The Tattooed Duke Page 19

  “Eliza.” He said her name by way of greeting. There was no pretense that this would be a cordial meeting.

  “Knightly,” she responded coolly.

  “I trust you have seen today’s column,” he remarked, setting down his pen and leaning back in his chair.

  “Bits of it,” she retorted. He didn’t crack a smile.

  “But enough to ascertain that it was not one you wrote,” he said. The man was not an idiot. Even though he did stupid things, like print that pack of lies and put her name on it.

  “You made a mistake,” she told him bluntly.

  “No, I made a calculated decision that it was in my best interests to run my most popular story, rather than feature some empty column inches.”

  Eliza was glimpsing the coldhearted, ruthless businessman Knightly was reputed to be. Usually, they saw a rakish gent who began meetings with a grin and a cute quip. She didn’t like this one; she knew he would be hard and immovable. But then again, so could she.

  “I had handed something in,” Eliza said.

  “Something unsuitable,” Knightly countered. “It was still fawning all over the duke, spewing about noble deeds and other dull sales. Scandal—”

  “Oh hush about your silly saying!” Eliza cried. “This column you wrote went too far. And the duke thinks I wrote it, because he knows I have written the others.”

  “So?” Knightly coolly lifted one brow, punctuating the question of why he should care.

  “So? So?” Eliza echoed. “Just how am I supposed to keep my position if he knows that I am the one writing such damaging things?”

  “This wasn’t an issue before.”

  “He didn’t know it was me before.”

  “Are you absolutely certain he is aware now?” Knightly challenged.

  “Have I been accused? No. Has he asked? No. But I am certain that he is aware of my deception.” Even the memory of the hateful, hurtful look Wycliff threw at her that morning made her stomach ache. He had to know.

  That he had found her on Fleet Street with a handwritten column in her bodice was highly suspicious. He must have known then, if not before. Wycliff was no fool, and she’d been ridiculously optimistic to take him on.

  All those questions Wycliff asked the other night, in that heated seductive interrogation, had likely been driving at this one awful point: that she was W.G. Meadows. Yes, he must know.

  “Look, Eliza, it’s not the end of the world,” Knightly said. “All you need to do is quit your position and take to bribing the other staff. How do you think I gained the information for this column? Drunken louts gossiping at Garroway’s after the scene on Wednesday provided most of the content. And the butler hasn’t been paid in quite some time; he was willing to talk.”

  “That’s not the point, Knightly.”

  “We can still get the story,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard her. “What on earth could possibly be the problem?”

  “There’s more to life than this damned newspaper, Knightly!”

  “So I’ve been told. Women, in particular, like to harp upon this point. How I choose to spend my time is none of your concern.”

  “I’m not in the slightest bit interested, since it seems you do naught but sit behind this desk. My point, Knightly, is that this was my story. My name. My work. I have put my life on the line for it, and you don’t seem to care one whit.”

  “Life on the line? While you were dusting bookshelves and polishing the silver? Really?” His skepticism practically dripped from his voice.

  “Do you know why that column wasn’t extensively rewritten? Because I had been attacked and dosed with chloroform. Because I spent the better part of two days unconscious. I was the lifeless female he carried out of the alleyway.”

  Knightly’s expression became grim, but he remained unmoved.

  “The duke found me, you know. With a handwritten version of ‘The Tattooed Duke’ in my bodice. And I hadn’t wondered until now what brought him down to Fleet Street, but I can only conclude that he already suspected me. And from the look he gave me this morning—well, I think he knows. My disguise is ruined.”

  “I agree it’s a series of unfortunate events, but I don’t see what the problem is. Yes, you may not be able to carry on in your current disguise, but the story can still continue,” Knightly said, stroking the stubble on his jaw.

  Oh, it was all about the story, the story, the story!

  “The problem, you thick-headed man, is that I have fallen in love with him!” Eliza cried out.

  She hadn’t realized the words were there, just on the tip of her tongue, until they burst forth. The feeling, though, had been growing for days, weeks now. Her heart had known what her head had not, thus the words spilling out, with Knightly hearing the plain truth at the same time she did.

  “I am in love with him, and now he thinks I have told all of London he ravishes and murders young girls in alleyways and keeps beaten men as captives in his basement dungeon.”

  “I can see how this is a problem for you. However, it is not a problem for me,” Knightly said coolly. What a heart of stone this man must have! Poor Annabelle, for having fallen in love with him.

  Eliza gasped at the cold, hard truth of it.

  “Just you wait, Knightly,” she told him. There was a fierce edge in her voice she’d never heard before. “I will make this a problem for you.”

  Chapter 39

  A Writing Girl’s Revenge

  Sunday afternoon

  Eliza spent her afternoon off from His Grace’s employ—for he still, oddly, had not relieved her of her position—with her fellow Writing Girls at Sophie’s home. Well, home was not quite the word for the massive structure that was the London residence of the Dukes of Hamilton and Brandon. There were 107 bedrooms. She and Sophie had counted them one restless, rainy afternoon.

  On this particular afternoon, the Writing Girls were sprawled around the duchess’s private sitting room, taking tea, reading periodicals and gossiping.

  Annabelle flipped through The Ladies Journal. Sophie perused La Belle Assemblée, and Julianna regaled them all with the latest ton intrigues—so-and-so had accepted a proposal, Miss Something-or-Other had declined yet another one.

  “And then, of course, there is the latest about Wycliff. Is it true he keeps a man locked in the basement?” Julianna asked. Eliza had been brooding, and was caught unaware by this sudden turn in the conversation.

  “Honestly, I do not know if there is a man in the basement,” she said. “Or if there even is a basement in Wycliff House. That is the domain of footmen, and I have not gone.”

  She hadn’t yet given thought to this detail of the column—that the captive was likely Liam. He’d likely sung like a bird when questioned. Damn the man.

  “How can you not know, when it is plainly written in your column?” Annabelle asked, looking puzzled. “You did write it, did you not?”

  “I did not write it,” Eliza stated plainly. “Knightly did.”

  The girls gasped.

  “But how? And when? And why?” The questions tumbled out all at once, and Eliza was not sure who asked what, or which question to tackle first. Instead she sipped her tea in an effort to buy time, for she knew that the minute she opened her mouth the entire story would come spilling forth: about Liam and the chloroform, and her argument with Knightly, and falling in love with the duke.

  And that is precisely what happened.

  “Married?” Sophie echoed.

  “In love?” Annabelle asked.

  “You quit The Weekly?” Julianna gasped.

  Eliza decided to answer the easy question first. “I did not quit The Weekly, I simply said that I would make my problem Knightly’s problem.”

  “He didn’t know you were in love, otherwise he would not have done it,” Annabelle said in defense of the man she loved. In her starstruck blue eyes, Knightly could no wrong—even though in Eliza’s opinion—and Julianna’s, too—he most certainly could. And did.

 
“I’m sorry, Annabelle, but I’m afraid there’s little he cares for, other than his newspaper,” Eliza said, trying to be gentle. “He would have done exactly the same, even if he had known.”

  “He might have added in a dash of romantic intrigue,” Sophie said, “hinting at your affections. If he had known,” she added.

  “True. And that wouldn’t have helped either,” Eliza said. “He is just like a meddling mama.” There were a few giggles at that, even in the midst of the heavy conversation.

  “But he didn’t know how you felt about him. None of us did,” Annabelle said. “You’re so quiet about it.”

  It was true that she didn’t wear her heart on her sleeve, like Annabelle or the others. But that didn’t mean her heart didn’t beat as hard, or that she loved any less. That she hadn’t tossed and turned on her narrow cot in her tiny bedchamber in the servants’ quarters, thinking of the duke. Sleep eluded her in that hot room, with the bedsheets tangled around her and incriminating writings tucked under the bed.

  “Oh, please. Of course she was going to fall in love with him,” Julianna said. “He’s a breathtakingly handsome man and it was her job to gain his confidence, become intimate with him. Love was inevitable.”

  “The question is, does he feel the same?” Sophie asked.

  “I can’t imagine that he does,” Eliza replied. And then to change the subject from one problem to another, she said, “He must know that it is me. And he must know that what I have written has ruined his chances of traveling to Timbuktu, and saving the estate from utter ruination. I have destroyed his life’s dream. It’s unforgivable.”

  “I did some quite unspeakable and unforgivable things to Roxbury,” Julianna said, “and now we are revoltingly in love. You’d be surprised what love can overcome.” It did make Eliza feel a bit better, since it was the truth, plain and unsweetened. If Roxbury could forgive Julianna, then perhaps she and Wycliff had a chance—

  “That is, if he loved me enough to begin with,” she said. “And how can I know?”

  “I can’t believe Knightly wrote your column . . .” Annabelle said, still fixated upon it.

  “I can. He’s done similar before,” Julianna replied with a scowl. She and Knightly had their own rocky past, since they didn’t always see eye-to-eye and neither were shy about it.

  “He’s only done it when it’s the best thing for the paper,” Annabelle stated.

  “Annabelle,” Eliza said, “imagine that you advised a young couple in love to have a heartfelt conversation to work out their difficulties. And instead, for better sales, Knightly rewrote your column to say they should marry other people with all possible haste.”

  “That would be morally wrong,” Annabelle conceded, with a frown tugging at her lips.

  “He cannot keep doing this,” Eliza said passionately, “not when people’s lives depend upon what we write. It’s not meddling with newsprint, but fate!”

  “That’s very dramatic of you,” Julianna said, sipping her tea.

  “Can we please discuss the fact that you are married?” Sophie interjected. “Secretly married!”

  “This happens all the time in Minerva Press novels,” Annabelle said, now smiling. “And now it’s actually happening in real life . . .”

  “I live to entertain,” Eliza said dryly. “Liam was my Matthew Fletcher—but instead of dodging the bullet as you did, Sophie, I married him. That was a mistake I quickly realized.”

  “Like Somerset and I,” Julianna added, mentioning her own first husband, who had been a reckless philanderer.

  “Yes. But what can one do? I pretended it never happened. I was glad when he left. Oh, I was spitting mad because he took all my money, but even then I thought, ‘Good riddance.’ I did not wish to suffer in a loveless marriage.”

  “What a lucky—or unlucky—break that he should see you at The Weekly offices, just as Alvanley’s wager is presented.”

  “But married . . .” Sophie said, still awed at the secret.

  Annabelle’s brow was furrowed again, which meant she was thinking something unpleasant.

  “What is it?” Eliza asked her.

  “If you are married, that means it doesn’t matter what happens with the duke . . .” she said softly.

  “Because nothing can happen with the duke,” Sophie concluded.

  “You could be his mistress,” Julianna said bluntly.

  “I did consider it,” Eliza confessed. “Lord knows I had chances that I turned away from. But I did make a vow. I did give my word, even if it was only to that damned lout, Liam. That, and I’m sure Wycliff wants nothing to do with me.”

  “Oh dear; this really is quite impossible,” Annabelle said. She sighed, poured herself another cup of tea, and liberally dosed it with sugar.

  “If Annabelle, ever the optimist, says it’s impossible—” Eliza began.

  “I’m so sorry,” Annabelle said.

  “Nonsense,” Julianna said briskly. “Annabelle doesn’t have the inclination to wicked, scheming thoughts that you and I have, Eliza. We shall come up with something. ”

  “This is true,” Eliza agreed. They had come up with some great things together—like dressing Julianna as a boy and sending her into White’s, or spying on Roxbury’s duel with Knightly.

  “Hello?” Sophie said. “Do I not have a talent for scheming and wicked thoughts as well? I feel so dull otherwise.”

  “You will have a wedding to write about, I promise,” Julianna said to Sophie.

  “Let’s list the problems at hand. That’s how Brandon solves everything,” Sophie suggested, speaking of her extremely capable and organized husband.

  “Are you truly saying we shall solve all my insurmountable problems by making a list?” Eliza questioned.

  “I know,” Sophie said, in response to the skepticism in Eliza’s voice. “But it’s remarkably effective.”

  She was already rummaging in her desk drawer for writing things.

  “I see Brandon has failed to cure you of your cluttered habits,” Julianna remarked. They were old friends who once lived together at 24 Bloomsbury Place in quite the bachelorette abode.

  “To his eternal frustration,” Sophie answered cheerfully before reclaiming her spot on the settee. “Now, where were we?”

  “Listing my problems,” Eliza said. “I can already see you do not have enough paper or ink.”

  “I shall ring for more if need be,” Sophie said brightly in the face of her darkness.

  “To start, I must find a way to make the duke forgive me,” Eliza said.

  Sophie wrote that down.

  “You must do something about that husband of yours,” Julianna added.

  Sophie wrote that down as well.

  “I may need vengeance upon Knightly. Or at least, I must make things problematic for him,” Eliza said bitterly. He had gone too far. He must be made aware of it.

  All eyes turned to Annabelle, for her approval.

  “My heart beats for him,” she said dramatically. “But he mustn’t be allowed to block the path of true love.”

  “Hear hear,” Julianna rallied.

  “Any other problems?” Sophie asked, pen poised above the paper

  “Well, I could be a few inches taller . . .”

  “Now you are just being ridiculous,” Sophie said. “So we have forgiveness, vengeance, and debt, and that pesky matter of the husband.”

  The girls fell silent.

  The clock ticked, loudly. The clink of a china teacup upon a saucer was suddenly so very loud. Sophie sighed. Eliza bit her lip, as she did when thinking. Julianna twirled a lock of her auburn hair around her fingertips, and Annabelle smoothed out invisible wrinkles on her skirt. The silence was loud, and it struck Eliza like trumpets blaring the hopelessness of her situation.

  Four bright girls, and not one of them could think of something that might solve at least one of her problems. Let alone one thing that would fix everything in one fell swoop.

  Eliza picked up the most re
cent issue of The Weekly. She had not read the story in one piece, only those dozens of little pieces of confetti painstakingly assembled until the wind blew them all over her room and—

  “I know!” she cried out. In a rush of breath she continued: “I know what to do to solve everything.”

  “Well, do tell,” Julianna said, leaning forward eagerly.

  “The Earl of Alvanley’s offer for ten thousand pounds to unmask W.G. Meadows,” Eliza said.

  “Oooh,” Sophie gasped as she understood.

  A mischievous smile played on Eliza’s lips, and she said, “I shall turn myself in.”

  Chapter 40

  Introducing Lord Alvanley

  The following morning

  “Are you certain of this?” Sophie posed the question to Eliza for the hundredth time that morning. They were in the carriage now, on their way to call on the Earl of Alvanley so that Eliza might turn herself in and claim his offer of ten thousand pounds. It was decided that Sophie would go along to the Great Confession, as they had taken to calling it, as a way to lend proof. A duchess known to write for The Weekly would grant Eliza the kind of authority the earl would probably require.

  “Yes, I am certain,” Eliza replied. It was the logical course of action. She needed money. So did Wycliff. Out of pride, and a dash of spite, she no longer wished to write for Knightly. This wasn’t just a logical thing to do, but perhaps her only choice.

  Just wait until London learned it was a housemaid who had unearthed and reported Wicked Wycliff’s secrets!

  “We shall miss you,” Sophie said, and Eliza clasped her hand affectionately. There was a lump of emotion in her throat that couldn’t be spoken. The truth couldn’t be denied: she was wretchedly sad to be, in essence, quitting her position as a London Weekly Writing Girl.

  She would still have her friends, of course. Theirs was a bond that wouldn’t be broken, and Sophie, Julianna, and Annabelle were the best friends she had ever known. Eliza loved them fiercely.