The Tattooed Duke (16 page)

Chapter 30

In Which Our Heroine Experiences Utterly Devastating Public Mortification

Offices of
The London Weekly

T
he meeting began as it always did, with Eliza dashing in at the last possible moment. It had been difficult to escape her chores and quit the household before being caught last week. Today it was well nigh impossible. She had actually shimmied out of the window in the music room, where she ought to have been dusting and sweeping. That was after spending an hour unsuccessfully attempting to break into that locked chamber.

Knightly strolled in, dark-haired, and blue-eyed, and utterly remote. To her left, Annabelle sighed. On her right, Julianna smartly mouthed the words along with Knightly as he said, “Ladies first.”

It was like any other meeting, until it wasn’t.

“There is a bounty on your head, Eliza,” Knightly said, bemused, as if not sure to take the threat seriously or to take it as an indication of spectacular success.

“Ten thousand pounds,” Julianna whispered. “From Lord Alvanley.”

“Can he afford that?” Eliza asked. It was an unthinkable sum to her.

“He once wagered three thousand pounds on which raindrop would trickle to the bottom of the bow window in White’s,” Julianna explained to the appalled gathering.

“Eliza, you could have ten thousand pounds!” Annabelle exclaimed.

“If she turns herself in,” Knightly said flatly. “Which she would not do if she wishes to remain a writer at this newspaper.”

And then Eliza understood: she was suddenly worth ten thousand pounds. A shiver of excitement raced up and down her spine.

If
the earl’s word and finances were good, and if she never wished to darken the door of
The London Weekly
again.

Ten thousand pounds would make her an heiress.

The duke was looking for a rich wife.

Ten thousand pounds! If she had it, Wycliff wouldn’t need to marry Lady Shackley and off to Timbuktu he would go. Although there was the matter of the child, which would not be so easily resolved. And as for herself . . .

It wasn’t as if he would take her with him. One did not take women to Timbuktu, and dukes did not marry their housemaids. They especially did not do so when the female in question was authoring a scandalous, traitorous newspaper column. Even if her intentions were pure and her heart was true.

Ten thousand pounds could change
everything.

Or she could find herself penniless, unemployed, and loveless.

“How many printings were there last week?” she asked. The gentlemen turned their heads to face her, instead of scribbling on scraps of paper as they usually did when the Writing Girls took their turn in the meeting.

“Four printings, twenty thousand copies sold,” Knightly answered, his blue eyes narrowing as he understood her point. A typical good week was ten to twelve thousand.

The question now was not,
What was she worth to the Lord Alvanley?
but,
What was she worth to Derek Knightly?

“Let’s see what you have for us this week,” Knightly said. She handed over the latest, in which she tried to salvage the duke’s reputation.

Two houses, both alike in indignity. The debaucherous past of the Wicked Wycliffs is well known. The scandalous past of Lady Shackley has been detailed in the gossip pages. Something is brewing between them.

Yet the duke is not a man to be constrained, not when there is a wide world of adventures awaiting him. He has sunk French ships, battled and outwitted cannibals, survived shipwrecks. As he traveled, he did more than slaughter and whore his way across continents—he kept detailed records and collected specimens of various flora, fauna, and (shudder) insects, all for the advancement of Science. The duke would not just claim a territory like Timbuktu, he would know it and return all of its secrets to England.

“Interesting . . .” Knightly said when he stopped reading, which meant that it wasn’t.

Grenville was more direct: “Where’s the bits about the weapons on the women?”

“You’re painting him as a hero,” Julianna stated, and Eliza saw her friend’s green catlike eyes brighten with understanding. If the duke elected to use his intellect and was not obtuse, he would see that Eliza had given him away. She used his own words, told stories of him.

Why?

So he would not have to marry Lady Althea. So Timbuktu could be his for the taking. Eliza thought redeeming his reputation—or attempting to do so—was the least she could do.

Knightly said flatly: “It needs more . . . salacious and scandalous details that make ladies blush and gentlemen jealous. Less noble hero, more rogue. This is not up to
The London Weekly
standards. You’ll have to rewrite this.”

And then he dismissively held the page out to her. Didn’t even look at her. It was a moment of excruciating silence before Eliza managed to reach out and take the offending sheet.

She saw Grenville watching the exchange smugly; he did not like working with women, and this proved his point that they should not write. Alistair stared intently at the hem on his sleeve. The Writing Girls were mute, though Annabelle made an effort to clasp Eliza’s hand. But she could not accept it, not now when the eyes of her fellow writers were pityingly fixed upon her.

It was wretched enough that they should watch this shaming. It was cruel of Knightly to put her in this position! Eliza knew her cheeks were scorching, and her heart was thundering in her ears. She wished it would stop. Entirely.

Every other writer for
The London Weekly
watched this unprecedented failure. Knightly’s outstretched hand, the pathetic sheet of paper, Eliza rigid with horror.

He might not have always published her work, but he had never rejected it so publicly before. Implied, but unspoken: if she was worth ten thousand pounds, she had better spin tales of pure gold. She had just handed in rubbish.

“Yes, Mr. Knightly,” she said, and her voice cracked. She took the page and found herself rooted to her spot.

“Oh, and Eliza,” Knightly said. “You have a column to rewrite. The presses will not wait. I suggest you go.”

Chapter 31

In Which Something Bad Happens

E
liza might have stayed in the writers’ room. In hindsight that’s what she ought to have done. But how was she to write under the cold eye of Knightly, or with her peers watching her, knowing her first attempt had failed? How was she to betray the duke, as her fellow writers looked over her shoulder?

No one had ever been rejected in that manner and dismissed from a meeting. How mortifying and horrifying that it should happen to her!

That’s how it now felt to her: a matter of betrayal. When had her heart become a part of the story?

Get the story.
Get the story.

She’d never felt much sympathy for her subjects before. Did she still want this story, or did she want the duke?

What the devil was she to write?

Her thoughts turned inward, attempting to rationalize the matters of her heart. She stuffed the page into her bodice and set out. Nodding goodbye to Mehitable, she stepped blithely into the street. A long walk back to Berkeley Square might clear her mind, and give her an idea of what the latest installment of “The Tattooed Duke” might comprise that would please Knightly, impress the duke, and ease her conscience.

It was a beautiful day. Eliza gave no thought to who might be following her, watching her, copying her every last step. She proceeded along Fleet Street, past the banks, printers, and pubs.

There was always the matter of Wycliff’s child with Althea. She could write about that; it was the sort of thing that would explode like fireworks. But then the duke would know for certain—or would he? Lady Althea could have told anyone. Eliza nibbled her lower lip thoughtfully. Knightly or the duke? Which man was she to please?

At a corner, she paused while a team of chargers with a shiny black carriage thundered past. Pedestrians thronged around her, street vendors hollered. She crossed the street, stepping around horses, carriages, children, dodging carts, and other impediments.

She ought to reveal the existence of the child. But then she thought of the poor thing, growing up with everyone knowing what scandalous parentage he had. School would be awful; the ballrooms even worse. And then there was the matter of—

A crowd surrounded her, the usual loud, hot mass of humanity all jostling on their way from here to there. In the midst of the mob, a hand clamped down on her wrist. Eliza yanked free and proceeded briskly. Her heart began to pound. She dared not lose speed and look behind her.

Again she felt whoever it was grasping her skirts, her wrist, her trailing bonnet ribbons. Her heart thundering in her chest, she picked up speed. That damned knife she brought for a moment like this was neatly tucked away in her boot, where she might never reach it in time.

It had to be Liam—had to be—even after all this time . . . She’d seen him here last week, by some stroke of ill fortune. They had business to attend to. She tried to run instead.

In the ducal residence

W
ycliff was aware of the damned issue of
The London Weekly
or
Times
or
Chronicle
or whatever the hell it was called, which just sat there on the ducal desk for a torturous hour in which he attempted to carry on with his accounting. He was perpetually distracted by the newspaper. If it wasn’t one, it was another. Newspaper, that is. Damned gossip. The worst of it was, those columnists weren’t wrong. That begged the question of how they—whoever they were—obtained the information. The private, personal details of his life.

Wycliff closed the account book and set it aside. How did they know?

It meant those around him—in his house, or who had been on the ship with him—had been talking. But to whom?

He leaned back in his chair, kicked his boots up on the desk and rubbed his jaw pensively. Outside, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the temperature was actually in the realm of pleasant. He ought to go out. Do something.

He rang the bell, and when Saddler appeared but a moment later, Wycliff refused to voice the question on his mind. Where is Eliza?

Good Lord, he was besotted.

Or as Harlan said, tied up and tangled and entwined and destined for dry land. The thought gave him pause, but he shoved it aside and requested horses to be brought around. Then he hollered for Harlan.

“We’re going to
The London Weekly
offices,” Wycliff explained. “I’d like to do more investigating.”

“That sounds more interesting than sitting around the house listening to the maids read
Pamela,
” Harlan said by way of agreement.

If these gossips could find out so much about him, could he not discover their identities? He had explored volcanoes, become fluent in tribal languages, wrestled with a wild boar. He could figure out who the hell that damned Man About Town was, or, even better: the real identity of W.G. Meadows. And then, he thought with a proud, eager grin, he would make him—or her?—pay.

On Fleet Street

E
liza sprinted through the crowds as best she could. Shouts and hollers followed in her wake. Clutching her skirts in one hand, her bonnet in the other, she peeked over her shoulder.

“Curses!”

How had Liam known to find her at
The Weekly
—twice?

She bumped into an orange seller, and the bright fruits went flying into the air and onto the street.
Oh blast.

Liam paused to pick one up, the thief. Eliza took advantage of the moment to step off into a narrow alley near St. Bride’s church and remove the knife from her boot.

It was broad daylight on the street, but this narrow alleyway was dark thanks to buildings that towered over it, blocking the sunlight. She hoped the darkness would work to her advantage, not her detriment.

There was a slick sheen of sweat on her chest and the back of her neck. Stuffed into her bodice was the rejected version of “The Tattooed Duke” by W.G. Meadows. That mere sheet, upon her person, was damning evidence indeed—and worth ten thousand pounds.

Eliza held her breath, hoping to see Liam pass by oblivious to her, tucked in the alley as she was. She held the knife, hidden in the folds of her skirt, just in case he saw her.

He did, craning his neck to peek into every nook and shadow. What did he want from her after all these years?

She held her breath. When he saw her, she tried to let it out but it just caught in her throat. Like smoke from a fire, hot and burning and making it impossible to breathe.

Liam sauntered toward her, and Eliza gave up thoughts of running. She would brazen out this meeting. It had been years since she’d seen him last. Years since he said he was going ’round to the pub and never returned—having taken her every last penny with him. She had assumed Liam either died or was up to no good. Either way, she had decided to forget about him.

And yet here he was.

Liam wore a roughed-up version of a gentleman’s attire. The boots were caked in dirt and God only knew what. The breeches were not new, to put it politely. His shirt was wrinkled, his jacket well-worn. His sandy hair was a touch longer, and he was no longer clean-shaven. In spite of all this, he still managed a certain charm, a certain swagger. Eliza knew better now. The man was dangerous, and she’d do well to overlook that rakish grin and that glint in his blue eyes.

Instead she tightened her hold on the knife as best she could, given the sweatiness of her palms.

“Eliza,” he murmured. “Fancy meeting you here. It’s been a while.”

“What do you want, Liam?”

“Perhaps after our chance encounter last week, I thought we might renew our acquaintance.” Liam placed his palm on the wall behind her, effectively boxing her in.

“So that was you outside of the pub,” Eliza muttered. She had hoped it was a hallucination.

“After a lucrative visit to Sutton’s and Robertson’s, I stopped to enjoy a pint,” Liam said, referring to the pawnbroker a few doors down from
The London Weekly
offices. “And I so happened to see you dashing into the offices. But I waited, just to be sure. Not every day you see a chit at a place of business like that. Just happened to follow you back to the duke’s house,” he added. Eliza’s heart sank with every word. This was not good.

“What a coincidence,” she said flatly. What blasted bad luck.

“Didn’t think anything of it,” Liam carried on, “Until some gossip I learned. About you. And ten thousand pounds.”

Leave it to her to be followed by the only madman who followed the news and could read.

Eliza tightened her hold on the knife, or tried to. Her palms were sweating.

“You’ve already gotten a pretty penny off me. What do you want from me now, Liam?”

He reached into his pocket for something.

“Eliza,” he drawled, and smiled in a way that made her stomach lurch. “Would ya kindly tell me if this rag smells like chloroform?”

T
he sign declaring
THE LONDON WEEKLY
in capital letters decked in gold and carved into a massive piece of wood was visually demanding. Wycliff could see it from a block away.

But it was a scuffle with an orange seller just to his right that caught his attention. The cart had been disrupted. Oranges rolled all over the street. The seller hollered, gesticulating wildly. Kind pedestrians assisted her, although most stormed along. One, in particular.

One young woman darted away determinedly as she held her skirts in one hand and her bonnet in the other.

Wycliff glanced at Harlan, who nodded in agreement. Wordlessly, they urged their horses to a trot and deftly maneuvered them through the traffic in pursuit.

A more high-strung horse shied at the oranges in its path, causing sudden stops, awkward turns, and more shouts, further complicating his quest to follow that girl.

He saw the girl, whoever she was, slip off the main road into a little alley near St. Bride’s church.

“Stupid chit,” he muttered. A man forged through the crowd, looking this way and that, as if after the girl who had been rushing along. He was large, rough, and everything about him suggested nefariousness. It was all too clear to Wycliff from where he sat, high above them on his stallion, that the one was after the other.

He guided his mount closer and left the reins with a newspaper-hawking youth. Harlan did the same, with just a little less grace, given his one arm in the sling he had worn when leaving the house. Wycliff flipped the brat a coin and went off to be heroic.

E
liza did not hesitate. She swiftly raised her knee to Liam’s groin and connected solidly. Her triumph was short-lived, as he doubled over and fell onto her. She thought about stabbing him, and then about explaining the blood on her dress to Mrs. Buxby and Jenny and Wycliff.

So, instead she kicked out again and elbowed where she could, finally letting out the scream that had been caught in her throat.

She’d hardly gotten it out before Liam managed to clamp the chloroform rag over her mouth, tugging her down with him. As she fell, Eliza’s head cracked against the brick wall behind her. She knew she hit hard because she immediately started hallucinating. Before the blackness closed in entirely, a vision of Wycliff flashed before her eyes.

E
liza.

His heart stopped.

Eliza. Here. Hurt.

Wycliff roared. And then he attacked. He grabbed hold of the disgusting, thieving, rotting cretin and hurled him with the force of a deceived, enraged lover and a righteous man to the other side of the alley, a mere ten feet away. The man slammed into the brick wall with a crack and a thump before slumping to the ground in a thick, distorted, tangled mass of limbs.

A dirty red rag fell from his unfurled fingers. Wycliff could smell the sickeningly sweet stench of chloroform.

“I got that one. Go to her,” Harlan said, appearing at his side, and Wycliff didn’t need to be told twice. This was how they had worked, he and Harlan: it didn’t take a lot of words for them to communicate. It was how they had managed to get around the globe relatively unscathed. One watched out for the other and they worked together.

And Harlan was quitting! An hour ago it was the worst thing Wycliff could have imagined. That was before Eliza lay at his feet, unconscious.

In the region of his heart, he experienced a tightening so intense he lost his breath. His heart beat hard after that, pounding out a truth he could not acknowledge in the moment; not with words, at any rate. But he knew then . . . oh, he knew. She was no mere housemaid. Not to him.

Slowly, he bent down, gently feeling for a pulse in her limp wrist. It was there, faintly. Her breaths were shallow. She had struggled, but still suffered a dose of the chloroform. There was nothing to do but take her back to Wycliff House and let her sleep it off. And pray.