Rufus Drake: Duke of Wickedness by Carole Mortimer Page A

he had been born, and unfortunately his uncle along with both his cousins had also perished in the past three years. The former to a seizure of the heart, his elder cousin to influenza, and the younger when he succumbed two days later to the injuries he had received at the battle of Waterloo.
    Nor had either of his two cousins ever married and produced an heir. The elder because his inclinations ran in quite another direction, and he had refused to even contemplate the taking of a wife. The younger cousin, David, should have been married but had died before the wedding could take place.
    Which had left Rufus, as the only Drake still alive, to inherit the Northamptonshire title and estates.
    And damned irritating it was too, after all his years spent about Town as the infamous and rakish Mr Rufus Drake, the unashamedly vastly wealthy business entrepreneur. As the untitled third grandson of a duke, it had been required that Rufus provide his own fortune. Which, if he did say so himself, he had succeeded in doing exceedingly well, helped along by a small inheritance left to him by his maternal grandmother. He was now one of the wealthiest gentlemen in England.
    His maternal cousin Zachary Black, the Duke of Hawksmere, had laughed uncontrollably when informed that Rufus was now the Duke of Northamptonshire. Mainly because Rufus had teased his cousin unmercifully over the years at Zachary’s certainty of inheriting their grandfather Black’s title, while Rufus could continue merrily on, free of such responsibilities.
    Admittedly, Hawksmere, once that humour had passed, had then invited Rufus to be an honorary member of the Dangerous Dukes, an exclusive group of gentlemen consisting of Zachary and his four closest friends. As an aside to that honorary membership, Rufus had further been invited to join them as an agent for the Crown. Which was Rufus’s main reason for being in Northamptonshire at all.
    Rufus had received a letter just days ago from Matthew Turner, the estate manager Rufus had personally hired the previous month to oversee the Banbury Hall estate, after receiving word that the previous estate manager, Jacob Harker, had absconded into the night. Turner had since discovered that Harker had also taken that month’s rents from Rufus’s tenants with him when he left, and suggested in his letter that perhaps Rufus might himself wish to look into the matter more fully himself.
    Rufus had no interest in the pittance that had been stolen, but the previous estate manager’s sudden disappearance was now of deep interest to him after what he had learnt from his cousin Zachary a week or so ago.
    It transpired that just weeks before the battle of Waterloo there had been a plot afoot to assassinate the Prince Regent, and so throw the country into chaos. It had been discovered that several government secretaries along with servants in prominent households in England had been involved in that plot.
    Rufus had decided it was now incumbent upon him to look more closely into why his previous estate manager had absconded so suddenly and, if possible, ascertain as to whether or not he had been part of the ring of spies working against the Crown.
    That being so, Rufus had risen very early yesterday morning, instructed his valet to pack up enough of his clothes for months, just in case, and to then travel to Northamptonshire by coach. Then Rufus had set off alone on horseback for his ducal estate.
    He had travelled a long way yesterday, and the inn he had stayed at the previous night had been passable at best. After another overly warm morning of travel he had been tempted, upon arrival at his estate, to take a dip in the pool he remembered so affectionately from his visits there as a child.
    This delay was partly because of the need to refresh himself, but also, he admitted, to a reluctance on his part to actually make his presence known at Banbury Hall for a while longer.
    Was it possible the enticing nymph in the tree was the