Three Schemes and a Scandal (18 page)

“They need their reputation, Roxbury. No one will confess to an affair with a man of questionable proclivities.”

“Bloody hell,” Roxbury swore, but the curse was insufficient. If there was no way to defuse this rumor … If no one would come forward to his defense …

It would be impossible to take a wife, particularly if this morning’s rejected social calls were any indication. And if that failed, he was looking at a life of living on credit and dodging debtor’s prison. His father, it should be noted, was in remarkably good health so his inheritance was far off indeed, not that he wished the man dead.

“I wouldn’t worry. It should all be forgotten eventually,” Brandon said casually, sipping his drink.

“I don’t have the time,” Roxbury said tightly. There was that ultimatum, and the clock was ticking. Granted, he’d just declared to hell with it. But that was when he had a choice and now that had been taken from him.

A life of leisure had been secure an hour ago. Now, he hadn’t a prayer of finding a wife, and he could kiss his fortune good-bye, too.

Roxbury finished the brandy in his glass and then took a swig straight from the bottle. Life as he knew it was over. It was a sudden death, and he was reeling in shock, denial, regret, and bone-deep terror at what the future would bring.

And anger, too, because he was powerless to do anything. Marriage was impossible, and a refusal to comply meant little when he lacked the option of agreement. Of course, agreeing to his father’s demands was something he didn’t ever want to do, but the point of remaining a bachelor was to enjoy legions of beautiful women who probably would not have him now. And then he would be poor, too. Poor and alone.

He wondered if the earl had tried this stunt before, with Edward, and if that had been what sent him off to the navy and off to his death. If anyone thought Roxbury was a hellion … then they’d never met his elder brother.

Roxbury took another sip of his drink, silently cursing this impossible situation.

“By God, if it weren’t for this damned column, all the debutantes and their mothers would be scheming to have me!”

“You have a high opinion of yourself,” Brandon said.

“It’s the truth and you know it, and it’s not about me but my title, my fortune, and, well, I have been called devilishly handsome. Thank God for that. There’s nothing worse than an impoverished lord, except for an ugly one.”

“Roxbury, you are insufferable.”

“Bloody hell, I’m going to be
poor
. When the old man delivered that ultimatum I never thought—”

Brandon merely took a modest sip of his drink. “What ultimatum?” he asked.

Roxbury explained. And then he lamented.

“I don’t even have a choice, or a chance now! All because of a damned newspaper story! All because of that petty, irksome busybody who calls herself the Lady of Distinction! My God, if ever a title was unjustified! With just a few lines of moveable type she has annihilated my prospects, destroyed my future, and sentenced me to a life of poverty!”

“
I’m sure someone will have you,” Brandon said. “There is always Lady Hortensia Reeves.”

Lady Hortensia Reeves left
much
to be desired. Miss Reeves was an agreeable woman; she was also firmly on the shelf, and a very proud collector of all sorts of items from embroidery to stamps, leaves, insects, and other rubbish. Apparently it was all neatly labeled and catalogued, so she was not some run-of-the-mill hoarder but a devoted hobbyist. Her other great interest was him, and her infatuation with him was quite painfully obvious.

Needless to say, Roxbury wanted to marry almost anyone else more than he did Lady Hortensia Reeves. While he did not want to marry at all, he
definitely
did not want to bind himself to just anyone if he had to take a wife. But that was all a moot point because the question of his marriage was now out of his hands and crushed by
The London Weekly
’s “Lady of Distinction.”

Roxbury took another long swallow of brandy straight from the bottle. He scowled at the older, stodgier lords that frowned in disapproval at him.

“Really, it is utterly unconscionable what she has done,” Roxbury carried on. “It’s thoughtless, inconsiderate, unchristian, and damned and downright wrong! This is my life at stake! My choices! My name.
My honor.
”

Roxbury stood suddenly, sending his chair tumbling backward and careening across the floor.

All eyes were upon him. With his hazy, drunken vision he saw the familiar faces of Lord Derby; Biddulph; that old dandy, Lord Walpole; the Earl of Selborne’s heir and a few others. With all their attention fixed upon him, Roxbury felt that he ought to make a statement. And so, with a nod of his noble head and a sweeping wave of his arm he grandly informed his peers:

“Gentlemen, you are all safe from my advances, though your wives are not.”

T
he Lady of Distinction was not the only gossip in town. There was another gossip columnist on the prowl in London. His column had been printed in The London Times for forty years now. Alternately feared, reviled, celebrated, and adored, he was the archrival to the Lady of Distinction and an eternal man of mystery. In all of those forty years, for all the thousands of attempts to guess or discover his identity, no one had succeeded. He was known as The Man About Town, but that was all anyone knew of him.

With her story on Roxbury and his secret male lover, the upstart at
The Weekly
had won this week. It was all anyone spoke about in the clubs, or drawing rooms, or ballrooms or gaming hells. One by one, they’d raise their brows and lower their voices:
Have you heard the latest about Lord Roxbury?

The Man About Town was immensely vexed that he’d stayed in the dressing rooms the other night instead of lurking around backstage. But what could he say? There were dozens of ladies in various states of undress.

He pulled on his cigar; his course was clear. He’d need to find Roxbury’s lover, and he’d need to figure out who that damned Lady of Distinction was.

But in the meantime, on the other side of the room, The Man About Town bit back a laugh at Roxbury’s drunken declaration. Naturally, he’d seen and heard a lot in his time, and it took much to amuse him these days. With Roxbury, the latest “Fashionable Intelligence,” and the Lady of Distinction, The Man About Town sensed that a fantastic scandal had only just begun.

Intrigued? Discover more about
A Tale of Two Lovers
at
http://www.mayarodale.com/
.

An Excerpt From

THE TATTOOED DUKE

The Docks

London, 1825

T
HEY SAID HE
had been a pirate. It seemed utterly believable. The other rumors about Sebastian Digby, the Duke of Wycliff, were equally riveting. It was said that he had charmed and seduced his way across countries and continents; that there existed no law or woman he couldn’t bend to suit his whims; that he had lived among the natives in Tahiti and swam utterly nude in the clear turquoise waters; that he had escaped the dankest of prisons and thoroughly enjoyed himself in a sultan’s harem.

A gentleman he clearly was not.

And now this charming, adventurous, scandalous duke had returned home, to London.

Miss Eliza Fielding had joined the throngs on the dock to witness the long—awaited return of this duke, as per the orders of her employer, Mr. Derek Knightly. She wrote for the monstrously popular newspaper he owned and edited,
The London Weekly
. In fact, she was one of the four infamous Writing Girls who wrote for the paper. For the moment, at any rate.

If she didn’t get this story …

Eliza tugged her bonnet lower across her brow to protect against the light drizzle falling and dug her hands into the pockets of her coat.

“If you don’t get this story,” Mr. Knightly had told her plainly as she stood in his Fleet Street office just yesterday, “I can no longer employ you as a writer for
The London Weekly
. I cannot justify it if you are not submitting publishable works.”

It was perfectly logical. It was only business. And yet it felt like a lover’s betrayal.

Knightly didn’t need to say that she hadn’t been turning in any decent stories—they both knew it. Weeks had turned into months, and not one article of hers appeared in its pages.

Oh, she used to write the most marvelous stories—a week in the workhouse undercover to expose the wretched conditions, exclusive interviews with Newgate prisoners condemned to death, detailing the goings-on in a brothel to show what the lives of prostitutes were really like. If there was a truth in need of light, Eliza was up to the task. If adventure, danger, and the dark side of London were involved, so much the better.

Lately she hadn’t been inspired. The words wouldn’t come. Hours she spent with a quill in hand, dripping splotches of ink on a blank sheet of paper.

But this story …

Knightly’s assignment was plain: to uncover every last secret of the Duke of Wycliff. All of London was panting for the intimate details of his ten years abroad. It wasn’t
just
that he was a duke—and the latest in the long line of “Wicked Wycliffs,” as the family was known. That alone would have required column inches of ink. But all those rumors …

Had he really been a pirate? Was it true about the harem? Had he been made the chief of a small tribe on a remote island in Polynesia? What of mountains scaled, fires started, and lands explored? More important to the ton, was he looking for a wife?

The questions were plentiful. The answers were hers to discover. But how?

“But how?” she asked Knightly. “He’s a duke and I am quite far from that. We don’t exactly move in the same circles.”

Julianna, Countess Roxbury—fellow Writing Girl and gossip columnist—was far better suited to the task.

“Do you not want this story?” Knightly asked impatiently. She saw him glance at the stack of papers on his desk awaiting his attention.

“Oh, I do,” Eliza said passionately. It wasn’t the money—Knightly’s wages were fair, but not extravagant. There was something about being a Writing Girl: the true friendship, the thrill of pushing the boundaries of what a woman could do in this day and age, the love of chasing a great story and the pleasure of writing, excruciating as it occasionally could be.

She made a living by her own wits, dignity intact, and she was beholden to no one. She would not give that up lightly.

“Figure something out,” Knightly told her. “Become his mistress. Bribe his staff. Or better yet, disguise yourself as one of the housemaids. I care not,
but get this damned story
.”

Knightly didn’t need to say “or else!” or bandy about idle threats to make his point. The truth was there, clear as day: this was her last chance to write something great or there would only be three Writing Girls.

Thus, she was now here, on the docks along with a mob of Londoners vying to see this long-lost pirate duke. All manner of curiosities were hauled off the ship: exotic creatures, exquisite blossoms and plants, dozens of battered crates with words like
Danger
or
Fragile
or
Incendiary
branded on the boards.

Interesting, to be sure, but nothing compared to the man himself.

Everything about him would cause a scandal.

Then she saw him.

His dark hair was unfashionably long, brushing his shoulders and pulled back in a queue save for some windswept strands that whipped around his sharply slanting cheeks.

His skin was still sun-browned. A tantalizing patch exposed at the nape of his neck—which a gentleman would have covered—begged one to wonder how much of his skin had been exposed to the sultry tropical sun. Had he stripped down to his breeches, baring his chest? Or had the lot of his clothing been deemed too restrictive and discarded?

He wore no cravat at his neck; instead, buttons were left undone on his linen shirt, offering a glimpse of the bare skin of his chest. His gray jacket was worn carelessly opened, as if he did not even notice the drizzling rain.

When he moved, one might catch a glimpse of a sword hanging at his side. One would be wise to assume he carried a knife in his boot or a pistol in his coat pocket.

The story. The story.
The story.

Even on this damp afternoon, Eliza felt like her nerves were smoldering, sparked by equal parts excitement and fear. It was the feeling she always had at the start of a mission, but this time there was something else.

Something that left her breathless. Something that made her feel the heat all over, even in this cool, wet weather. Something that made it awfully difficult to breathe for a second. Something that made it impossible to wrench her gaze away from the man, the duke,
the story.

Two men, garbed in dark, rough coats next to her in the crowd began a conversation that Eliza freely eavesdropped on as she kept her gaze fixed upon her quarry. She leaned in, the better to listen to their gruff voices.

“I heard that his household is looking to hire, but chits aren’t exactly lining up for the job. I know I told my sister under no circumstances was she to take a job there, duke’s household or not.”

“Aye? Why is that?” This man’s posture and tone said he thought it stupid to refuse a job, particularly from a duke.

“Everyone knows the Wicked Wycliffs like to tup their housemaids and then send ’em packing when they’re with child,” the other said authoritatively. She wondered where he’d heard gossip like that. Probably from
The London Weekly.

“More than usual?” the man said, thus pointing out that this was hardly unusual behavior.

“Aye, they’re legendary for it. They don’t call ’em the Wicked Wycliffs for nothing. And this one, particularly—look at him. Would you want yer sister or your missus working under the same roof as him?”