“You must be Miss Summers.” A barrel-chested man with salt-and-pepper hair shuffled toward her the next morning, a large satchel in each hand. “Homer Diggs at your service,” he said, breathing heavily. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“Likewise, Mr. Diggs. Have you walked all the way from town carrying those heavy bags?”
“No, no. I had the coach drop me at the side of the road about a half mile back.” The valet set down the satchels, pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his jacket, and mopped his furrowed brow. “The duke’s note emphasized the need for discretion. Are you quite certain he’s well? I must say, the plan he laid out in his note sounds rather … odd.”
“I agree about the plan. But he is recovering quite nicely from his injuries, as you’ll soon see for yourself. It’s a short walk from here.” Poppy pointed at one of the bags. “Shall I carry this?”
“Absolutely not,” he said gallantly. “The duke is already indebted to you for your generosity. If you would be so kind as to lead the way, I will take care of these.” He grunted as he picked up the bags and fell in step behind her.
“You must have packed the duke’s entire wardrobe into those satchels,” Poppy joked. “But I fear he’ll have little use for evening jackets and top hats on the beach. Ball invitations are few and far between around here.”
“I find it best to be prepared for every eventuality,” Diggs said quite seriously. That was the precise moment that Poppy decided she liked him.
They followed a narrow path through the grass, chatting along the way. Poppy answered Diggs’s questions about where and how she’d found Keane, doing her best to relay the particulars of that morning without distressing the valet.
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Do you know why anyone would want to hurt the duke?”
Diggs frowned. “Not exactly. But I do know that very few people understand him. If they did, well … they wouldn’t judge him so harshly.”
She pondered that for a moment, resisting the urge to probe further.
“The duke is fortunate to have you on his side,” Poppy said sincerely. She paused and pointed down the trail. “Follow the path until you reach a little clearing. You’ll find him there.”
“Thank you, Miss Summers.” Diggs bowed graciously, as if she were a duchess instead of an angler. “And may I say that the duke is equally fortunate to have you on his side?”
“I appreciate the sentiment,” she said soberly, “but I have not taken a side—and I don’t intend to. I am prepared to uphold my end of the deal. I expect the duke to do the same.”
“Well, of course,” Diggs said, tripping over his words in his haste to reassure her. “He is a man of his word. A gentleman.”
“You say that as if one necessarily goes with the other. I happen to know that honor has nothing to do with one’s social status.” She handed the valet a sack containing sandwiches, nuts, and fruit. “Please inform your employer that I shall return with his second meal this evening. Good day, Mr. Diggs.”
Keane had never been so happy to see Diggs. Sweat beaded on the valet’s clean-shaven upper lip, and he shouldered his way through the tall grass at the edge of the clearing as if he were pushing through a crowd at Vauxhall Gardens. “This certainly is a remote location,” he said, with impressive diplomacy.
Keane slapped him on the shoulder and grabbed one of the bags. “Why does it look like you’ve packed for a month-long house party?”
“I took the liberty of adding a few items to your list—your shaving kit, for one.” He cast a horrified glance at Keane’s stubble, and added, “Which we should put to good use immediately.”
“We’ll see,” he replied with a chuckle. “But come sit first. Tell me what the gossips are saying about me in Bellehaven Bay.”
They set the bags next to the shelter and brought the sack of food to the large flat rock overlooking the sea. “I suppose I can see the charm of this place,” Diggs admitted, awkwardly climbing onto the massive stone. “But I cannot understand why you wish to stay when you could return to the comforts of London.”
“I have unfinished business here.” Keane unwrapped a sandwich and handed half to Diggs.
He bit into it with obvious relish. “Would the unfinished business have anything to do with Miss Summers?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Keane muttered.
“She’s a kind, beautiful lass. Fiery, too.”
Keane growled in response. “Flirtation is the last thing on my mind, Diggs. I’m here to track down the coward who snuck up on me, cracked open my head, and threw me into the bay.”
“And you intend to do that by letting your assailant believe they’ve succeeded in killing you?”
“That’s part of the plan.”
Diggs heaved an exasperated sigh. “Have you considered that your supposed death will spark a host of other, less desirable events—not the least of which are your funeral and the passage of your title?”
“I won’t be quite that dead, Diggs.”
“Just a little, then.” He pinched the bridge of his nose as if he felt the devil of a headache coming on.
“The title cannot pass without proof of my death. There are no witnesses and no body.”
“Not yet,” Diggs said dryly. “Who knows? If you stay here another month, perhaps your luck will change.”
Keane grinned. “Worried about me, old chap?”
The valet scoffed. “Given your propensity for finding trouble, I probably should be. But no, I am not worried. I suspect, however, that your uncle and cousin will be. Perhaps we should let them in on your plan.”
“No,” Keane said, adamant. “I trust them, of course. Teddy might know even more of my secrets than you do. But I promised Miss Summers that I wouldn’t tell anyone else I’m staying here. I intend to keep my word.”
“Good,” Diggs said, approvingly. “The last thing we’d want to do is make her life more difficult.”
“Agreed.” Keane leaned forward and rubbed his hands together. “Now, what have you overheard at the pub?”
“When it comes to your whereabouts, there is no shortage of theories. Initially, most people assumed that when you left the Salty Mermaid you were too foxed to find your way to the inn and that you passed out somewhere.”
He scoffed, insulted. “After a few pints?”
Diggs shot him a wry smile. “Others speculated that you had spent the night in the company of a lady and were reluctant to leave her.”
“Slightly more believable,” Keane conceded.
“Still others wondered if you’d impulsively returned to London.”
“Without my valet, driver, or coach?” he asked, incredulous.
Diggs shrugged. “They thought that perhaps you’d encountered another gentleman from Town, commiserated about missing the social whirl, and made the sudden decision to travel back with him.”
“I wouldn’t abandon you, Diggs—not even for a week’s worth of bloody soirees.”
“Yes, well, the residents of Bellehaven don’t know you like I do.”
“True.” Keane stroked his jaw. “And we might as well use that to our advantage.”
Diggs leaned forward. “I’m all ears, Your Grace. Tell me how I can help.”
Keane was halfway up a tree when Poppy Summers arrived with dinner.
“What are you doing?” she asked warily.
He scooted along the branch, shimmied down the trunk, and hopped to the ground. “Just making a few repairs. The wind from yesterday’s storm damaged part of the roof, so I patched it up.”
She wrinkled her nose, drawing his attention to a charming smattering of freckles. “I don’t think someone with a head injury should be balancing on a tree branch twelve feet high.”
“Miss Summers,” he teased, crossing his arms. “You’re afraid I’ll fall and re-injure myself.”
“On the contrary. I’m afraid you’ll fall and leave an ox-sized hole in my roof.”
Damn, but he’d missed her. “Tell me about your day,” he said. “Did you fish again this morning?”
“Aye.” She thrust a warm pot toward him. “And afterward I made a stew. It’s nothing fancy, but I thought you could use a hot meal.”
The savory scent tickled his nostrils. “It smells delicious. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Her gaze flicked over his clean shirt, buckskin trousers, and polished boots. “I suppose I can see how you’re able to pass for a duke.”
“I am a duke. Remember?”
“As if you’d let me forget.”
He shot her a grin. “Diggs wanted me to shave, but I thought the beard could prove useful if I need to disguise myself.”
She shrugged her slender shoulders, nonchalant. “That is between you and your valet.”
“Diggs is fond of you,” Keane said.
“You are lucky to have such a loyal friend. For his sake and for mine, I hope you know what you are doing.” With that, she spun on her heel to go.
“Wait,” he called.
She turned and arched an auburn brow.
“I was hoping to tell you about my plans and elicit your opinion.”
“I’m fairly certain I don’t need to hear the plans in order to render an opinion.” She hesitated, then pursed her lips, thoughtful. “But I suppose I can spare half an hour.”
“Good.” He set down the pot, fetched a quilt, and spread it on the ground. “Would you care to sit?”
She inclined her head and sank onto one end of the quilt, tucking her feet under her skirts. He stretched out on the other end of the quilt, propped himself on an elbow, and looked into her cerulean eyes. A few wisps of hair escaped her braid and fluttered around the column of her neck. Damned distracting, that.
“So, how do you plan to find your attacker?” she asked, snapping him back to attention.
“I thought I’d begin by tracking down the three people who have reason to hate me,” he said.
“Hate is a strong word,” she mused. “How can you be certain it wasn’t simply a robbery? Maybe someone at the Salty Mermaid was deep in his cups and looking for a few easy pounds.”
“I’d been playing cards all night, and I don’t think I won a single round. Everyone in the pub knew I was leaving with empty pockets.”
“Maybe the perpetrator mistook you for someone else.”
Keane shook his head. “Just before he shoved me off the dock, he said something.”
She leaned forward slightly. “What?”
“‘Damn you to hell, Hawking.’”
She blew out a long breath. “Maybe hate is apropos after all. Very well. Who is the first person you suspect, and what on earth did you do to anger him?”
Keane swallowed. He’d known that she would ask the question and that she deserved to hear the truth. But until that very moment, he hadn’t realized how much her opinion of him mattered.
He didn’t give a damn if he was vilified in London drawing rooms or smeared in the gossip rags. The ton could say whatever they would about him, and some of it would be true.
But he did not want Poppy Summers to think of him as a heartless, depraved blackguard.
“First of all,” he said haltingly, “you should know that I’m not proud of my behavior. If I could go back, I’d do things differently—or not at all.”
“This conversation grows more interesting by the second,” she said. “I confess I’m intrigued.”
“The truth is that I didn’t come to Bellehaven Bay for a holiday at the shore. I left London in order to put some distance between me and the Marquess of Camden.”
“And why is that?”
Keane swallowed a curse and met her gaze. “Because he found me in bed with his wife.”