Daisy and the Duke by Elizabeth Cole
Chapter 16
Back in Gloucestershire, the searchfor Daisy Merriot went on, though it was increasingly clear that she was no longer in the area, having been spirited away somehow, by someone, for how was it possible that a young lady dressed as a butterfly could just disappear?
On the morning after the ball, Tristan was optimistic that Daisy would be found shortly, and that he could sort out any misunderstanding.
The second morning, his mood could be more accurately described as frantic.
The third morning, despair set in.
And finally, Tristan had reverted to his most terrible mood, the bitter rage that he lived in after his injury. He growled at nearly everyone he saw, wondering why not a single one of them could bring him news of Daisy.
It made no sense. If she had hurt herself on her flight back to the Grange, she would have been found. The fields and roads and paths between the two estates had been searched over and over again in the days following the ball.
If she prevailed upon a neighbor to host her, someone at that house would have passed the news onto the duke, whether a servant or the neighbors themselves.
And if she tried to leave the area via public conveyance, she would have been spotted on the coaches for hire that passed through Lyonton.
But she remained missing, and the manner of her disappearance only became more puzzling the longer people searched for her.
One day, a week after the initial search began, Tristan did not get out of bed. What was the point? Daisy was gone.
A maid entered to open the curtains and light the fire, but she didn’t dare disturb the master. A footman came in a bit later, bearing Tristan’s customary tray of coffee and several newspapers. And then his valet entered, asking if Tristan expected to rise before noon.
“No,” Tristan growled. Then, “What time is it?”
“Ten minutes to noon, sir.”
“Damn it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“No news?” He didn’t have to ask that, knowing that if there had been news of Daisy, good or bad, people would be knocking down his door.
“Nothing concerning Miss Merriot, sir. You do have a package postmarked from Calcutta. Arrived this morning on the London post coach.”
“A package?” Tristan couldn’t think what it would be. Perhaps it was a cobra, to put him out of his misery.
“I’ll leave it by your coffee, your grace. Do ring should you want to dress for dinner.” The valet left, with that silent swiftness only the very best servants mastered.
It was the aroma of coffee, rather than the promise of news, that got Tristan out of bed. But once he had a cup in him, he felt up to opening the package and finding out just what more horrible news John Cater had for him.
A letter was attached to the package, and Tris opened that first.
Dear T—
Where to begin? I suspect you’ll not even read this, after what you received from me at first. I have three letters from you, and I regret that I did not answer them at once, but you will, I hope, understand why I waited, once you learn all that happened.
The bare fact of the matter is that my partner, Mr. Rait, turned out to be a bounder of the worst sort. He switched stones on me! He slipped some rubbish into the package meant for you, and he switched another stone that I sent for an appraisal from a reputable Hyderabad firm that I wanted to work with on cutting. Apparently, after using the ten thousand from your generous loan, his plan was to make the venture seemed doomed, buy us both out for a pittance and then own the whole diamond mine himself!
And it does produce diamonds, my friend, I can confirm that at last. When the firm sent me the report that my beautiful diamond was a mere chunk of quartz, you can imagine my horror. Well, you don’t have to imagine it, for you would have felt the same if you sent your sample to an appraiser, as I assume you did. I got sick to my stomach and nearly threw myself into the nearest pit, and I’ve got plenty of pits to choose from now, as workers are digging like mad. I couldn’t believe the news and thank God, I had another little stash from our initial foray into the caves that I kept separate, and I sentthose to the appraiser to put them to the test. And wouldn’t you know, they were the genuine article, lovely diamonds worth their weight and more.
On the advice of the firm, I hired a man to investigate Mr. Rait, and it was discovered that the cad had pulled tricks like this before, though not on such a scale and never involving the money of the British aristocracy. As soon as I said a duke was involved, the law here snapped to. My partner was arrested trying to board a ship, his luggage full ofour diamonds. He was a much wanted man, known to be a snake by those he’s wronged. And it seems that the prisons in India are not for the faint of heart, for he tried to bribe the judge with a few diamonds to be let off. The judge took the diamonds, and sent him to the prison anyway. Such is justice for the wicked.
This means that you are now owner of half the mine, instead of a third. And the mine is already producing quality stones. I have sold some already, and I directed the bank to alert the London branch of the running total of our account there. I believe that you will soon find it easy to repay your loan far earlier than would be expected. And there’s much more profit to come.
I include a collection of some of the first stones to be extracted by our miners. The large one will have to be cut of course, but I am confident that it will go some way in making up my debt to you, for you must have thought me a liar and cheat, when in fact I was merely an idiot and a coward. I beg you to forgive me. I am sailing to London early in the new year, and I will call on you when I arrive in the country, in hopes you will receive me.
I urge you to contact the bank in London to verify the deposits, and to contact your appraiser to verify the included stones, not least because you will wish to insure them…
Tristan read the letter twice before the words sunk in, and a third time before he opened the accompanying package.
When he did, a clutch of stones gleamed out at him. They were rough, uncut pieces. But there was a special weight to them, an electricity in the surface. Tristan picked up the largest one, which he could grip in his closed fist. He then read the neatly written report folded into the package, which stated that the stones within were gem-quality diamonds, estimated to be worth over one hundred pounds per carat, once cut.
Tristan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He held real wealth in his hands now, after fearing that he’d be ruined. But what was the point of having such wealth when he had no idea where Daisy was, or if she was even alive?
“Jack won’t believe this,” he muttered. Thinking of his friend, Tristan rang for his valet. Twenty minutes later, he was dressed and striding down the hall to the study where Jack spent most of his time.
“Read this,” Tristan ordered, shoving the letter in Jack’s lap.
Jack dutifully read it, his eyebrows rising with each sentence. At the end, he put the letter down. “My God,” he said, shaking his head. “What a roundabout way to come out on top. At least there’s one problem solved.”
“But the less important one. I’m losing my mind, Jack. Where the hell could she have gone? Is she lying in the woods somewhere…” He couldn’t even finish the sentence.
“Not near here, with all the dogs set out to search for her,” Jack noted with his usual calm. “Personally, I think she must have found some shelter and is hiding there. The servants from all the houses around here have been…furtive isn’t really the right word, but if you ask me, even if one of them knew something, it wouldn’t be passed on to us, lest the authorities get wind of it. Somehow, Miss Merriot has allies in low places, and they’ll keep silent, so long as they think it’s safer for her if they do.”
“But if she got hurt, or lost…”
“Lost? This is her home. Well, it used to be, before the baroness showed up.”
“What does that mean?” Tristan blinked at the new thread in the conversation. Jack clearly had something on his mind. “She told us both what happened after her father died. It’s odd and not fair to her, but she made the best of it.”
Jack said, “I know what she told us, and what others said. But the explanation never held water. So I did some investigating on my own.”
“How could you do anything when you can barely walk around the gardens?”
Jack pulled a letter from his jacket pocket. “There are other ways to get information. Over the past several weeks, I’ve been making inquiries of a few solicitors’ firms in London, and learned some very interesting things about the late baron’s last will and testament.”
“Time for that later,” Tristan said, though his curiosity was piqued. “What’s more important is to find Daisy as soon as possible. It’s impossible to vanish into thin air!”
A knock at the door startled them both. The butler said, “Apologies, your grace, but you have a visitor. Miss Bella says she has some information about Miss Daisy Merriot.”
“My God, man, then send her in!” Tristan ordered.
Moments later, a very nervous Bella stood before the two men. She scarcely lifted her eyes, and never looked at Tristan directly. She chanced only tiny glances toward Jack, the less imposing figure.
She curtsied. “Your grace. Mr. Kemble.”
“Please sit,” Tristan said, pointing to the seat at right angles to where Jack had risen to greet the lady. “We are told you know something about Miss Daisy.”
“Yes, sirs.” Her normally quiet voice was scarcely more than a whisper. “I believe I may, may know where she is.”
Tristan leaned forward. “Then tell us.”
“When she was younger, Daisy attended a school called the Bloomfield Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.”
“Yes, she mentioned that,” Tristan said, remembering Daisy’s affectionate account of her days there, though he didn’t understand the relevance.
“The school was at an estate called Wildwood Hall,” she added.
“Wildwood,” Tristan echoed. That was the name Daisy had used for the masquerade. “You think she might have gone back there, years later?”
Bella rummaged through her lacy reticule and produced a folded letter. “She maintained steady correspondence with several of her schoolmates and with Mrs. Bloomfield, who owns the school. This letter is from Mrs. Bloomfield, from a few months ago, and it contains an offer of employment.”
“She left her home at Rutherford Grange to become a…a schoolteacher?” Tristan asked, befuddled.
The young lady’s expression grew morose. “I have come to realize—too late—that Rutherford Grange was less of a home than it should have been, while Wildwood Hall was more so than ordinary people would think. I believe that following the vicar’s very…harsh words, Daisy took a lifeline offered to her, fleeing the gossip here to take a position at the school. I can only hope she reached her destination.”
“May I?” Jack asked, gesturing to the letter.
Bella handed it over and he perused it silently. “How did you come into possession of this?” he asked Bella.
“I stole it from her bedroom,” the girl replied, her tone matter-of-fact, but her cheeks pink with shame. “When it became clear that she had truly gone missing, I thought I might find a clue among her letters.”
“Very enterprising, my lady,” Jack said, with a trace of a smile.
“It was necessary,” she replied, without looking at either of them. “The servants won’t say anything, and Mama hopes that Daisy never comes back—” She broke off, having said more than she intended to.
“Your mother does not care for Miss Daisy, does she?”
Bella winced. “I can’t understand why, because everyone loves Daisy so. But Mama has such…opinions sometimes.”
That was an understatement, Tristan thought. He asked, “And what is your opinion?”
“She is my sister by marriage,” Bella said, blinking in surprise at being asked her opinion on anything. “I have nothing but good thoughts for her, and a wish that she may be safe and well, wherever she is.” Then the young lady’s voice trembled. “But I fear she is neither safe nor well! No one has seen her since the ball, and she was all alone, at night, in the cold…I would have perished before dawn had it been me. Daisy is ever so much stronger, but why can no one find her?”
Jack reached out to offer the letter back to Bella. She took it, but he kept his hand over hers. “We will find her,” he promised.
Tristan nodded once, as his confidence returned. “Wildwood Hall is the clue we needed. I will inquire personally, and God willing, this Mrs. Bloomfield will have good news for us all.”
And if she did not…Tristan had no idea what he would do.