The Tattooed Duke Read online

  Sophie would think that she had gone with Julianna, who would probably assume she stayed at Sophie’s, since that’s where the party was. Annabelle wouldn’t imagine that she could do something so utterly rash as walk into a London night alone. What the devil had she been thinking to do such a stupid thing? The truth was, she hadn’t been thinking at all. One thought had stuck in her head, Wycliff proposed! in Lady Shackley’s silky voice. Over and over. It was enough to make a girl mad. Or foolish.

  The duke: he wouldn’t notice her absence. Or care. He might even be glad that she wouldn’t be around to write any other editions of “The Tattooed Duke.”

  Clearly, she would have to free herself.

  But the sound of voices in the next room gave her pause. There was Liam, her long-lost husband. And someone else—a woman.

  Chapter 54

  Husband and Wife, Reunited

  The door swung open and there he was. Eliza had caught glimpses of him on the street, in uneven light. First, the day she’d seen him outside of Galloway’s pub in a wretched twist of fate. Second, the day he’d chloroformed her in an alley. Some way to treat a wife!

  It was only now that she was able to take a good long look at her long-lost husband.

  Time had taken its toll, but he was still a handsome devil with his tousled sandy brown hair and entrancing green eyes with the kind of lashes women always said were “wasted on a man.” Liam hadn’t shaved, so his jaw was scruffy. It made him look thoroughly disreputable, but in such a charming way. And when he grinned . . .

  He was a handsome man. A sinning, lying, vanishing man. But it was his charm and his good looks that let him get away with God only knew what.

  She remembered, vaguely, when those green eyes were fixed on her silly eighteen-year-old self. How was she to know it would come to this?

  “Well, hello, Liam. It’s been an age,” Eliza said from her perch on the floor.

  “Eliza. You look . . .” He paused, searching for the words

  “Like I’ve been tied up all night and slept on the floor?” she supplied.

  “I was going to say ‘lovely’ because that’s what women like to hear, but if you insist . . .” Then he flashed that forgive me darling grin. She scowled.

  “You were always so good at saying what women want to hear,” she replied with feigned sweetness.

  “I’m an actor,” he said. As if she needed a reminder that he spun lies for a living.

  “Playing the part of a good man. But once the curtain falls . . .” she said.

  “I knew you’d be angry. But I thought your temper might have cooled in the past six years. Or was it seven?” Liam leaned against the door and made a slight effort to count on his fingers all the years between this strange moment and that long ago time. Brighton, a mere month after the wedding. One month of anything but wedded bliss—he drank, she was lonely. They fought.

  One afternoon he’d gone out for a pint and never returned. She waited one week and hightailed it back to London and never looked back.

  “What brings you back after all this time?” she asked. Was it a coincidence that he reappeared after she came into a fortune?

  “Oh, I haven’t been gone as long as you think. I’ve been in London for the past two years. Before that, traveling with the troupe. House parties, county fairs, and the like.” Liam folded his arms over his chest. She would have liked to do the same, but her hands were tied.

  “You’ve been in London for two years and did not contact me?” she asked.

  “I had no idea you were in town. And no reason to seek you out,” Liam said plainly.

  “And you happened upon me outside of Galloway’s pub,” Eliza said, as she pieced it all together and cursed her luck.

  “A coincidence I didn’t think much of until I heard about Lord Alvanley’s offer and put two and two together,” Liam explained. “I saw you leave the offices of The London Weekly and followed you to the Duke’s house. I was going to turn you in, but then it was all over town that you had won the money.”

  “And here we are. Shocking, really, that you should reappear now that I have come into a fortune,” Eliza said dryly.

  It was a challenge to seem commanding and imposing while tied up on the floor, but by God, she would manage it. She knew it, because Liam’s eyes flashed with surprise. But then again, she’d been a meek chit when he knew her last. A lot had happened to her in seven years.

  “If my knowledge of the law is correct, the fortune isn’t yours,” Liam said with a smirk.

  Her jaw dropped. She hadn’t thought of that.

  “It’s mine. As your husband. Your lawfully wedded husband.” Liam smiled in a way Eliza imagined the devil would after some poor sap unwittingly signed over their soul.

  It took a moment, a very long, excruciating moment, for the full meaning of Liam’s words to sink in. The money wasn’t hers; she didn’t care about that. It belonged to Liam; that burned. She had betrayed Wycliff, the man she loved so that she might set him free to explore the world. But the money wasn’t hers to give and it now belonged to this shadow of a husband, this sorry excuse for a man, this lying charmer with a black hole in the space of his heart.

  “I’ll spare some to get you a new dress,” he said, eyeing her champagne-stained and stinking gown.

  Later, she would think of retorts, or recollect her urges to violence. But the brutal truth was still hammering away at her: she had betrayed the man she loved so she might set him free . . . and it was all for naught.

  “Where have you been all these years?” Eliza asked.

  “Around,” he replied with a shrug.

  “Why did you not contact me?”

  “It’s complicated,” Liam answered. He couldn’t look at her.

  “It’s my business to know,” she told him. There was a hard edge to her voice. He looked up, shocked. No, she was no longer the girl he’d known.

  “Actually, it’s your business to withdraw ten thousand pounds. My ship leaves tomorrow morning,” he told her.

  “Where are you going?”

  “America,” he answered, shifting his weight from one foot to another.

  “Why?”

  “So many questions. You were always so inquisitive.” And then he feigned her voice: “ ‘Do you love me, Liam? What does this mean, Liam? Where are you going, Liam?’ ”

  The memory of her younger self, foolish and in love with a jackanape, added another layer of black to her mood. For no other reason that to vex him, and perhaps miss his escape to America, she would not make this easy for him.

  “Well, answer the questions, then. I would like to know.”

  “To start, I thought we’d go to the bank and withdraw some funds. By some, of course, I mean every last farthing of that ten thousand pounds you just came by.”

  “And then what shall you do?”

  “I’ll probably take care of you so that the funds are rightfully mine, just in case anyone questions it. But they probably won’t, because I am going to take the money to America. And before you ask why again, I’ll just tell you. Because I don’t have a criminal record in America. Because they don’t care if a man doesn’t have a title or a fancy name or nothing. I’m going to take your fortune and build a life for myself that I’d never have in England.”

  “Liam, you are most likely going to blow the lot of it on foolish wagers and loose women. You might spare yourself the sea voyage and do it here.”

  “And risk Newgate? I don’t think so,” he said vehemently. She resisted the urge to mention she’d once escaped from Newgate as part of a story. Always, the story.

  “What have you done?” she asked.

  “You should know that acting does not pay well. Crime pays more.”

  “Oh, well in that case I am consoled and forgiving,” she said sharply. Liam pushed off the doorjamb and stepped into the room, walking toward her. Her heart started to pound. Would he hurt her?

  He clasped her arm; his hand was warm. Then he gave a little tug
. Her efforts to loosen the ties at her wrist had been successful. But now she’d been found out.

  “Oh blimey, it looks like you’ve been trying to escape, Eliza,” Liam scolded, as if she were a child caught trying to reach the cookie jar. He tied her bonds tighter.

  “Now come with me, darling wife. We have a ship to board.” Liam flashed that charming, devil-may-care grin. She scowled. He flashed a pistol, tucked into the waistband of his breeches. Eliza just sighed.

  Chapter 55

  At Last, a Clue!

  The Writing Girls, their husbands, and Wycliff had all searched separate parts of London, questioned everyone they could think of. The day had been exhausting and now they all reconvened at Wycliff House with spirits dashed and strength reserves running low.

  The husbands had joined them—the Duke of Brandon and Earl of Roxbury—both of whom were consulting with Bow Street Runners. Julianna discovered the locked doors and expressed her desperation to know what lay behind them. Even Knightly had been pried from his office, though he brought reams of paper to work on from Wycliff’s desk. The one Wycliff had fantasized about bending Eliza over to ravish her. The one where he pored over account books, maps, and books, searching for a way out. None of that mattered anymore.

  He looked around his study. It didn’t escape his notice how loving the husbands were to their wives. They were doting, and attentive and present. It was something he had never seen in this house. It made him feel the pain of Eliza’s absence all the more. What had he lost? The enormity of it was beginning to dawn on him, slowly and painfully.

  A small army had been assembled. They had no known enemy or battlefield. But they had brandy for the gentlemen and Mrs. Buxby’s whiskey tea for the ladies.

  And then Harlan arrived. The hour was late, night was falling, slowly cloaking the city in darkness. If anyone had been inclined to depart, they would at least remain for Harlan’s visit.

  “I had come to say goodbye,” Harlan said. He glanced around the room, obviously perplexed by Wycliff’s sudden popularity with people of obvious quality. “I hadn’t realized I was interrupting a party. Not much of a party, though. This is the most somber, depressing gathering of people I’ve ever seen.”

  “Goodbye?” Wycliff questioned.

  “Burke’s expedition leaves tomorrow afternoon,” Harlan explained, brave enough to look him in the eye. Was he sorry? Wycliff thought probably not, in the same way that a lion wasn’t sorry for devouring a baby gazelle. How could it be sorry for doing only what it needed to stay alive?

  But still, his longtime comrade was leaving for a grand adventure. Without him. And he would remain here, his future utterly uncertain. It all hinged upon Eliza.

  “The Esmeralda, at noon,” Knightly cut in.

  “How do you know that?” Wycliff asked.

  “It’s in the papers,” the editor said witheringly. “Shipping news, page sixteen.”

  “Congratulations,” Wycliff said stiffly, with a short nod to Harlan.

  “Thank you,” Harlan said, equally uncomfortable. “What has got everyone down? Something must be wrong. One could practically suffocate from the smothering air in here.”

  “You remember Eliza, Harlan,” Wycliff said with a wry smile. “These are her friends—dukes and duchesses and earls and countesses. That is the damned man behind The London Weekly.”

  “And how fares Eliza, dare I ask?” Harlan queried.

  “We don’t know. She has gone missing,” Wycliff explained.

  “Indeed?”

  “No, Harlan, I thought it would be a clever thing to jest about. Yes, really,” Wycliff snapped.

  “A lot of fuss for a housemaid, Your Graceship,” Harlan said, looking suspiciously around the room. “But she never was just a housemaid, was she?” he asked with a grin that Wycliff couldn’t return. She’d never been some housemaid; of all the things she’d been to him—confidante, lover—above all she had been the only good reason to stay in London. She was, as Harlan had so astutely pointed out, his tie to dry land.

  Time passed and Wycliff was keenly aware that she’d been gone almost twenty-four hours. If there had been a trail to her, it was now cold.

  He stalked over to the sideboard to pour a brandy. He needed to feel the burn, to feel something other than this overwhelming sense of drowning. Heart pounding, unable to breathe, choking for air, clawing for the surface that seemed just out of reach.

  Where could she be?

  What if they never found her?

  What if they did? Dare he even consider that? He tossed back his drink and said to Harlan: “If you can be helpful, you’re welcome to stay. Otherwise, you might want to enjoy your last night on the town with more lively, obliging company.”

  “Oh, I’m on my way to a houseful of fine English lasses, but first I think I’ll tell you about something strange down at the docks,” Harlan began, and he too poured himself a drink. He settled into a chair and slowly sipped his drink.

  “Make yourself at home. Please, take your time, too. We have all night,” Wycliff said dryly.

  “As I have mentioned, I’ve been preparing our ship to leave tomorrow. Down at the docks. And maybe I wasn’t watching every box of cargo. I might have been distracted.”

  “Harlan,” Wycliff said, but what he meant was, For the love of God, get to the damned point already.

  “The ship next to ours was also loading up. A man was boarding, along with a chit he held real close. I could have sworn it was Eliza. One of ’em looked remarkably like that fellow with the chloroform.”

  “Liam,” Wycliff said, as if it were a dirty word.

  “Aye. That’s what caught my eye. Literally. One eye.” Harlan flashed a grin at the ladies, who weren’t quite sure what to make of this one-eyed man. Wycliff scowled darkly at the lot of them.

  “And I thought, ‘That looks a bit like Eliza. Harlan, why on earth would the housemaid be boarding a ship with such a shady character? She’s naught but a sweet, innocent chit . . . It couldn’t be her, but maybe it is.’ Which reminded me that I ought to come say goodbye to you.”

  “Tell me you tried to get her,” Wycliff said. His voice was tight.

  “I didn’t know it was her. It might not be. But now that she’s missing and there’s a chit who looks like her down at the docks, I thought I might mention it. But then again, who says she wants to be gotten?” Harlan asked, stopping Wycliff cold.

  What if she wasn’t kidnapped? What if she ran away? That was a question he would deal with when he found her.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lady Roxbury ambling toward the door. Her husband was a step behind her.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “To the docks, of course,” she replied, her tone implying it was a stupid question with an obvious answer. Of course a pregnant woman was going down to the docks at this hour, as darkness was beginning to fall.

  Wycliff looked questioningly at Lord Roxbury.

  “I have learned it’s easier to chaperone her cork-brained schemes than try to reason her out of them. Women and reason; like oil and water. Besides, she’s a crack shot.”

  “Are you certain that it’s her?” the Duke of Brandon asked quietly. “We can’t afford to waste time following false leads.”

  “We might as well,” Wycliff replied. “We don’t have any other leads to follow.”

  “What was she wearing?” Annabelle interrupted. All heads swiveled toward her.

  “A light blue dress,” Harland replied. “The color of the Caribbean sea. Which is why I wasn’t quite sure that I recognized her. One doesn’t always see servants all decked up. But then again, English customs are strange. Don’t always add up to logic.”

  “Would anyone like to join me now?” Julianna huffed impatiently.

  “We’re not just storming off without a plan,” Wycliff said. “That’s where most expeditions fail. That cannot happen tonight,” he added. And then they planned.

  Wycliff and Harlan would go, of
course. After some heated debate it was decided that the Duke of Brandon would stay to coordinate the Bow Street Runners, who would be called upon for reinforcements. Julianna would stay, given her condition, and Roxbury and Annabelle would stay to keep her company. Knightly would join, and call for Mehitable Loud to join them as well.

  Weapons were selected, cleaned, sharpened, and loaded. A plan was sketched: they would stealthily board the ship, search for Eliza, remove her with all possible haste and delicacy. A scene was to be avoided.

  “This is not how I planned to spend my last night on land, you know,” Harland said. “The adventuring was to start tomorrow.”

  “Perhaps it’ll only take an hour and you can have a heroic story to tell all the girls in the brothel,” Wycliff replied.

  “True. True.”

  “If we do not return within two hours, send reinforcements,” Wycliff told the group that would be remaining.

  “Go get our girl,” Lady Brandon said softly as she squeezed her husband’s hand for reassurance.

  Wycliff nodded, but thought he’d go get his girl. Even if she was bound to another, she belonged to him.

  Chapter 56

  In Which a Rescue Is Attempted

  The hour was now late, the sky dark. A thick, nearly full moon provided ample light, as did the light within pubs and brothels that lined the dock. But it wasn’t much. The ship itself would be utterly dark; it wouldn’t matter whether a man had one eye or two, it’d be impossible to see either way.

  Wycliff, Harlan, Knightly, and Mehitable had come to rescue Eliza.

  “I told you so,” Harlan said, apropos of nothing.

  “I beg your pardon?” Wycliff asked stiffly. He had one thought: Eliza. His every sense was on alert, as if he might be led to her by scent, or presence or just a feeling. Harlan was distracting.

  “Ties. You’re about to steal aboard a ship for a chit,” he explained.

  “It’s the gentlemanly thing to do,” Wycliff replied. But Harlan was right. At some point his heart ceased to belong to the wide-open world, and now belonged to a troublesome slip of an English girl. Oh, he still wanted to explore and to travel, but not with the same intensity or ferocity with which he wanted to find Eliza, love her, possess her, and be with her. He didn’t give a damn about her long-lost husband or what society would say. He could not live happily without her.