The Tattooed Duke Page 24

  “I hope you are enjoying this ball. Since it could very well be your last if you persist in associating with blackguards like this fellow,” Roxbury told her. “I am given to understand that monasteries are not known for their parties. Or men. Which is where your brother is likely to send you if you cause more than the usual amount of trouble.”

  “Oh, bother that. It would take all the army and the cavalry to get me there. Instead, I shall run off to Timbuktu with His Grace. Fancy that! Me, a stowaway!”

  Roxbury groaned. “I thank the Lord every day that you are not my responsibility.”

  “Perhaps I shall teach lessons to that baby you are expecting.”

  Roxbury paled. Lady Charlotte beamed. And then she strode off into the crowds.

  Wycliff watched this exchange with an avid interest, piecing the pieces together as they bantered. Clearly, these two were close, their families, too. It was not the first time he had watched a scene like this and absorbed the familiar banter of loved ones. However, it was the first time that his scientific detachment failed him; he had never experienced an intense longing to participate until now.

  “I myself have also been severely wronged by a Writing Girl,” Roxbury said, once Lady Charlotte had left them alone. This piqued the duke’s interest.

  “They make a sport of us, then?” Wycliff asked, not sure if this diminished his anger—to be one of many—or inflamed it.

  “Yes, they seem to. I think it’s that natural feminine inclination to stir up trouble; witness Lady Charlotte. But Knightly spurs them along,” Roxbury explained. Wycliff sipped his drink, thoughtful.

  “I hope you got revenge,” Wycliff said, and Roxbury laughed heartily, striking a dissonant chord of terror in his heart.

  “Oh, I did. I shot him and married her,” Roxbury said, traces of laughter still in his voice. “What is the saying—if you can’t beat them, join them?”

  “Or keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” Wycliff remarked.

  “Exactly. Marriage is the perfect solution,” Roxbury replied. And then he frowned, “Although the rake in me thinks I ought to wash my mouth out with soap for saying such a thing.”

  “Marriage is an interesting tactic,” Wycliff said benignly, and thankful that Lady Charlotte wasn’t present to hear him say that. It was probably his only remaining strategy, if he wished to see Timbuktu.

  “It certainly isn’t boring,” Roxbury said, sipping his drink. “It appears the ton is agog that you have come out this evening.”

  Wycliff smiled wryly. “I seem to be endlessly fascinating them—from a distance.”

  “Many of them are exceedingly dull and stupid, and one must be indulgent with them, as with small children. But come, I’ll introduce you to some people worth knowing,” Roxbury said, and Wycliff followed him in the direction of the card room.

  They came face-to-face with Knightly on their way. In fact, this encounter occurred in the doorway to the card room—a particularly uncomfortable spot. The walls between the card room and ballroom were thick, forming an immovable barrier. Wycliff proved to be the same. Knightly had to face him or turn and flee. In front of everyone.

  Wycliff was struck by the urge to make the man squirm and sweat and otherwise wriggle like a worm on a hook. He recalled his own laughing retort to Knightly about having a housemaid write down his every word, and how remarkably close to the truth he had been. Knightly had sipped his brandy and likely thought him a fool.

  And now that writer was ten thousand pounds to the richer.

  “Knightly.” Wycliff said this like a prelude to torture.

  “Wycliff, Roxbury . . .” He said this coolly, as if he wasn’t bothered one whit by an angry aristocrat, and one who’d already shot him, at that. Wycliff experienced a flash of jealously and a hankering for his collection of firearms.

  “How are you enjoying this evening?” Wycliff asked him. Polite. Circuitous.

  “I daresay it just got interesting,” Knightly replied, “Although I suppose you’d like to hear I am not enjoying it in the slightest.”

  “So tell me, Knightly, do you plan to keep W.G. Meadows, our dear Eliza, as one of your Weekly wenches? Now that she’s ten thousand pounds to the richer, what incentive does she have to stay?”

  Knightly and Roxbury exchanged a glance that spoke volumes, and that irritated him. Especially since Knightly had looked extremely peeved verging on enraged at the mention of the loss of his author.

  “So the cat is out of the bag. It was bound to happen,” Knightly replied with a shrug. “But I wouldn’t be so sure that the days of the Tattooed Duke are over.”

  “No, of course not. It seems nothing will teach you a lesson about using other people’s lives and honor for sport.”

  That hit home.

  The clench in his jaw was unmistakable, as was the narrowing of his eyes. Wycliff was even treated to a swift, sharp intake of breath.

  In his periphery he saw that Roxbury’s laughing countenance had gone serious and he, too, was nodding along. Another man wronged by a Writing Girl, indeed—and the man behind the women.

  “I could start a brawl,” Wycliff mused aloud. “Or, like an angry brute, give you a good pummeling out in the garden. Or perhaps even live up to the rumors and adopt the cannibal’s diet. Or in proper English fashion, I might challenge you to a duel.”

  “Already been done,” the two men said simultaneously.

  “But I think I will leave you, Knightly, knowing that my revenge will not be so mindless and bloodthirsty.”

  “What is it you want?” Knightly asked, irritated. “If you want a bout of fisticuffs, then let us be one with it. If you are to enact some more subtle, devious form of vengeance, I’m sure that I deserve it and shall survive it. Do you want a retraction printed? I could devote an entire issue of the newspaper to detailing your noble deeds and calling W.G. Meadows a liar of the first order. But I assure you, the ton will still speak of your less savory aspects: the man captive in the dungeon, the cannibalism, the harems, the tattoos.”

  “What I want is what you have stolen from me. Your newspaper cost me my life’s work. It cost me an expedition to Timbuktu. Your sneaky, conniving author even deprived me of the bounty on her pretty little head.”

  “You could marry her,” Knightly had the audacity to suggest. Wycliff could feel his own jaw drop in shock. “The money would be yours.”

  Wycliff recovered himself after a hot sip of brandy and said: “If I were to marry a scheming, deceptive female with a fortune, I would have pledged my troth to Lady Althea Shackley weeks ago and be en route to Africa rather than here, in this bloody overheated ballroom, having this conversation with you.”

  What Knightly said next was something he hadn’t seen coming. The words roared in his ears like cannon fire, and felt as such upon impact.

  “But she’s not in love with you. Eliza is.”

  Chapter 49

  Secret Notes

  Wycliff was ready to depart when the footman strode purposefully toward him, bearing a silver tray with a crisp, white vellum note folded and sealed upon it.

  “Your Grace,” he murmured, offering the sheet up like a sacrifice to a moody pagan God.

  Wycliff took the sheet and unfolded it. The handwriting was that of a woman.

  The duke glanced about the ballroom, wondering who wished to meet him in the library in a quarter hour’s time, at midnight.

  Eliza had resumed her wallflower status with the company of champagne and Annabelle.

  “Is he merely an idiot? Or does he not wish to dance with me?” Annabelle mused aloud. She had engaged him in conversation and with hint after hint of her desire to dance. Knightly did not offer. “And if he does not wish to dance with me, why on earth not? I’m pretty, am I not?”

  “You are beautiful, Annabelle. He is demented.”

  “I am inclined to agree with you,” she agreed, her voice dark. This was a first. Annabelle had always championed Knightly. Always.

  Th
en the footman interrupted with a note on a silver tray. Eliza and Annabelle exchanged mischievous, wondrous looks before Eliza accepted the note and opened it.

  “Who wishes to meet with you in the library at midnight?” Annabelle asked, reading the note over her shoulder. “It must be Wycliff.“

  “It could be anyone,” Eliza pointed out, refusing to allow even a measure of excitement.

  “Of course it could be anyone. But I am certain it is Wycliff. Or, it could be a trap of some kind. It could be dangerous,” Annabelle said, grinning. “I shall go with you. For your safety.”

  “Annabelle, really—”

  But someone bumped into Eliza at that moment, sending the paper fluttering off to the polished hardwood floor and her champagne spilling entirely down the front of her gown. Her pale blue silk gown.

  “Oh, my apologies,” the woman drawled. Eliza turned to see that it was none other than Lady Althea Shackley of the very loud, passionate love to Wycliff, of the funds for his initial voyage; Lady Althea of the fake child and the letters to the duke. Hades’ Own Harpy.

  “Allow me,” Lady Althea cooed, barely managing to retrieve the note from the floor. Her dress was such that it did not encourage such an endeavor, but it was no match for her curiosity.

  Lady Althea read the note, brazenly, and then glanced at the large clock above the mantel.

  “You haven’t much time,” she pointed out. “It is nearly midnight and your dress is soaked in champagne. I suppose you might be able to do something, but you shall surely reek of wine for your interlude with your lover. But who knows, perhaps he likes it?”

  Eliza’s temper flared and she snatched the note back.

  “Yes, but I suppose that you wouldn’t know, Lady Althea, given that he’s had the minimum amount of contact with you in the past decade.”

  Hades’ Own Harpy drew in a sharp breath. Eliza stifled a hmmph of satisfaction.

  “Do excuse us,” Eliza said grandly, then walked away with Annabelle in tow. “I had to leave before she got the last word,” Eliza explained.

  “That was very well done of you. I’m quite impressed. Are we going to the library now?” Eliza smiled at Annabelle’s use of we. She’d go alone, to Wycliff—it had to be he.

  “After a trip the ladies retiring room, yes. Hades’ Own Harpy is right. I do reek of champagne.”

  “It could be worse. You could smell of brandy.” Annabelle wrinkled her nose.

  “I wonder if the duke—and all men—would vastly prefer the scent of brandy on a woman, rather than floral scents and such.”

  “Perhaps that is what I must do to steal Knightly’s attention . . .” Annabelle’s pretty mouth twisted into a frown of sadness tinged with vexation. But at least she wasn’t sighing anymore. “Oh! It’s nearly midnight!”

  Chapter 50

  Midnight Rendezvous

  It was nearly midnight. Lady Charlotte might have mentioned to Julianna that she had overheard of a clandestine meeting about to occur in the library. When the notorious Lady Drawling Rawlings, so named because of her ability to orate at great length, happened to notice the deliberate manner in which Julianna proceeded in the direction of the library and comment upon it, she might have fanned the lady’s curiosity.

  “Why do you not follow her?” Charlotte casually suggested. Really, anyone with an ounce of curiosity would do just that, without any debate. Lady Charlotte was itching to witness what Julianna was after, especially because she had a very good idea what it was. “I do believe I shall go.”

  Lady Rawlings narrowed her eyes.

  “You could witness something inappropriate for young ladies,” she scolded.

  “Oh, I do hope so,” Lady Charlotte replied pertly. And then she wandered off—giddy, positively giddy, in anticipation of the scene about to unfold before her.

  It might include the Tattooed Duke, might include a certain Writing Girl, might include champagne and romance and—Charlotte shivered with excitement—might include scandal. That is, if everything went according to her plans.

  “Have you seen Wycliff?” Lady Charlotte’s attention was diverted by a man to her left inquiring to another gentleman about the duke. “My cousin,” he explained. She didn’t stop to hear more. She knew very well where Wycliff was, but she wasn’t telling. Not yet.

  Charlotte was certain because she orchestrated the scene about to unfold—the duke, the notes, the setting, everything except some devastatingly romantic lines to sweep Eliza off her feet. But hopefully the duke could come up with those on his own.

  Lady Rawlings fell in beside her. “You ought to have a chaperone,” she explained. Charlotte smiled behind her fan. Perhaps Eliza and the duke would name their firstborn after her, in honor of her antics in bringing them together. It was a beautiful plan—the notes, the library, the secret midnight rendezvous—what could possibly go wrong?

  The duke found the library easily. It was just steps from the ballroom. He found it set for a romantic interlude, complete with candles and bouquets of flowers pilfered from the ballroom. A bottle of champagne had been set out, along with two glasses. Someone had seduction in mind, and it wasn’t him.

  Was this Eliza’s attempt to make amends? He poured himself a glass of champagne and wondered why that prospect induced a tightness in his chest, a dull throb in his heart. She was beautiful tonight. He reminded himself that she was treacherous.

  The door opened. Slightly at first, as if uncertain, and then a woman slinked into the library and shut the door behind her.

  “Wycliff,” she said softly. A smile played on her lips as she surveyed the scene: a duke and all the instruments of a romantic proposal.

  “Lady Althea,” he intoned. Why did he feel a sudden avalanche of disappointment?

  “Do you recall the time we made love on the carpet in Shackley’s library? There was a roaring fire and wine while a thunderstorm raged outside?” As she painted the picture, Wycliff drank more champagne. The warning bells were beginning to sound.

  “I do remember, particularly the friction burns on my back.”

  “Oh, Wycliff,” she laughed, as if he were joking. But he wasn’t. That was the first and last time he’d made love on a carpet without putting a blanket or fur down first. He drank again, to lessons learned the hard way. Then he refilled his glass.

  “Are you not going to offer me some champagne?”

  He did, briskly, as he told her, “Just so that we are clear, Althea, I did not set this up. I am not trying to seduce you and I have no intentions to rekindle our mad, passionate affair from ten years ago. “

  And then he froze. Because there were voices in the hall.

  Lady Althea heard them, too, if that wicked smile on her painted mouth was any indication.

  “Whatever it is you’re thinking, for the love of God, do not—”

  Lady Althea then tugged down her bodice. He, foolishly, reached out to set it to rights. They were a tangle of bare hands and red satin and Lady Althea’s exposed flesh when the door was flung wide open.

  “Oh my goodness!” a gray-haired matron exclaimed. “Well I am shocked. I never! Never.”

  “Oh my God,” the statuesque stunner beside the matron gasped. He recognized her as one of the chits Eliza had been gossiping with earlier in the evening.

  “I say, is that my cousin?” Another voice bumbled into the conversation. It could only belong to Basil. Wycliff groaned.

  “Who is it? The Tattooed Duke?” a voice he didn’t recognize piped up. In fact, more than a few voices piped up.

  “This is not what it seems,” he said, in the manner of many a Wicked Wycliff before him. Someone in the crowd snorted in disbelief, and frankly he didn’t blame them one whit.

  There, just off to the left, stood Lady Charlotte with her eyes wide in horror. When his gaze settled upon her, she had the decency to blush, bow her head and stare meekly at the floor. In an instant it was all clear to him: she had engineered this scheme from the notes to the “sudden interruption.�
�

  Wycliff weighed his options. He could expose her role in this ridiculous plot, which, if he remembered society correctly, would ruin her prospects forever. Or—

  “Wycliff just proposed!” Lady Althea Shackley gushed. The crowd, now spilling into the library, gasped appropriately in shock.

  His mouth fell open. His heart may have stopped beating, too. His lungs ceased to draw breath and part of his soul was paralyzed.

  “I did no such thing,” he said firmly. It was ungentlemanly, he knew, to disagree with a woman. But when such life-altering lies were on the table, exceptions were to be made. But his protest was no match for the growing din of a firestorm of gossip.

  “What a romantic proposal!” someone exclaimed.

  “The flowers are lovely, and the candles! He even thought of champagne.”

  Wycliff could not see who shouted out all of that damning evidence. He saw only Lady Charlotte, this time biting down hard on her lower lip. She at least had the decency not to look proud of herself.

  She mouthed the words I am so sorry.

  Damned chits. Their ideas of scandal and romance and midnight rendezvous.

  Lady Althea chose that moment to drape herself across his person. He felt her touch like a boa constrictor, wrapping itself around the victim, chocking off their air supply. But he was a duke, a Wicked Wycliff, a man who had sailed around the world, survived deserts and jungles and other unimaginable hardships and adventures

  He would not be felled by a woman, especially not Hades’ Own Harpy.

  Wycliff disentangled himself and considered his paltry options for escape. Rather than push his way through the throngs, the Duke of Wycliff strolled over to the window, opened it, and climbed out.

  It was only when he’d walked a block in the cool night air that he wondered where Eliza had been.

  Chapter 51

  In Which Our Heroine Is Thwarted