The Tattooed Duke (7 page)
In Which There Is a Rivalry
Monday Evening
B
eing a destitute peer and social outcast meant that Wycliff had no club to turn to. Instead, he indulged in the classic activity of brandy, cigars, and cards with Harlan and Burke in the library. It was almost like being back on the ship.
“I heard you were at the British Museum yesterday,” Burke said as he sorted his cards.
“Where did you hear that bit of news?” Wycliff asked.
“The newspapers,” Burke answered.
Those damned papers, Wycliff thought. He couldn’t so much as sneeze without it being reported that he was suffering from a foreign plague that would decimate the population of England.
“Why they must record my every breath, I know not,” he said, sipping his brandy.
“You are strange. You can’t do anything without it being remarked upon. You were seen at the museum. It was discussed. No one knows the purpose of your visit,” Burke said pointedly. He glanced across the table at Wycliff.
A long silence ensued. A deliberately long silence. Wycliff didn’t know how the papers were getting their information, and until he did, he wasn’t saying a word about anything, especially something important. His visit with an old professor was no one else’s business.
“This is the part where you explain yourself,” Harlan explained to him.
“I don’t think I will,” Wycliff said. He took a sip of his drink. His look challenged his companions to press further.
“Then could you tell us what is behind that locked door?” Harlan asked casually, nodding his head in the direction of the ornately carved doors that led to a private room off the library.
“No,” Wycliff said shortly. He fought the urge to check that the key was still around his neck.
“A man with secrets. The ladies must be all agog,” Burke said dryly.
“You’ve seen that they are not, thanks to that damned column in
The Weekly
,” Wycliff replied. “Other than, perhaps, Lady Althea.”
“Ah yes, Hades’ Own Harpy,” Burke said, grinning.
“That housemaid, on the other hand . . .” Harlan said, lifting his brow and exhaling a steady stream of cigar smoke.
Wycliff looked up sharply.
“Just because I have only one eye . . .” Harlan said, shrugging and sorting his cards. Burke laughed.
“There’s nothing to discuss,” Wycliff replied, even as his thoughts strayed to Eliza, and what tasks she was performing at this hour. Probably turning down the beds. God, the thought of his delectable Eliza leaning over a bed made his breeches tight.
“I also heard you have made an appointment to see the Royal Society. What for?” Burke asked, glancing up from his cards.
“Was that in the papers, too?” Wycliff questioned.
“No, gossip at the club,” Burke said, and surprisingly, it stung. White’s and the other gentlemen’s clubs were dull and populated with pompous old windbags and idiotic second sons. But it rankled that there was a place he could not go.
“What else are they saying at the club?” he asked, careful not to let any feeling into his voice.
“That you’ll never receive funding from the Royal Society,” Burke replied. He puffed on his cigar.
“Why ever not?” Wycliff asked sharply.
“Because you are too scandalous. Too wild. To unpredictable,” Burke said frankly. Wycliff scowled. Because he was a Wicked Wycliff.
“You mean I’m not easily controlled,” he retorted.
“You’re not,” Harlan and Burke said in unison.
“They’re also saying that someone ought to go to Timbuktu,” Burke said. “That we cannot let the French claim it.” His every word landed like a gunshot. In an instant, Wycliff understood.
“Who is being suggested to go?” he asked, his voice clipped.
Burke refused to meet his eye, keeping his gaze on the cards in his hands. “Myself,” he said quietly.
“You are a sea captain. Timbuktu is in the middle of Africa,” Wycliff scoffed. Burke kept focused on his cards. Harlan smoked and avidly watched the conversation.
“I am not a walking scandal,” Burke replied. “I have a sterling reputation for carrying out orders. Successfully.”
Wycliff raised his brow. It was the only movement he would allow. Otherwise, he’d have been tempted to violence. Burke was the navy’s darling, and he was the black sheep, the rogue. But an experienced one.
“Do my accomplishments not matter?” he challenged. “The languages I have learned, the documentation I have compiled, the cultures I have studied, the plants and other specimens that I have accumulated?”
“You have a collection of stuff,” Burke said dismissively. “Which I carted back in the precious cargo space on my ship. You’re welcome.”
“I have knowledge of the world that will immensely benefit England,” Wycliff replied sharply. “Must I cut my hair, remove the earring, and dress up like a dandy to win their attention and favor?”
“It’s too late for that,” Burke said. “Everyone already knows about your tattoos. They know you’ve gone native. But if you really wish to change public perception of you,
The Weekly
is the way to go.”
“Am I to take out an advertisement? Write an article defending myself?”
“You could. Or you could discover who authors the Tattooed Duke column and give him something to write about, other than all the shocking, intimate details of your life. That’s what I would do.”
“And exact some revenge for what he already wrote,” said Harlan, the bloodthirsty wretch.
Wycliff sipped his drink thoughtfully. This idea had some merit. He ought to put a stop to it before it went further.
“
After
he publishes something flattering,” Burke added.
“Or she,” Harlan added.
S
he sucked in her breath from the other side of the library door where she shamelessly eavesdropped, extremely grateful the gents had left it ajar. Rivalry. A mysteriously locked door. Secret plans . . .
. . . and beds that needed to be prepared before His Grace turned in for the evening.
She was bent over the mattress, smoothing out the pillows, when he found her later that evening.
In Which Attire Is Removed
The duke’s bedchamber
L
ater, after tucking away a cigar and a few brandies, Wycliff entered his bedchamber to find his maid bent over the mattress.
Housemaid. Housemaid. Housemaid.
He would do to remember that.
“My luck has changed,” he drawled from where he stood in the doorway. She peeked over her shoulder at him, and he saw her blue eyes coolly assessing the facts: a drunk duke in a doorway. Her fetching self bent over the bed.
“Whatever do you mean?” she asked, unfortunately straightening up into a significantly less compromising position. Alas.
Wycliff lifted one brow. She replied in kind.
He grinned, and groaned. The thing about avoiding one’s fate was that occasionally one wanted to accept parts of it. Like dallying with the maids in the grand tradition of the Wicked Wycliffs. This one maid, in particular.
But what did that one lift of her brow mean? He could not tell if it meant
Yes, Your Grace
or
Dare not, Duke.
He’d seen—and stopped—men who hadn’t heeded a woman’s
no
. He didn’t want a reluctant woman, he wanted a passionate and generous lover. And that was the thing about a maid—how was he supposed to know she was surrendering because she wanted to or felt she ought to please her lord and master?
Damned luck being the Wycliff that cared about a chit’s feelings. That was a first. There were ways to tell, though, how willing and wanton a woman could be. He smiled slightly. Anticipation.
Wycliff pushed off from the doorjamb and sauntered into his room.
“Is there anything else I may assist you with, Your Grace?” Eliza asked ever so properly and politely. Funny, that, when he had such wicked thoughts.
“Since I have returned, I have not yet hired a valet,” he told her. In fact, he hadn’t had one since that sissy, Alderson, quit Greece and returned to England. He’d taken care of his own attire and shaving for so long, he hadn’t quite gotten around to hiring another valet. Besides, one didn’t take a valet to Timbuktu, and he hadn’t given up on that venture yet.
“I am aware of that, Your Grace.” It was so strange to be addressed as
Your Grace
. Or
Wycliff.
It didn’t feel like his name yet.
“The lack of valet means the burdensome task of removing my attire is left to me,” he explained. She crossed her arms over her chest, which did marvelous things to her breasts, and gave him a look of utter contemptuous disbelief. He grinned and pressed on.
“Given my lofty stature, I can’t possibly be expected to perform such a menial task myself. To answer your question, yes, there is something that I require your assistance with.”
“I am at your service, Your Grace,” she said smoothly. Wicked little minx.
“I require assistance removing my attire,” he said, feeling like such an ass until her blue eyes darkened and the slightest gasp escaped her lips.
“Yes, of course, Your Grace,” she whispered. A smile played on her lips, the kind of woman’s smile that said,
You’ll pay for this, mister.
He knew it well. All over the world, from London’s ballrooms to harems to the islands of Tahiti, women smiled like that.
The sweet, seductive torture was about to begin.
First, she smoothed her hands across his shoulders and chest. He didn’t wear a cravat because he couldn’t be bothered with tying a scrap of fabric in an elaborate nooselike knot around his neck. He’d left his jacket in the study, reeking of cigar smoke.
Then her small female hands slid down to the buttons on his waistcoat.
Her eyes met his. Her blue eyes, like the ocean. He could barely tell in the light of a few candles and the moon, but he knew from memory.
One button undone.
Never breaking his gaze, she made short work of the other two. Her fingers delicately brushed against his stomach, and the look in her eyes promised wicked things. His breath hitched in his throat and the corners of his mouth tugged up into a grin.
He lowered his mouth, but after only the briefest touch of his lips upon hers, Eliza gasped and ducked her head away. For a moment he tasted her. For a fleeting second he knew her. Then she pushed back the fabric of the waistcoat, over his shoulders and off. Bold little thing.
Like a good valet, she carefully folded it and set it aside. He wanted to rip it from her hands, drop it on the floor, and proceed with her ravishment.
Next, she grabbed handfuls of his shirt, untucked it from his breeches and gently tugged the damned thing overhead. Again with the bloody folding. He groaned in frustration. She smiled with all the patience of a saint and the wicked designs of a vengeful, seductive goddess.
This housemaid was not just some young chit. But who was she? Wycliff stood before her with his torso bare—and his tattoos black, bold, and undisguised. She eyed the key, tied to the leather cord around his neck. He shouldn’t have allowed her to see that. But he was too far gone with lust to think clearly.
His breeches strained to contain him.
She was not unaffected. He knew, because he saw the heavy rise and fall of her breasts. He held her by the waist, his palm open, urging her close enough to kiss. He needed to. He needed to know her. He needed to feel her heart beat and taste her and breathe her in.
“Your Grace . . .” Her breath was but a whisper.
“When it’s just us, call me Sebastian. Wycliff is . . . something else. Someone else.” And that was the distinction, wasn’t it?
He, Sebastian, wanted to be with her, Eliza.
But to the world it would look like another roué Wycliff duke seducing the housemaid.
“Sebastian,” she said, tracing her fingertip along the waistband of his breeches, which unbelievably became even tighter. He was so damned hard, it was becoming impossible to breathe, and his heart pounded heavily in his chest.
That tantalizing trace of her fingers continued, but lamentably up and not down. She was entranced by his tattoos. For the first time since arriving in London, he was glad of them, if only because they intrigued her.
When he could tolerate it no longer, Wycliff claimed her for a kiss. In that instant he knew that her desire was real. He knew that she kissed him because she wanted to, needed to, as he did. Not because he was lord and master.
And he knew, because her kiss was tentative and teasing at first. He urged her to open to him; she tasted so sweet. She kissed him harder, and he liked it. He nibbled her lower lip. When she did the same to him, he was almost undone.
She kissed him truly, passionately, not with the practice and coldheartedness of a seductress. And like that, she had managed a small claim on his heart.
Eliza wasn’t just some housemaid to him.
She was, in fact, the most luscious, heady, intoxicating woman, and with her warm and willing in his grasp, he started toward the bed.
After all, she had just murmured his name with unmistakable longing. She was melting under his touch, he could feel it. Her every sigh and moan, every inch of her hot flesh against his, told him one truth: she wanted him.
Must go to the bed, he thought . . . Where he would act like nothing more than the typical Wicked Wycliff he was trying very hard not to be.
A Wycliff would take her now.
He refused to be a Wycliff.
Sebastian let her go.
O
nly later, when Eliza was safely upstairs in her own narrow chamber with the door locked behind her, did she pause to exhale. Her dress felt too tight, too hot. She wanted to rip it off. She wanted Wycliff to rip it off. But that was impossible.
Sebastian . . . the pleasure she felt at being given that intimacy of using his true name hit her like a heady rush. She told herself it was a professional accomplishment to be so intimate with her subject.
The story. The story.
The story.
This would not grace the pages of
The London Weekly.
Because that kiss wasn’t for the story at all but for her own pleasure. A man hadn’t made her feel this way since . . . well, ever. Not even with L— Not even in Brighton.