The Tattooed Duke Page 15

  “I might marry Lady Shackley,” Wycliff said, strangling the urge to spit after saying such a horrible sentence. “Probably.”

  “If you marry Hades’ Own Harpy, then you’ll have no need to ferret out W.G. Meadows.”

  “And if it weren’t for the child, I could ferret out W.G. Meadows and wouldn’t need to pledge my troth to Lady Shackley.”

  “What are you going to do, Wycliff? What of Timbuktu?” Harlan asked plainly. He began to pace, always the sign that he was agitated. Wycliff settled in and wished for a brandy. His one-armed friend had only poured one—for himself. “You have ties here, Wycliff. I do not. Do you know what that means? I am free to go anytime.”

  The truth of the matter hit Wycliff in the gut, hard. Harlan had every reason to go, and no reason to stay. There was a flare of jealousy, and then a question: why did he stay? Or was this the part where the old comrades in action and adventure parted ways?

  He caught himself grinding his jaw and forced himself to stop.

  Harlan carried on: “You want to lead an expedition. You need to find the money for that and solve all the problems. I just want to go along for the ride, Wycliff. I merely need to enlist in another outfit . . . like Burke’s.”

  The truth of that landed on Wycliff like another blow, too. Had he not the noble and selfish goal of being a leader of men, he could just tag along with anyone else. Perhaps, after all, he was more ducal than he previously thought.

  But what did that have to do with this betrayal? It felt like a betrayal. Reason intruded, told him Harlan had just as much a right to that feeling. For years, Wycliff had been content to see where fate, luck, and opportunity took them. They had no plans, no destination.

  That wasn’t enough for him anymore. For Harlan, it still was.

  When had this gulf between them developed? Had it been there on the open seas, or crept up while he was obsessing over the housemaid and cursing his ill luck?

  And for God’s sake, where was a drink when a man needed one? He stood, crossed the room and poured one for himself, and Harlan continued pacing and spewing gut-wrenching truths.

  “Yes, yes. I know that you have saved my life. But I have also saved yours, Wycliff, so it’s really a wash. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  “You are leaving,” Wycliff said coolly. But his skin was hot. This was a sea change, the shifting sands, etc., and he had not prepared for it. He had not even seen it coming. What a blind idiot he’d been.

  “You have ties here,” Harlan said, standing still by the mantel. His one eye was a dark brown, almost black. “I do not.”

  “This damned dukedom, I know . . .”

  “You left it once before and haven’t exactly been thrilled to assume the responsibilities, though I see you have taken to perusing the account books,” Harlan said, with a jerk of his head toward the open book on the ducal desk. “And whatever it is you do behind that locked door for hours on end.”

  Then Harlan’s voice lowered and his gaze intensified, and Wycliff almost couldn’t stand it. “You are developing ties, Wycliff, the kind that cannot be disentwined or broken. The kind that make a man stay on dry land and give up on reckless pursuits.”

  “Frankly, the only way I could tolerate marriage or ties to Althea is if I am engaged in reckless pursuit on an ocean far, far away.”

  “Not Althea, you scurvy cork brain. Eliza.”

  Chapter 30

  In Which Our Heroine Experiences Utterly Devastating Public Mortification

  Offices of The London Weekly

  The 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 nob
le 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

  Eliza 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

  Wycliff 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

  Eliza 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—havin
g 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.