Duke with Benefits

by Manda Collins

  “But why didn’t you simply take the cipher and disappear then?” Daphne asked, truly curious. It seemed foolish of him to remain behind, where he might be caught. “And why did you shoot at us?”

  “Because running would make me look guilty,” Foster said to her as if she were a simpleton. “And I shot at you because I could have no notion of whether you’d seen me leave through the window. I could hear your voices even as I shimmied down the tree outside. I haven’t come this far only to be caught fleeing a murder scene. I was not made for such an ignominious end.”

  “If you think I’m the only one who can solve the cipher, then that wasn’t the cleverest move on your part,” Daphne couldn’t help but point out.

  At the criticism, Foster snarled. Clearly, he did not like being called foolish. “I thought I didn’t need you,” he said scowling. “Remember Sommersby had assured me that he was your better or equal when it came to codes and ciphers and the like. But, just as his son had done, he, too, betrayed me.”

  “What have you done to Richard Sommersby?” Daphne asked, fearful despite her disappointment in her mentor for allying himself with a man like Foster.

  “After his little mishap with Lady Celeste’s solicitor—really, it was too much of him to think the man would freely hand over all of his notes on the cipher—I saw to it that he was no longer able to impede my progress.”

  Daphne closed her eyes. “He’s dead then?” Somehow she’d hoped that Mr. Sommersby, for all his faults, would at least escape this imbroglio with his life.

  But to her surprise, Foster shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong, the fellow deserves to die for the mistakes he’s made on this operation. It’s been one blunder after another for the man. And I can hang for one murder as well as two.”

  She suppressed a shudder.

  “However,” Foster said with a shrug, “there is the possibility that alone, you will be unable to unravel the cipher. So, I have kept Richard Sommersby on hand just in case you need his assistance in breaking the code.”

  Something relaxed within her chest. At least Mr. Sommersby was still alive, she thought. And really, he may very well have saved her from being taken earlier by Foster. She wondered if that had been at least part of his reason for touting his own skills at coding.

  “Enough of this chatter,” Foster said, stepping away from the wall, and lighting the lamp on the table. “It’s time for you to begin.”

  Daphne looked down at the page, which contained the same set of jumbled letters as her own paper back in the library at Beauchamp House.

  “I’ll need a pencil,” she said, looking up to find him giving her an assessing gaze. “Or barring that, a slate and a bit of chalk.”

  “I’m not comfortable untying your hands,” he said with a shake of his head. “You’ll simply have to work it out in that beautiful head of yours.”

  “But I need to see the calculations on the page,” she protested. He was right to resist untying her hands. Her first order of business if he had was to toss the lit lamp at him. “And I need to write out a key once I’m able to get one or two of the letters figured out. It’s standard for such work.”

  He would not budge on the matter, however. “You’re a resourceful lady. Figure it out.”

  And without a backward glance, he left her alone in the tiny room, with only the Cameron Cipher for company.

  Chapter 20

  When he returned to the library, Maitland was startled to find Daphne was gone. Thinking she’d gone to lie down, or to speak to one of the other ladies, he went first to her bedchamber—which was empty—then to the shared sitting room where the heiresses sometimes congregated.

  “No,” Ivy said, her eyes worried, “I thought you were with her.”

  With a curse, Maitland noticed that her page, with the coded message from the painting, and her calculations, had fallen to the floor. Picking it up, he scanned it for some clue, but there was no “help me” written in the margins.

  Quickly, he stepped over to the shelf with the lever for the secret passage on it. But a check of the hidden room showed it to be unchanged from their visit earlier.

  “Where is she?” Sophia asked as the three heiresses, followed by Serena and Quill, entered the room. “Who’s taken her?”

  It was a measure of just how odd the past few months had been, Maitland thought, that their first conclusion was that Daphne had been kidnapped.

  Quickly he explained to them what Lord Forsyth had told him about Ian Foster.

  “But I don’t understand,” Gemma said, her brows drawn. “I thought it was Mr. Richard Sommersby who was seen at the solicitor’s office. And that he was the one who killed Nigel Sommersby.”

  “I don’t know the whole of it,” Maitland admitted, “but at the moment, that doesn’t matter. We need to find Daphne. It’s clear enough that the man is looking for someone to solve the cipher for him. And if he was willing to take her by force, then he’s growing desperate.”

  “But we know nothing about the man,” Kerr said, looking troubled. “We don’t even know if he has ties to the area.”

  “I think that’s not entirely true,” Maitland said, moving to the French doors to look for signs that the former government agent had used this way to escape. “Remember, he worked with free traders. Perhaps he still has connections to them.”

  The small balcony overlooking the gardens looked no different than it had the last time he’d been out there. How the devil had the man gotten Daphne out of the house?

  “I can ask Mr. Greaves if he knows of any particular places where the smugglers gather,” Ivy said, moving to the door. “He knows everything that goes on in the neighborhood, good and bad. And perhaps he knows of some hideaway where they meet.”

  She left, and the others looked to Maitland for guidance. He wished he knew better what they should do to find Daphne. At the moment, he was just as much at a loss as they were. Still, there was one thing they could try.

  “Since it’s pretty clear that Foster didn’t get Daphne out of here by lowering her out the window, I want to know how he got her out of Beauchamp House without being seen. I cannot imagine Daphne going quietly.”

  “Unless she was unconscious,” Kerr said carefully, not wanting the notion to wound his cousin. “It might make it easier to get her out, I should imagine.”

  But Maitland had already considered the possibility and was well and truly terrified at the notion. But his terror wouldn’t help find Daphne. “Let’s go question the footmen. Perhaps they saw someone posing as a delivery man. Or someone who didn’t belong.”

  “We’ll speak to the maids,” Sophia offered, already heading for the door leading into the hallway. “Let’s meet back here in fifteen minutes to compare notes.”

  Nodding, Maitland followed them and felt his cousin step up to walk beside him as he headed toward the servants’ hall. The ladies, meanwhile, went to the hall where the bedrooms were located, where the maids would be working at this time of day.

  “We’ll find her, Dalton,” said Lord Kerr, using the duke’s Christian name as he had done when they were boys. “If he needs her to solve the cipher, then at least we know he won’t harm her.”

  But what would happen once she’d done what he wanted? Maitland wondered.

  They found the footmen polishing silver in the dining room while the housekeeper looked on.

  “If you’re looking for Mr. Greaves,” she said to them, “he’s with Miss Ivy … I mean Lady Kerr in his parlor.”

  “In fact, Mrs. Bacon,” said Maitland, “it’s John and Andrew we’d like to talk to if that’s all right. And you, if you have anything to add.”

  Looking surprised, the housekeeper nodded. Quickly, Maitland explained to them that Daphne was missing and had likely been taken against her will from the house.

  “Oh, goodness,” Mrs. Bacon said, aghast. “What is the world coming to? First Lady Celeste, and then that poor gentleman in the library.” Daphne had never been a particular favorit
e with the servants—she was much too blunt for their liking—but the housekeeper’s agitation seemed genuine enough.

  “You must tell his grace at once if you know anything, lads,” she said to the footmen. “Any little detail might help.”

  The two men were of similar height and build, and quite handsome—footmen were often chosen for their looks and similarity, and his aunt had been no different about that being a standard for hiring than any other society hostess.

  “Did you see anything unusual?” Maitland asked them. “Someone who was somewhere they didn’t belong. Or maybe a visitor you didn’t know showed up?”

  Andrew looked thoughtful. “That Mr. Foster was here this morning, your grace. But you saw him in the drawing room with Lady Daphne.”

  But John shook his head. “That was this afternoon,” he corrected the other man. “I showed him up to the library myself. He asked to see Lady Daphne, and since he’d been here before I didn’t see that it would be a problem. You were with Lord Forsyth at the time, your grace.”

  Maitland closed his eyes in frustration. He should have warned the servants to alert him to anything odd, or to any visitors asking for Daphne. “You saw him go up? What about when he left?”

  The footman shook his head, “I’m sorry, your grace, but I didn’t see him leave. Which was odd now I think of it. But I just assumed he was having a proper discussion with her ladyship.”

  “And you were in your place in the hall for how long?” Kerr asked.

  “For an hour at least,” John said, looking to Andrew and Mrs. Bacon to confirm it. “I stayed there until Mr. Greaves asked me to come polish silver with Andrew. And we’ve only been here for about a quarter hour now.”

  “What other way might Foster have used to get Daphne out of the house?” Maitland asked his cousin.

  “If you please, your grace,” said Mrs. Bacon, “but there’s no way he could have gone out using the cellar door or the kitchen door without being seen by me or cook. Or any number of servants coming in and out of this area. Which means he must have used the doors off the gallery that lead out into the garden.”

  “If Daphne was unconscious,” Kerr said thoughtfully, “how the devil did Foster manage to carry her all that way? He doesn’t strike me as a particularly strong fellow. And no offense to her, but Daphne is rather tall.”

  Before he could respond, Ivy and Mr. Greaves stepped into the room.

  “I believe we know where he may have taken her,” Ivy said without preamble. With a nod to Greaves, she let him talk.

  “There is a cottage off to itself, not terribly far from here,” the butler said, his expression revealing how important he knew this information was. “It is known to the local authorities as being used from time to time by the local free traders. Lady Celeste never held with such goings on, so they never used the caves below Beauchamp House for their activities, but the owner of the Summerlea Estate a few miles away, is often away. And often turns a blind eye.”

  “Summerlea?” Maitland asked. “Isn’t that Sir Thomas Devaney’s place?”

  “Yes, your grace,” the butler said with a nod. “Sir Thomas’s family has owned it for some years, but he has another home in Kent, I believe courtesy of his mother’s family.”

  It was not uncommon for landowners all over England to only visit their estates once a year, or sometimes even less frequently. Maitland himself owned seven as part of the entitled properties of the dukedom. And it was simply not possible for him to spend a great deal of time at each of them. Considering what had been going on at the Summerlea, he made a vow to ensure that his own properties were not harboring criminals as soon as this business was finished and Daphne was safe.

  “Let’s go,” he said to no one in particular as he turned to leave the dining room. But his cousin laid a hand on his arm.

  “We cannot just go break down the door,” he explained, though he did seem sympathetic. “We should inform Northman, and perhaps the local watch.”

  But Maitland was not willing to wait that long. “You can do both of those things. Indeed, I would appreciate if you would, but I won’t wait another minute while Daphne is being held captive by a man who has killed one man and severely injured another.”

  “At least take one of the footmen with you,” Kerr said, as Maitland strode away.

  “They can both come,” the duke called over his shoulder. “But only if they’re prepared to fight.”

  And not waiting to see if they followed, he made his way to the stables to have his horse saddled. The footmen would just have to follow … on foot.

  * * *

  Her head aching, Daphne stared down at the coded message. She was grateful that Foster had left her alone to work on the code. Her head injury was making it difficult for her to concentrate with the same degree of rigor as she’d done in the library.

  Still, she was able to recall some of the letters she’d already worked out when he took her.

  So far, the message read: *o*a*—Ba**—S*mm**l*a—*s*a**

  These she arrived at by adding 15 to the number designation for each letter of the alphabet, so if a = 0, then in the message, each letter would a = 0 + 15, which meant that the a in the puzzle translated to p. She’d tried a few other key numbers from Jacobite history before deciding on 15. She’d discarded 45 because she reasoned that Cameron hadn’t wanted to make the solution that complicated. But 15, which was the year that the first rebellion happened, seemed less cumbersome. And, though she’d never admit to it, she had a gut instinct about 15.

  She was working out the rest of the letters in the message when she heard the door to the chamber open.

  Though she was tied to a chair facing the opposite direction from the door, she managed to turn just enough to see Mr. Richard Sommersby standing there.

  “It’s true then,” she said, watching the man she’d once loved like a father. The man who’d taught her to harness the natural abilities her actual father had exploited for his own gain. “You did betray me. And your son.”

  Sommersby flinched a little at the accusation.

  He looked exhausted. Dark circles shone beneath his once lively eyes. And in the years since she’d seen him last, his hair had turned completely white. When she’d known him, he’d been a handsome man of middle years. Now he looked as if he’d aged thirty years in the space of seven.

  “It’s not what you think, Lady Daphne,” said Sommersby, moving farther into the room, crossing to stand on the other side of the table from her. “At least, I didn’t start out with the intention of betraying you.”

  “Then how did it start out?” she asked. “Tell me why you got involved with the man who murdered your only son.”

  Sagging a little, Sommersby said, “I knew Foster through my son. I knew he was involved in some questionable activity, but when your father approached me about where he might find some smuggled brandy, I passed Foster’s name along to him. In exchange, your father promised to let you finish your studies in peace. Without his constant interruptions and attempts to have you win more money for him at cards.”

  Daphne hadn’t known, though she did recall a sudden cessation of her father’s attempts to persuade her away from her studies.

  “I thought that was the end of our association,” Sommersby continued. “Indeed it was for a while. But then Nigel told him about the Cameron Cipher. And Foster began to press me about it. By that point, Nigel had already left your father’s house and Foster was becoming more and more insistent. He’d heard from one of his connections here on the coast that Lady Celeste Beauchamp had the cipher in her home. I didn’t want to leave you, but he left me no alternative. If I hadn’t, he’d have forced me to do things that went against my conscience. He was like a man possessed.”

  “Why didn’t he simply steal the cipher himself?” Daphne asked, puzzled. “It’s not as if he was bothered by breaking the law.”

  “I was a little acquainted with Lady Celeste from the Royal Society,” Sommersby explained. “Ind
eed, I am the one who told her about you and your gifts. Foster wanted me to trade upon that acquaintance to ask her to show me the cipher. So that he wouldn’t have to do it himself. It was like a game to him—he preferred pulling at my strings, as if I were some sort of puppet, to doing his own dirty work.”

  “What hold did he have over you?” Daphne asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

  Sommersby looked away, unable to meet her eyes. “Nigel had got himself into a bit of trouble. You were not the first young lady he’d…”

  “Attempted to take by force?” Daphne asked bitterly. “You brought him into my home? Left me alone with him when you knew his proclivities?” If Sommersby’s other betrayals had stung, this one pierced her heart.

  He swallowed, looking down, dejected. “He was my only child. I’d already lost his mother, and I couldn’t risk losing him, too. I did my best to keep him away from you. Indeed, I told him that if he touched you, I’d never speak to him again. And I meant it.”

  “But he couldn’t help himself?” Daphne asked.

  “He didn’t care,” Sommersby corrected softly. “He lied to me and said he’d never harm you. But then when my back was turned, he … did what he did. I sent him away the very next day. He went to Foster, who either guessed what had happened or to whom he told all. Either way, Foster conceived of a way to force me to do his bidding.”

  “So you agreed to help him find the cipher.” Daphne’s voice was flat. She’d never have guessed how weak her mentor had been. There was a time when she’d thought he was the most intelligent man in the world. And that he loved her as if she were his own daughter. She’d been wrong on both counts.

  “I did,” he agreed. “But I convinced him for a time that Lady Celeste didn’t have it. We went instead to Paris, where Cameron had been trying to escape to. When we’d searched for a couple of years without success, however, Foster guessed at my subterfuge. And that’s when he decided it was time to return to England and pay a visit to Little Seaford.”