“I’m glad to see you’re here at last, sir,” he said with only a trace of reproach. “Mr. Feveril Downe has already been to the bookseller’s several times in hopes of finding you there. Now he has walked to the market and is showing an honest antiquary’s curiosity in the old flint guildhall. I didn’t think we could interest him in anything besides Lady Diana Hart, but there you are.”
“He is being polite,” Lee said. “But others’ affairs of the heart are not our concern, are they?”
The major’s bluff face colored slightly. “I stand corrected. Meanwhile the bookseller in Red Lion Street awaits your offer.”
“Excellent, Major,” Lee said. “But first, I rather think you owe me an explanation.”
Diana was in such a delicious state of ravaged emotion that it took all of Eleanor’s energy to try to cheer up her friend.
“You do see, don’t you,” Diana said dramatically, “that Mama will never let me marry Walter. No one was ever so unlucky in love.”
“It’s what comes of being the daughters of earls,” Eleanor said with a reassuring smile. “There are only a handful of eligible bachelors in the realm. Never mind! Walter is charming and more than respectable, and at least you know what you want. It’ll only be a matter of time before you get it.”
Diana smiled faintly and began to extol all of Mr. Downe’s many virtues in case Eleanor had missed them.
Eleanor barely listened. She had no idea what she herself wanted, did she? Thoughts of Leander Campbell haunted her day and night, yet she couldn’t let herself be so weak as to have fallen for a despicable rogue just because he’d kissed her so skillfully.
Meanwhile, Lady Acton laughed and talked as if nothing were wrong, but Eleanor knew that her mother had already sent a banker’s draft to an address in Red Lion Street in Norwich.
The blackmail had begun.
* * *
The gentlemen from Deerfield had been gone three days when the butler summoned Eleanor into the blue drawing room at Hawksley. She raced through the hall and flung open the door, and ran straight into a tall gentleman with hair like gold and Lady Acton’s black eyes. He caught her around the waist and kissed her soundly on the cheek.
“Richard!” Eleanor gasped as soon as she caught her breath. “Oh, you dear man! I’m so glad to see you. How is Helena? When did you arrive? How long can you stay?”
“My sweet wife is well and growing large. We’re sure it’ll be a daughter, just to spite Father. He so longs for us to have a son. Helena sends her dearest love to her beloved sister-in-law, and though I have just arrived, I’m leaving right away since I can’t bear to be apart from her much longer.”
They sat together on the chaise longue and began to exchange the family news. Richard had business in Norwich and would go on there before hurrying back to Acton Mead, his beautiful home by the Thames. Helena had made it a warm haven for the man who would one day become Earl of Acton himself. Eleanor felt a sudden pang of longing. Would any man ever love her like that and allow her to love him in return?
“So much for me,” he said at last. “How are you, dear child? Don’t pretend everything is all right. I know you too well. You look as if something is eating you alive.”
“Oh, fiddlesticks,” Eleanor said. “I’m fine. Have you seen Mother?”
“The matchless Countess of Acton gave me a brief but eloquent greeting, then made some excuse that she must find Lady Augusta to inform our hostess of my untimely arrival. Our mother is playing some game, isn’t she?”
Eleanor dropped her eyes away from his velvet gaze. What Leander Campbell was doing to Lady Acton was a secret she couldn’t share with anyone, not even Richard. In the next moment she looked up in astonishment, as Richard mentioned the very name that so haunted her thoughts.
“Lee Campbell is down here, isn’t he?” he asked with a genuine smile. “I’d like to see him.”
“He’s gone to Norwich with Major Crabtree and Mr. Downe,” Eleanor said instantly. “Do you have business with him?”
Richard laughed. “Don’t say he’s been behaving badly! You mention him as if he’s some monster of iniquity.”
“Well, he is!”
“Now why, dear sister mine, do you think that?”
Eleanor took a deep breath. The real reason had to stay secret, but there were enough other reasons, weren’t there?
“Well, he’s a wastrel, for a start. What has he ever done with his life? He’s arrogant and conceited and irresponsible, and he’d steal Lady Diana’s inheritance if he could.”
“Good God!” Richard threw back his head and roared with laughter. “He
has
been behaving badly. However did you get such an extraordinary idea of his character?”
“From observation.”
He smiled and leaned back against the curved arm of the chaise longue. “Lee has simply neglected to toot his own horn, I can see, but I would have thought his half-sister would have told you something about him.”
“Diana?” Eleanor remembered how carefully she had avoided discussing Mr. Campbell with Diana. “Even if she had, it wouldn’t be an unbiased opinion. She’s so guileless she loves everyone. But the facts remain, don’t they? The man’s a worthless rake and a gambler. He doesn’t deny it.”
“I don’t suppose he does,” Richard replied with obvious delight. “Yet he hasn’t had much time for this shameless career. We were together in the Peninsula until last summer. You must allow a man a little latitude, Eleanor, after he’s been through a war. I was crazy enough myself when I came back.”
Eleanor was incredulous. Surely Leander Campbell hadn’t been a soldier? He must have been some kind of profiteer.
“He was in the Peninsula?”
“Most of the last five years. He’s been back on leave on and off, of course, but hardly long enough to establish himself as a wastrel. When we finally triumphed over Boney, Lee sold up like the rest of us and came home. He may be going to the dogs, but he’s only had one winter in which to do it.”
“What was he doing there? Hiding in the safety of the port while you and your men risked your lives?”
Richard was suddenly serious. “Leander Campbell was one of us: one of Wellington’s secret scouts, working with the partisans behind the French lines. It was dangerous and dirty and demanding. His life was forfeit on a daily basis. I can’t tell you the number of times we hid together in a ditch, or were both saved by his quick wit and matchless courage. He’s also, unlike me, an outrageously good marksman, which helped.”
The gentleman in the locket? Richard, Lord Lenwood, eldest son to the Earl of Acton; he’s not actually a terribly good shot.
Mr. Campbell had told her in the Three Feathers when they’d first met that he knew Richard. Eleanor had forgotten all about it. She had never imagined for a moment that he and her brother were comrades in the Peninsular Campaign.
“So does being good with a gun make a man honorable?”
“Lee is above reproach, Eleanor. I know him as well as any man could. You don’t go through the things we experienced together without revealing your true nature. Good God, if his situation were different, I can think of no man I’d rather have—” He stopped.
“Have do what?”
Richard laughed. “Have marry one of my sisters, I was going to say. But it’s out of the question, of course.”
“Bastards don’t marry earl’s daughters,” Eleanor said, looking down.
“Indeed, they don’t. But where on earth did you get the idea that he’s after Lady Diana’s inheritance?”
“Because he wants her to elope with Mr. Feveril Downe. They’re in love.”
“I see. I gather Lady Augusta wouldn’t approve of Mr. Downe. Mother took great delight in filling me in. But that wouldn’t do Lee any good, my dear. The estate is entailed. It will pass to Diana, because she’s Lord Hawksley’s only legitimate heir. Lady Augusta could tie up her daughter’s inheritance until she’s five-and-twenty, but under no circumstances would any of it go to Lee.”
Eleanor stood up and walked across the room. Why was it so difficult to think clearly when it came to the impossible Leander Campbell? Of course it made no sense that he was trying to cheat Diana out of her inheritance. She had witnessed him burn the paper that would have delivered him Hawksley, lock, stock, and barrel.
She turned back to face her brother.
“Then why tell them to run away together?”
“Because if they took his advice, Lady Augusta would capitulate instantly to save her daughter’s reputation. What else could she do?”
“That’s what Mr. Campbell said.”
“And it’s the truth. No, I think your friend Diana may be enjoying the drama of forbidden love a little too much, or perhaps she’s just scared to cross her mama.”
Both of which observations were true.
“Well, then, I was wrong about that part. But he’s no plans for the future other than gaming and vice.”
“Eleanor, I can hardly believe what I’m hearing. Lee gambles, of course. We all do. He’s so damn good, in fact, that I hear he’s made a rich living these last six months and he fleeced us all regularly in Spain. God knows what he does with the money. He certainly doesn’t live in any luxury. His plans, however, are quite simple. When we sold out, we all thought Bonaparte defeated and safely imprisoned on Elba, but the Corsican Monster’s already escaped. He arrived back in Paris in March and the European Powers have outlawed him. There will be another terrible battle, I’m afraid, and when it happens, Lee Campbell will be there. He stays in England meanwhile because there’s nothing else he can do. We’re neither at peace nor at war with France right now, but Lee’s a professional soldier.”
As he had demonstrated in that extraordinary encounter with Major Crabtree, hadn’t he? Eleanor tried to steady her voice. She knew what Lee did with some of his money: He sent it to people like Frank Garth and Mrs. Pottage. But then he had despicable ways of replacing it.
“He will purchase another commission?”
Richard nodded. “Once Bonaparte’s finally defeated, Lee intends to spend the rest of his life in the King’s service, probably in India. He wrote to ask me about it, since I have lived there. What other career is there for a man of his talents who has no accepted position in society and no inheritance?”
Eleanor looked down at her hands and said nothing. For Mr. Campbell seemed to be allowing himself the luxury of blackmailing Lady Acton and the major. Without admitting to Richard that their mother had been indiscreet with Sir Robert, she could never mention it.
“In the meantime, why condemn him?” Richard asked gently. “I think he has earned a little harmless indulgence.”
“How dare you describe my indulgences as harmless?” a subtle voice said behind them. “It makes me sound like a schoolmarm with a bottle. For God’s sake, allow me a little style at least. I already told your sister once before that I had no desire to call you out, my lord, but if you malign me so thoughtlessly, I’m damned if I won’t ventilate your gizzard.”
“Campbell!” Richard sprang to his feet and shook the other man by the hand. “Dear fellow! I’m damned glad to see you.”
“Alas, but your sister isn’t.”
Eleanor had also leaped to her feet. To her fury she found that her heart was beating like a trapped bird and a flush was flooding up her cheeks. She wasn’t—would never be—indifferent to him.
“Because I believe your indulgences are neither harmless nor stylish, Mr. Campbell. It may seem so to others, but it’s not for your victims. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll leave you gentlemen to your visit.”
She swept out in a flurry of skirts.
Richard looked after her in amazement.
“What have you been doing to my little sister?” he asked. “Am I going to have to challenge you and be slaughtered after all?”
“If you like,” Lee said lazily. He took a seat and stretched out his long legs, then he grinned. “I’ve been allowing her to think me an out-and-out rogue, which I am, of course. You wouldn’t suggest that I allow her to like me, would you?”
Richard had the grace to meet the other man’s gaze.
“I do understand,” he said after a moment. “But sometimes I think it’s a damn shame that your father didn’t trouble to marry your mother. For God’s sake, I have been in India, you haven’t. The country eats Englishmen like frogs eat flies. Any mindless idiot can die of fever in some outpost of the empire—don’t interrupt me—meanwhile, England could use a man like you here at home to influence government. The need for reform cries out like a wounded animal.”
“You take care of the reform. I’ll become a nabob,” Lee said calmly. Then as Richard frowned, he laughed. “In ten years I’ll be able to buy property enough to meet the franchise requirements and run for a seat in the House of Commons. Otherwise, what use am I to you? In the meantime, if fever takes me, so be it. Now, what’s the latest you hear from Wellington?”
* * *
Eleanor hurried straight through the house toward her room. She didn’t want to face either Lady Augusta or Diana at that moment. She was not destined to reach her destination. As she passed along the corridor that led toward the elegant guest bedrooms at Hawksley, a door opened to reveal her mother’s face.
“A word, Eleanor,” Lady Acton said.
Eleanor followed her into a spacious chamber. There was a small fire burning in the grate, in spite of the warmth of the day. The countess glanced toward it and smiled.
“You should know, dear child,” she said, “that my little matter is resolved. My letters are now reduced to ash—there in the grate.”
“All of them?”
“Every last one. It’s over!”
“Mr. Campbell brought your letters back?” Eleanor asked.
Lady Acton gave her daughter a very shrewd glance. “How did you know it was Mr. Campbell?”
She thought fast. “Well, I met him downstairs. He’s talking to Richard. He said nothing to me, of course, but no one else has visited today.”
“Except Mr. Downe, who is with Diana in the garden. But you are right. Mr. Campbell was my deliverer. Now, let’s say no more about it.”
So he had kept his word on this, at least, but what had made him do it? “You forgive the blackmail, just like that?”
Lady Acton laughed. “It didn’t last very long, did it? And the lesson is learned. I wash my hands of Major Crabtree, so the incident is closed. But perhaps some good comes out of everything. I’m glad if we can be closer, Eleanor.”