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held them up before the painting.
    A young man in the dress of some twenty years before stared down at them. The flickering light played over his high cheekbones and carved nostrils and brought out deep blue highlights in his eyes. He wore an elegant high-collared green brocade coat with matching breeches. One hand caressed the head of a hound and the other sat on the hilt of a sword. The beautiful long fingers were identical to those that supported the candlestick. And it was the same face, with an echo of the same charm and the same infuriating arrogance.
    Beneath the painting lay a small gilt plaque: “Gerald Arthur Richard Hart, fifth Earl of Hawksley.”
    “My father,” Leander Campbell said cheerfully. “And Di’s, of course. An embarrassing likeness and we share more than our looks. He was, like me, an infamous reprobate.”
    “Oh, fiddlesticks,” Diana said. “Everybody was in those days. You would never behave as recklessly as he did.”
    “Wouldn’t I? You have a rosy view of my character, dear sister. But Lady Eleanor doesn’t know what we’re talking about. She’s beginning to look worried and it’s becoming impolite to leave her in the dark any longer.”
    Diana turned to Eleanor. “My father met Lee’s mother in Scotland on his Highland tour. He returned to England just in time for the Season and never went back. But she, poor thing, was left in an interesting condition without benefit of a marriage ceremony. It was ages before he married Mama.”
    “Four and a half years to be exact. Which hardly excuses him, does it?” he said. “Her name was Moira Campbell. Her father, Ian Campbell, tried to hide the family scandal by shipping me off to Ireland as a baby. I was left in a convent, which smelled of herbs, as I remember—and sanctity, of course. The scrubby orphan was rescued and brought back to England by a passing soldier. Our neighbor, Sir Robert St. John Crabtree, as it happens—”
    “—who turned up here at Hawksley Park with the foundling,” Diana said.
    “Only to find that the heedless younger son who had seduced my mother had become Earl of Hawksley when his brother died unexpectedly. The new earl married Lady Augusta, but was then careless enough to break his neck, leaving his widow alone in her turn to produce Diana. I wonder when he found time to have his portrait painted?”
    “You remember all this?” Eleanor said a little unsteadily.
    The violet eyes filled with amusement. “Only the nuns,” he said. “They wore white sails on their heads sufficient to blow them unaided out to sea. Now don’t you think we should go downstairs? We stop only long enough to pay our respects, then my friend and I hurry on to Deerfield.”
    “A friend?” Lady Diana said, turning pale, then pink. “Not Walter!”
    “Of course Walter,” her brother replied. “I came up to warn you so that you wouldn’t swoon when you found him in the house. Though it took an ungodly amount of persuasion for me to overcome his finer scruples, which is why we sojourn with Sir Robert and not here. Not even my mesmerizing talents could make Mr. Downe stay at Hawksley, and it seemed perhaps a trifle impolitic to ask Lady Augusta to be his hostess. What do you think?”
    “You brought him here? He said he would come. I think I love you to distraction,” Diana cried. “But don’t tell me you have left him with Mama in the drawing room.”
    “Don’t worry! Lady Acton is there to protect him and your mother believes him just a casual friend of mine. She’s being condescending and gracious and asking him about his family.”
    “You mean she’s being absolutely horrid and trying to make him feel inferior that his father’s only a viscount.”
    “Which is proving a source of great concern, isn’t it? Never mind! I told him to elope with you.”
    “Lee! How could you?”
    “Of course he has far too much moral fiber and my attempts at corrupting him seem to be falling on deaf ears. So I suppose it’s