Duke with Benefits

by Manda Collins

  Daphne swallowed. It was possible that Sommersby was not at twenty-eight the same man he’d been at eighteen. But there had been a glint in his eye that afternoon that told her he was still capable of the sort of ruthlessness he’d demonstrated to her all those years ago. Back then she’d been unable to protect herself, but now, she knew better than to let herself be caught alone with him. Still, it would not do to let her friends think he was harmless either.

  “I am saying that if you can help it, do not allow him to maneuver you into a corner,” Daphne said, looking down at her hands, knowing that if she showed her friends her eyes they’d read her true feelings in them. “Do not allow him to charm you with his words or to physically cow you. He is not a nice man, for all that he appears so.”

  The other ladies were silent for so long that Daphne wondered if they’d even heard her.

  Finally, Sophia asked softly, “Daphne, did Mr. Sommersby hurt you? Perhaps press you to do something you did not wish to do?”

  But Sophia’s words brought back the memory of that night in her bedchamber at her father’s house, and it was all Daphne could do to breath, much less stop herself from trembling.

  Though she did not as a general rule encourage other people to touch her, Ivy’s hand on her arm gave her comfort.

  “I c … c … can’t t … t … talk ab … b…”

  “Shh, it’s all right,” Ivy soothed. And she tried to calm herself as she listened to Sophia and Gemma kneel before her on the floor, just touching the skirts of her gown lightly. “You needn’t talk about it if you don’t wish.”

  In some faraway part of her mind, Daphne was mortified at appearing thusly in front of her friends. She was not given to outbursts of emotion. Nor was she one to wear her cares on her sleeve. What must the other ladies think of her?

  She only thanked the heavens that she hadn’t behaved like this earlier when she’d first seen Sommersby. For a brief moment, she’d even felt her old affection return. The mind was deceptive that way, allowing you to feel two opposing things about the same person at the same time. Fortunately, that old affection was soon pushed aside by fear and loathing.

  “I will have a word with Quill,” Ivy said to her. “He will not let this cretin within a stone’s throw of Beauchamp House. If I ask it, he and Maitland will usher him out of the county.”

  At the mention of Maitland, however, Daphne’s head snapped up. “No,” she said in a strangled voice. “Under no circumstances is anyone to tell Maitland about this. You must all promise me.”

  The idea of the Duke of Maitland knowing even a hint of what had been the most shameful moment in her life was anathema to her. She could bear many things in this life, but a look of pity from him was not one of them. Or worse, disgust. For she was not entirely blameless in the matter. And most men would lay the blame not where it belonged, on the man who did the debauching, but instead upon the woman. She knew Maitland was not most men, but she didn’t wish to risk the odds.

  “We promise,” Gemma said, placing a hand on her arm. “No one will tell him. But that does not mean that he and Lord Kerr shouldn’t see to it that Sommersby is ushered out of the area. We needn’t tell them the reason. Just that he makes you uncomfortable.”

  “Or we could say that you do not wish him to get near to the Cameron Cipher,” Sophia said practically. “That is also true, is it not? And there will be no need to raise either gentleman’s suspicions about anything else.”

  By now, Daphne had stopped trembling, and she was able to breathe easily. She had not been this overset by memories of Sommersby’s assault on her—because that is what it had been, even if he hadn’t been able to get all of what he wanted from her—in a long time. Not since she’d learned from his father that he was bound for Egypt. And now that she had regained her composure, she refused to allow him to upset her for a minute more.

  Even so, she craved the calm that only putting things in order could give her. She hadn’t been completely deceitful about organizing the library. While she’d been searching, she’d also been rearranging things in what she thought of as the proper order. None of the other ladies had complained thus far, so she supposed they agreed with her arrangement.

  She’d thought removing herself from her father’s house, where she was subject to his insistence that she use her skills at the card tables for his own financial gain, would be such a relief that she would be able to overcome her sometimes uncontrollable urge to tidy. But despite her fondness for her new friends, there was quite a bit of anxiety associated with her new surroundings. And now that Sommersby had arrived on the scene, she was even more fraught with nerves.

  Aloud, she said, “I suppose that will work. Though I wish it were not necessary to tell them anything at all.”

  Unable to stand one more minute of scrutiny from the other three, she stood abruptly, and said, “I need to go to the library now.” And supposing they would want some more explanation, she added, “To think.” Surely thinking was something one was allowed to do alone. And if anyone should understand such a need, it would be these particular ladies, who also prized contemplation as a worthy pastime.

  And without waiting for a response, she fled.

  * * *

  After an hour or so of tossing and turning, Dalton threw back the counterpane and pulled on a pair of breeches, a shirt, and a pair of slippers. If anyone was scandalized by the sight of him wandering the house in shirtsleeves, then they would simply have to endure it. He was in a bit of a mood, and surely a trip to the library for something to occupy his mind and perhaps lull him to sleep was not so objectionable. It wasn’t as if he were going about in the altogether.

  A scowl on his face as he contemplated his earlier conversation with his cousin, the duke stalked down the corridors of Beauchamp House until he came to the library door, which was ajar. And there was light shining from within.

  Well, whoever it was would just have to excuse his state of undress. Because he wasn’t going back upstairs.

  But when he stepped inside, he could see no one amongst the mahogany tables and floor-to-ceiling walls of books, although several of the lamps throughout the room were lit. And he could see that several books on the far side of the room had been removed from their shelf and were stacked haphazardly on a nearby table. And to his surprise, the French doors leading out to a balcony overlooking the gardens were wide open.

  Something was wrong.

  With a low curse, he hurried over to the open balcony doors, but a quick scan of the parapet showed that no one was there.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Startled, he turned and saw Daphne glaring at him from inside the book room.

  “I asked what are you doing here?” she repeated. “And why are you on the balcony? Surely you can find some other place to enjoy the evening air.”

  He was on the brink of telling her that he didn’t answer to her, when the sound of a pistol firing sent him into motion borne of instinct. Careless of her temper, he threw himself at her, bringing them both crashing flat onto the thick Aubusson carpet.

  They lay there breathless for a moment and listened for another report, but after some moments of quiet, it was clear whoever it was had finished his assault.

  Gradually, Maitland became aware of the fact that the body underneath his was distinctly female and that Daphne’s soft curves fit with aching perfection against his own hardness. Moving back a little, he scanned her face, noting a hint of pink in her cheeks as she stared at his mouth.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice hoarse to his own ears. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  “N … no,” she said, her breath soft against his cheek. He waited for her to continue, but the usually talkative Daphne was unusually quiet.

  “We’d best wait for a minute or so more,” he said, knowing the decision was justified, but feeling like a cad all the same as he felt her breasts rise and fall with each breath. “Just to make sure there are no more shots.”

&nb
sp; “He shot at us,” Daphne whispered. As if whoever it was could hear them from his coward’s hiding place out there in the dark. “Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, closing his eyes against the scent of the lemon verbena she must use to wash her hair. Then what she’d just said sank in. “What do you mean ‘he’?” Maitland demanded. “Do you know who this is? Is it that Sommersby fellow? Why would he shoot at you?”

  At the mention of Sommersby, she stiffened and pushed against his chest. She was no match for his superior strength, but he pushed away from her all the same. He sensed the panic in the gesture as she scrambled away from him, scuttling backward across the floor like the crabs down on the beach below.

  “Why would you say that?” she demanded rising swiftly to a standing position. “What makes you think he’d have reason to shoot at me?”

  Taking his time as he got to his feet, Maitland thought back to their encounter with Sommersby that afternoon. At the time, he’d thought Daphne was merely annoyed with the other man because of his interest in the Cameron Cipher. But this response now was something else. Something darker.

  He shut the French doors firmly and pulled the curtains so that they couldn’t be seen from outside.

  Turning, he surveyed her. Taking in her clenched hands and downcast eyes.

  “Daphne,” he said softly, “are you frightened of this man?”

  Though her answer was clear in her expression, she said, “No, of course not. He’s an old friend. That’s all.”

  “Is he?”

  The question seemed to give her pause. He could see worry, and something else in her face. Fear?

  He was assailed with a sudden, intense urge to find Sommersby and beat him into a bloody pulp.

  “We were friends once,” she said stiffly. “And now he is here. He wants the cipher.”

  While that might be true, Maitland thought, it didn’t mean Sommersby was only here for the cipher.

  He would have liked to question her further about her relationship with the treasure hunter, but he could see that she was eager to leave the subject.

  “Is he willing to kill someone to get to it first?”

  “I don’t know,” she said in a hoarse voice. “I don’t know what he’s capable of.”

  With a strangled sound, she hurried over to where the stack of books had been removed from the shelves and began sorting through them. Then, as if just realizing what she looked at, she said, “Why were you looking at Scottish histories?”

  There was a frown in her eyes, and she was clearly unsettled by the idea.

  “I wasn’t,” he said, wondering why it mattered. “Those books were off the shelf when I came in here this evening. And all the lights were lit. I thought one of you ladies had done it.”

  Turning, Daphne scanned the shelf behind her, where one shelf was empty of its contents, like the gap in Jem’s smile where he’d lost his two front milk teeth.

  She slid her hand over the underside of the shelf above, then down over the inside of the box created by the four sides. “Will you bring that lamp, please?”

  Wordlessly, Maitland took up the flickering light and carried it over to where she stood staring into the dark space of the empty shelf. “Hold it just there,” she requested, tilting her head to the side, as she looked at something on the inside of the left-hand border of the shelf. He complied, and she squinted as if she wasn’t quite sure what she was seeing. Then with a nod, she stood up straight and said. “Step back, please.”

  He obeyed, and watched as she pressed against the side of the shelf where she’d been looking and gasped in amazement as the entire shelf, from floor to ceiling, swung inward silently, revealing a chamber beyond.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said with a shake of his head.

  Then, recalling just how they’d been alerted to the presence of this hidden room, he said, “Let me go in first. Whoever was here earlier might have set some kind of trap in there.”

  Though she looked as if she’d like to argue, Daphne nodded, and stepped back so that Maitland could pick up the lamp and slide into the narrow doorway.

  Almost as soon as he stepped inside, he was hit with a foul smell. And a quick glance at the floor told him it’s source.

  “Daphne,” he said calmly. “Go get Kerr and Ivy.”

  “What? Why?” she asked, coming up to stand behind him and trying unsuccessfully to see around him. “What are you hiding from me? And what is that awful smell?”

  And before he could stop her, she’d wiggled around him and stopped in her tracks beside him with a gasp.

  “Oh!”

  Quickly, Maitland pressed her face into his shoulder so she would not see any more of the horror on the floor.

  It was Mr. Nigel Sommersby. A small trunk lay on the floor beside him, open, and empty. And he was quite, quite dead.

  Chapter 4

  “And you say this Sommersby fellow was looking for the Cameron Cipher?” Squire Northman, the local magistrate asked, his bushy brows conveying his opinion of those who engaged in such frivolous behavior.

  After the initial excitement had died down, Maitland had instructed the two sturdiest footmen to remove Sommersby’s body to the icehouse for the night. Mindful of the empty box they’d found with the man’s body, he himself had searched the body for any sign of the Cameron Cipher, or any other clue to who might have done him in. But he’d found only a set of what looked to be lock picks. No purse or papers of any kind. He’d returned to the house exhausted, and the household had decided to get what rest they could before the coming day.

  Kerr had summoned Mr. Northman before breakfast and now the four heiresses, and the Beauchamp cousins—with the exception of young Jeremy—were all assembled in the library answering the man’s questions, while his private secretary scribbled down their every word in a book with a lead pencil.

  “That is what he told us when we met him on the way into town yesterday,” Kerr agreed with a nod. “He and his friend, a Mr. Ian Foster, were staying at the Pig & Whistle in Little Seaford, I believe.”

  Northman nodded, and said to his secretary. “Write that bit down. We’ll need to talk to this fellow Foster at once.”

  “I sent one of the footmen to inform Mr. Foster first thing this morning,” Maitland said, “but he was told that the fellow had traveled on his own to visit friends in Pevensey for a few days. The innkeeper didn’t know their name, so he will get the bad news when he returns I’m afraid.”

  Daphne, who had enjoyed the first restful sleep she’d had in years last night, felt a pang of guilt over the relief she felt at Sommersby’s death, given how upset his friend Foster would be when he learned of it. Not to mention how his father, her mentor, would take the news. It wasn’t that she’d wished the man dead. She might have wanted him to never set foot in the same vicinity as her ever again. But she hadn’t wanted him to die a horrible death.

  And his death had been horrible. That she’d been able to see from the quick glance she’d managed before Maitland pushed her face into his shoulder.

  Nigel’s expression had been one of pure agony, and his hand had been clasped uselessly around the dagger protruding from his chest.

  “How did he get in?” Northman asked, scanning all of them, as if he could extract the information with the power of his gaze alone.

  “As I said earlier,” Maitland said, with barely repressed exasperation, “the doors leading out onto the balcony were open when I entered the library. As Kerr and I know from when we were boys, it’s quite easy to climb the yew tree near the balcony and gain access that way.”

  “And you’re sure you didn’t find the fellow there in the hidden room, your grace?” Northman’s brows were intent now. “You didn’t perhaps struggle with him over the knife and accidentally kill the man? It would be well within your rights, your grace. After all, this Sommersby was an intruder. You were protecting your family.” He paused, giving a speaking glance at Daphne and the Hastings sisters. �
�And your friends.”

  “That would be quite impossible, Mr. Northman,” said Daphne, unable to stop herself from leaping to Maitland’s defense. “Because as we have told you once before, I was the one who found the latch for the secret doorway, and the duke and I were together when he discovered Mr. Sommersby’s body. It would be quite impossible for him to have stabbed the man to death without my witnessing it.”

  “But Lady Daphne,” the squire said slowly, “you might have reason to lie. To protect his grace. Especially if he was protecting you.”

  Daphne, however, had had quite enough. “If anyone had reason to wish Mr. Sommersby dead it was me. And yet, neither I, nor the duke, was responsible for the man’s death. We found him in the very way which we have already described to you more than once. I am sorry if you were not gifted with a great deal of intellect, but even you can understand that we do not wish to respond to the same question repeatedly while you do nothing to search for the person who shot at Maitland and me last night, and very likely murdered Mr. Sommersby.”

  Northman’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times, like a newly caught fish.

  Daphne felt herself flanked on either side by Maitland and Kerr.

  “I think that’s enough for today, Northman,” said Lord Kerr in a tone that brooked no argument. “As you can see, the ladies are quite overset by the events of last evening and are in need of rest.”

  Though he looked as if he would like to argue, Northman rose, his secretary popping up to his feet beside him like a jack-in-the-box. “I’m not finished with my questions,” the magistrate said ponderously. “And I will wish to speak with Lady Daphne in particular. She knew him from before, I believe you said. Perhaps this had nothing at all to do with this Cameron Cipher.”

  Daphne opened her mouth to speak but was silenced by a not-so-subtle squeeze on the arm from Maitland, who then stepped over to usher Northman bodily from the room.

  Once they were gone, Daphne sank onto the nearest chair.