With a sudden clatter, some rotten tiles gave way beneath him.
“Good Lord! The roof’s giving way!” she cried.
He laughed again. Eleanor found herself filled with some indefinable emotion that she’d never experienced before—an odd longing, both painful and marvelous.
“‘And enterprises of great pith and moment,’” he continued to quote, as he edged along the ridge, “‘With this regard, their currents turn awry, / And lose the name of action.’”
More tiles broke away. He watched for a moment as the pieces hit the ground and shattered.
“Alas, poor Hamlet! I should have sent funds for the barn roof, too,” he said with exaggerated regret. “I’m very afraid my enterprise of great pith and moment is going to end in absurdity—”
Lady Eleanor Acton’s heart thudded into her ribs and sent the breath from her body as a whole section of tile dislodged and rattled down off the roof.
Mr. Leander Campbell, the ground stolen from under his booted feet and his hands occupied with the parasol, slipped out of sight and began to roll off the far side of the building where it was a good twenty feet to the ground.
Dropping both coat and hat, Eleanor rushed around the barn. She had a terrible vision of finding the impossible Leander Campbell shattered on the ground like the pantiles. Although she was thoroughly confused about him, she couldn’t bear to think of that lithe and beautiful body being damaged. How could he behave so recklessly? He might even be dead!
Instead, she found him sprawled on his back in a haystack, obviously unhurt, the parasol still grasped in one hand. Pieces of tile lay in a tumbled heap at the base of the stack where they had shot to the ground. It was not that, however, that caused Eleanor’s fear to turn instantly to anger. It was Mr. Campbell himself.
Far from being suitably chastened by the dreadful results of his own wild behavior, he seemed helpless with laughter.
“How could you?” she almost shouted. “How could you be so entirely and outrageously irresponsible? You might have killed yourself.”
He sat up and began to pick hay from his shirt and hair.
“My dear Lady Eleanor,” he said, still smiling, “you’re supposed to be impressed with my derring-do, not berating me like an irate nanny.” He slipped smoothly off the side of the haystack and gave her a bow. “Your parasol.”
Eleanor was forced to take it. “You have ruined the barn roof.”
He looked around at the scattering of pantiles and smiled. “Why, so I have. I hadn’t noticed.”
“Of course you noticed! How can you be so ridiculous?”
“I thought I was merely irresponsible. Now I’m ridiculous as well?”
“Do you take nothing in life seriously, sir?”
“Only what warrants it, which is not very much, I find. Don’t tell me you were worried about me, brown hen?”
“Not for one moment,” Eleanor lied. “What happens to you leaves me perfectly indifferent. If it weren’t for Diana, I wouldn’t be with you at all.”
“Now that would be a shame. For I’m enjoying your company a great deal.”
“Then you have a very odd sense of pleasure, sir. Most people only want to stay where they’re welcome.”
“But my hide is well thickened and your manners so delicate and well bred that I haven’t felt unwelcome.”
Eleanor colored. She was behaving more disgracefully than he. Did he think that she held his birth against him? Anywhere he went he probably met rejection and prejudice. Yet a lady should be gracious to anyone. Her mother could put a beggar at his ease if she wished. And he was Diana’s brother!
“I’m sorry if I was ungracious,” she said stiffly. “You were most kind to retrieve my parasol, sir.”
At which Leander Campbell only seemed to want to burst out laughing again. He suppressed it, but Eleanor was infuriated all the same. Violet lights danced in his eyes as he bowed formally and spoke as seriously as he might to an aged aunt.
“You are most welcome, my lady. Now, shall we find the others?”
He held out his arm and Eleanor was forced to take it. They came around the barn where he retrieved his discarded clothing.
The wind had died away as suddenly as it had arisen. He shrugged into his coat and ran one hand carelessly back through his hair before putting on his hat. As soon as he released Eleanor, she very deliberately left him and went to pick up the laundry pole where it had fallen. She put it back where she had found it.
But he wasn’t left standing, shamed by her action. He had crossed the yard and knocked at one of the cottage doors. Mrs. Pottage came out and they talked together. Eleanor noticed that far from being furious at the destruction of her barn Mrs. Pottage seemed only delighted that Mr. Campbell would deign to stop and talk with her.
He thinks he can do whatever he likes and charm his way out of the consequences, Eleanor thought. Well, not with me!
Then she looked away from him as Diana and Walter came running up from behind the cottages.
“Oh, Eleanor!” Diana called in genuine distress. “Come quickly! Your mother’s been taken ill.”
All thoughts of the infuriating Mr. Campbell took instant flight. Eleanor and her mother weren’t close. The Countess of Acton was too elegant, too clever, and too beautiful to have ever made a particularly warm mama, but Eleanor loved her and even felt an odd sense of wanting to protect her.
Lord Acton was a harsh man. Eleanor’s parents had married because it was a brilliant match, not because of any empathy or love, and they had almost nothing in common. Lady Acton wasn’t able to take refuge in her children, though in a distant way she wanted them to be happy. Instead she had thrown herself into the giddy delights of high society and become a social butterfly.
Yet though the countess might look fragile and delicate, she was never ill. Eleanor’s concern was genuine as she ran after Diana.
Lady Acton was sitting on the firewood pile outside the church. The major hovered over her in obvious distress.
“What is it, Mama?” Eleanor asked as she hurried up.
“Nothing, really! Pray don’t refine so, everyone. I just felt a little faint while in the church, that’s all. The fresh air has me quite revived.”
“Let me go for the carriage, my lady,” Mr. Campbell said. He had followed Walter and the girls. “You shouldn’t walk back to Hawksley.”
Eleanor sat beside her mother and took her hand. Lady Acton’s pulse was a little fast and her skin seemed pale and clammy.
“You are so kind, Mr. Campbell. Will you go?” the countess asked, looking up at him.
He bowed. “Nothing would bring me more pleasure.”
“I saw a cob in the pasture behind the church,” Walter said. “Come, I’ll help you get him.”
Eleanor watched, her heart full of confusion, as the two young men ran off to fetch the horse.
* * *
The cob wore a leather halter. Lee took a piece of twine from the gate, enough to form makeshift reins.
“You’ll send for a doctor, won’t you?” Walter Downe asked as his friend caught the surprised nag.
Lee looked back at him with faint derision. “Do you think one necessary?”
“For heaven’s sake, Lee! Lady Acton looks as if she’s seen a ghost.”
“Precisely! Lady Acton isn’t sick. She’s had a shock. Something has happened to frighten her. Now what, do you suppose?”
“Frighten her? What could have scared her in a church?”
Lee leaped onto the horse’s back, then smiled down at his friend. “No so much what, sir, as who.”
“What do you mean? Sir Robert Crabtree was Lady Acton’s only companion in the church, wasn’t he? I hardly think a straightforward major of his type is likely to frighten a lady.”
“So what sentiments do you believe our host at Deerfield entertains for the countess, sir?”
Walter spluttered. “Good Lord, I would have said that if the major has any feelings for Lady Acton, they take the form of doting admiration—”
“—which may be true, also.”
“But your perceptive gaze goes much further, I suppose?”
Lee laughed and turned the horse’s head toward Hawksley Park. “If you like.”
“And any judgment that results, you will obviously keep to yourself. Damme, but you’re a dark horse, sir!”
“Exactly,” Lee said. “But now I must ride this pale horse bareback across hedge and stream, and through hamlet and forest, as if chased by the hounds of hell—all to fetch a carriage for Lady Acton. Please go back and offer the ladies your strong arm and your courage until I return. Especially my sister!”
He set the cob into a canter and left Walter Downe staring after him.
* * *
By the time the curricle arrived, driven by the Hawksley coachman in person, Lady Acton seemed quite recovered.
Eleanor watched Mr. Campbell as he rode up behind the carriage. He sat the horse so easily, a personification of power and grace. It didn’t seem to have bothered him in the least to ride fast across country with no saddle and only a halter.
He slipped from the cob’s back and rubbed one hand down its neck. That lovely, long-fingered hand that had touched her nape and cheek so sweetly at the inn. She bit her lip and looked away as he bowed to the ladies.
Lady Acton nodded to him, laughed gaily, and allowed the major to help her into the carriage.
Eleanor was obliged to climb in beside her mother. Walter handed Diana up beside them.
Mr. Campbell stood to one side, casually holding the cob by the halter. The three gentlemen would walk back to Deerfield and send inquiries later.
As the carriage bowled away, Eleanor—against her better judgment—glanced back. Yet she could read nothing from Mr. Campbell’s expression, for that gentleman appeared to have forgotten her. He was deep in conversation with Major Crabtree.
She turned back to stare up at the parasol that had cost him so much effort. He was quite ruthlessly charming, wasn’t he? Yet it could only be a game for him, for he was entirely ineligible and he knew it. She did her best to laugh at herself as she tried to thrust the disturbing images of the loveliest man she had ever seen out of her mind.
“Are you quite the thing now, Lady Acton?” Diana asked. “We were all worried.”
“My dear child, of course,” Eleanor’s mother said. “It was just the cold and all those sad memorials of lost souls in the nave.”
Eleanor said nothing, but she didn’t believe that for a moment. Something was still wrong. Lady Acton had recovered her color and poise, but her manner still betrayed tension, as if strings pulled at her spine. Yet it was severely out of character for the countess to betray any untoward emotion.
So what had really happened in the church?
* * *
Lady Augusta was in alt as they all sat at dinner that evening. She turned to Lady Acton with considerable satisfaction.
“I thought it could not be suitable, Felicity, for you to tramp about the lanes as if you were a nobody. Look at the result! You had to be brought back in a carriage, as white as a sheet. It causes distress among the tenants when we do what is inappropriate. Nothing is more important than to maintain the distinctions and dignity of our station. Pride of birth, of rank—social position is everything. Society would be overthrown without it.”
“No doubt we shall have revolution if countesses walk too often,” Lady Acton replied acidly. “But since Acton is an older title than Hawksley, I don’t think it is your place, Augusta, to criticize what I choose to do. I was a little faint from the wind, nothing else. It is hardly enough to cause scandal.”
Lady Augusta sniffed and relapsed into silence.
Eleanor swallowed her smile and looked down at her dish of fruit. It must rankle that the Countess of Acton enjoyed precedence over the Countess of Hawksley, due to an accident of history. And perhaps it was also frustrating that Lady Acton was such an accepted arbiter of taste. Scandal had never been attached to her mother’s name, in spite of her beauty and fortune.
Nevertheless, the Hawksley name was among the greatest in the land, and Lady Augusta would have to take comfort in that.
* * *
“Robert, thank God! In here—we can be alone. Do you know anything more?”
Eleanor sat up with a start. After dinner she had retreated to the library, where she found a wonderful selection of old books. Choosing one from the shelf, she had curled herself into a large old-fashioned settle by the fire. Diana and the dowager countess were playing cards together and she thought her mother had retired. Eleanor had excused herself also and escaped into this lovely room with its rich old paneling and shelf upon shelf of books. There was nothing she particularly needed to think about, but she felt oddly fragile and she wanted to be alone.
When she had first heard the door open, she had begun to stand up, but now she was frozen where she sat.
It was her mother’s voice and Lady Acton was not alone.
“Sweetheart, are you recovered, truly?” a man answered. “I felt like a brute to give you such news in the church, but what else could I have done?”
Eleanor shrank back into her settle. The tall wings hid her from anyone else in the room, and it was far too late now to make herself known. But for heaven’s sake! Major Crabtree was calling her mother “sweetheart”?
“No, you did right, of course,” Lady Acton said. “I had to know immediately and it was private there. No doubt I shall get my own request soon enough. You have given me some warning and for that I am grateful. Better to feel faint in Little Tanning than pass out beneath the breakfast table at Hawksley.”
“But such news! It tears out my heart to see you so distressed.”
Lady Acton gave a bitter little laugh. “How could you keep my letters after I instructed you to burn them, as I did yours?”
The major’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I couldn’t bring myself to do it, even though I know every sentence by heart. Your sweet words are all I really have of you, my dear.”
“Then I wish you could have relied on your memory, since it’s so perfect. Now this unknown person has them. Stolen, you say, from Deerfield?”
“I am more than mortified, Felicity. If I could get the letters back by cutting off my right hand, I would do so.”
“I imagine that our gold will be more to our tormentor’s taste than your flesh, Sir Robert, however nobly given. How much is he asking?”