Andrea Kane by Last Duke Read Free Book Online Page B

twilight had melded and were gracefully giving way to darkness. The air had chilled, and Daphne’s already depleted body now ached from a long day fraught with turbulent emotions: self-doubt upon facing the children, anguish at seeing their deprivation, fear that her overtures would be rejected, and ultimately, joy when she’d earned their acceptance.
    And with every step back to Tragmore, her apprehension had grown.
    What would she say to her father? How could she explain her prolonged absence? Could she fortify herself to withstand the beating that would doubtless follow?
    God must have taken pity on her. The marquis was blessedly away from Tragmore at a day-long business meeting in London. Given her welcome reprieve, and with no intention of looking a gift horse in the mouth, Daphne spent the duration of the day in her room, venturing out only after she’d heard her father return; take his evening meal, and retire for the night.
    Only when she was safe.
    Intent on capturing Daphne’s attention, Russet shook out his luxuriant tail and waited, his features sharp.
    “I know you’d prefer company,” Daphne acknowledged with a smile. “But I’m truly exhausted. Moreover, I already evaded Father once today. I don’t want to tempt fate yet again. You know how he feels about my nocturnal strolls. So, sleepless or not, I’d best go to bed. Now be off, and enjoy your explorations.”
    The fox blinked his comprehension, then turned and sauntered into the night.
    Thirty minutes later, Daphne slid between the sheets, knowing even as she did that sleep would elude her. It always did, no matter how tired she was. Night after night, she tossed and turned, her mind refusing to succumb to the blessed relief of slumber, fretting over the world and all its inequities.
    And tonight, there was the additional lure of her unsatisfied curiosity.
    Waiting only until her maid’s footsteps had disappeared down the hall, Daphne rose, lit a taper, and dragged the copy of the day’s Times from beneath her mattress.
    The headline was just as she’d expected: “Notorious Tin Cup Bandit Baffles Authorities.”
    The article went on to describe the robbery that had sent the Viscount Druige into a rage and reduced his viscountess to an attack of the vapors from which she’d yet to recover.
    With an exasperated sigh, Daphne skipped past the silly details of the victims’ distress, focusing instead on what she found most enthralling, the bandit’s methods.
    Evidently, he had entered the manor through the conservatory door, cutting a square of glass large enough to reach around and open the lock. He’d taken only the finest pieces of silver from the pantry, a strongbox containing five hundred pounds in notes and coins from the library desk, two heirloom bracelets with matching brooches from the viscountess’s dressing table, and, of course, her flamboyant necklace, recently purchased by the viscount for the enormous sum of one hundred ten thousand pounds. Nothing else in the manor was disturbed and no one in the household knew the crime had been committed.
    Until dawn, when Viscount Druige awakened to find the symbolic tin cup upon his pillow—a cup containing the Earl of Gantry’s diamond cufflink, a remnant from the bandit’s most recent theft. And then, four hours later, the Worsley workhouse’s headmaster entered his office to find a tin cup containing five thousand pounds on his desk.
    Leaning closer to read the final paragraph of the article, Daphne silently celebrated the fact that the authorities had no clue as to the bandit’s identity nor were they any nearer to unraveling the mystery than they were months ago. “As the ton ’s outrage grows, so do the accolades of the working class,” the Times reported. “And through it all, the Tin Cup Bandit thrives, and no one seems able to predict where he will next strike, nor stop his series of extravagant crimes.”
    With a heartfelt sigh, Daphne put down the newspaper and