The Tattooed Duke (14 page)

Chapter 26

The Tattooed Duke Returns

I
t was not yet ten o’clock, the duke had only just sat down to his breakfast and Eliza had already broken one glass, one coffee cup, and dropped a plate of bacon. To say she was nervous was the understatement of the nineteenth century.

The London Weekly
lay just to the left of Wycliff’s plate, freshly pressed and ironed by Saddler himself, who muttered biblical verses while tending to “Satan’s own news rag.”

Within moments the duke would agree.

She set a plate down before him. He held her gaze for a moment before she looked away. Harlan sauntered in with his eye patch covering his left eye. Basil arrived, presumably uninvited but tolerated.

Eliza busied herself pouring tea and coffee, and at the ready to fetch brandy.

“Well let’s do get on with it, shall we?” the duke said grandly as he snapped open the crisp pages of the paper. “This is the show you’ve all come for, right?”

“How bad could it be?” Harlan mused, sipping tea. The duke glared meanly at him and began to read.

“ ‘The Tattooed Duke by W.G. Meadows.’ ”

“Oh, we have a clue,” Basil exclaimed. “A name!”

Eliza spilled the tea right over the edge of the teacup. But who cared? She had a byline! A column of her own! She had known about it—Knightly’s word was good—but there was
nothing
like hearing it aloud. And from the duke’s own voice, too. This was a long-awaited, hard-earned moment—for which she was surrounded by the people least likely to share her joy.

Did the glory matter, then, if there was no one to share it with?

Suddenly, she felt deflated.

“The author just made another grave mistake,” Wycliff muttered, and carried on: “ ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in want of a fortune must be in search of a wife. The new duke of Wycliff has his eye on the marriage mart, in the quest for a rich spouse. One in particular. His debtors and creditors no doubt are of the same inclination.’ ”

“Bad,” Harlan said. And to Eliza, he said, “We’ll need Mrs. Buxby’s special blend this morning.”

“I thought you were
not
looking for a wife?” Basil inquired, blinking quickly.

“That was before my ‘friend’ stole my funding from the Royal Society,” Wycliff stated dryly.

“Well, I suppose I could introduce you around . . .” Basil said. But his offer was not as enthusiastic as it had been a few weeks earlier, before all the gossip sheets spilled oceans of ink detailing the duke’s every shocking secret.

“Keep reading,” Harlan requested. “I want to know if it gets worse.”

It does,
Eliza wanted to tell him. But she bit her tongue and hoped no one noticed that she hadn’t gone to fetch Mrs. Buxby’s special blend of tea.

“ ‘His debtors should be so lucky to see a farthing if some wealthy chit comes up to scratch to save His Grace. The adventurous duke has his sights set not on domesticity with his English bride, but the dangerous, heathen wilds of Africa, of claiming that mythical city: Timbuktu. In spite of the Royal Society’s refusal to fund his expedition.’ ”

“Why would you go to Africa if you marry a wealthy chit? You could get a new curricle, a membership to White’s, a box at Covent Garden,” Basil said, showing how little he understood his cousin.

“That is one option,” the duke said diplomatically. But Eliza knew it wasn’t an option for him. Then he continued to read.

“ ‘The Royal Society already has its man for the journey: Monroe Burke is set to depart within a few weeks. But is he really the best man for the task?’ ”

The duke laughed. Eliza couldn’t enjoy it, not when she knew what came next.

“Coffee?” she asked the duke in a hollow voice just above a whisper.

“Brandy,” Wycliff said, holding her gaze for a hot second before she had to turn away. She did not deserve to look at him. Not when the worst was yet to come.

“ ‘Ten years previous, the duke first set sail with funds from the late Lord Shackley. Could Shackley money be the ticket again? After the infamous slap the lady bestowed upon His Grace, one might think not. And yet, she has been corresponding privately with this long-lost tattooed Duke. One wonders: is it for love, or for money? Is she aware of what would become of her fortune and her husband?’ ”

Eliza’s stomach was in knots; it had been ever since she wrote that paragraph. It was the workings of a jealous would-be lover, an underhanded tactic against an unwitting competitor. She wanted the duke for herself, but she couldn’t offer him anything. Lady Althea could. Unless . . .

It was selfish. And shameful. And too late to retract it.

“How can anyone love a madwoman like Lady Althea?” Harlan inquired.

“She’s turned down numerous proposals since her husband died,” Basil said. “So clearly some people find it possible.”

“Don’t speak of her like that,” Wycliff growled, to raised eyebrows all around. Eliza swore her breath caught harshly in her throat. Worse, Harlan seemed to notice. With his one eye.

“You have been known to refer to her as ‘Hades’ Own Harpy,’ ” Harlan said carefully. They all watched as the duke slowly and methodically crumpled the newspaper into a tight ball of paper and ink and rage.

His features were tense. Just yesterday he had laughed with her and swept her into his arms for a kiss, Eliza recalled. And now he was grimly defending
Lady Shackley.
Hades’ Own Harpy!

“And you have also referred to her as your narrow escape from the bloodsucking clutches of Satan,” Harlan added. The duke stood and stalked around the table. His movements were tight, controlled, taut, like he would explode at any second.

“What happened?” Basil asked. Wycliff sneered in response. Harlan added a sincere “Aye mate” that was ignored.

The duke looked directly at
her
, brazenly treating her to a long, heated gaze from the far side of the room. Her heartbeat slowly faded, and the room dimmed and everything seemed to fade but the duke, Sebastian, and whatever was troubling him, and the way he looked at her with an intensity she could not understand.
Did he know?

She couldn’t breathe.

What happened with Lady Althea yesterday?
She longed to ask. But it was the words
I’m so sorry
that burned like the fires of hell on her lips.

She dared not say a word.

“Just don’t speak of her at all,” the duke said flatly. He tossed the paper into the fire.

Wycliff didn’t notice the way she flinched. But Harlan did, even with just one eye.

Chapter 27

Sunset Over London

Later that evening

T
he duke had gone up to the roof after breakfast, and at sunset, when he still had not returned, Eliza prepared a tray of food for him, with a bottle of wine. For a moment she wavered over placing two glasses on the tray, but she couldn’t imagine she’d be welcome. One glass it was, to accompany his meal. And brandy. And a cigar.

She was very sorry for the things she had written. So sorry that she thought of confessing everything to the duke. But that mad thought drew a bitter laugh.

Did she want to give up her newfound raging success?

The paper hit the stands and the breakfast tables just after dawn that day. By noon Knightly sent her a letter that merely read,
Excellent, Eliza
. Annabelle would probably give her right hand,
her writing hand
, to gain such favor and attention from him. As far as Eliza knew, no one Writing Girl had received written praise from their single-minded employer.

By the time afternoon tea had come and gone, Julianna had also dared to send a note that simply read,
Talk of the town, darling.

And this was all in addition to her hopes and dreams: a column of her own. A measure of security in her position. Were the byline and increased wages enough to compensate for the growing ache in her heart? Each column had become more difficult than the last to write, as she tried to please Knightly and the duke.

This was what she had always wanted. A column of her own—a sensational column of her own. She was no longer the Writing Girl in the shadows. Today, she was likely the most read and talked about writer in London.

And she could only enjoy it alone, which seemed to mean that she couldn’t enjoy it at all.

There was no purpose in confessing to him, she thought bitterly. What did she have to gain by telling him? He would cast her out, surely, and she’d lose her livelihood
and
her heart.

She paused there, on the servants’ stairs, precariously balancing the tray.

Her heart. She was falling for him.

And not because he was her ticket to all of her wishes and dreams.

Ridiculous. Perhaps she might admit to being intrigued by him. Attracted to him, even. But she wasn’t in love with him. Love made one do utterly mad, reckless, idiotic things. This . . . she shook her head and everything on the tray rattled. Whatever this was, it wasn’t love, and it could not be. It wasn’t allowed.

Oh bother it all, she was falling head over heels for him.

“Your Grace,” she called out to him. How to open the door with both hands full?
Oh blast.

He didn’t answer, and after several minutes of extreme awkwardness, she managed to fling the door open, trip on the final stair, and fall to her knees onto the roof. With some satisfaction, she noted that she still held the tray aloft. She was improving at this housemaid business.

The duke snapped to attention at the disruption, and a smile tugged at his lips when he saw her thus.

When she set eyes on him, she forgot about everything else.

He sat on the far side of the roof, bare forearms resting on his raised knees. His dark hair was pulled back from his face, and in the sunset light his sun-browned skin seemed warm and aglow. The sun was a fiery orange orb sinking low in the sky and lighting up London in a strange colorful light.

The duke’s shirt was open, his bare, tattooed chest absorbing the last rays of the sun. Beside him, a
full
brandy bottle. Really, the man was magnificent.

“I thought you might want something to eat,” she said, setting the tray beside him.

The words
I’m sorry, I have ruined everything
tingled upon her lips. She was sorry, but she was also proud. The duke was not the kind of man who wanted her pity, though. She sighed and pushed the matter out of her mind.

“You’re a treasure, Eliza.”

She bit her tongue, and turned to go. There was something immensely troubling on his mind, and she didn’t want to know because then she would have to decide whether to detail it in her column. Or not. She would be forced to choose between her own success or his. Curses.

“Stay,” he commanded. “Sit.”

She smiled wryly because it was exactly what she wanted him to say. In her imagination, though, it didn’t sound much like the commands one gave a puppy. She could tell, though, that he was too tightly coiled and troubled to have much of a care. So she told him: “You are improving at this duke business.”

“Well, a man has to do what a man must do.”

“You sound so weary.” Because she wanted to, and because he said so, Eliza took a seat beside him and arranged her skirts and apron around her legs.

The duke pushed his fingers through his hair. A few strands fell around his face, and those were tucked behind his ear. The sun glinted hard on the gold earring. It wasn’t big at all, quite discreet, really, and not worth all the fuss.

But she knew it wasn’t the thing itself, but the proud show of a duke’s past as a common sailor that had everyone in an uproar. Because the lot of them cared so much about stations and titles, and he—a duke—did not. It was impossible to reconcile, so they tried to make it go away.

She understood that her column fed the flames, but it didn’t start the fire.

Then the duke said, “I feel I can confide in you, Eliza.”

She imagined that if her beating heart were ripped from her chest while she watched, it would feel similar to what she experienced now.

“Was it the newspaper column this morning?” she ventured.

“As damning as it was, that’s the least of my problems now,” he replied cryptically.

“Oh.” It sounded too much like a sigh of relief. She couldn’t look at him. Instead, her gaze fell on his forearms. He always wore his sleeves rolled up to his elbows; tonight was no exception. He really had marvelous arms—all muscled and strong and sun-kissed, and wickedly tattooed, and she ached to have them hold her again.

But that was not allowed.

“I’d still like to find the writer, W. G. Meddling.”

“W.G. Meadows,” she corrected softly.

“I would still like to find that malicious, Grub Street hack and string him up by his—”

Eliza lifted one brow coolly, reminding him that even if she were not a lady, she’d still appreciate the same courtesy.

“String him up and hack him to bits,” Wycliff said. “I think I’d use my machete, which I won in a wrestling match from a dwarf in Zanzibar.”

Eliza smiled wanly.

“But no, as I said, that’s the least of my problems. It certainly complicates everything, though,” he said, easily uncorking the bottle of wine she’d brought. “You didn’t bring two glasses?” he questioned as poured a glass and handed it to her.

“I am a housemaid, Your Grace, and could never presume to share your wine,” she said, even as she accepted the proffered glass. It was not every day that dukes drank and conversed with their maids, all alone up on the roof with the sun setting and the moon rising. How could she possibly refuse?

“I’d like to be sharing something else. Your bed.” he said softly, and heat suffused her cheeks. She could feel his desire, but to hear it aloud was another thing entirely. And the thing was: she felt the same. Wildly, wantonly, up all night, distracted all day—she felt the same. She wanted him in her bed like she wanted a column of her own in
The London Weekly
.

But it could never be. Never.

“My bed is a tiny, narrow cot in the attic,” she replied, being deliberately obtuse. “Sharing it would be deuced uncomfortable.”

“Very well, we’ll share mine. It’s one thing I did miss while abroad. After a certain age, sleeping on the ground begins to lose its appeal and one wishes for a large feather mattress.”

The duke drank from the bottle and entwined his fingers with hers. She thought of his taut, muscled, tattooed body hot and hard against hers in his massive feather bed, and she felt things in places she’d never really felt before.

“Lady Shackley—” he began. And then stopped. “No, I don’t want to think about it anymore.”

Eliza turned to him, her face just inches from his. “Then do not think of it, Wycliff.”

And then his mouth closed upon hers.

We shouldn’t, she thought. But nagging thoughts were nothing compared to the exquisite sensation of being claimed by Wycliff. He cradled the nape of her neck with his hand, slid his fingers into her hair which she was dimly aware of tumbling down around her shoulders.

I want to.
That’s what her heart said. Her every nerve, which was on high alert. Every inch awaited his touch. Eliza gave into this kiss without a fight. Her mouth loved his in return. She kissed him because she wanted to, because she couldn’t resist, because she was falling for him, and because . . .

While she was desperately curious about whatever Lady Shackley had done to trouble him so, she did
not
want him to tell her. Knowledge was dangerous, and he made the mistake of trusting her.

If his mouth was otherwise occupied, he could not tell her and she could not betray him.

It was the lesser of two evils.

And she wanted to kiss the duke. Wycliff. Sebastian. She
needed
to, like she needed air to breathe.

So she kissed for all those reasons, even though she knew she shouldn’t. Those really good reasons to restrain herself rudely intruded on this kiss, but she had become remarkably adept at ignoring them. So she did.

Her heart thudded in her chest—like a warning of danger. This was the way to trouble. And yet kissing the duke felt so unbelievably good, and right, and a million other lovely things jumbled together all adding up to
pleasure.
He tasted like wine, like wanting. It wrenched at her heart, that wanting, because she didn’t think anyone had ever wanted her so much that she could taste it.

Tears stung at her eyes, shut tight. Eliza slipped her fingers through the locks of his hair, urging him closer to her so he could not see how this kiss affected her.

Sebastian cradled her face in his strong hands and urged her to open to him. His tongue tangled and sparred with hers for a deliciously wanton kiss. That desire she tasted? She felt it, too, now.

Liar
, her conscience whispered at her. She was deceiving him with her every breath, except for this kiss. Her passion was real, her desire true. In another world, veils of deception wouldn’t hang between them.

And then there was that business about her heart beating hard, sending waves of warmth coursing through her. She might be falling for him.

She was definitely falling for him.

He tugged her into his lap, straddling him. Her skirts hitched up around her waist and the duke took full advantage.

Wicked Wycliffs, indeed.
She laughed gently into his kiss, and felt his grin against her lips. That was intimacy. That was a beautiful thing. That was a moment that would always be theirs alone.

The sunset was now little more than a simmering glow, swiftly fading to darkness. The night air was cool on her heated, bare skin. His shirt, already open, came off. Once again she was able to indulge in his exotic tattoos.

All of London knew about his tattoos, but she was the only one to touch them, to know them so intimately. It was a gift she would keep locked up close and treasure forever. She traced her fingertips over the inky lines and the ridges of his chest. His skin was smooth, and hot to the touch. A wicked smile played on her lips.

P
ent-up desire was a dangerous thing, Wycliff thought vaguely, and Eliza’s touch just unlocked the gate. He could not get enough, and greedy man that he was, he grasped at her hair, tugging gently. She moaned softly.

He needed her close, closer. He really wanted to bury himself deep inside of her. For the moment, he forced himself to be content with learning the contours of her body: the dip in her lower back, the curve of her bottom, which he’d been ogling for weeks now. Her full breasts fit so perfectly in his hands, it seemed criminal to let go.

He’d been ages without a woman, thanks to that long sea voyage, and he realized now he hadn’t spent much time in the brothels since returning to London. He hadn’t given much thought to any woman at all, other than Eliza. This stunned him, made his breath hitch.

It had been a lifetime since he was with a woman like her, his mysterious confidante with the soulful, wicked kiss. He had the feeling that he couldn’t get enough. Like he’d been held underwater too long and had to have air or die. Like he had to have Eliza, in every earthly sensual way, or he would die.

Time passed. Night had fallen. And he wasn’t aware of it happening, but it did: he was lying on his back on the roof, looking up at Eliza straddled above him and the moon and few paltry stars behind her.