The Tattooed Duke (22 page)
In Which the Duke Calls Upon the Earl
L
ord Alvanley was sipping coffee in his drawing room when Wycliff was shown in.
“I may have just met your nemesis, Your Grace,” Alvanley remarked between sips.
“About yea high,” the duke asked, holding his hand to chest height, “black hair, glorious figure? Sly, yet cheeky?”
“How interesting,” Alvanley murmured. Then he reached for a cheroot from the box on the side table and offered one to Wycliff, who declined that, as well as the offer for coffee.
“Why would that be interesting?” Wycliff asked, having a good idea.
“Oh, merely that you think it’s a woman,” Alvanley replied easily. “Unless you are describing a man as having a glorious figure.”
“Women are capable of the worst treachery, such as that of W.G. Meadows,” Wycliff remarked. “And I’m not in the habit of commenting on men’s figures, glorious or not. I’m here about your offer.”
“Ten thousand pounds for whomever unmasks W.G. Meadows,” Alvanley confirmed. He lit the cheroot and exhaled a slow stream of smoke.
“Yes, that one. Or are you in the habit of offering vast sums of money for ridiculous things?” Wycliff asked.
“A man must keep himself entertained. I once wagered three thousand pounds on a raindrop race.”
“What the devil is that?” Wycliff asked, and Alvanley smoked his cheroot and smiled as he explained: “Which raindrop would first reach the bottom of a pane of glass in the bow window at White’s.”
Wycliff was speechless.
“I haven’t a wife to bleed me dry,” Alvanley reasoned, which also explained that he was smoking freely in the drawing room, “or elder relatives to complain about how I spend my fortune.”
“I won’t feel guilty about accepting your ten thousand, then,” Wycliff said. Because he would get this money. He knew the truth.
“Splendid. I should hate for it to be ruined for you,” the earl said. “You do accept that I’ll want proof before I merely hand it over.”
“What did you have in mind?” Wycliff asked.
Alvanley sipped his coffee, pausing to close his eyes and savor the taste.
Wycliff didn’t have any place to be, but the clock was ticking. Burke was probably charting his course or loading his ship right now. Lord only knew what else Eliza was discovering or inventing for her column at this very moment.
“See if you can get something published in the author’s next column,” Alvanley said. “A particular phrase, or story, that the author will unwittingly include so that you and I will know, irrefutably and in print, that you have identified W.G. Meadows.”
Wycliff immediately saw that this would require Eliza’s service in his household for at least another week. This didn’t strike him as such a terrible thing. Torturous, yes. Dangerous, indeed. Fraught with the possibility of disaster, absolutely. But it was not a terrible thing at all.
“I suppose you know what you’d like it to say,” Wycliff said. He took a deep breath and fought for patience as Alvanley took another luxurious sip of coffee. Good Lord, was there opium in it?
“There’s a Byron poem I’m fond of,” the earl said, gesturing to a book on his side table. ‘We’ll Go No More a-Roving.’ See if you can get a line from it in the column.”
“Agreed. You’ll see it in W.G. Meadows’s next installment of ‘The Tattooed Duke.’ I will call on Saturday afternoon to collect.”
In Which There Is Poetry
The conservatory
T
he duke called upon Eliza to assist him in the conservatory. Seedlings that had been collected abroad, having grown, now required transplanting into new, larger containers.
Of course he would ask
her
to assist him, of everyone else on the staff.
And yet, she knew the duke was not a fool. This must not be an innocent endeavor.
The conservatory was warm and humid. Outside, it was cold, wet, dreary England, with rain pelting the glass walls and ceiling. But inside, it was a tropical paradise. Eliza breathed deeply, inhaling the luscious fragrance of all the plants and blossoms. She loved this room, in a bittersweet way. She could only imagine what the rest of the world was like, and how much of it she was missing.
If only the duke would take her along . . .
The thought was sudden, unbidden, unlikely.
“Eliza.” Wycliff turned, catching her eye from the far side of the conservatory. She waited as he walked toward her, weaving his way through this jungle of orange trees, ferns, and other vibrant greenery she could not identify. His gaze was intensely focused upon hers, demanding that she stay utterly focused upon him. She couldn’t look away.
He wore his boots, breeches, and just a white shirt, rolled at the sleeves and stretched across his broad shoulders, left open at the collar, with a hint of his tattoos visible. As if he could not tolerate the slightest restraint. As if it wouldn’t be long before the shirt was carelessly tossed on the floor and he worked in this hot room bare-chested.
Breathless. She was utterly breathless at the thought.
Wycliff pushed a branch out of his way, and she noticed that he had begun to wear his signet ring. His hair was pulled back and tied with a bit of leather.
She noticed his shirt, again, and that it was a bit damp and clung deliciously to his taut abdomen. He must have been watering the plants, she thought vaguely.
Still, he left her unable to take in air. There was something so raw and so strong about him. Like nothing could possible stand in the way of his deep, pure enjoyment of earthly pleasures. Something so capable about him—that he might single-handedly defend them from all manner of danger, survive on next to nothing, show a woman the greatest pleasure she’d ever known.
Eliza was stricken with both the urge to flee from danger and an overpowering desire to throw herself into his arms. In the end, she remained rooted where she stood. Wycliff stood before her. Her heart beat hard in her chest.
She loved him. She knew it like she knew the sky was blue, and like she knew the sun set each day and rose again in the morning. It was a simple, powerful fact.
“You requested—” she began, trying to explain her presence.
“You, Eliza,” he said, in a warm, sultry voice. He took her hand and led her past trees and other plants. Her hand felt so small in his, and she felt so vulnerable as she followed him. Her heart skipped beats every time he glanced back over his shoulder at her.
He seemed to desire her, and she wanted him to love her. She wanted to hold his hand and explore the world. She tilted her chin up and gave him a sweet smile. She would win the money for him, for them. Knightly and
The Weekly
be damned.
“I require your assistance,” the duke said. On the potting table before him was an assortment of small plants and containers and dirt. “I thought you might prefer this to dusting, or sweeping, or polishing the silver. But then again, who knows with women?”
“Saddler takes care of the silver,” Eliza said. “No one else is allowed near. We might steal it.”
“Well, I might sell the lot of it and sail to Timbuktu with the proceeds.”
She smiled. In less than a week’s time he’d have all the money he needed for his voyage, and he could keep the Wycliff silver collection. That is, if her scheme worked and Alvanley’s word was good.
“What am I to do here?” she asked.
“Transplanting. Those little seedlings have germinated and outgrown their containers. They need more room to grow, otherwise they’ll be stifled and die.”
“And you didn’t carry these seeds from halfway around the world to watch them wilt in your conservatory.”
“Precisely. Here, I’ll show you.” Wycliff stood her before the table and came to stand behind her. From there, with her tucked up against him, and reaching his arms around her, he showed her how to remove the seedling, gently tease apart its roots and then replant it in another, larger pot where it would have room to flourish.
The rain fell outside, pittering and pattering on the glass ceiling above them.
She felt the rise and fall of his chest. She wished to fall back into his arms. The warmth of his body and the heat of the room were making her drowsy, languorous. When he stepped away to work beside her, she felt the loss of him intensely.
They were silent for a while, until he broke it.
“The child is not mine,” he told her. Eliza slowly exhaled.
“You need not marry her, then,” Eliza answered. She dared a glance at him out of the corner of her eye and saw that he was focused on the little green plants, which seemed so delicate and tiny in his large hands.
“Duty no longer impels me to,” he answered. It wasn’t a no. It wasn’t quite a yes, either. It didn’t matter, at any rate.
Liam. Brighton. What a mistake. Had she known then . . . had she just a bit of faith that great things were in her future, she could have waited instead of greedily snatching the first exciting thing to cross her path.
“What will you do?” she asked.
“You mean, how will I get to Timbuktu?” he said, and she nodded. “Perhaps my voyage will not look like I imagined it. Instead of a troop of soldiers, I could take only the essentials: myself, my wit, my weapons.”
“But what of the estate, here? What about the tenants and the wages —”
“I am not sure if you are the angel or the devil on my shoulder,” Wycliff said. “Tempting me into one thing, reminding me of a contradictory duty. You are trouble. But then again, most women are.”
“Perhaps, but you seem unscathed as of late. In fact, you have been remarkably studious. In your library at all hours . . . I wonder what you are reading?”
She noticed that he stayed there later and later each night.
He’d been in that locked room for hours, too. But she dared not mention that.
“I have taken to poetry, if you can believe it,” Wycliff answered, and then he began to recite some lines: “ ‘So, we’ll go no more a-roving/so late into the night . . .’ ”
It was on the tip of her tongue to feign ignorance and ask who the author was, even though she was well aware that it was Lord Bryon. But it was hurting her soul to play the silly girl around this sharply intelligent man. And what did it matter at this point? As long as she managed the line “In secret we met, in silence I grieve” in her column, the money was hers to give to him.
So instead of asking who the author was, Eliza recited the next line: “ ‘Though the heart be still as loving, and the moon be still as bright.’ ”
“A poetry-reciting housemaid. Where the devil did Mrs. Buxby find you?” Wycliff gave her a slow, lazy grin that warmed her up even more. For a moment the world beyond his gaze ceased to exist. Eliza thought of the pleasure he’d given her, and at the memory, heat pooled in her stomach, and lower.
“I hate that you are married,” he said softly.
That sucked the air out right out of the room. Eliza imagined plants wilting in her hands. Wycliff’s hands stilled, but he kept his gaze on the plants.
“Me, too,” she said, and then she asked, “Does it have to matter?”
“If only I wasn’t a run-of-the-mill Wicked Wycliff,” he remarked. And then he recited a few more lines from the poem, “ ‘Though the night was made for loving, and the day returns too soon/Yet we’ll no more go a-roving, by the light of the moon.’ ”
It made her lungs tight, in a panicked way, as if she needed him, loving by the light of the moon, to survive. What if he left for Timbuktu—without her? What if he sailed off and she had only a memory of what could have been?
If only, if only . . . if only a million different things. But life was the way it was, and certain things were as immovable as mountains. He was determined to be a better man than all of his ancestors. She was trying to show him that she was honest and faithful and true when it really mattered, so that when her disguise came to light, he’d know she wasn’t a complete liar.
All they had was this moment, warm inside, and sheltered from the rain drumming on the glass walls and ceiling.
As they worked side by side, hands in the dirt and holding delicate little plants, Eliza wondered . . . if he knew, and if he didn’t love her, what was she still doing here?
By all rights he ought to have sent her away long ago.
He must care for her. But then why could he not say it?
By the end of the week all the secrets would be revealed—let the cards fall where they may. She gasped for air, suddenly aware of the tension, and craving for the release. This unknowing could cease, this deception brought to light.
If she thought for a moment that she could tell him her schemes, she would have. But she’d heard his angst and frustration, and the scathing comments. He might storm away, and then she would never be able to fully explain her own hopes and dreams and needs.
When she won the money, she would give it to him for his own dreams. She just hoped they included her.