by Maya Rodale
Eliza tightened her hold on the knife, or tried to. Her palms were sweating.
“You’ve already gotten a pretty penny off me. What do you want from me now, Liam?”
He reached into his pocket for something.
“Eliza,” he drawled, and smiled in a way that made her stomach lurch. “Would ya kindly tell me if this rag smells like chloroform?”
The sign declaring THE LONDON WEEKLY in capital letters decked in gold and carved into a massive piece of wood was visually demanding. Wycliff could see it from a block away.
But it was a scuffle with an orange seller just to his right that caught his attention. The cart had been disrupted. Oranges rolled all over the street. The seller hollered, gesticulating wildly. Kind pedestrians assisted her, although most stormed along. One, in particular.
One young woman darted away determinedly as she held her skirts in one hand and her bonnet in the other.
Wycliff glanced at Harlan, who nodded in agreement. Wordlessly, they urged their horses to a trot and deftly maneuvered them through the traffic in pursuit.
A more high-strung horse shied at the oranges in its path, causing sudden stops, awkward turns, and more shouts, further complicating his quest to follow that girl.
He saw the girl, whoever she was, slip off the main road into a little alley near St. Bride’s church.
“Stupid chit,” he muttered. A man forged through the crowd, looking this way and that, as if after the girl who had been rushing along. He was large, rough, and everything about him suggested nefariousness. It was all too clear to Wycliff from where he sat, high above them on his stallion, that the one was after the other.
He guided his mount closer and left the reins with a newspaper-hawking youth. Harlan did the same, with just a little less grace, given his one arm in the sling he had worn when leaving the house. Wycliff flipped the brat a coin and went off to be heroic.
Eliza did not hesitate. She swiftly raised her knee to Liam’s groin and connected solidly. Her triumph was short-lived, as he doubled over and fell onto her. She thought about stabbing him, and then about explaining the blood on her dress to Mrs. Buxby and Jenny and Wycliff.
So, instead she kicked out again and elbowed where she could, finally letting out the scream that had been caught in her throat.
She’d hardly gotten it out before Liam managed to clamp the chloroform rag over her mouth, tugging her down with him. As she fell, Eliza’s head cracked against the brick wall behind her. She knew she hit hard because she immediately started hallucinating. Before the blackness closed in entirely, a vision of Wycliff flashed before her eyes.
Eliza.
His heart stopped.
Eliza. Here. Hurt.
Wycliff roared. And then he attacked. He grabbed hold of the disgusting, thieving, rotting cretin and hurled him with the force of a deceived, enraged lover and a righteous man to the other side of the alley, a mere ten feet away. The man slammed into the brick wall with a crack and a thump before slumping to the ground in a thick, distorted, tangled mass of limbs.
A dirty red rag fell from his unfurled fingers. Wycliff could smell the sickeningly sweet stench of chloroform.
“I got that one. Go to her,” Harlan said, appearing at his side, and Wycliff didn’t need to be told twice. This was how they had worked, he and Harlan: it didn’t take a lot of words for them to communicate. It was how they had managed to get around the globe relatively unscathed. One watched out for the other and they worked together.
And Harlan was quitting! An hour ago it was the worst thing Wycliff could have imagined. That was before Eliza lay at his feet, unconscious.
In the region of his heart, he experienced a tightening so intense he lost his breath. His heart beat hard after that, pounding out a truth he could not acknowledge in the moment; not with words, at any rate. But he knew then . . . oh, he knew. She was no mere housemaid. Not to him.
Slowly, he bent down, gently feeling for a pulse in her limp wrist. It was there, faintly. Her breaths were shallow. She had struggled, but still suffered a dose of the chloroform. There was nothing to do but take her back to Wycliff House and let her sleep it off. And pray.
Chloroform could be fatal. He fervently hoped this was not the case.
“What do you want to do with this one?” Harlan asked from across the alley.
“Kill him.”
“Really? Because I’ve got some questions I’d like to ask him,” Harlan said coolly. “Namely, what business he has with our little housemaid.”
“All right, take him back, then. It’s probably time you lost that sling, since you’ll need both arms for a beast like that one. I’ll have my arms full with her.”
“Pity. I was enjoying the ruse. The maids were so much more obliging because of it,” Harlan remarked. Then he removed the sling, used it to bind the wrists of their captive, and proceeded to haul him out to the street. He paused.
“Your Graceness, it’s going to be a trick getting these two back on our horses. Don’t think there’s any way to be discreet about it.”
Wycliff swore. The last thing he needed was to be spotted removing an unconscious female from a dark alley. His one-eyed friend Harlan hauling the bruised and bloodied body of a street thug wouldn’t appear much better.
“We could wait until nightfall,” Harlan suggested. “Employ the cover of darkness . . .”
“Harlan, it is a good five hours before it grows dark. I for one am not about to sit around in this squalid alley with that stinking creature. And Eliza needs to be taken home immediately.”
“Eliza.” Harlan lifted his brow, curious.
“What’s your point?”
“Ties.” And that was all he needed to say to explain everything.
“Speaking of ties, your captive is waking up and undoing his.”
“Bloody hell,” Harlan swore, and turned to bind the man tighter.
Resolutely, Wycliff strode to the mouth of the alley, flashed some coin and obtained help—no questions asked—and hired a hack to transport his quarry back to Wycliff House.
When he clasped Eliza, drawing her into his arms, a knife fell from her hand. It was one he recognized, because it was one of his. Time stopped for a moment, as he put two and two together. Housemaids did not carry knives upon their person just because. Eliza had a reason. And he didn’t know what it was.
Why did that hurt?
There was no way around it: people stopped and stared to watch the Tattooed Duke in the flesh carry out an unknown limp female body from a dark alley. Murmurs erupted in the crowd, though no one moved to stop him. When Harlan followed, urging a now conscious but resistant man, bound and gagged, the din of the crowd grew louder.
It was the sound of everyone assuming the worst.
Of stories being blown out of proportion.
Of rumors starting and accumulating impossible details at such a dizzying pace that within an hour strangers would be saying the Tattooed Duke had murdered a man with his bare hands, in cold blood, in the bright light of day while the man pleaded for his life and the duke laughed wickedly.
Wycliff kept his head high. He dared them, with a look, to keep at bay. They could talk—fine. But they must not get in the way of his returning Eliza to safety, so he could care for her.
Holding her in his arms, he climbed into the carriage. His heart beat hard with not one, but two truths.
She kept secrets from him.
And he was falling in love with her.
Chapter 32
Discovery
Upon their return, Wycliff barked orders to the staff: tie up this cretin and lock him in the basement, draw a bath, brew tea, prepare his bedchamber for her, and above all move faster, dammit. In the back of his mind he could imagine Eliza pertly commenting that he was perfectly demonstrating how to act like a powerful, commanding aristocrat.
But it wasn’t an act: He was the lord of the manor and his lady had been injured.
Wycliff carried her up the stairs
to his bedchamber, straight to his bed.
Eliza. In his bed. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.
He lay her down gently, atop the blankets.
Why had she taken one of his knives?
Clearly, she had anticipated the attack. She wasn’t a brazen thief, excited by the thrill of pilfering from others. She would have taken one of the nicer ones, then. No, Eliza must have been in trouble and she hadn’t confided in him. He frowned, because that bothered him tremendously.
He had confided in her, and she had not even alluded to problems of her own. But had he ever asked? No, because he’d been trying to see her only as a servant—not a woman with a history and thoughts and feelings. And now he’d failed at that by going and falling for her, yet he did not know anything about her, really.
Next, her plain gray woolen dress was carefully peeled off. Jenny helped while the footmen brought up hot water for the bath.
“What should I do with this, Your Grace?” Jenny asked, holding up the dress. It was dirty and bad things had happened to it. Off to the fire it ought to go, he told her, and he would buy her new gowns. Pretty ones. He’d find the money.
Her muslin underthings were plain, white, pristine.
For days, for weeks, Wycliff had fantasized about seeing her in a state of undress. For all their kisses, he’d only caught a glimpse here or there. He hadn’t seen her uncovered and unadorned. He had imagined it, at length and in great detail. But not like this.
Frankly, he didn’t even want to go further. When he saw her pure and naked for the first time, he wanted it to be in the throes of passion, and part of a grand seduction. Not like this.
Wycliff traced his finger along the edge of her bodice, wishing this moment were different, with her awake, eyes bright with passion, lips parted slightly awaiting his kiss.
His finger caught on something tucked into her bodice.
She moved, slightly, and her lips moved, too, though she was still in a slumber.
In that little wriggle Wycliff heard the unmistakable sound of a sheet of paper trapped in the bodice. He learned that from bedrooms and boudoirs from London to Zanzibar.
“I never said I was a gentleman,” he told her.
Eliza did not respond because she was unconscious. The lady did not protest when he extricated a folded page from her corset. Then he unfolded it and began to read.
The Tattooed Duke
In the wilder days of his youth, Wycliff had climbed a gnarly old oak tree with branches that conveniently brushed against a certain lady’s bedchamber on the second floor. He’d slipped, thanks to the wine that suggested this was a good idea. When his body hit the ground, it knocked his breath out and his world went black. He felt like that now.
He couldn’t breathe for a minute as the full force of these damning words hit him.
Eliza lay before him, blue eyes closed, lips parted, skin too pale. She wasn’t talking. She didn’t need to.
The Tattooed Duke by W.G. Meadows
Eliza Fielding = Writing Girl Meadows. Fielding, like meadows. How obvious.
It made perfect sense. What a thick-headed idiot he’d been not to suspect.
No, he had suspected. The thought had crossed his mind once or twice and he’d ignored it, simply because he wished it wasn’t true. The things he had told her . . .
Everything.
Everything.
For a minute he ceased to breath. It seemed his heart ceased to beat. For all he knew, the earth ceased to spin and the sun quit shining. This was betrayal.
All those hours on the roof when he had confided in her—when he told her things he’d never said aloud before, could never imagine voicing to another person. He had trusted her with his hopes and plans she had gone and written for Londoners to feast upon.
He had thought her naught but a housemaid, when she was, in fact, one of those damned Writing Girls.
Wycliff felt the hot flush of a fool, and then the scorching fire of anger.
She had lied to him, to his face. She lied, and then she kissed him. He recalled the time they had categorized insects together and he thought she couldn’t write. And the time on the roof when he noted her way with words and Eliza only smiled. She must think him a fool. And to think, he’d been on the verge of falling in love with her.
Wycliff laughed bitterly from where he sat at her bedside, then Wycliff continued to read.
Two households, both alike in indignity?
He scowled.
The debaucherous past of the Wicked Wycliffs is well known. The scandalous past of Lady Shackley has been detailed in the gossip pages. Something is brewing between them.
Wycliff swore. He gazed at her now, through the narrowed eyes of an angry, suspicious man. She lay in his bed, nearly lifeless. He’d kissed that pale pink pout of a mouth that had lied to him. That pink mouth had turned away from his, too, which now made a certain amount of sense. How could she kiss her subject?
Why did she have to draw the line there?
Unless this something was one-sided—his side—and her interest went only as far as what could be printed. It didn’t go to her heart.
Wycliff began to burn, smoldering with a potent mixture of mortification and rage and, yes, heartache. He had fallen for her. She’d betrayed him every step of the way. Nevertheless, he continued to read. How could he not?
Yet the duke is not a man to be constrained, not when there is a wide world of adventures awaiting him.
So she listened to him, he thought with a scoff. That was some small crumb of consolation.
He has sunk French ships, battled and outwitted cannibals, survived shipwrecks. As he traveled, he did more than slaughter and whore his way across continents—he kept detailed records and collected specimens of various flora, fauna, and (shudder) insects, all for the advancement of Science. The duke would not just claim a territory like Timbuktu, he would know it and return all of its secrets to England.
As Wycliff read these words, he experienced queer twinges in his chest. If he didn’t know better, he might have thought it the feeling of his heart breaking.
This wasn’t the usual rubbish W.G. Meadows—Eliza—wrote each week. She was attempting to build him up in the press after weeks of tearing him down. It was a boring column. But it was full of praise.
Eliza showed no change, no sign of life. Her skin was a ghostly pale. Her breath was faint. She did not look like a traitor or a spy or evil. In fact, she looked like nothing more than a pretty young girl.
The footmen were taking forever with the bathwater. Jenny was probably snogging Thomas the footman in the hall.
Time moved slowly, it seemed, when one’s world was cracking and disintegrating. This paper in his hands wasn’t what he had expected. He didn’t know heads from tales anymore.
Wycliff continued to read: rubbish about him and Lady Shackley and some outrageous yarns Harlan was known to spin to impress women.
He read it all the way to the end, and then again, and again and again. Not once was there mention of the one thing that would have the ton in a collective fit of hysterics: the child.
Eliza had taken his wages, shared his wine, his roof, and nearly shared his bed. But she had lied to him, deceived him, and must have thought him a fool the whole time. While he panted over his housemaid and gave her every consideration, she’d just been taunting him with her feminine wiles. For his secrets.
Good God, he wanted to throttle her. But then he remembered—with a rush of something like relief or excitement or hope—if the Earl of Alvanley was to be trusted, Eliza was worth ten thousand pounds. He needed money. He held proof in his hands.
And she wasn’t the only one who could use seduction to obtain secrets.
With great care, Wycliff folded the page along the same lines.
Jenny returned, ready to give her a bath.
Wycliff decided he would feign ignorance of Eliza’s secret . . . until he learned all of hers. Why had she taken the knife? Did she know her attacker? Wh
at happened in Brighton?
These things he wished to know, and he deserved to know.
And then he would turn her in to Lord Alvanley, take the money and set sail for Timbuktu, leaving behind that ocean-eyed beauty with whom he’d almost fallen in love.
Chapter 33
Awakening
When she woke a few hours later, Eliza fervently wished she had not. Her mouth was dry, as if she’d slept with cotton scraps stuffed in her cheeks. Her head throbbed viciously. Moving her arms to rub her temples required strength she simply did not possess.
She drifted off again, awakening to the soft, muted light of morning. The duke sat on a chair beside her bed. His bed.
Her room was a narrow garret in the attic, with one small pane of glass and a narrow cot. There was no room for a man in a maid’s bedchamber. This was most certainly not her room, or her bed. It belonged to the duke.
Her eyes widened in alarm and she opened her mouth, but no sound came out. What was she doing here? What had happened to her?
Wycliff helped her to a seated position—moving was excruciating and nearly impossible on her own. He even fluffed the pillows behind her for support. He cradled her head in his large, open palms and held a cool glass of water to her lips. She drank thirstily.
As she did, her senses and her memory returned. Realizations dawned upon her, like the sun rising to illuminate awful truths that the night had kept hidden. As her awareness brightened, so did the blood in her veins turn cold.
The last thing she recalled was that devil, Liam. They had been in the alley . . .
What was she doing in the alley?
Escape. Why had she been out and about?
The London Weekly’s usual meeting. Yes, the meeting where Knightly had cruelly rejected her writing and callously handed it back to her in front of everyone. The pitying glances of Grenville, the other Writing Girls and the other writers. And then she had been dismissed.