The Tattooed Duke Page 23

  “My housemaid,” Wycliff said dryly at the same time as Eliza said plainly, “My lord and master.”

  “It all makes perfect sense now,” Alvanley said. “I was tremendously intrigued when both of you came calling to claim the prize. Brilliant, Eliza, if I do say so myself.”

  “Dare I say thank you?” she replied, but she was looking at Wycliff as she said it. He sneered at her, couldn’t help it. But she remained calm.

  “I’m not sure you could fall any lower in my estimation,” Wycliff drawled. “Go ahead and take the accolades for your deception.”

  “I did it for you,” she told him. There was a note of frustration in her voice, as if he was just supposed to see that this monumental betrayal—him, his privacy, his integrity, his pride all sold for ten thousand pounds—as a good thing. As a bloody favor to him.

  “Did you? Really? For me?” he questioned sarcastically. He took a step toward her. Eliza stood her ground but she flinched. He knew what he looked like—some wild, heathen warrior clad in the barest trappings of a gentleman. She knew what lay beneath. Damn right of her to flinch. “Because if there is one thing you’ve learned about me, in all of your spying, it’s that I like to have things handed to me. God forbid I earn something through my own hard work.”

  He did not want charity. Least of all from her.

  “Allow me to explain, Sebastian—”

  “You may call me Wycliff. Or Your Grace. Or if you were a proper maid you wouldn’t even look at me.”

  “I’m not your servant anymore. I’m a writer, a published one, and a damn fine one at that,” she snapped. Oh, the little bird was angry now.

  “Oh, I’m sure Byron is cowering somewhere, threatened by your talents. You write for a gossip-ridden news rag that sucks the life out of its subjects, merely for amusement and profit.”

  “We write what the people wish to read, or we are not published at all. I know that well, Your Grace, but I am also tremendously proud to have discovered a story to captivate Londoners. I am only sorry it came at such a great price to you.”

  “Was it worth it? Your little newspaper stories for my expedition, my reputation?”

  “The story is not yet concluded, Duke. You may get your expedition yet, and who cares for your reputation when you are deep in the wilds of Africa, en route to Timbuktu?”

  “That all depends, does it not, on the outcome of this wager,” the duke said. “The neat sum of money for which you have thrown away love.”

  Her lips parted and no sound emerged. She blinked rapidly. Those eyes, those eyes . . . they would haunt him.

  “Your Grace,” she said quietly, “it has not escaped my attention that, as I have come to turn myself in, you are here to turn me in as well.”

  “There you have it, Alvanley. We have provided a dramatic scene in your drawing room, to entertain you at the start of your day.”

  “I am most obliged, I assure you,” he said, the faint hint of a smile at his lips. Smoke curled around his hands, his jaw, and slinked up to the ceiling. “Bravo.”

  “I had not anticipated the performance,” Eliza said softly.

  “But you did so well playing the part of repentant bluestocking,” Wycliff said sharply. “The daughter of an actress—”

  “You have absolutely mastered the role of haughty, impossible duke.”

  Alvanley cleared his throat. He put out his cheroot, took one last sip of coffee before setting down the china cup. Then he stood, clasped his hands behind his back, and addressed the two stubborn almost-lovers.

  “Let us not avoid the facts. You are both here because I extended an offer of ten thousand pounds to whomever uncovered the author of ‘The Tattooed Duke.’ Whatever your opinions on the matter, Your Grace, I must extend my compliments to the lady: her column had me—an old bachelor who has known every amusement—riveted and enthralled. Of course, I must thank you for being so bloody intriguing as well.”

  “Thank you,” they said in unison. They glared in unison, too.

  Even Wycliff, still deep in the throes of hurt and anger, was able to see her pride. Rationally, he knew that it was quite the achievement and perhaps in time he would be amused to have played a part. But in the moment, he added supremely irritated to his list of bad feelings.

  “In order to test this, I had requested that certain lines find their way into the printed version. Eliza, ‘In secret we met, in silence I grieve.’ Duke, ‘No More We Go a-Roving.’ ”

  At that, she gasped. “So that is why you left that poem for me. And spoke of it . . . I had suspected you knew, but I didn’t realize you would scheme and use me as well. I thought it meant—”

  “Perhaps it did,” Wycliff retorted, because he was still angry. He was glad, at least, when Alvanley brought up the money.

  “You both have satisfied my terms. I’m sure you are both wondering what I shall do about the sum offered,” he said, and began to pace as he thought aloud. “I will not give you each ten thousand. That would be ridiculous. Do I divide it evenly? Or do I give it to only one of you?”

  “Give it to the duke,” Eliza said evenly. Then she turned to him, blasting him with the full force of her ocean eyes and rosebud mouth. He had to make the mistake of looking. “I did this for you, you know,” she told him, and he suffered another flash of anger.

  “I do not want guilt money, pity money from a girl,” he retorted. It was damned unmanly to be so thoroughly trounced by a girl, and then saved by her! He would not have it. He didn’t want her damned money or her pity, and he didn’t want to assuage her guilt. No, she could keep every last farthing.

  “What if it were a dowry?” Lord Alvanley questioned, and Wycliff answered him hotly.

  “First, Lord Alvanley, with all due respect, the two of us are quite at odds, if you haven’t noticed. Second, unless she were to add bigamist to her list of sins, marriage is out of the question.”

  “This is quite the dilemma,” Lord Alvanley remarked. On that, they were all agreed.

  In the end, because Eliza had been there first, it was decided she would collect the ten thousand. Stubborn to the point of idiocy, and enraged beyond reason, Wycliff refused to accept the money from her.

  They might have had true love, had it not been for her rank deception.

  He would not assuage her guilt, would not soothe her female-feelings, would not forgive her duplicity. Not even for ten thousand pounds. Not even for Timbuktu.

  Chapter 48

  In Which the Outcasts Become Sensations

  Duchess of Hamilton and Brandon’s birthday ball

  That evening, Eliza made her debut as an heiress, for Wycliff refused so much as a penny, and Alvanley escorted her to the bank to deposit ten thousand pounds in an account for her. It was noted that she had been the first to approach Alvanley.

  With ten thousand pounds to her name, the haute ton promptly forgot that she was the daughter of a playwright and an actress. It escaped their notice that they had not in fact made her acquaintance.

  Not only had a new, pretty heiress come into their clutches, but a fourth Writing Girl had been uncovered. To add another layer of sweet, delicious scandal to the massive uproar unfolding, it was this young miss who had been the author of the column that had preoccupied Londoners and dominated every conversation for the past month. W.G. Meadows was a girl, who had turned herself in for a fortune.

  It had been this young girl who discovered and informed them all of the duke’s tattoos. Of his passionate nights in harems, of his frolics with nude, native women in Tahiti. It had been a girl who wrote of his brushes and battles with danger, and every other dramatic, scandalous thing.

  Later they would wonder how, and why, and the full story would emerge, and the gossip would take a turn for catty. But for tonight Eliza was a sensation.

  There was nothing quite like a lovely young woman with a sizable fortune and wickedness in her past, newly discovered by the ton.

  The Tattooed Duke himself, contrary to all expectations, a
rrived at the ball.

  Tonight, at the duchess’s birthday party, the collective gaze of the ton was completely, utterly, and totally fixated upon the Tattooed Duke and his authoress. They made every effort to stay apart—save for scorching, meaningful glances from across the ballroom—while the hundreds of other guests made every effort to force these two together.

  Lady Althea was in attendance, decked in a sinful shade of crimson, and looking like she had trouble on her mind.

  Knightly was there as well, and his expression did not show him to be affected in the slightest by the defection of one of his prized Writing Girls.

  The quartet of scribbling females were in full force at the soiree.

  It was, in many ways, a typical ball—there was candlelight and laughter, silk and satin gowns, and men in black and white evening dress. The duchess served lemonade and champagne. The doors to the terrace were wide open. The orchestra played their usual tunes from behind a veil of potted ferns. But there was something in the air, a mood in the room, a sizzling undercurrent that might at any second become an explosion.

  “I have never witnessed a scandal,” Lady Charlotte Brandon, sister to the duke and sister-in-law to Sophie, remarked. “I should like to very much.”

  “I haven’t either,” Annabelle said. “And I would like to as well.”

  “Well, that will be easily remedied tonight,” Julianna said, with a sphinxlike grin.

  “No, it mustn’t,” Sophie answered. “Brandon will have my head if you do. He’ll make a list of ‘ways to prevent Charlotte from discovering scandals’ or ‘reasons why Charlotte should not be introduced to scandals.’ ”

  Some busybodies hovered about, shamelessly attempting to eavesdrop on their conversation.

  “I shall do my best not to cause one,” Eliza said. And then she sipped her champagne, such a delightful drink. Her gown, loaned to her by Sophie, was the loveliest thing of pale blue silk, like the Tahitian sea in the duke’s watercolors.

  “If you’re intent upon avoiding scandal, then you ought to set down that glass,” Julianna lectured. “And do not accept another.”

  “Knightly is here,” Annabelle said, apropos of nothing.

  “So is the duke,” Eliza said, sipping the champagne recklessly.

  “Charlotte!” Sophie called out. “Where are you going?”

  But Charlotte did not answer, for she had slipped away, lost in the crowds.

  Wycliff saw her. It was absurd, really, the way he involuntarily sought her out and found her immediately in a room full of hundreds. But nevertheless he saw Eliza and felt a noxious combination of emotions: a hot surge of anger, stabbing pangs of hurt feelings—Good God—regret, for what he couldn’t quite say, and lust.

  But mainly anger. He was incredibly angry. Because he had quite nearly fallen in love with her—the purest of emotions!—and all the while she was lying to him. Very well, he had fallen in love with her. And he had to refuse her.

  Anger. Absolutely.

  He had returned to Wycliff House to find that she had packed her things and left. Just like that—gone. As if nothing had ever happened. No lust, no love, no laughter; just a house that felt tragically empty. Nevertheless—

  He would not speak to her this evening.

  He would not give the ton something else to talk about.

  He would not participate in a scandal. Not any more than he already had.

  Lady Althea slinked by, and he amended that last thought. Shackley money had worked before.

  Eliza . . . Althea . . . Eliza . . . Althea . . . Eliza. . .

  Wycliff glanced at the brunette who had come to stand beside him. She faced the ballroom, but the sidelong looks she gave him could not be missed.

  “Pretend we have been introduced, if you please,” she said. This was so they might be permitted to converse. And yet, to be fair, given their postures, it could not be definitively said that she was conversing or otherwise engaged with him. But her intentions radiated, and could not be mistaken. She meant to speak with him.

  “Perhaps. If you actually introduce yourself,” Wycliff replied. She heaved a sigh, the sort only young melodramatic girls did. The world over, it was exactly the same.

  “My name is Lady Charlotte Brandon and I’d like to assist you in causing a scandal.”

  Wycliff choked on his champagne.

  “I know, I’m extremely impertinent. And yes, my relations despair of me,” Lady Charlotte Brandon continued. The name caught his attention, and significance dawned—she was likely close family, a sister perhaps, of the duke and this evening’s host—who had married one of those nefarious Writing Girls. This Lady Charlotte was then likely to be a wolf in debutante’s clothing.

  “What if I do not wish to cause a scandal?” Wycliff asked. He continued, as did she, to face toward the dancers and pretend they were simply next to each other and had no greater connection than that. She was a young, presumably unmarried chit. He was known, an unrepentant sinner. This was not a good combination, the world over.

  If he did not take care, they could be betrothed by morning.

  “You do not wish to cause a scandal?” The young lady was aghast. And, he detected, supremely disappointed with him.

  He watched Lady Althea, dancing, and had to admit that all that fiery, wild passion of hers when confined by the steps of a formal reel was a marvelous thing. She managed to positively hum and exude a potent energy so that it seemed this little dance could, at any second, with only the slightest provocation, turn into something much, much more wicked. Her dance partner quivered, likely in terror.

  On the far side of the ballroom he didn’t so much as see Eliza but feel her in the clench of his heart and the hair on his skin, which stood raised, alert, suspicious, aware. In the company of a tall, yellow-haired female, she seemed like any other wallflower, which is to say, sweet, innocent, and shy.

  Oh, but he knew what Eliza was capable of. Days and nights of deception. Which was hard to keep in the forefront of his mind since she was not dressed as a housemaid and deferring to his wishes. No, tonight she was dressed as a beautiful woman—an heiress—who kept throwing glances his way from the far side of the ballroom. Quick, sudden, and piercing glances, like a spear thrown by a warrior hidden in a jungle thicket.

  Eliza wore a pretty sea-blue gown that he was sure would set off her eyes in a bewitching way, if he were to get close enough, which he would not.

  Danger! his every instinct warned.

  Her hair had been done up in some elaborate manner composed of tendrils and wisps and sparkly bits—the language of feminine decoration was not one in which he was fluent. The whole thing probably took hours with hot irons and curling papers and other strange female contraptions. He could read that well: only a lady of means had time to waste on such frivolous pursuits as a fancy, complicated coiffure. Not, say, a housemaid who had only yesterday been dusting his library shelves and letting him believe she couldn’t read the titles on the spines.

  He could appreciate the overall effect of the silky, satin gown and the hair and the jewels. Eliza was a beautiful woman. Brilliant, daring, and deceptive, too. Wycliff recalled, forcefully, that he was angry with her.

  But he couldn’t deny she was breathtakingly beautiful. He caught himself wanting to know this Eliza—the smart, shrewd, glittery, literate version of herself.

  “I could arrange a private meeting, if you wished it,” Lady Charlotte said, the boldness of her suggestion barely undercut by the low tone in which she made the offer.

  “Young lady—” Wycliff started, and realized how old and stuffy and proper that made him sound, when he was anything but. His hair was still long—when all the other gents had theirs cut short. He still wore an earring declaring his time as a common sailor—in a room of the most rarefied and refined who defined work as selecting menus with the help of a chef, or sleeping through sessions at Parliament. Under his evening clothes—a concession to the company—the inky black swirls and bold lines of his tat
toos covered his chest.

  He was not old, or stuffy, or proper.

  “Lady Charlotte—” he began again.

  “If you do not wish to cause a scandal, what about living happily ever after?” she asked in the manner of girls the world over, and their fairy tales. He scowled in annoyance.

  “That would be my concern, not yours.”

  “If you insist, Your Grace,” she murmured in a way that patently declared she did not agree one whit. “But I should like to introduce you to an acquaintance of mine. Her health is failing and she has a fortune to dispose of. Lady Millicent Strange and her daughter Araminta would be delighted for the introduction to you.”

  “Would they, now?”

  “Yes, but you mustn’t look closely at Lady Millicent’s hand. It was bitten off by a wild boar, you see.”

  Wycliff bit back a grin.

  “I must introduce you to my friend Harlan. His arm was badly mangled by the bite of shark. He lost his left eye in a freakish accident involving a spear, a tribal mask, and a kitten.”

  “Really?” Lady Charlotte asked breathlessly.

  “It’s as true as your Lady Millicent, her daughter Araminta, and the wild boar.”

  Lady Charlotte, rather than being shamed, smiled broadly.

  “You are a man of sense. I am pleased,” she told him.

  They were then interrupted.

  Wycliff’s expectations of his reception this evening were low, and had already been surpassed when a man whom he did not know ambled over with two glasses of brandy in hand.

  “The name is Roxbury,” the man said by way of introduction as he held one of the glasses out toward him.

  “Wycliff,” he said, accepting and then sipping the proffered brandy.

  “I know,” Roxbury replied.

  “Was it the hair? The earring? The tattoos that gave me away?”

  “All that and the wide berth the entire ton was giving you. For a duke, to boot,” Roxbury answered. And then he peered past Wycliff and said, “Well well. If it isn’t Lady Charlotte!”

  “Oh hello, Roxbury. Good evening to you,” she replied ever so politely, when it seemed she’d been caught. The chit was bold.