The Last Duke Read online

  “You’re wrong, sir.” Daphne gripped his coat sleeves. “But don’t let that deter you. Give me the jewel and the tin cup. I shall place them on my father’s pillow for you.”

  “And if he awakens?”

  “I have a far better chance of explaining away my presence in Father’s bedchamber than do you.”

  “But if he is as volatile as you say, don’t you risk inciting his anger?”

  Her smile was resigned. “I’m accustomed to bearing the brunt of my fathers hostility. Moreover, I am but one person. Your cause protects many. ’Tis worth the gamble.”

  Tenderness constricted the bandit’s chest. “And are you so proficient a gambler, my lady?”

  A flicker of something flashed in her eyes. “So I’m told, sir. I’m also quite a bit smaller than you and extremely light on my feet. So, indeed, the odds are with me.”

  “Very well.” He found himself extracting the small tin cup and the ruby from his sack and handing them to her—yet another unprecedented action. “Here.”

  Daphne glanced down and grinned. “The stone is from that monstrosity of a necklace belonging to Lady Druige.”

  “It was garish, wasn’t it?” the bandit agreed.

  A current of understanding passed between them. “Go, sir,” Daphne instructed softly. “I’ll finish your task. Only please, give the funds to that workhouse in Leicester, if at all possible.”

  “Consider it done.”

  “Thank you.” Daphne’s voice shook. “Meeting you was an honor, sir.” She turned and hastened to her bedchamber door. “Oh.” Pausing, she looked back over her shoulder. “I have a message for you. The children in the village school asked that, should you and I ever meet, I make certain you know you’re their hero. Which, given the vast potential of their loving hearts, is a most glowing tribute.”

  “Now it is I who am honored.”

  “Good night, sir. God bless you.”

  “Good night, Daphne.”

  He watched her go, assailed by a wealth of feeling as unexpected as his desire. Slipping out after her, he waited only until he’d heard her enter her father’s chamber before he followed, determined, with or without Daphne’s knowledge or consent, to ensure that she remained safe, undiscovered and unharmed.

  She was impressively light on her feet, he noted, flattening himself against the wall outside Tragmore’s room and watching in admiration as she tiptoed across to her father’s bed. And her timing was impeccable. She executed the placement of the cup precisely as he would have, waiting until the marquis was drawing an inward breath, when he would be least apt to notice her whisper of a motion. Then, she acted, her touch as light as her step.

  The bandit grinned. He’d learned at a dismally early age that in order to succeed in life one needed to possess three traits: cunning, skill, and instinct. Armed with all three, one’s future was ensured, one’s possibilities limitless.

  Fortunately, cunning and skill could be taught.

  Unfortunately, instinct could not.

  Like compassion, instinct was a gift to be born with, not acquired.

  Daphne Wyndham had been born with both.

  He wasn’t surprised. He’d told her as much just yesterday.

  When she’d placed her first wager at Newmarket.

  4

  DAMN, HE WAS TIRED.

  Pierce shut the front door of his house against the mid-morning sunlight, wearily extracted the folded mask from his coat pocket, and stuffed it into its customary hiding place beneath the floor planks.

  His night’s work was now complete.

  He’d waited only until an unsuspecting Daphne had tiptoed back into her room before leaving Tragmore, riding the ten miles from Northampton to his home at a breakneck pace. Arriving in Wellingborough at half past three, he’d awaited his contact’s arrival, prepared to leave the instant he and Thompson completed their transaction in order to reach Leicester and return before dawn.

  Thompson arrived moments later, unnerved by Pierce’s hasty summons—delivered by messenger, to Thompson’s shop just before closing time—altering their customary meeting place from London to Wellingborough. Swiftly but expertly he inspected the jewels, then muttered, “Thirty-five hundred pounds.”

  “Done.” Pierce didn’t question the offer. Over the past five years, he and Thompson had routinely concluded numerous successful and unorthodox business transactions in the back roam of Thompson’s Covent Garden jewelry shop. Thompson was too smart to try something as rash as swindling Pierce.

  Once Thompson had gone, Pierce combined the thirty-five hundred pounds with the marquis’s notes and coins. In total, it added up to just over four thousand pounds.

  Pierce then sweetened the pot—more than usual, given the circumstances.

  The tin cup he left at the Leicester workhouse contained ten thousand pounds.

  Daphne would be pleased, he reflected, although she had no notion that her touching sentiments had stirred feelings long suppressed, that she’d forced him to confront a time and a place he’d sworn never to revisit—his past.

  It had been eighteen years since he’d left those detested walls behind, but the painful memories remained, hovering just below the surface, needing only one glimpse to trigger their return.

  They’d accosted him full force the moment he’d stepped inside the House of Perpetual Hope.

  Every rotted corner was as he remembered it, every crack in the ceiling as vivid as it had been years ago when he’d lain awake, staring up and praying fervently for a miracle. The blistered plaster seemed to taunt his naiveté, squelching those boyhood prayers, and teaching him that prayers were for the haves, self-reliance for the have-nots.

  Pierce could still recall the day he’d approached his mother with those all-important questions: Who was his father? Why weren’t they living with him? Why did he allow them to stay in this horrible place?

  Cara Thornton had answered her five-year-old son with tears in her eyes. His father was a wealthy, married nobleman. She’d been a tavern maid until her pregnancy was discovered, at which point she’d been discharged. She’d gone to Pierce’s father, but, because of his wife and his social position, his hands were tied. To acknowledge their child was impossible. Surely Pierce could understand.

  Pierce understood perfectly.

  His father was a have. He and his mother were have-nots.

  Two years later, Cara Thornton died, succumbing to a racking cough and a defeated heart.

  Prayers would not bring her back.

  Nor would prayers punish the heartless bastard who’d thrown her into the streets when she’d told him she was carrying his child.

  It was on that day that Pierce made two irrevocable decisions.

  As a have-not, he would ensure his own future, never leaving it in fate’s unpredictable hands. And never again would he fall victim to the power of the nobility.

  Somehow, some way, he would victimize them.

  Tonight he had done himself proud.

  Heading upstairs to bed, Pierce reflected on how damned good it had felt to place the tin cup of money right on the headmaster’s desk, to brazenly invade the bloody sanctuary he hadn’t dared enter as a child—not if he wanted to live. Not when it was Barrings’s domain.

  Thankfully for the current workhouse occupants, that scum had died five years ago, and his replacement was reputedly a compassionate sort who would use the money to better the workhouse, rather than to line his own pockets and the pockets of the two corrupt noblemen who’d ensured his position.

  Noblemen.

  Dropping wearily to his bed, Pierce gritted his teeth, recalling the first time he’d overheard those unscrupulous blackguards talking with Barrings.

  Hunger pains had awakened him that winter night, gnawing at his gut until lying down became an agony impossible to bear. He’d slipped from the sheets, the cold air invading his blood, causing his eight-year-old body to shake uncontrollably. But still, he’d stolen down to the kitchen to pilfer some food.


  Taking a shortcut back to his bed was a mistake, for it led right by the headmaster’s office. By the time Pierce spied the light burning through the crack in Barrings’s door, it was too late to retreat, and the cold in his bones was replaced by terror. If the headmaster found him up and about, and with stolen bread, no less, he’d whip him mercilessly.

  Inching past the door, Pierce prayed that Barrings had fallen asleep at his desk.

  “Here’s a hundred pounds more, Tragmore.”

  The headmaster’s voice dispelled that hope.

  “Excellent. And the rest?”

  The sound of a fist slammed on the desk. “Dammit, Tragmore! The local vicarage only donated three hundred pounds. Certainly you don’t expect me to give all of it—”

  “I most certainly do,” Tragmore interrupted. “Three hundred pounds, divided equally between Markham and myself.”

  “And what of me?” Barrings snapped. “What do I gain from this little arrangement?”

  “What you always gain. The opportunity to retain your upstanding position as headmaster. Isn’t that right, Markham?”

  “Fine, Tragmore. Right.” The third man’s chair scraped as he rose to his feet. “Now let’s end this meeting and be on our way.”

  Taking advantage of their noisy preparations to depart, Pierce had bolted, not stopping until he’d reached the safety of his bed.

  But all night he was plagued by memories of that conversation and its implications—implications even a child could understand.

  Once again, the haves were prospering at the expense of the have-nots.

  Dragging himself back to the present, Pierce swore softly, rubbing his eyes, wishing he could just as easily rub out the memories. He half wished he’d never promised Daphne he’d go to the House of Perpetual Hope. The other half of him, however, felt a smug and overwhelming satisfaction that the money he’d provided to aid this particular workhouse was pilfered from the very nobleman who’d exploited it for so many years: the despicable Marquis of Tragmore.

  Pierce doubted not that the funds would be wisely spent. He’d ensured that by adding a little something to the money in his tin cup: a note that read, Use this endowment for the workhouse, or I’ll be back.

  A sudden thought sprang to mind, making Pierce chuckle, despite the night’s fatigue and emotional upheaval. Daphne would approve of that additional touch. Doubtless she would applaud the bandit for his cleverness and integrity. He wished he could see her face when she read the details in the newspaper.

  Daphne. Just the thought of her made Pierce smile. She was the most bewitching, complex enigma he’d ever encountered.

  He could see her as vividly as if she stood right there in his bedchamber, shy and withdrawn, intelligent and tenacious, principled and compassionate.

  And so bloody beautiful that she stole his breath and his reason, prompting him to take a risk that might have meant his downfall.

  But Daphne would never betray him.

  How the hell he knew that, he wasn’t certain. He just did—and had, even before she’d awakened, looked up at him with those melting eyes, and helped him rob her home. There was an intangible but implicit understanding between them, a commonality rooted in something deep and meaningful. He’d felt it at Newmarket, then again in her room—tenderness, affinity.

  And desire.

  Desire so powerful it had nearly brought him to his knees.

  The combination was intriguing as hell; fascinating, exciting…

  And, for many reasons, terrifying.

  Because it was a combination Pierce innately understood would touch him in ways he’d never been touched, render him vulnerable in ways he couldn’t refute, couldn’t master.

  Couldn’t allow.

  For thirty years he’d lived, worked, and prospered alone, and he had no wish to alter that reality. To him, autonomy meant survival. Oh, he cared deeply about those who needed him, about his cause, about many.

  But never about one.

  Yet she was the Marquis of Tragmore’s daughter.

  Pierce laced his fingers behind his head, accosted by a question he’d tried desperately to elude.

  What did that bastard do to her?

  Visions crawled into Pierce’s mind like odious insects, too heinous to be ignored. How many times, during his workhouse days, had he borne witness to the marquis’s vile temper? How many children had Tragmore tormented? How many others had he thrashed?

  Dear lord, did he beat her?

  Pierce felt his insides twist.

  She’d implied as much to the bandit. But for God’s sake, how could he? Daphne was his only child. She was small and delicate and beautiful.

  And I’m thinking like an insipid fool, Pierce chastised himself bitterly. Who could be more fragile and unprotected than starving workhouse children? And if he brutalized them…

  Frantically, Pierce recalled tonight’s burglary, reliving the moments he’d spent with Daphne. No. He’d seen no welts on her neck or shoulders, no bruises on her slender arms. Of course that didn’t mean anything. Tragmore was a smart man, too smart to leave such damning evidence unconcealed.

  She was terrified of her father. Pierce had seen it, felt it, at Newmarket.

  What prompted that fear? Was it Tragmore’s violence?

  Protective tenderness surged inside him, and Pierce tightened his grip until his knuckles turned white. Daphne needed him. It was that simple. And, whatever the risk, he would be there for her.

  Would she welcome his presence?

  That sudden, ironic thought inserted itself, and Pierce shot to his feet and began pacing the length of the room.

  His lack of title and position wouldn’t deter her, not Daphne. Just as he deemed her heritage an accident of birth, he instinctively knew she would view his background in much the same light. But how would she feel when she learned of Pierce’s enmity for her father, of the vengeance he was determined to exact?

  Because taking Tragmore’s money was only the beginning. Pierce intended to see him in hell.

  And whether Daphne feared her father or not, whether Tragmore were the most contemptible of scoundrels, Daphne was too fine a person to forsake the man who’d sired her, especially to walk into the arms of the enemy who sought to destroy him.

  Which left Pierce—where?

  Rife with questions; short on answers.

  All but one.

  Daphne’s true loyalties were clear and irrefutable. Like him, she sought to protect those less fortunate than she, as well as those in danger.

  Tonight, she’d protected the Tin Cup Bandit.

  Grinning at the memory of Daphne’s outrageous actions, Pierce felt more than a spark of pride. Heedless of her own safety, she’d spared him from Tragmore’s ruthlessness, taking the ruby to her father’s chambers so the bandit could escape undetected.

  Her selflessness, her cunning, her earnest need to help, the inner beauty that melded with her physical radiance, made him want her all the more.

  And she wanted him. Badly.

  Or did she?

  Pierce halted in his tracks.

  Yes, she’d sat by his side at Newmarket, tested her daring, trusted her instincts. Yes, she’d thawed in his presence, joined in his banter, shivered at his touch.

  But the true awakening of Daphne’s sensuality, the exquisite unfurling he’d glimpsed, the longing and the exhilaration she felt, had occurred tonight.

  And it was not for him, but for the Tin Cup Bandit.

  Daphne was infatuated with a man who didn’t exist, a romanticized champion of the poor who was more a god than a man.

  What were the odds of combatting such a fantasy?

  Not good, Pierce decided, tapping his chin thoughtfully. Not good at all. He’d provided himself with a unique and near-impossible challenge, one that required cunning, skill and instinct.

  To hell with the doubts and questions.

  Veering to his desk, Pierce extracted a sheet of paper and a pen.

  Th
is was a high-stakes gamble in the most dangerous of territories.

  Fortunately, he was one hell of a gambler.

  Daphne pushed her food around on her plate, keeping her gaze firmly fixed on her fork.

  “My lady, you must eat something.” With a worried frown, Daphne’s lady’s maid hovered over her mistress. “I promised the marchioness I wouldn’t leave this bedchamber until you did.”

  “I know, Emily, and I appreciate it, truly. But I’m just not terribly hungry today.”

  Emily winced as the sound of the marquis’s bellowing emanated up from the first floor. “I understand your distress. Last night’s robbery has upset all of us. Why, the entire house is in turmoil. But it’s after noon and you do need to keep your strength up. Please, my lady, won’t you just eat a bit of Mrs. Frame’s pudding? It’s your favorite.”

  The last thing Daphne wanted was pudding. But what she really wanted—to be alone with her thoughts—would be impossible unless she complied with Emily’s wishes. “Very well, a bit perhaps.”

  Beaming, Emily watched her nibble three or four less-than-enthusiastic spoonfuls of pudding and take a great gulp of tea. “There, my lady. Now don’t you feel better?”

  “Much better, Emily.” Daphne pushed the tray away. “But you’re right about the house being in chaos. All morning long the authorities were here, the servants were scurrying about, and Father was agitated. It’s taken its toll on me. I do believe I need to rest.”

  “Of course you do,” Emily crooned, gathering up the tray. “You lie down and I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed.”

  “Thank you.”

  Daphne slid between the sheets and closed her eyes, relieved to hear the door shut behind Emily’s retreating figure. At last, solitude. Solitude to relive last night.

  He’d been every bit as dashing as she knew he’d be—tall and broad and powerful, swathed in black from head to toe. She’d felt his strength when he touched her, even through the barrier of his glove. Never, had she felt so vital and alive as when he’d loomed over her, murmuring her name, gazing into her eyes.

  He’d offered to answer anything she asked, anything but his name. And what had she done? Stared blankly up at him like some lovesick schoolgirl, when all she really wanted was to blurt out a million things at once: Where did he come from? What spawned the incredible compassion he possessed? How did he choose the recipients of his funds and the victims of his robberies? Did he loathe life’s injustices as she did? How could she help him? What more could she do for the ill and the needy?