Rogue's Reward (20 page)

Lee looked up from the ponderous tome in which he had been absorbed for the last hours. “Then show him in, by all means.”

The Keeper gave a crude wink. “It’s not a man, Mr. Campbell, but a female. Unless your gentlemen friends have taken to wearing skirts?”

Lee raised a brow, but gave no reply to this coy statement.

“And a lady, if I’m not mistaken. I’ll leave you lovebirds alone, shall I?”

“Five guineas?” Lee asked calmly.

The Keeper pocketed his bribe and stepped out of the cell.

A lady muffled from head to toe in a capacious cloak slipped in. The heavy door clanged shut behind her. She was carrying a basket. There was an audible grating as the key turned in the lock. She dropped the hood of the cloak and smiled nervously at him.

“Good God!” Lee said, closing the book he had been reading, and standing. He gave her a bow and motioned her to the one chair in the room. “Forgive my simple accommodation, brown hen. I wasn’t expecting morning calls from earl’s daughters. To what misplaced schoolgirl charity do I owe this honor?”

“If you’re going to be difficult, I shall leave again and not give you any of the things I brought you.”

“No, since you are here, stay by all means. If you have any decent brandy or fresh fruit, I’ll tolerate you as long as you like.”

Eleanor set down the basket. “That repulsive Keeper has already pawed over everything, in case I was bringing you a file or something—”

“A pistol would be more useful,” Lee interrupted.

“But here are some early strawberries from our greenhouse, and apples out of the store. And this is French, I believe. At least, my father likes it very well. He brought it with him from the King’s Acton cellars.”

She held out a bottle of the very best brandy.

“Lord Acton gave this up willingly?” Lee asked.

“No, I stole it.”

“Brave Eleanor! Won’t the butler be in danger of losing his position?”

“Oh, no, Father trusts him implicitly. He’s been with us since long before I was born. The earl wouldn’t know if our butler were stealing him blind.”

“Or his daughter?”

She colored a little. “I never have before. But isn’t this a good cause?”

“Decidedly,” Lee said, carefully opening the bottle. “It’s very good brandy, anyway. Will you join me? I believe I have two glasses.”

“I never drink brandy.”

“Then this,” he said, leaning forward and grinning at her, “is an excellent time to start, don’t you think? I don’t imagine you’ve ever been locked in a Newgate cell with a murderous rogue before, either.”

Eleanor took the glass of dark liquid he offered and sipped at it. Her nerves were definitely a little shredded. It hadn’t been that difficult to get here unnoticed, but it had taken a certain amount of courage and ingenuity. And Lee was making it plain that he was thoroughly aware of the impropriety of the whole thing. The brandy settled with a warm glow.

“I can see why you like it,” she said.

“Excellent! Now, my brave child, why are you here?”

“To stop you nobly going to the gallows, of course. I know about Manton Barnes and the blackmail. I figured most of it out and then tricked poor Walter into telling me the rest. Don’t blame him, for he was outgunned and I caught him at a disadvantage. If you don’t tell everyone that your friend committed suicide and wasn’t murdered, I shall. For Diana’s sake, since your sister is foolish enough to love you.”

He gazed steadily at her face for a few moments. Eleanor looked down to escape the violet gaze. He must never discover just how much she cared herself.

“I believe you would, brown hen,” he said at last. “Very well. Then you must know the reason why you won’t do that, and I shall tell you.”

She glanced up at him. He seemed perfectly calm. “There are no threats you can make that will stop me.”

“I wasn’t intending to make threats. I thought I would tell you the truth, instead. There’s nothing else that will content you, is there?”

Eleanor stared at him. “No,” she said. “I don’t suppose there is.”

He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “This is going to be difficult,” he said with a sudden laugh.

“Just begin at the beginning,” Eleanor said. “I am perfectly comfortable, and no one will miss me for hours. I said I was going shopping.”

“Manton Barnes was engaged to a lady called Blanche Harrison,” he began. “She was young and lovely and eligible. Yet there were reasons why it wasn’t a suitable match. I convinced Manton to ask her to release him from the betrothal.”

There was silence for a moment, as if he couldn’t quite find the words to go on.

“He was in love with someone else?” Eleanor said helpfully.

“Yes, I suppose you could say that. Several other people, in fact.”

“He was in love with more than one lady at once?”

Lee looked up at her and gave her a wry smile. “Except that they weren’t ladies, Lady Eleanor, they were other gentlemen.”

She digested this in silence for a moment. It wasn’t something that she knew anything about, but she remembered a hushed conversation that Richard and Harry had once about something of the kind. Men could prefer other men to women. The army and the navy took extreme measures against it, and Richard didn’t approve of the cruelty that resulted.

Yet she was extremely hazy about the details.

“I’m not sure I understand,” she said. “But I think I know that such a thing can happen.”

“Well, it happened to Manton Barnes. He fought against it, but I think it was just his nature. He was a friend of mine—I’d known him since Eton, for God’s sake—and I couldn’t hold it against him. Yet I wouldn’t let him marry Blanche Harrison in order to protect himself. He didn’t love her and he confided in me that he knew he would never consummate the marriage. Other men do so in similar circumstances, but Barnes was adamant about that. So she would have been trapped in a terrible bond, without a real husband and without the children she longed for, while he kept looking for the one other man he could love forever. I can think of no worse fate for a young girl.”

Eleanor still wasn’t quite sure what he was talking about, but she was wise enough to limit her question.

“Why should he want to protect himself?”

“Because such love between men is forbidden. It’s a capital crime. Had Manton ever been found out, he and his lovers would have faced the hangman.”

“But he was found out,” Eleanor breathed, “and then blackmailed over it. How very cruel!”

“As cruel as the punishment of Prometheus—that was how he put it. So in the end he killed himself.”

“And you tried to make it look like an accident and covered up the suicide?”

“I also destroyed some letters and his diary.” Lee sounded perfectly calm, though Eleanor knew that this was costing him some effort. “And whatever other evidence I could find. I had to make sure that no probe would be made into his motives. I did it not only to protect Manton Barnes’s family, but also his lovers. If the truth comes out, they could all hang.”

“So you’ll die instead?” Eleanor said angrily. “And leave Diana without a brother. They’re a bunch of cowards.”

“They are men with families, innocent mothers and sisters. Many have wives. I have never met most of them, but they are men who have done nothing except follow their nature and love the wrong person. Some of them are philanthropists and reformers and educated, caring people. England needs them. The crime is that we cannot tolerate their private behavior. They haven’t come forward, because they have no idea yet that they are in any danger. Besides, I have no intention of dying.”

“What can save you? No one escapes from Newgate.”

He seemed to feel nothing but amusement. “Then there’ll have to be a first time, won’t there?”

Eleanor stood and began to pace the narrow room. “It’s outrageous! You would risk death for these strangers?”

He smiled. “If I wasn’t languishing here in jail, I’d soon have been facing death on the battlefield. I shall protect these innocent men and their families, but I don’t intend to hang at the Old Bailey.”

“For God’s sake,” Eleanor said. “Diana is innocent, too. She’s distraught.”

“Diana enjoys drama. By all means reassure her. But if you really want to believe that I am nobly offering myself as a final sacrifice, you at least ought to behave accordingly.”

Eleanor turned to face him. “What do you mean? I have already made a secret journey in a dark cloak clutching a basket. Isn’t that what all the heroines do in the romances to save their best friend’s brother?”

“Of course. But they usually bring some elaborate escape plot to free the prisoner: a bundle of clothes, so he may escape as a washerwoman; a rope made of hair; a magic potion that will make him invisible. If not, they at least grant him his final wish.”

“What’s yours?” she said tartly. “Since I so foolishly forgot the pistol, what else can I arrange? For you to be accompanied to the gallows with choirs of maidens throwing rose petals?”

He reached out and caught her wrist, then spun her onto the cot beside him.

“One maiden will suffice,” he said. “And I can think of much better ways to say good-bye than dismantling flowers or shrill singing.”

He bent her body back against the pillow and trapped her beneath him, supporting himself on one elbow. His warmth and strength enveloped her. Gently, he smoothed her hair back from her forehead.

“You already said good-bye at Vauxhall,” Eleanor said desperately.

His clean masculine scent filled her nostrils and made her blood burn beneath her skin.

“Yes, but that was just when I went to face Boney’s guns. Now, it’s the certainty of the gallows tree, don’t you think we should do it again?”

“Mr. Campbell—”

“Leander. He swam the Hellespont nightly to reach his beloved Hero at Sestos. She was a priestess of Venus. Think of the vows she was breaking! It was a most unsuitable match.”

“And on his death, she drowned herself.”

“Well, that’s taking things a bit far,” he said, laughing quietly. “But I am already drowning in your brown eyes, fair lady. And you must have known perfectly well that if you allowed yourself to be locked up with a rake who had nothing left to lose, he would take advantage of the situation.”

“I did know,” Eleanor said, as he bent his head to hers.

She kissed him back with complete abandon.

* * *

Another day passed before Eleanor ventured a visit to the Hawksley townhouse. Unfortunately, Lady Augusta had company and the talk was of nothing but the imminent trial. Eleanor folded her hands and tried to blot it out. Diana was still pale, but she looked better for Eleanor’s news that her brother was in such good spirits and so confident of a safe outcome.

If only she could share that confidence herself!

“The case comes rapidly to trial,” Lord Ranking said with a damp sniff. “I hear that Mr. Campbell intends to represent himself. He runs low on funds, no doubt. I don’t imagine that such a profligate can maintain his style very long in Newgate Prison.”

“Mama! It is all so frightful,” Diana said. “He must have a barrister. Can we not sell something at Hawksley? Or take out a mortgage?”

Lady Augusta looked shocked. “Certainly not! Hawksley owes nothing to Leander Campbell.”

Eleanor kept silent. She had already talked with her mother and discovered that Lady Acton was quietly ensuring his private room. The countess knew perfectly well, of course, that the proud Mr. Campbell would never take money directly, but her influence and her purse went a long way toward preventing a thousand petty indignities.

Thus the Keeper had become assiduous about decent food and hot water for a prisoner with such exalted connections. He had even personally made sure that Mr. Campbell had access to whatever he wanted in the way of books and writing materials. Eleanor also knew that Lady Acton had confronted Lady Augusta about it, but it seemed that Hawksley was impoverished.

It was odd that such a naturally rich estate didn’t provide more ready cash either for repairs or for its owners.

“You are bearing up very nobly, Lady Augusta,” Lord Ranking went on. “Such an affliction for you and your family. Anyone with a delicate sensibility cannot help but be affected. What can illustrate more clearly that character is always determined by nobility of birth?”

Eleanor could take no more and she stood up to go. She had come only to comfort Diana. Walter was forbidden the house, of course, but Eleanor brought secret messages from him. Mr. Feveril Downe was acting for Mr. Campbell as a go-between with Major Crabtree, attempting to get that gentleman to drop the charges—and to do so without revealing any details of Manton Barnes’s true circumstances.

So far he had not met with success. Meanwhile, safely hidden in her writing desk at Acton House was the letter from Strathbrae, which had arrived that morning. The minister who had married Lee’s father and mother was not only alive, he had responded immediately.

* * *

With her maid trailing behind her, Eleanor hurried back to Acton House. She pulled the letter from the desk drawer and spread out the pages to read again.

“Blairgour lies some distance from here and the family is not known to me,” the minister had written in a tight, orderly hand. “Yet well do I remember Moira Campbell. She was very lovely and certainly a lady. If anyone could be said to be sick with love, it was she. The young couple arrived here at Strathbrae without warning and threw themselves on my mercy. I had heard of her father, for Ian Campbell was a dour, hard man with a certain reputation. Gerald Hart possessed a charm and a gift with words that we Scots don’t readily associate with the Sassenach. He was able to persuade me to marry them then and there by declaration. They came with her maid, and I called upon the local gamekeeper, who happened to be visiting at the time, to witness their marriage. It was a binding contract before man and God, yet she returned to her father’s house and he to England. They swore me to secrecy, for Moira thought she could yet win over her father, but as was my duty, I added the details of the wedding to the records of this parish. Alas, Gerald’s promises were as the dew and melted away as quickly. He never came back. Some years later, Moira died near Loch Linnhe and was buried there. I heard that the women laid flowers on her grave—wildflowers from the hills—while the local piper played the pibroch and the music carried away over the calm blue water. I never knew there was a child. If you know of him, he would now be a man grown and should have this:”