomorrow he would be gone.

“Eleanor?” her mother’s voice said at the door. “Are you getting dressed for an afternoon engagement?”

She thrust the letter back into her desk as Lady Acton came in. The lovely face reflected nothing but amusement.

“I see not,” the countess added. “Just as well. Your father is determined, my dear. Unless you agree to accept Lord Ranking’s suit, you are to keep to your room. Lord Acton is afraid that you might meet Roger Waters in public and give him the snub. I’m sure it will be only a day or two before I can bring him around. Apart from listening to his suit, your father has never exchanged two words with Lord Ranking before. I shall just throw them together. That should do the trick. Meanwhile, I suppose you must languish here. Do you mind?”

Eleanor stared at her mother. “I’m not to go out?”

“Well, you have hardly seemed interested in any dances and parties of late. I begin to despair of your success this Season.”

In spite of herself, Eleanor grinned. “Then you don’t call Lord Ranking’s offer a success, Mama?”

“Eleanor! Pray, be serious!” Lady Acton leaned forward and tapped her daughter on the wrist with her fan. “If you had accepted him, I’d have thought you had windmills in your head. Now, be patient. I shall bring Acton around. He’s sulking like a bear robbed of honey, but it won’t last. In the meantime, be a good girl and act contrite, won’t you?”

With a wink, the countess rose and left the room.

Eleanor gazed at the door. If she wasn’t to go out, how could she take the minister’s letter to Lee? And if not now, when? Could she send him a message? Would he come? Perhaps not and she couldn’t take that risk, could she? Nor could she put something so important into anyone else’s hands.

So could she somehow sneak out of the house secretly and travel by herself to his lodgings?

For the entire afternoon, while her parents were in the house, she could never escape. If she waited until they had gone out for the evening, it would be getting dark. It had been one thing to hire a cabriolet to take her to Newgate and to the major’s. Then it had been bright morning and it had been assumed she would be shopping. A maid had waited protectively in the cab for her.

But she couldn’t take one of the maids when her father would undoubtedly tell the staff she wasn’t to leave the house.

Which left no alternative except to venture alone into London at night.

It simply wasn’t done, and for more and better reasons than those of etiquette.

Come, Eleanor, she said fiercely to herself. What on earth is the use of being descended from crusaders and cavaliers, if you can’t act with decision when necessary?

There was nothing left to delay him. Lee had been ready to join Wellington before he had been arrested. His horses, his servant, and most of his luggage had already gone on ahead, except for a solid charger he had just bought, which would carry him eventually into the mouths of Boney’s guns.

The business with Sir Robert was completed. He had made sure that the major would not indulge in blackmail again. So Lee was free at last to fulfill his professional obligations, and about time.

There would be one succinct comment from the Iron Duke when he arrived, then no more would be said, but Lee had no doubts about Wellington’s reaction to all this delay. He was not really just another officer and, although the long truce of the last several months had rendered his special skills unnecessary, the Duke was expecting him now.

He stretched out his legs and smiled a little grimly. He had no illusions about what kind of engagement would result when the Iron Duke met Napoleon on a battlefield for the first time. When it finally began, it would be sudden and absolute. Either Wellington would sweep into France, or Boney would sweep into Belgium. Either way, it would be without warning, and the armies would clash together like battering rams.

Leander Campbell would be wherever he was most needed: carrying orders unprotected across the field, taking up slack wherever he found it, rallying men to stand and face gunfire that mowed them down like wheat, until he was either mowed down himself or it was over. He wouldn’t be surprised if Wellington put him at the very front of the action, as a reminder not to loll around England warming jail cells when his country required him overseas.

Lee stood up and shrugged into his evening coat. Either way, he would never see his brave brown hen again, for if he survived he would go straight to India. It brought a pain that made him think for a moment that it might be better to die on the battlefield. Then he laughed at his own absurdity. He was damned if he was going to sit here and indulge himself in memories of her. He would go out and mend his depleted purse at the gaming tables one last time.

It was late when he came back, but not as late as it would have been if he had not been going to take ship the next morning. He had wanted diversion, but he would need a clear head for traveling, so although faintly inebriated, he was not entirely foxed.

He had just turned into the street by his lodgings, when he heard a scream. Two figures were struggling in front of his door, their shadows leaping black in the glare from the new gaslights. Since one of the combatants was wearing skirts, he ran fast toward them.

Lee was almost there when the woman screamed again. Her assailant cursed roundly and violently thrust her away. She went sprawling onto the street.

“Damn you for a most particular doxy!” the man shouted. “Isn’t my money as good as the next man’s?”

He looked up just in time to meet Lee’s fist. He went flying back onto the pavement.

“Are you all right?” Lee asked the woman sharply.

She was wrapped from head to foot in a rather shabby cloak.

“Oh, there’s nothing I love better than to sit in the dirt, sir.”

Her voice was odd, almost as if she were strangling, but she managed to get to her feet. The man on the pavement sat up and shook his head.

“Damn me!” he said. “Devil take you and your damnably efficient fives, sir! Only wanted a little professional company.”

“But the lady doesn’t like your looks or your blunt, sir. I suggest you try another for your evening’s entertainment.”

The gentleman rose unsteadily and gave Lee a wobbly bow. “Take the hussy! You’re welcome to her. I like my harlots willing. I only tried a little kiss, and she reacted like a damned vestal virgin and bit my bloody hand.”

He rubbed his bruised jaw and staggered away up the street.

Lee turned to the girl, who was now trying in vain to sink back into the shadows. Her face was lit clearly by the street lamp, in spite of the hood of her cloak. Her brown eyes were pools of black.

“For God’s sake,” he said, and laughed. “The vestal virgin, indeed! Welcome once again to my indecorous bachelor quarters, Hero.”

“The priestess of Venus at Sestos?” Eleanor said. “I can hardly lay claim to a resemblance, can I? I thought she waited romantically by the Hellespont, draped in Grecian robes and thinking of prophecies.”

“Well, I doubt seriously if she wandered the streets of London inviting gentlemen to brawl over her. May I ask what you are doing here?”

Even in the flat light, Lee could tell that she had colored.

“I wasn’t inviting anything,” she said.

“My dear Lady Eleanor, the presence of a female alone here at this hour offers only one interpretation. Thank God your admirer was on foot and not in a carriage, or you might have been carried away and met the fate you deserve. I begin to think your head really is full of windmills, brown hen.”

“Do you?” she replied.

“You were not afraid to walk here after dark? I suppose not. After all, you had the temerity to trek three miles in the moonlight to Deerfield.”

“That was entirely different,” she said. “Foxes and mice do not offer unwelcome attention and vile comments, nor do they try to physically attack a person who is simply trying to deliver a message.”

“Oh, devil take it! For God’s sake, come in. We had better clean you up before I return you to your long-suffering parents.”

He put his arm firmly around her shoulders and helped her up the steps. He had seen instantly that she was close to breaking down, but for both their sakes, he must keep her from so doing, or from guessing that he knew it.

Two minutes later she was sitting stiffly in an upright chair, sipping at a glass of brandy in the room where Walter and Diana had pursued their courtship.

Lee watched her from his post by the fireplace, his shoulders thrust back against the mantel.

“Very well,” he said at last. “Explain this latest cavalry charge, Lady Eleanor. I am to surmise that your gallant tilt at Sir Robert this morning wasn’t enough? What were you doing, in what must be your maid’s cast-off cloak, fighting with strangers in front of my door?”

“Unwelcome as it may be, I had to see you before you leave, for Diana’s sake,” she said. “Something else has come up.”

Sweet Lady Eleanor Acton, who would risk all to help a friend! If only she wished to do it just for him for once—

He wrung his hand through his hair. “I feared as much. Is my sister threatening dire acts of self-sacrifice? That’s supposed to be my role, not hers.”

“Diana doesn’t know anything about it. She would think it most shocking that I am here. This is remarkably good brandy, isn’t it?”

“I should hope so. It’s what’s left from the robbery of your father’s cellar that you brought me at Newgate. I save it for special occasions.”

“Oh,” Eleanor said.

“Now why, my dear, are you creeping about in such ramshackle clothing in the middle of the night, instead of politely making an afternoon call like a civilized person?”

“Because, like the Pearl of Brittany, I was languishing in my room, a prisoner. Lord Acton has been imposing his parental authority. So I waited until he and my mother had gone out for the evening and bribed my maid. That part wasn’t hard. She’s known me for years. The hard part was that I didn’t dare try to hire a conveyance in the dark, and it wasn’t fair to make her come with me. My father would have turned her off with no character. So I walked here alone and now I’ve got blisters.”

“They are well deserved,” Lee said with a grin. “How did you escape the house? Surely the Earl of Acton’s butler didn’t allow you out unescorted at night? I believe you told me he was trusted.”

“I climbed out of a window.”

“The library, no doubt?”

“No, the morning room. It gives onto the garden. And then I had to climb over the wall, but it’s quite low by the stables.”

“You know it’s not at all the done thing for young ladies to visit gentlemen in their rooms so late in the evening, especially when those gentlemen are three sheets to the wind.”

She wrinkled her brow. “You’ve been drinking?”

“Like a lord. A regrettable state of affairs, but one you might have predicted.”

“Should I? Why?”

“You are less perceptive than I thought, brown hen.”

Candlelight caressed the sweet curve of her neck as she looked away. She could have no idea of the torture she put him through to come here like this.

“I don’t claim to be perceptive at all,” she said. “But I had to see you before you left. I assure you it’s important.”

“And so you—less than discreetly—come to my rooms at night? There is only one outcome that both parties normally expect.”

She glanced up again. “I knew you would be difficult. What exactly do you mean?”

“That the lady surrender her virtue, of course.”

A flush of red crept up her cheeks, but she met his gaze with defiance. “I thought you liked your ladies with a little more polish and a lot more experience?”

“Yes, but I’ve been known to take what’s available. Inexperience can be a refreshing change. And when I think of all those routs and soirées you’ve been attending—not to mention Vauxhall Gardens—and the intrepid adventures you have plunged into headlong, you have, in spite of yourself, acquired a certain amount of polish and experience in the last several weeks.”

Her face flamed, which made her eyes look even brighter. “Nowhere near enough for someone of your educated taste, surely? Why, only moments ago I was biting the hand that offered to feed me and sprawling in the gutter.”