It was already nearing dusk when Maitland tied his horse in the little wood not far from the smuggler’s cottage. He didn’t bother waiting for the footmen, who would only get in his way as he tried to effect Daphne’s escape. Much easier to slip in alone, retrieve her, and slip back out.
On foot, he approached the cottage, which was sitting on a hill overlooking the sea. It would be quite close to some of the caves used by the smugglers to store contraband goods, he thought.
He had thought there would be some activity at the house, but he could detect no lights burning through the windows, and there was no sound coming from it either. Pray God they’d not harmed Daphne, he thought.
His heart in his throat, he walked softly to the kitchen door, and on trying it, realized it was not locked. Wishing he’d brought some kind of weapon, he opened the door but saw immediately that the room was empty. There was evidence that someone had been here earlier, however. Dirty dishes were on the table with the remains of a meal of bread and cheese. And he could smell the lingering odor of a fire in the hearth.
He listened for a moment, trying to detect any sort of hint that there was someone in the cottage, but it was silent. Perhaps a little too quiet for his peace of mind. Slowly he walked from room to room, every one empty of people. When he came to the bedchamber, the last room he’d had to search, he was both relieved to find it empty and concerned that he’d not yet found Daphne.
Crossing to the table in the corner, he saw his first clue that she’d been here. On the floor beside the chair that sat next to it, he saw a couple of discarded bits of rope. As if someone had been tied to the chair, then freed.
Daphne had been here. He knew it.
Then, as if she were sending him a message, he noticed something on the floor beside the chair. Kneeling, he saw it was the ruby ring she’d said belonged to her mother.
The ring she said she’d never taken off since the day her father gave it to her after her mother’s death.
Plucking the ring off the floor, he stared at it for a moment as it lay in his palm. Then he closed his fist over it before shoving it into his pocket.
Voices below alerted him to the fact that the footmen had arrived.
As he hurried down the stairs, he saw Andrew clutching a piece of paper. “Your grace,” the footman said, his excitement barely disguised as he brandished the page, “I believe I know where they’ve gone.”
Curious despite his annoyance at their ham-handedness, Maitland strode over and took the page from him.
“Where did you find this?” he asked, his heart beating faster as he read the note, which was in an unfamiliar hand.
Roman Bath Summerlea Estate
“It was stuck out here beneath a stone on the path,” Andrew said. “What does it mean?”
Not bothering to answer him, Maitland said, “I want you both to go back to Beauchamp House and get Lord Kerr. And bring any weapons that are available in the house. A shovel if there is no pistol or sword.”
“Where are we to bring him, your grace?” asked John, the other footman.
“We’re on the Summerlea Estate here,” Maitland explained. “But the Roman Bath is only a mile or so from here. Kerr will remember it from when we were boys. And I know I do not need to remind you that time is of the essence.”
He’d been foolish to strike out here on his own, he realized now. Because contrary to what he’d thought, Foster wasn’t alone.
Sommersby had left the translation of the cipher for him, he was almost sure of it. But he didn’t know whether he could count on Daphne’s mentor to do more than that to help her. He’d already betrayed her more than once. If he was suffering a pang of conscience now, there was no guarantee it would last.
Praying that Kerr still recalled the location of the Roman Bath, he hurried around the cottage, climbed onto his waiting horse, and galloped away.
* * *
“My apologies for making you walk all this way,” Foster said from behind her, his knife prodding her back. “But we really cannot risk the noise and attention a cart would cause.”
Daphne hadn’t seen a single person on their trek across the Summerlea lands. But she guessed that their reasons for walking were less about noise and more about the fact that there was no road leading to the Roman Bath. Their way so far had been through woods and across fields.
She’d had no notion of what the cipher was talking about, but clearly Foster knew where he was taking her.
Them.
Sommersby still trudged along at her side, though she thought he was looking worse than he had when he’d spoken to her earlier. He was not a young man, and the stress of the past week was catching up to him, it would seem.
They walked in silence for a while through the dimness. Despite his claim of not wanting to draw attention, Foster held a lantern to light their way. It wasn’t strictly necessary, but Daphne supposed she should be grateful for it. A sprained ankle was the last thing she needed when she was looking for every chance she had to run.
Finally, after it felt as if they’d been walking for hours, they approached a clearing. In the light of the lantern, she saw to the left were stairs leading into the smallest of the three arches. It was impossible to tell from this far away, but there seemed to be a small room beyond the arch. In the center, the largest of the three arches led into a moss-and-vine-covered grotto. There was nothing in the recessed areas, but it might have once contained some sort of display or statue. The third arch was in the side of a small stone tower built into the side of the hill.
But it was the rectangular pool leading out from the second arch that they were looking for, she realized. The light from the lantern reflected off the gently moving water of the bath, which she guessed was supplied from a natural spring.
“Here we are,” said Foster with barely suppressed excitement. “The Roman Bath on the Summerlea Estate.”
When Daphne held back, he shoved her forward until she stood at the edge of the pool.
“Watch your step,” he said in mock concern. “I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
“Just get on with it,” Sommersby said in a heated voice.
But if Foster was upset, he didn’t show it. “I intend to, sir,” he said easily. “Or rather, I intend to let Lady Daphne.”
Her heart stuttered. “What do you mean?” But she’d already guessed.
“I intend for you to climb into the pool and get my gold, Lady Daphne,” Foster said. “Let me help you off with your gown.”
Because she was at the edge already, she couldn’t run. And if he pushed her in, the weight of her skirts would undoubtedly pull her under if the pool was deeper than it looked.
“See here, Foster,” Sommersby all but shouted, “there’s no need to demean the lady like this.”
Showing the first sign of temper, Foster said, “Shut up, old man. I don’t even know why I brought you with us. You’ve already proved your usefulness. Now you are a liability.”
“I have done everything you asked,” Sommersby said, strain in his voice. “Let the girl go, and I will get your gold.”
But Foster hadn’t stopped unbuttoning the back of Daphne’s gown. “We are both too large to search the bath thoroughly,” he said as if he were speaking to a child. “Lady Daphne is the perfect size. And without her skirts to weigh her down, she’ll easily be able to move within it.”
The evening air was cool, and Daphne began to shiver as her back was exposed to it. She felt a wave of humiliation wash over her at the thought of standing before these men in only her shift. But the alternative was drowning. And she fully intended to survive this ordeal and go back to Maitland.
If he would have her after this fiasco.
Like an abigail helping her mistress undress for bed, Foster eased Daphne’s gown down over her shoulders and helped her step out of it. Fortunately her stays tied in the front, so she was able to undo them herself and blocking her mind to the reality of her situation, she stood waiting for Foster to move away so that she could remove her slippers.
But he didn’t move, only stood there behind her, no doubt memorizing every detail of her exposed body.
Finally, when she could endure no more, Daphne decided to take matters into her own hands. Though she still wore her shoes and stockings, she stepped off the edge and into the rectangular pool.
* * *
He was still a quarter mile or so from the Roman bath when Maitland dismounted and tied his horse to a tree.
There was a need for stealth if he was going to catch Foster off guard.
It hadn’t taken long for his eyes to adjust to the dark, and he managed to make it to the clearing without calling undue attention to himself. The closer he got, the lighter it became because Foster had a lantern that he held over the water.
Maitland didn’t see Daphne, though, and her absence terrified him for a moment before he heard her voice calling out from the water. “There’s a great deal of debris down there. It would take less time for me to search if you held the lamp closer to the water.”
A splash told him that she was indeed in the water. He recalled from his visits there as a boy that the spring was warm, and with Daphne’s height, it shouldn’t be much higher than her waist.
“I can’t get any closer without climbing in myself,” Foster said in an aggrieved tone. “And I don’t think you would like that, Lady Daphne.”
There was a thread of menace in the man’s tone that made the duke’s blood curdle.
“No,” Daphne responded hastily, as if she truly did fear what would happen if he joined her. “I will simply have to try harder. It’s just that not knowing whether the gold is in some sort of box or purse makes it difficult to tell. But I will just be systematic about my search.”
“Perhaps I should trade places with Lady Daphne,” said Mr. Sommersby, who was seated against the stone wall of the grotto. It was difficult to tell from his position, but Maitland thought his hands were bound.
“Stay right where you are, old man,” said Foster grimly. “You’ve already shown how useless you are. I don’t wish you mucking this up as well.”
“It would be easier if my hands were free,” Daphne said. Maitland froze. He had to get her out of there sooner rather than later, dammit. It would be so easy for the rope around her wrists to get caught on something below the surface.
He was about to make his presence known when he heard Foster say, “Fine,” in a petulant tone. “Give me your wrists.”
Crouching beside the bath, he took out a knife, and as Maitland watched, cut the ties holding her hands together. “Now, no more excuses. Find my gold, or I won’t be answerable for the consequences.”
Daphne rubbed the skin at her wrists but then turned away from Foster and went below the surface.
The silence as they waited for her to come back up was one of the worst Maitland had ever experienced. Every part of him longed to burst out of the woods and attack Foster. But he couldn’t do so while Daphne was under the water.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she broke the surface, and the sound of her gulping for air made his gut twist.
“I … I … found something,” she gasped out. Then extending her closed fist, she uncurled her fingers for Foster, who knelt so that he could see what she held.
Then, in a quick motion, Daphne struck while Foster was leaning over the bath, grasped him by the arm and pulled him over the edge and into the pool with a loud splash.
Maitland burst out of the woods and jumped into the pool beside them, boots and all, and pulled Foster off Daphne, whom the villain had been attempting to keep under the water.
He was much larger than Foster, but the other man was well muscled, and the water made it difficult to maintain a grip on him. Still, his anger lent him enough strength to swing his fist against Foster’s jaw, and while he was still stunned, Maitland got him by the throat and pinned him against the carved-stone side of the pool.
A rage unlike anything he’d ever felt before filled him as he thought of the danger this man had put Daphne in. What if she’d drowned? What if he’d come to find her dead beside the Roman bath? Foster had already killed one man and wounded another, and he’d almost done the same to Daphne. He deserved to …
“Maitland! Duke!”
Somewhere in the periphery of his mind, he heard his name being called, and when he registered Daphne’s grip on his back, he came back to himself and realized what he’d almost done.
“Dalton, stop!” she cried, and he loosened his grip on Foster’s throat. The other man sputtered and choked.
Suddenly Kerr was there, pulling Foster from the water. “I’ve got him, Dalton,” his cousin said. “Let go.”
Nodding, Maitland let go and turned to see Daphne behind him.
“Come here.” He pulled her to him and she flung her arms around his neck. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“I knew you’d come for me,” she whispered against his shoulder. “I knew it. But I had to try to escape him.”
“Brave girl,” he said, though he shuddered to think what would have happened if he hadn’t arrived when he did. He’d had a hard time subduing the man—what chance would Daphne have had against him when he did. “Don’t ever frighten me like that again. I love you too much to live without you.”
She gasped at his admission, then, almost shyly, said, “I love you, too.”
“Thank God,” he whispered against her mouth as he took it in a firm kiss. “I was determined to plead my case, but you can be quite stubborn. And I had no certainty that I’d win the argument.”
“I can be quite reasonable when the occasion calls for it,” Daphne said with a small frown that was belied by the smile in her eyes. “In this case, I would be unreasonable to resist you.”
He kissed her again. Until the sound of a throat being cleared interrupted them.
“I don’t suppose you two would like to climb out of the pool now?” asked Lord Kerr from where he stood beside the footmen, who held a bound Foster between them.
Daphne stiffened in Dalton’s arms. “I’m only wearing my shift,” she said in a whisper. “And my slippers are on the bottom of the pool.”
“Can you give us a moment?” Maitland asked his cousin, who wordlessly removed his greatcoat and placed it on a bit of dry ground.
Then, Kerr, the footmen, their prisoner, and a much-subdued Sommersby stepped away to give them some privacy.
“What about the gold?” Daphne asked, her brow furrowed as Maitland moved to hoist himself out of the water.
“The gold will just have to wait,” he said from where he had twisted himself up to sit with his feet dangling into the pool. “Come here and I’ll help you out.”
But a mulish look came over Daphne’s lovely countenance. “Dalton, I was almost killed because of this gold. If it is in this pool, I want to find it now. Before anyone else is hurt because of it.”
Then, before he could argue, she disappeared beneath the surface and with a sigh, he slipped back in, wishing he’d removed his boots so that he could feel the bottom with his feet.
But he didn’t have to wait long for her to surface with a shout of triumph. “It’s there!” she cried. “A chest, in this corner. It’s too heavy for me to lift, though.”
Maitland nodded, and moving over to where she’d indicated, he dove under the water and felt around on the bottom for the chest. Just when he thought he’d run out of breath, he found it, and grasping it with both hands, he pulled, dislodging half a century’s worth of dirt and leaves and other debris.
Surfacing, he lifted the chest onto the stones beside the pool. “There. Now will you let me take you home?”
Nodding, Daphne let him lift her to the edge and immediately began to shiver in the cool evening air.
Dalton wrapped her in Kerr’s coat, then picked up the chest and led her to his horse.