The Tattooed Duke (29 page)

Chapter 58

In the Duke’s Bedchamber

E
liza closed her eyes and sank into the hot bath with a sigh of pleasure. She knew what it took to haul those buckets of boiling hot water from the kitchens to the duke’s bedroom on the second floor, and Lord above, was she grateful to relax in the water after the dramatics of the evening.

Harlan and Mehitable’s efforts to create a distraction were too successful. One dockside brawl devolved into a riotous mob. She, Knightly, and Wycliff managed a treacherous escape from the ship—only to have it explode once they hit the docks. They had managed to flee as the fire spread from one ship to another. The Bow Street Runners arrived with the Duke of Brandon. Order was restored. Arrests were made, including one Liam Fielding, thief, kidnapper, and bigamist. The fire was contained.

Through it all, Wycliff—Sebastian—never released her hand.

Now, Eliza opened her eyes when she heard the door open. Flames flickered in the fireplace. Candles wavered lazily in the slight breeze sneaking in through the windows.

“Well hello,” he drawled, leaning in the doorway and indulging in a long, heated look. She slid lower in the bath, so the water covered everything up to her bare shoulders.

He closed the door behind him and came to kneel beside her.

“Wycliff, I—”

He pressed one finger to her lips, holding back hundreds of explanations and a thousand apologies.

“Your stories are your adventures. I understand. Now close your eyes,” Wycliff said, succinctly, as he gently tilted her head back and poured water over her hair and lathered it up.

Eliza kept her eyes closed, holding back tears. Was this forgiveness?

“It’s just as well,” he continued. “I could never be content with some dull wife who stayed home while I explored the world. A wife ought to be by her husband’s side.”

She opened her eyes and turned to look at him through the steam rising up from the water.

“I thought I told you to close your eyes,” he said. And she mumbled something about his overbearing, ducal demeanor, and he muttered something that sounded awfully like “impertinent chit.”

She closed her eyes and a smile played on her lips. Wycliff poured more warm water to rinse her hair. She could get used to this attention. Did she dare?

“I am sorry, Wycliff.”

“I’m not. Not anymore, at any rate. How was I to find you if you weren’t right under my nose?” And with that, he dropped a kiss on her nose.

She parted her lips, wanting his kiss.

“I almost lost you—”

“Because of my stupidity,” she muttered, sinking lower in the water. Note to self: do not rush into the London streets at night, alone.

“No, I was going to say that I almost lost you because I didn’t see that you were giving up your dream for mine. I know you had to give up the Writing Girls and
The London Weekly
for the Alvanley money, which you meant for me. So I could leave you.”

“It sounds very noble when you say it like that.”

“Noble. Troublesome. Beautiful,” he remarked.

“And not married,” Eliza said, exhaling freely. It was so glorious to be free of tortured secrets and troubled pasts. To just be herself.

“For the moment,” Wycliff said. She glanced at him, questioningly. Her heartbeat quickened.

But then he distracted her in a very Wicked Wycliff sort of way. He grinned, rakishly, picked up the bar of soap and began to lather it up, and then with silky, smooth, soapy hands began to caress her shoulders first, and then lower, to her breasts.

Eliza gasped as her nipples peaked under his touch. Her back arched as his hands dipped lower into the warm water, though never leaving her skin. Expertly, his fingers found the vee between her legs and began to stroke her there, slowly and gently at first and then with ever more intensity, always perfectly matching the pressure building within her.

She was light-headed from the hot water, from the steam, from his touch. Each stroke of his fingers brought her closer to the brink. Wycliff’s mouth claimed hers and she let go completely, surrendering to that ever spiraling tension within, crying out in pleasure.

W
ycliff watched her, luxuriantly draped in the bath. Her cheeks were the softest pink, her lips red from his own, her eyes deep blue, nearly black in this dim candlelight. He had almost lost her. He would not make that mistake again.

Offering his hand, he helped her stand, like Aphrodite rising from the sea, only more beautiful because she was
real
and she was Eliza—daring, intelligent, fiercely independent. He didn’t want her to lose that, but he also didn’t want to lose
her.

The words burned on his lips.
Will you . . .
But her beauty left him speechless. Of all the sunrises and sunsets he’d seen, of all the sublime natural spectacles and stunning sights he’d witnessed on his travels, nothing compared to Eliza emerging from the bath.

Silently, he dropped to one knee.

“Wycliff?” she said, lifting one brow questioningly. She glanced around for a towel. She looked at him on bended knee before her. Little rivulets of water trickled down her soft pale skin. In that instant he was jealous of a mere droplet of water.

“Will you marry me, Eliza?”

Her lips parted in surprise but no sound emerged. With a deep breath, Wycliff forged ahead with the things he needed to tell her.

“I know that proposing to a naked woman is probably not done, and if I were at all a gentleman I’d wait until you were properly attired, chaperoned, and I was given permission from your father. But I cannot wait any longer for you. All over the world I have roamed . . . and my soul mate was right here. In disguise. But I see you now. You, the adventurous, reckless, loving, writing woman. I have fallen in love with you, Eliza. I want our adventures to happen together. So tell me, will you be my wife?”

There were tears in her eyes and a “Yes” from her lovely pink mouth.

His lips found hers. She closed her eyes. A kiss, heady and wanting. Eliza was achingly aware of how close she’d come to losing him forever, and she reached out, wrapping her bare arms around him and arching her back to push herself nearer to him. She felt him smile.

The duke pulled her flush against his taut abdomen and wrapped his strong, muscled, tattooed arms around her. For a second Eliza had to break the kiss to look at his arms, with all those jet black tattoos on his sun-browned skin contrasted against her own pale flesh. Everyone thought they knew about the duke’s tattoos. But none knew them the way she did. None ever would.

“Kiss me. More.”

His wish was her command. At his urging, she opened to him. Tongues tangled, she tasted him, he tasted her. It was bliss. There was no reason to stop now. So they didn’t.

Hours might have passed. She didn’t know. Time ceased to have meaning.

Somehow, they found their way to the duke’s feather bed.

“I wanted you from the first time I saw you,” she whispered.

“Mmm,” he murmured. “And I distinctly recall ogling your bum when I first saw
you.
” To prove his point, he clasped her bare skin, there. She gave a little laugh of pleasure, and then a gasp as he rolled atop her. The sensation of his weight was exquisite, but that didn’t compare to his arousal, hard and hot, pressing against the vee between her thighs. She parted for him. It was instinctive. So was the desire, overwhelming, to feel him hot and hard inside of her.

Also instinctive was the “Please” she caught herself saying.

“Just you wait, Miss W.G. Meadows,” he murmured, “it’s my turn to torture you now.”

“Just keep kissing me,” she whispered.

“Oh, I will.” In the dark, she saw the wickedest of grins. Heat pooled in her belly. She had no idea what he had in mind. But if that deliciously sinful gleam in his eye was any indication . . .

He propped himself up above her. She thought of her own words—a heathen warrior—and that made her blush. But not as much as her thoughts now: that he was some wicked God of seduction. She knew she didn’t stand a chance of emerging unscathed from this encounter. But then again, she didn’t want to.

He was hers. And she wanted to please him in a way that aroused and scared her.

He dropped another light kiss on her lips and then gazed down at her.

His chest was wide, muscled, and strong. She traced her palms over his tattoos. His skin was hot under her touch. When her fingers slid gently over his nipples, he gasped and shut his eyes. She did it again; he groaned. And again, and he said, “You’ll pay for that.”

He clasped her breast in his hand, and that alone elicited a sigh. His mouth closed over the center and she moaned. When his tongue flicked over the delicate nipple, she grabbed a fistful of sheets. This torture was repeated again, thank God, on the other side. By God above, she had no idea.

“More,” she gasped. Where had this wantonness come from? He gave her more.

And then more . . . more than she had ever imagined. Truly, this had never crossed her mind. But as it happened . . . Eliza’s grip on the sheets was firm, twisted, sweaty.

The duke kissed just below her breasts. She had no idea the skin was so delicate, so sensitive.

The duke kissed the soft pale skin of her belly; she sighed.

The duke pressed his lips to that spot where her thighs met her belly and then he kissed her inner thighs and she gasped. Her eyes flew open. In the candlelight, she saw his long dark hair, between her legs. Felt it brushing softly against the inside of her thighs. She fell back against the pillows. Shocked.

And pleased.

And shocked again.

Then the duke kissed her
there
, at that most intimate place. She couldn’t help it. She gasped. And then moaned because his tongue flicked over an extremely sensitive spot. Then he did it again, and she moaned, and again and again and again.

She threaded her fingers through his long hair, needing to hold onto something. With her other hand, she firmly grasped the bedsheets. He loved her, with his mouth, in this wicked wonderful way.

Pressure was building within her. Vaguely, she was aware of her breath, shallow and panting. Then there was that ever-increasing pressure. She wanted to tell him to stop, she couldn’t take it anymore, but found she couldn’t move, or speak, or do anything but lie back and love every second.

When Eliza couldn’t take it anymore, when she couldn’t protest, when she had no choice but to surrender—she did just that. Waves of pleasure crashed over her and coursed through her. She cried out, again and again and again.

Wycliff collapsed beside Eliza, his love, his betrothed. Her lips were parted and a blush spread from her cheeks down to her breasts, to her belly . . . He felt damned proud to have given her that. His cock throbbed, hard with wanting.

She threaded her arms around him, pulling him close for a kiss. He rolled above her, his cock straining and pressing against the place where his mouth had been. He needed to be inside her, more than he had ever needed anything.

Her legs parted. He moaned.

Her hips arched. He bit his lip. Her little hands stroked his back. His cock strained against her. He murmured her name,
“Eliza,”
as he entered her, slowly at first. She pressed her palms hard against the small of his back, and he couldn’t restrain himself any longer. In one strong thrust he was inside her.

Eliza, his love, gasped and writhed and moaned beneath him. He almost died from the all-consuming pleasure of that. But he didn’t. He couldn’t because it required all night to make proper love to a woman, from sundown to sunset, and he had only just begun. And then thinking actual thoughts became impossible. So he moved, slowly and surely and savoring the hot, exquisite sensation of being inside her. In and out, again and again and again and again and again . . .

Eliza wrapped her arms around him. And then her legs, dear God above. Her sighs of pleasure and moans of wanting were almost as intoxicating to him as the sensation of finally at long last being inside her. He had imagined this moment. Extensively. The reality surpassed it. Extensively.

His climax came on hard and fast, drawing a shout. He may have invoked God, or some deity or pagan idol. He may have called out for the devil. In an instant he knew true love and soul-consuming pleasure. And then he collapsed beside Eliza, his woman, and pulled her close. He would never let her go.

“I love you,” he gasped.

“I love you,” she whispered.

It was the last thing he said to her that night, and the first words he spoke in the morning—and each night and morning ever after.

Fashionable Intelligence

By A Lady of Distinction

The Tattooed Duke, Triumphant

A
t last, the infamous Tattooed Duke has returned—triumphantly—from his expedition to Timbuktu. His Grace, Sebastian Digby, Duke of Wycliff, is the first European to travel to this ever-elusive city and return. He was not without competition; the duke’s longtime rival, Monroe Burke, engaged in an extremely competitive race to Timbuktu with the duke after the loss of Burke’s fully stocked ship in an explosive dockside melee. But that was two years ago—old news, you’ll agree.

Congratulations are in order to both gentlemen (yes, gentlemen, however wicked and disreputable they may appear to be), for I am informed that these two brave explorers put aside their rivalry in order to enter this fabled city together. The race, dear readers, resulted in a tie, with the safe return of both adventurers. Congratulations to those who wagered accordingly!

And what of the Duchess of Wycliff, you wonder? This intrepid heroine was with her husband every step of the journey, in corsets and skirts to boot. (Did she wear proper ballroom attire in the wilds of Africa? We must ask . . . ) Did we expect anything less than an adventure of historical significance from one of
The London Weekly
’s own Writing Girls? Her exclusive reports of her thrilling, dangerous, nearly disastrous, and ultimately triumphant travels will soon appear in these pages.

If that is not enough to satisfy your curiosity, London, then plan your visit to the British Museum where the Wicked Duke of Wycliff will display all manner of treasures from his travels, which have spanned the globe from Tahiti to Timbuktu. I am told that these magnificent items have never before been displayed in England and the exhibit has been in development for years. His Grace had kept them under lock and key in his Berkeley Square residence (much to the vexation of his wife, who, like this author, cannot bear to leave a door locked or a secret uncovered).

Now, for the really delicious gossip. This author has it on good authority that the duke and duchess are settling into their Berkeley Square residence, preparing their next great adventure: a family of their own.