Duke with Benefits

by Manda Collins

  By this time, however, Foster had regained some of his composure. “He told me you had reason to wish him dead, Lady Daphne. So do not think to draw suspicion away from yourself with this tale of being shot at. If you are as clever as you say you are, then you would doubtless be smart enough to hire someone to shoot at you.”

  “You are offensive, sir,” Maitland said coldly, his hand hard on her shoulder, which she interpreted to mean she should stop talking. “And I will remind you that you yourself are without anyone to verify where you were the night of your friend’s murder. How do we know you weren’t simply hiding out here with the intention of killing him while everyone thought you were out of town?”

  “What is offensive, your grace,” said Foster, “is the way you aristocrats stick together. Sommersby warned me it would be this way. That you would do whatever you could to discredit him. I simply didn’t guess that it would mean you’d murder him.”

  “You are overset, Mr. Foster,” said Lord Kerr, who had come to stand on Maitland’s other side. “Perhaps after you have had time to grieve, you will come to realize how wrong you are. In the meantime, pray accept our condolences for your loss. Mr. Greaves will see you out. I’ll be sure to let Squire Northman know you’ve returned so that he may question you about your whereabouts three nights ago.”

  And as if he’d been waiting there listening, the butler Greaves appeared and took Ian Foster by the arm and led him from the room.

  As soon as the door closed behind them, Maitland turned to Lord Kerr. “What do you mean exposing the ladies to that fellow? Especially after everything that’s happened to Daphne. She’s had quite enough to upset her for the time being.”

  “It’s hardly Quill’s fault, Maitland,” said Ivy coming to her husband’s defense. “Mr. Foster seemed amiable enough when he arrived. But the longer he waited, the more overset he became. But the time you both arrived, he was showing signs of agitation.”

  “It was bad of us not to let him know what had happened to Sommersby,” Daphne said ruefully. “I didn’t even think of him, though we met him on the trail with Sommersby.”

  “None of us did,” Maitland reassured her. “But that still doesn’t make his accusations against you appropriate.”

  “I wonder what he wished to see in the secret room,” Sophia asked, rising to stand before the fire, her sketchbook in one hand, as if she’d forgotten she had it with her. “It was almost as if he thought he’d find the cipher there.”

  “Well, he’d be out of luck there,” Daphne said with a scowl. After the body had been removed from the inner chamber, she and Maitland had searched the recess from floor to ceiling, as well as the small chest that had been lying open on the floor beside Sommersby’s body. But they’d found nothing. Whoever had killed Sommersby had likely taken the cipher as well. “We certainly didn’t find it. And not for want of trying.”

  “Perhaps we weren’t looking in the right place,” Maitland said thoughtfully.

  As if in response, Daphne’s stomach growled. Loudly. Thanks to her father’s surprise visit, she’d missed breakfast.

  “It’s time for luncheon,” she said sheepishly. The events of the morning had given her an appetite.

  “Then let’s go have luncheon,” Maitland said, taking her hand. “Perhaps some fuel will help us figure out where the cipher might be.”

  * * *

  They were greeted by Serena in the dining room, and Maitland was reminded that he’d never gotten back to Jem with the promised game of soldiers. Making a mental note to see the boy that afternoon, he gave his cousin a questioning glance as she stood behind her chair waiting for the others.

  “Greaves told me there was some trouble with Mr. Foster,” Serena said with a frown as she took her seat. “I cannot like how many dangerous situations you ladies have found yourselves in since your arrival here. And now a murder in this very house. I cannot think that this was what Aunt Celeste had in mind when she promised you adventures in Beauchamp House.”

  “Given that Aunt herself requested that Ivy find out who killed her,” Kerr said dryly, “I suspect this is exactly what she had in mind, Serena. Though perhaps she did not anticipate a man being stabbed to death in the library. Even so, she was hardly one to wish young ladies to be wrapped in cotton wool. And I think they’ve handled things admirably.”

  “Indeed,” Maitland agreed, lifting his glass to the table at large. “There’s not a heartier group than the one assembled at this table. And I daresay Aunt chose them specifically for their strength.”

  Serena shook her head in exasperation. “It’s all well and good for the two of you to sing their praises. You aren’t the one who is supposed to be chaperoning them. And thus far, I’ve done a poor job of it. First Ivy was compromised into marrying Quill and now you, Maitland, my own brother, have faked a betrothal to Daphne in order to protect her from her father. At this rate, Sophia and Gemma will be embroiled in scandals with the vicar and his curate before the week is out. It’s like living in a Sheridan play. With murder.”

  Maitland wanted to laugh off his sister’s worries, mostly because it was amusing when she laid it all out there like that. But he knew that she took her responsibilities seriously. And that her gratitude to Aunt Celeste for offering her this chance to get away from her drab life in the dower house colored her feelings about the current situation.

  But before he could speak up to comfort her, Daphne broke in.

  “Lady Serena, I can assure you that there is no need for you to worry so about our reputations. Indeed, Ivy needn’t concern you at all now that she’s married to Lord Kerr. And my reputation was never that much to begin with.”

  Serena blinked, as if trying to determine if Daphne was serious.

  “But really,” Daphne continued, patting her chaperone on the hand, “it is sensible for you to be overset about the murder of Sommersby. We have no notion of who might have done it. And they did shoot at Maitland and me the other night. There’s no telling when he will strike next.”

  Maitland was overcome with a coughing fit as he watched his sister’s eyes widen at Daphne’s words. So much for comforting her, he thought with an inward sigh. At this rate, Serena would have guards stationed at every door.

  But his sister was made of sterner stuff.

  “Thank you for validating my fears, Daphne,” she said, then with a speaking glance at Kerr and Maitland, she continued, “At least someone in this house doesn’t think I’m overstating things when I say that we are all in danger.”

  Wincing, Maitland gave his sister a nod to indicate she’d made her point. “I apologize for minimizing your worries, Serena. It’s only because I don’t wish to alarm anyone. And I can assure you that we’re safe as houses. In point of fact, I myself had Greaves post extra guards at all the entrances the morning after we found poor Sommersby.”

  At his words, he saw Serena’s shoulders slump with relief. He felt a pang of guilt at not having noticed earlier how much this situation had bothered her.

  “Thank you, my dear,” she said with a genuine smile. “I might have known you would take charge. You were always ordering things to your liking. Even when you were a boy.”

  “You’re just still angry that I ordered you around,” Maitland said with a grin.

  He had been a bit of a handful as a child. Especially since he had for a few years there taken his father as his role model. And the late duke was hardly the sort to take the feelings of others into consideration when he was making decisions. By the time Maitland had come into the dukedom at sixteen, he’d long since realized that it was far more pleasant to go through life with a smile on one’s face than with a cold sneer.

  It hadn’t endeared him to his father, of course, who saw his son and heir’s sunny disposition as a sign of weakness. But it had stood him in good stead. And he’d never inspired the kind of fear and loathing he’d seen enter the eyes of his father’s circle as soon as the old duke approached.

  “Of course, I am,” Sere
na answered pertly, drawing his attention back to the table. “I was the elder, and you tried to lord your title over me like some sort of crown prince.”

  “You complain,” Kerr said with a laugh, “but you were just as bad. And knew exactly the right place to pinch when we didn’t bow to your wishes.”

  “He’s right, Rena,” the duke said to his sister with a shrug. “And I was manageable enough so long as I was allowed to visit the stables every day.”

  “You were fond of horses even as a boy, then?” Daphne asked, her eyes bright with curiosity.

  “I wanted to live in the stables,” Maitland said, a little wistful for those days before he’d realized the enormity of his position in the world. “Mr. Jacoby, the head groom at the Maitland estate, let me sneak in as much as I wanted until my father discovered it. I thought at one point—I was far too young to realize it was an impossibility—that I would become a groom myself when I was older. But Father quashed that flight of fancy soon enough. Fortunately, I was able to convince him not to take out his anger on Jacoby. But it meant less time among the horses for me.”

  “But you’re able to do so now,” Daphne said softly, as if she understood how difficult it had been for him to give up the shelter of the stables and the gentle guidance of Jacoby. Their eyes met and he saw recognition there. And sympathy. “That must be counted as an improvement.”

  “One of the first things I did when I came into the title was to have the stables fully renovated—father didn’t have much use for animals or people. Or at least only so far as he could use them.” He didn’t say that his father had also neglected the buildings just because Dalton had cared so much that they were so shabby. He’d been a cruel man, his father. But he liked to think that he’d got his revenge by living well.

  “It’s the home for elderly horses that I most love about your renovations, though,” Serena said with a warm smile. She had been just as hurt by their father’s neglect, but she’d never stopped supporting her brother. He was grateful for her, as he was for Quill and his aunt Celeste, who had shaped him into the man he was today.

  “What’s this?” Daphne looked from one Maitland sibling to the other.

  “My cousin has dedicated a special area of his estates to housing elderly or infirm horses, who through no fault of their own find themselves on the way to the … er…” Maitland watched in amusement as Quill tried to come up with an alternative to the word “slaughterhouse.”

  “In straightened circumstances,” Maitland finished for him. “And they are able to live out their days without fear of the lash or any other sort of cruelty.”

  “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard,” Gemma said with a sniff. And as he glanced at the other ladies, Maitland felt himself redden under their scrutiny. Daphne was beaming at him, and he got the feeling she would have launched herself into his arms if there wasn’t a tableful of people watching them.

  “It’s nothing,” he protested, suddenly very interested in the pigeon pie before him. “Just a good use for that particular piece of land. That’s all.”

  And that was all he had to say about the matter.

  Chapter 7

  Maitland and the ladies tried to convince Daphne to rest for a little, given the odd circumstances of the last day, but she steadfastly refused.

  “There is too much to be done,” she insisted, leading the way to the library. “A man was murdered. And if it was over the cipher, then I want to make certain that we haven’t missed something in the secret room.”

  She was made of stern stuff, his Daphne, the duke thought as he and the others followed her down the hall to the book room.

  His Daphne. For the time being at any rate. Until he convinced her to turn this betrothal begun in deceit into a real one.

  Which would not be an easy task given what she’d said to her father about her feelings on the matter of matrimony in general. He’d known, because of his sister’s horror of a union, that in the eyes of the law men held almost all the power in a marriage. But Daphne’s wish for autonomy for the sake of her studies was another layer to the issue he’d not considered. With the wrong man, marriage could mean a total loss of freedom for a woman.

  He’d just have to make sure Daphne knew he was the right man.

  The library was bright with the early afternoon sun, and while the others wandered in, Maitland stood where Daphne had halted just inside the door.

  “I know we were in here this morning,” she said with a frown, “but I didn’t go back in there.” She stared at the now closed portal into the secret room.”

  They hadn’t returned to the little room since Squire Northman had come to look at the crime scene. Despite the man’s suspicions that Daphne might have had something to do with the murder, his sense of chivalry had prevented him from forcing her to return to the spot where she’d found the body.

  She betrayed her apprehension only with her words. Her spine was straight and though she did not take her eyes off the other side of the room, her stance was one of determination. It took every ounce of self-control to stop himself from pulling her to him in a reassuring hug. Only because he knew her better now was he able to see how much she feared revisiting the scene of Sommersby’s death.

  He contented himself with a touch of his hand to hers. And to his surprise, she turned her hand over and squeezed, taking comfort from him, though she didn’t glance his way.

  “You needn’t go in now,” Maitland said, reluctantly letting her go, and following her as she made her way to the secret door. “There are enough of us that the room can be easily searched again without your assistance. I daresay it will only fit a few of us at a time anyway. You needn’t be one of them.”

  She’d stopped just before the shelf with the opening mechanism. The books that had been removed by Sommersby still lay where Daphne had begun organizing them last night. “I must go inside,” she said, reaching out to depress the latch. “Lady Celeste left the secret of the Cameron Cipher’s presence in the library to me. She wanted me to be the one to find it. And I won’t let some beastly murderer keep me from fulfilling her wishes. I owe her too much.”

  As they watched, the bookshelf swung inward, revealing the darkness of the chamber within. Wordlessly, Maitland lit the wick of the lamp they’d left on the table the night before.

  “I’m coming with you,” he said, even as she stood in the open door. If she heard him, she gave no indication of it, only waited for him to follow her with the lamp.

  Perhaps sensing that this was something Daphne did not need witnesses for, the others remained in the library, searching through the books and shelves for any further clues.

  Recalling the hook in the wall just inside the doorway Maitland hung the lamp from it, which illuminated the silk hung walls. He hadn’t noticed last night, but the chamber was furnished with every bit as much care as the rest of the house. On the floor, where they’d found Sommersby, was a thick carpet, similar to the one in the library itself, covering the wood floor. A portrait hung in a place of pride on the far wall. He had no memory of seeing it the night before. He’d been so focused on the dead man on the floor, the chamber might as well have been empty.

  When he moved to look closer, he saw that the likeness was of Charles Edward Stuart, The Young Pretender, also known as the man for whom the Jacobite cause was fought and lost.

  It had been over half a century since the 1745 uprising that had left the movement to put Bonnie Prince Charlie on the English throne in tatters. Prominent members of the cause had been put to death for treason.

  Aunt Celeste hadn’t even been born when the Jacobites were defeated. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t found something to admire in the movement. Had Aunt Celeste been a Jacobite sympathizer? Or did this décor simply reinforce the fact that the Cameron Cipher had been secreted here? Given his own knowledge of his late aunt, Maitland was inclined to believe it was the latter.

  * * *

  Daphne sat on her haunches, examining the
small chest that still lay where Sommersby had dropped it. He watched as she gingerly lifted it from the floor and ran her fingers over the velvet lining. Searching for some other items contained there, no doubt.

  Leaving her to it, he moved to the painting and carefully lifted it from the wall. It wasn’t large. Like every other object d’art in the house, it looked as if it had been made for its particular placement.

  He hadn’t really been expecting to find anything there. He’d actually chosen to inspect the painting in an effort to distract himself from Daphne’s close proximity. When he turned it over to look at the back, he almost missed it. If he had not taken a leaf from Daphne’s book and run his hand over the back of the canvas, the frame, and the bits of wood wedged into each of the four corners, he’d not have felt the rolled bit of parchment hidden almost invisibly between the wooden stretcher and the canvas.

  He must have made some noise of excitement because Daphne looked up at once. “What is it?” she demanded, her eyes shining in the lamplight. “What did you find?”

  “Bring that,” he told her, nodding to the box in her hands before carrying the painting back into the main room of the library.

  At their quick reemergence, the others came crowding around.

  “I hadn’t realized there was a painting hidden in there,” Sophia said with what sounded like pique. As the artist of the group, she would have a natural interest in such a find.

  Daphne rested the box on the nearest table with a thump, while Maitland gently lay the painting face down next to it.

  “Which of these are we meant to examine first?” Ivy asked, glancing from the chest to the back of the canvas.

  “There is nothing more to the box than what you see,” Daphne said with a frown. “I thought perhaps there would be something hidden in the lining, or maybe a secret compartment. But there’s nothing here that I can find.”