There was a sudden silence.
“Is he here?” the judge said at last.
Major Crabtree stood up and bowed.
“I really can’t understand,” Lady said Acton idly, “what anybody can see in that man.”
Eleanor gave her mother a surprised glance and received a slow wink in exchange. She bit her lip. Her mother was unrepentant and incorrigible—even her disastrous affair with the major only gave the countess another chance to laugh at herself.
She looked away from her mother and back at Mr. Campbell. The violet eyes met hers and he smiled. Heat rushed up Eleanor’s cheeks, and she dropped her gaze to stare at her lap. Surely he would find it only natural that Diana was here, and that Lady Eleanor Acton should accompany her friend?
“Your honor,” Lee said, giving his full attention back to the Bench. “I demand instead that this matter be settled by wager of battle.”
Sir Robert spun about to face the judge. “I think the man is mad, your honor! What kind of answer to the charges is this?”
“One which has been legal in England since the Middle Ages,” Leander Campbell said merrily. “And still stands on the law books of this kingdom. We shall fight, Sir Robert.”
Uproar broke out among the spectators. The Lord Chief Justice was forced to hammer his gavel to restore order.
“If there is further outburst, I shall clear this court,” he thundered. “What are you about, Mr. Campbell? This is a court of law. Dueling is most certainly not an option.”
“I do not suggest a duel, my lord. I demand legal trial by combat. If the court will honor me with its patience, I shall be happy to demonstrate that this remedy is still a valid choice in this realm. Allow me to prove my innocence in wager of battle with Sir Robert. If he prevails, thereby proving my guilt according to the ancient law, by all means take me away and hang me. On the other hand, should I prevail or hold out until starlight, you must in duty proclaim my innocence.”
The courtroom exploded in pandemonium. Within five minutes, Lee had been taken back to Newgate and the visitors’ gallery cleared.
Lady Acton glanced at Eleanor’s face as she stumbled back to their carriage.
“I’m very sorry, my dear child,” the countess said. “But I shall not allow you to attend this courtroom again.”
* * *
Yet every day brought further talk of the trial. All the most ancient books of law were being ransacked. It was decided that Lee was correct: the right to demand trial by combat had never been repealed. The Earl of Acton shook out his napkin at breakfast with the news that the law required the presence of the judges at the fight, and that the battle must begin at sunrise. By dinner, he announced that both contestants must take an oath to employ no witchcraft.
“It’s barbaric!” Lady Acton cried. “A remedy for the Dark Ages. Surely this battle won’t truly go on?”
“Trial by combat has been legal in this country for ten centuries, madam. An absurd law may sleep unnoticed, but until it’s changed by Act of Parliament all free men must support it.”
Two days later, it was discovered that the judges must also lay down the required dress to be worn by the accuser and accused. Eleanor had to suppress a wild vision of Leander Campbell in full armor and chain mail. Would he and the major be required to joust in the lists, or fight with mace and battle-axe?
Her surmise was wrong. Trial by combat would be neither so dashing nor so romantic. Three days after that, Lord Acton proclaimed that the required weapons were cudgels.
“No doubt the exact size and weight are specified by law?” Lady Acton asked idly.
“I cannot say, madam. The contestants must provide their own weapons. Mr. Campbell may be happy that a broadsword is not required, for it would seem that he must finally have run out of funds. I have it on the best authority that he is selling his collection of books, at last.”
Eleanor looked up at her father in dismay. She couldn’t let her parents know, of course, that she had been privileged to see the famed library. It was terrible for him to sell his books. She could still see his strong hands gently turning the illuminated pages. Was he in fact so desperate?
Surely if her mother was sending money to pay for his room and board, he didn’t really have to sell his wonderful books, the books he loved like children? What could have happened to change his mind?
Lady Acton raised a perfect brow. “And you cannot conceal your delight, Acton. You have coveted such rare volumes for years. Will you make an offer?”
“If they come onto the open market, indeed I shall. Though it’s going to cost me a pretty penny, I’ll warrant.”
“Is Mr. Campbell’s collection really that valuable?” Lady Acton folded her fan and tapped it against her cheek.
“Worth a small fortune, madam. Of course, he did not purchase the entire collection himself.”
“He didn’t?” Eleanor asked faintly.
The earl was in an indulgent mood. He smiled kindly at his oldest daughter.
“No, indeed! The greatest part of it was a gift from Lady Wentworth after her husband’s death. Lord Wentworth took a fancy to the lad when he met him at Oxford—thought he had a brilliant mind, or some such nonsense—and when he died, Lady Wentworth fulfilled his wishes about the books. Extraordinary that Campbell was never tempted to sell off before. The fellow likes to live like a lord, for all he’s a commoner.”
Eleanor bit her lip. There seemed to be no end to the surprising things she continued to learn about Leander Campbell.
Lady Acton leaned forward and smiled at her husband.
“If he weren’t a commoner, he wouldn’t be facing this trial, my dear Acton. Instead he’d be sitting before men like yourself and the late Lord Wentworth in the House of Peers and be acquitted. No doubt you’d dismiss such trumpery charges against one of our own class.”
“Humph! He’s an odd chap, by God. Had nothing but his soldier’s pay and lived at the gaming tables, when all the time he was sitting on a dashed great fortune. And now he insists on facing a fit and active man like Major Crabtree with nothing but a cudgel.”
“Yet he hires no barrister,” Lady Acton said thoughtfully. “I wonder what he intends to do with all the money?”
* * *
It was enough. Whatever the consequences, the whole thing must be stopped, and only Eleanor could stop it. With her face set and her bonnet only slightly awry, at the earliest opportunity she marched into the splendid Hawksley townhouse. The butler showed her into a parlor where Diana sat alone, staring blindly out of a window.
“Eleanor!” Diana leaped to her feet and flung herself into her friend’s arms. “What shall we do? How can we stop this barbaric fight? The major will beat Lee to death. I know he will. With a sword or a pistol, he could never prevail—but with cudgels!”
“Sit down, Di, and calm yourself. There is a way to stop it, if you really want to.”
“Oh, Eleanor, you clever thing. You have a plan?”
“Yes, I do. But it’s up to you, really. Listen, you said once you wished that Lee were legitimate, rather than you. Did you mean it?”
“Of course, I meant it. Hawksley ought to be his. And if I weren’t an heiress, Walter and I could marry right away.”
Eleanor looked down. She was about to do something that would break every tenet that men like Mr. Campbell and her brothers lived by. She would demonstrate that her word meant nothing, that when circumstances demanded, she would break it. Yet she couldn’t stand by and do nothing. And if she sacrificed her own honor, that was her choice, wasn’t it?
Diana had only echoed her own fears. Major Crabtree outweighed Lee by two or three stone, and she had learned from her father that he was practicing daily, boxing with Gentleman Jackson.
Meanwhile, Leander Campbell was confined to a prison cell with no chance for exercise, where his lithe strength must be ebbing away from disuse. All that athletic grace and skill would count for nothing against an enraged opponent, more heavily built and in peak
condition, armed with a cudgel.
She forced herself to meet Diana’s eyes. “Then you should look at this,” she said simply.
She slipped the marriage papers from her reticule and laid them in Diana’s hands.
“I don’t understand,” Diana said at last. She laid the papers in her lap and gazed up at Eleanor with her heart in her eyes. “My father married Moira Campbell? But how wonderful! Where did you get this?”
“It’s a long story and the details don’t matter, but you do see what it means, don’t you? There’s also proof that Moira didn’t die until after your father married Lady Augusta. So, you see, your mother’s marriage was never valid. If you wish, I’ll destroy this document right now and we can pretend it never existed.”
“No, you shan’t.” Diana’s face flushed with color. “It means I am really the bastard, doesn’t it? I’m glad. Walter won’t care, and Lee always deserved Hawksley. I wish I’d known it sooner.”
“But what about your mother? You must think about what this will mean to Lady Augusta. If your brother is acknowledged Earl of Hawksley, it’s because she was only ever your father’s mistress. Everyone would know that.”
“I don’t know!” Diana wrung her hands. “Yes, it will be dreadful for Mama, but Lee will take care of her.”
Eleanor clutched Diana’s fingers. “It also means this horrid trial will stop. As earl, your brother would have to be tried in the House of Lords, and my mother will make sure that it’s all thrown out.”
Diana stared at Eleanor’s strong hands, which were preventing her from wringing her own.
“It’s not really such a hard choice,” she said after a moment. She gave Eleanor a tremulous smile. “There’s hardly a cost to me that I would care about. So it’s my mother’s pride against my brother’s life. Let’s take the papers to the judges.”
“Alas, such a solemn bunch,” someone said behind them. There was the faintest edge of sarcasm to the smooth tones. “I shouldn’t take anything of any interest to judges, if I were you.”
Eleanor spun around, snatching the marriage lines back from Diana. She thrust them into her reticule. She knew that her face had gone scarlet, and she fervently wished to be anywhere but in Diana’s sitting room at this moment.
Yet at the same time, it was as if a whole orchestra had struck up a victory march of happiness—for Leander Campbell stood nonchalantly in the doorway.
His blue morning coat was impeccably tailored, and the folds of his cravat demonstrated the skill of his clever fingers.
“Lee!” Diana squealed, leaping up and propelling herself toward her brother.
“Good God!” he said after a moment, as he extricated himself from her enthusiastic hug. “Am I so changed? So wasted? Do you think two weeks in prison has altered me forever? Alas, I shall bear the scars of the chains to my grave.”
“Don’t tease, Lee, please! It has all been so dreadful.”
He laughed at his sister’s woebegone expression. “Dreadful?” he said gaily. “When I never had so much fun in my life?”
“You escaped?” Eleanor asked bluntly.
She could think of no other explanation for his sudden appearance.
“Escaped the gallows, dear Lady Eleanor, but not the jail. No one escapes from Newgate, remember? My dear friend the Keeper unlocked the cell door and bowed me into the street. I was even allowed to take my effects. It was all perfectly legal. His Majesty’s justices were pleased to dismiss the case.”
“You mean they let you go, just like that?” Diana asked. “There won’t be any fight?”
Lee drew her over to the sofa and let his sister sink back down beside Eleanor. He then took an elegant side chair and straddled it.
“The trial is over. This is 1815, dear Di, not the time of the Lionheart. There was more than one technicality to tie them all into knots, and enough pure absurdity to entrance the best legal minds of the realm. Trial by combat! It may have accidentally been legal, but the Court of King’s Bench wasn’t about to let it happen. Although you have to admit, it was amusing to try.”
“It wasn’t amusing at all,” Eleanor interrupted furiously. “Everyone has been worried sick.”
“Everyone?”
“Diana and Walter—even my mother!”
“Lady Acton was never worried sick, dear Lady Eleanor. I imagine she enjoyed following every minute of the process.”
“She and half of London,” Diana said. “How could you do such a thing, Lee?”
He raised a brow. “I didn’t accuse myself and lock myself in Newgate, you know. Yet once there, I decided I’d rather not hang, after all.”
“Why really was the case thrown out?”
Eleanor wanted not to care, not to be involved, but she couldn’t help herself. His rich lashes narrowed slightly over the violet eyes as he looked at her, completely masking his real feelings.
“Because Major Sir Robert St. John Crabtree withdrew the charges. I suggested trial by combat in order to buy enough time to persuade him to do so—and to create such a diversion that everybody would forget about the victim, poor Manton Barnes. Fortunately, my ploy succeeded. I had no real desire to try to batter Crabtree to death with a cudgel. After all, he rescued me from the nuns in my mewling infancy.”
Eleanor refused to give up. “He withdrew the charges? Why?”
“Lady Eleanor, you really should curb your curiosity, a most unseemly attribute for a young lady. I made a bargain with him, that’s all.”
At the cool disinterest in his tone Eleanor looked down at her hands.
She had no right to pry into his affairs and even less to interfere as she had done. He must think her a gauche schoolgirl, indeed. And soon he would leave for Belgium. In which case she might never see him again. Her thoughts were shattered by the shrill cry of a newcomer.
“Leander Campbell? Good heavens, sir! You dare to bring the taint of the prison and the shadow of scandal into my drawing room?”
Lady Augusta swept into the room. Her gown rustled stiffly about her as she walked. Since Leander Campbell was impeccably dressed in the cleanest possible linen and smelt faintly of soap, her comment seemed absurd to Eleanor. The dowager countess ignored the indignant looks of the two girls and raised her voice once more to her stepson.
“You have brought disgrace and opprobrium to this house, sir. It is enough. I will thank you to say farewell to my daughter and pledge never to see her again.”
“Mama!” Diana leaped to her feet. “You shan’t forbid Lee the house!”
“I shall forbid what and where I like, young lady. Mr. Campbell has trespassed too long on the generosity of Hawksley. It was his influence that brought you to lose your senses over that Feveril Downe boy. I will not have him in this house again.”
Diana was pale, but she seemed seized by a newfound courage. Eleanor watched in astonishment as she stood up to her formidable mother for the first time.
“You can’t forbid him the house, Mama,” she cried. “It’s his house. Everything here is his. That chair and this sofa and the curtains and the fire irons—everything!”
Lady Augusta paled. “Whatever do you mean, Diana? You forget yourself.”
“No, I don’t. Father legally married Lee’s mother before he married you, and she was still alive at your wedding. So I’m not an heiress, and Eleanor’s just shown me the papers to prove it. They’re there in her reticule. Lee is the real Earl of Hawksley and has been all along.”
Lady Augusta crumpled as if she were felled by an axe. Mr. Campbell caught her and helped her to a chair. She moaned softly.
“For God’s sake, Di!” he said sharply. “Get some salts!”
But it was Eleanor who held the smelling salts under the fire-breathing nose. After gathering her courage for the outburst, Diana seemed appalled at what she had done. She sat white-faced as her brother and Eleanor tended to her mother.
Yet she was changed. Diana would never be afraid of her mother again.
Meanwhile, Eleanor w
anted to disappear, but nothing could change the inevitable now.
Mr. Campbell knelt calmly next to her, supporting his stepmother. Eleanor could smell the fresh scent of his clean linen. She could not take her eyes from his hands, those lovely, long-fingered hands.
Yet it was as if the marriage papers hidden in her reticule were some terrible, treasonous documents. She knew perfectly well what he must think of her, now he knew what she had done. She had promised at Deerfield never to reveal his mother’s marriage to anyone. Yet at the first sign of trouble, she had gone running to Diana and put the papers straight into her hands. That she thought she was doing it to save his life had been made totally irrelevant by the fact that he had already been released.
After a few minutes, Lady Augusta sat up and straightened her cap. She seemed to have regained her composure, but the fire was gone.
“It was bound to come out,” she said dully. “When Gerald took me to the altar, he already had a wife. How can one ever forgive such perfidy?”
“You already knew?” Diana asked.
Lady Augusta stared grimly at her daughter. “I have known for more than twenty years. Ever since Sir Robert brought that little boy back from Ireland. He looked so like his father, it was enough to break my heart. The major showed me the birth certificate and the marriage lines, with the evidence of when Moira Campbell had died. There was no doubt that Leander was the true heir. Yet how could I face it?”
“You were with child yourself,” Mr. Campbell said gently. “None of it was your fault.”
Lady Augusta looked at him, her eyes damp with tears.
“It might have been a boy—and then when Diana was born, she was such a lovely baby. So innocent! How could I live with bringing a child into the world who was already shamed, disgraced, disinherited?”
“You mean Major Crabtree knew this all along, too?” Diana asked. “Why didn’t he tell anybody?”
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