The Duke's Tattoo: A Regency Romance of Love and Revenge, Though Not in That Order (7 page)

Damn her eyes!

I
n late January, Miss Haversham, Murphy and Mrs. Mason returned to London to make deliveries in Mayfair and St. James. Again, the threesome stayed in her brother’s unoccupied townhouse for this brief transactional visit.

Prudence loved strolling the streets of Mayfair, admiring – to be honest, rudely gawking at – the fine ladies in their beautiful, irresistibly impractical clothing. Delicate laces effervesced at swanlike ivory throats. Dyed ostrich plumes erupted from fanciful spoke bonnets. Sable and ermine muffs cosseted delicate, pale hands sheathed in thin, pastel kid gloves. The women floated along Bond Street like bits of brightly dyed eiderdown.

When Prudence was a small child, she delighted in delving into her mother’s carefully packed chests filled with finery from an earlier age of elegance. She stroked the silk stockings and slid them up over her knobby knees to the top of her thin thighs where they hung loose but felt decadent even to a little girl. As she whirled before a cracked mirror in the attic, she fantasized about her come-out: the balls, the routs, the music, the dancing and the delicious rustle of silk.

That was long, long ago.

Prudence glanced down self-consciously at her best walking gown. Her Pomona green, long-sleeved frock buttoned to the neck and had no froths or ruffles, just a few sober horizontal pleats above the hem. Nothing but simple velvet trim decorated the warm, brown wool kerseymere Spencer she wore over it. Her bonnet was serviceable but made her look as dour as a Methodist, or so she thought. She needed no fripperies in her practical life but that did not prevent her from coveting them on occasion.

It was a typically grubby, overcast January morning in London as Prudence walked briskly along Piccadilly with basket in hand on her way to a tiny apothecary shop on Albemarle Street. The air was tinged a sludgy, smudgy yellow green. London’s infamous fog hung denser than usual this morning, thickened as it was by half a million chimneys belching coal fire smoke into the cold, dank air. It reduced visibility to barely across the wide, crowded thoroughfare. Carts and carriages loomed into view only to be swallowed up a short distance away. Pedestrians, too, materialized from and disappeared into banks of the gritty urban mist.

In her own personal fog, Prudence riffled through her mental filing cabinet to recall the owner of Albemarle Apothecary. As she walked, she barely noticed a man further down the pavement whose bare head was nearly as tall as the beaver hats on other pedestrians. A heartbeat later, she recognized the Duke of Ainsworth looming out of the pea soup not ten yards ahead of her and all her mental notes spewed from her mind. She jerked to a halt, abruptly short of breath.

They both headed in the same direction so she followed him, careful to stay behind him. Prudence took in the breadth of his shoulders, accentuated by the capes of his greatcoat, and recalled the other, more disturbing memory of his naked back. He had been inert, leaning against the chaise, his brawny shoulders slumped but still exceptionally wide. The contours of his muscular arms and his golden skin haunted her still. His tousled brown hair now appeared lighter by a shade to a warm caramel.

The man moved elegantly. Impeccable tailoring could not disguise the power of the warrior within his clothes. He wore his coat carelessly open and flying away from his legs. Oh, the legs on the man! Years in the saddle resulted in long, distinct thigh muscles that pulsed with each firm step he took. Even the most exaggerated illustrations captured sufficiently the duke’s profile and powerful physique. From her perspective behind him, Prudence also saw the ripple effect Ainsworth had as he passed other pedestrians, like a tall ship creating a wake. Beaver hats swiveled. Ladies’ bonnets pivoted and bobbed. On each face writ plain was surprise then delight as eyes widened in recognition.

With a quick glance to the right, Ainsworth strode into the street and dodged through traffic with athletic grace. She trailed after him across the street, never letting him disappear entirely into the miasma.

After reaching Hatchard’s, His Grace hesitated, rolled his shoulder as if to test it and only then disappeared into the bookshop. So very much a man, unfussy yet refined, she sighed. She regretted inadvertently marring such perfection.

Prudence approached Hatchard’s tall, many-paned bow window cautiously. The front window extended from floor to ceiling inside and gave an unobstructed view of readers within. She peeked in, not daring to enter.

She watched with fascination as Ainsworth scanned a shelf on the other side of the glass. The way his long fingers slid over the leather bindings of the books made her shiver. He made a selection. With his head bent over the text, she had the leisure to admire him. His wind-blown hair needed a quick sweep of her hand. His profile proclaimed his pedigree: the aquiline nose, firm, sculpted chin and a prominent brow over deep-set, intense eyes. The boyish look of his unconscious countenance was nowhere in evidence.

What had she been thinking! This was no man to trifle with, abduct or, God help her, tattoo. His wakeful expression was that of a predator, a raptor. She prayed never to find herself his prey.

A gust of wind snatched at her bonnet’s brim. She jerked to catch hold of it and knocked on one of the small glass panes. The duke looked up and through the window. She flung herself out of sight with a squeak, her heart pounding. Had he seen her? Would he come storming out after her? She stood frozen in place, hoping and dreading he would fly out the door to find her.

• • •

Funny how revenge whets one’s appetite.

The morning after he solved the puzzle of ‘mizzach,’ Ainsworth had a hearty appetite for the first time in too long to remember. He took breakfast in his mother’s morning room, where he usually picked at whatever he put on his plate. His shoulder and his dreams interfered with sleep and left him too exhausted to eat much most mornings.

On this day, however, he smelled bacon and coffee with keen interest. He looked in awe at the ridiculous lengths to which Cook went to tempt him to eat. (So much fuss over his poor appetite.) Ainsworth had lost a stone or so since returning from the continent but hadn’t thought it all that obvious.

From the overstocked sideboard, he piled his plate with potted beef, cold fowl, ham, potatoes, and eggs as well as a number of dainty pastries that Cook took special pains to make. He ate till his stomach ached, but pleasantly so.

As he leaned back to enjoy the last of his coffee and yet another tiny pastry, he caught the two footmen exchanging grins.

Gesturing at the sideboard with the pastry, Ainsworth said, “Please thank Cook for another delicious breakfast. I enjoyed these strawberry tart things especially. Is this my fourth or fifth?”

“Fifth, Your Grace,” came the echoed response from both men.

“Delicious,” he concluded and popped it whole into his mouth with a smile.

Next he sent for Sterling. Within the hour, the two men were ensconced in leather chairs in the duke’s study. Sterling sat poised on the edge of his seat waiting for the duke to speak. His man of affairs was a small, neat, bird-like man with bright, intelligent eyes, a house sparrow to the duke’s golden eagle.

“I have two requirements, Sterling. The first is straightforward. I shall need you to hire a place for me in Bath this spring. A few months will suffice but longer is acceptable if need be.”

“To start when, Your Grace?”

“May or June I should think. I shall remain in London or Grayfriars Abbey till then.”

“Very good. And the second?”

“It’s a matter of some delicacy. I wish to purchase a property in Bath, No. 3 Trim Street. I believe it currently houses the Trim Street Apothecary on the ground floor. I wish to conclude the transaction quickly and quietly. I trust you’ll be discreet.”

“I’ll make inquiries representing an anonymous purchaser. It’s common practice. Do you have a figure in mind?”

The duke recalled Miss H.’s lithe form, her movements like quicksilver, and her small, elegant hands.

“Your Grace?” Sterling repeated diffidently.

Ainsworth recalled himself to the present, “I’m unfamiliar with the property or property values in Bath so I’ll rely on your recommendation when the time comes.”

However odd Sterling considered his employer’s wish to buy real estate sight unseen, he was far too discreet to mention it. His countenance remained equally impassive while he noted the address in his small, leather bound notebook.

“Much will depend on what I learn about the owner,” Sterling explained, “I shall send inquiries to Bath immediately and have it well underway by week’s end.”

“I’m certain you will. You are a wonder, Sterling. I cannot conceive how I would get on without you. Thank you.” The duke often surprised Sterling with sincere appreciation. Ainsworth had no idea it was assumed by his class that serving an illustrious personage was reward enough (along with customary compensation) to make any explicit gratitude unnecessary. But unlike his peers, Ainsworth acknowledged Sterling’s efforts frequently and graciously. This inspired in Sterling the profoundest desire to surpass the duke’s every expectation.

Their business concluded, Ainsworth saw his man to the foyer where Thatcher awaited with Sterling’s winter coat and beaver hat. After he left, the duke whistled through his teeth to summon his mongrels for a quick victory lap around Hyde Park, chiding nannies be damned.

While the dogs gleefully menaced park wildlife, Ainsworth gloated. Assuming this Miss H. creature lived in rooms above the apothecary shop at No. 3 Trim Street, he could look forward to sweeping into Bath in the spring, confronting his nemesis face to face and having her tossed into the street, lock, stock and barrel.

Since he couldn’t demand satisfaction from a woman, he would end life as she knew it by economic means. This would have to suffice.

In the next moment, Ainsworth’s steps faltered. As a gentleman, setting out to destroy her troubled him a bit. She was only a woman, after all. Weak. Vulnerable. Helpless…
Helpless?
He snorted and kicked up a spray of pea gravel. Miss H. despoiled a man’s most prized personal possession. Her blasted tattoo made a jest of it and invited the mockery of others. The vicious little harridan deserved eviction and bankruptcy, if not worse. Had she been a man, Ainsworth would’ve challenged her to a duel and shot her through the heart without compunction. By closing her shop and running her off, he let her off easy. She could always hire another storefront in Bath — unless he decided to buy that building out from under her, too. Lord knows, he had the resources to do that until she apprehended the wisdom of relocating elsewhere, say, the West Indies.

His conscience silenced, the duke looked forward to her comeuppance. After all, what was the point of revenge, if not to repay such an infamous insult in full?

“I
cannot credit it. Our Jem dead,” Lord George Chase Percy, second son of Viscount Rutgers, said. Tawny as a lion, with an unruly mane to match, Lord Percy raised amber eyes heavenward and lifted his glass.

“Nor I,” grumbled William Tyler de Sayre, Baron Clun, staring into the middle distance. Clun was a forbidding man with hooded black eyes, too long, almost black hair and a monumentally muscular build. He took another gulp and glowered at his large, booted feet stuck out before him. “Must send our condolences. We’ve been remiss.”

“To our dear, departed hell-raiser,” said Lord Burton Seelye, the third man in the somber group. “We will miss him.”

Seelye, the Earl of Exmoor’s second son, seemed the odd man out in this threesome. Percy and Clun wore clothing with simple, military precision but still looked hulking. In contrast, Lord Seelye was almost average in size and an unabashed nonpareil. He was among the rarest tulips of the
ton.
After Brummel, it was said, Seelye. After Seelye, no one. Yet, despite his Byzantine cravat knot, he was as lethal as the others, a rapier among heavy sabers.

“To Jem Maubrey,” they said quietly and drank.

Three solemn men sat around the cold hearth in a private salon at White’s, their broad shoulders wedged into club chairs, their long legs stretched before them, their well-shod feet propped on the brass fireplace fender. One of the attendants offered to light a fire for them when they settled in but no fire could chase the chill they felt on the first anniversary of Waterloo.

They sprawled before the empty fireplace grate. Each held a glass of port. All gazed without seeing, lost in thought.

On the nearby table sat a fourth glass of port still untouched among numerous empty bottles.

“Can’t say ‘rest in peace’ because the man couldn’t sit still for two minutes together,” Clun said with a dry chuckle.

“Bound to give the Devil fits, our Jem,” Seelye said proudly.

“So he will,” Percy agreed. “Poor Beelzebub.”

“Still. Damned careless disregard for our appointment,” growled Clun.

“Gave his word, bloody thick lout,” Percy swore roundly.

“Bloody lout,” the others concurred and drank to it.

“Did we not make it clear at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball we would meet here one year to the day?” Lord Seelye asked the others.

“Certainly did,” the raven-haired giant huffed. “Before we mustered out to meet Napoleon.”

Percy added, “Had no notion the war’d end in days, not months. Made sense to allow a year to finish it and get settled back home.”

“And didn’t we seal the pact with blood?” Seelye asked, like a barrister arguing in court.

“Not ours,” Clun said with a smirk, “but yes, we did.”

“And, my lords, is it not the 17
^th
of June?” Seelye concluded.

“It is,” Clun said, “devil take it.”