by Maya Rodale
CHAPTER TWO
* * *
In Which There Is Nudity
Wycliff House
WITHIN FOUR-AND-TWENTY hours of his return to English soil, Sebastian Digby, the new Duke of Wycliff, had a caller. His idiot cousin Basil had come to visit. Worse, Basil brought a decade’s worth of gossip and a deplorable inability to discern the interesting from the mundane.
Sebastian—still not used to the name Wycliff applied to himself—had once been held in an Egyptian prison with a man who insisted on telling the long, excruciatingly dull history of herding cattle in the desert. Basil’s company and conversation rivaled that for sleep inducing properties.
Nevertheless, in proper English fashion they took tea before the fireplace on another damp, gray March afternoon.
A maid dusted the bookshelves. She had a very nice backside. Such was the saving grace of the afternoon.
Basil rambled on. He reported all the major scandals—marriages, a divorce, duels and deaths—and briefly mentioned news regarding Lady Althea Shackley. At the mention of her name, Wycliff shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
Basil then mentioned the creditors plaguing the household and loitering in front of the house. News that the duke had returned spread like the plague, and hordes of merchants crawled out of the woodwork to demand payments owed for services rendered by the previous duke, or that had accumulated whilst Wycliff was adventuring on the far side of the world.
Wycliff knew he would have to do something about them. Pay them, presumably.
Or swiftly depart for lands unknown. He was leaning toward the latter. Timbuktu, in particular.
“We had all given you up for dead,” Basil began. “Though rumors would float back every now and then.”
“We?”
“Myself, my missus, the rest of the ton,” Basil explained. “But then we all heard rumors of your adventures and whereabouts. Is it true that you spent a week in a harem ravishing a hundred concubines of the sultan?”
Gossip apparently was not much troubled by distance.
Nearby, the maid with the lovely bottom slowed with her dusting, as if she were eavesdropping. He assumed so; anyone would be. Dull as Basil might be, he was far more interesting than dusting.
Wycliff grinned at the memory of the one exquisite night of unbridled passion kindled by the grave threat of discovery. Some things were worth risking life and limb for.
“It was only one night,” he clarified. The maid coughed. Aye, she was listening. And doing the math.
“That’s the sort of rumors and gossip that will have the ton matrons in a tizzy,” Basil remarked. He bit into a biscuit and brushed the bread crumbs from his puce-colored waistcoat.
“That’s what I do, Basil,” Sebastian replied. He always had. It’s what the Wycliffs had done for generations. There wasn’t a more outrageous, debauched, devil-may-care clan in England’s history. The men were notorious for dallying with the household maids, for spending fortunes on mistresses, and for generally being a drunken, undisciplined lot. Oddly enough, they tended to marry stern, practical, cold wives. The sort that might manage to impose some order and civilizing behavior. None had ever managed to do so.
His own parents were no exception. By some miracle, he had inherited his mother’s rigid self-control, and it warred constantly with his Wicked Wycliff blood.
“I suppose it doesn’t take much to upset the ton,” Basil conceded. He clearly took after the other side of the family. The dull side. “Now what about those rumors that you were a pirate?”
“What about them?” Wycliff asked, lifting his brow suggestively just to provoke his cousin. He ought to invite Harlan to join them. Basil would surely be aghast at the man’s eye patch, injured arm, and pirate charade. He wondered if the parrot had survived the journey from Fiji to London to Wycliff House.
“Will you not deny it?” Basil asked, his voice tinged with glee. “And do tell about Tahiti. I heard that’s where they found you.”
“Warm crystal blue waters sparkling on white sand beaches, incessant sunshine, loose, barely clad women. It gets a bit boring after a while,” Wycliff said with a shrug. Monroe Burke, friend and rival, had found him there with the news of the previous duke’s passing. Or, the news that he had a reason to return after a decade abroad.
“You were bored in a tropical paradise and returned to England to claim your dukedom,” Basil stated. “Hmmph.”
“Such is life …” Wycliff mused. He was supposed to feel guilty about his travels and adventures, but he had refused. He knew he was supposed to thank his bloody stars he’d been born a duke, but more often than not it felt more like a burden than a blessing. Instead, he went after what he wanted in life, dukedom be damned. Was that such a crime, or was it a well-lived life?
The maid glanced over her shoulder, and even with her face in profile he could see her scowl. That, and her delicate English features and a creamy complexion. A little pink rosebud of a mouth. Her hair was dark and pulled into a tight knot at the base of her neck. Wycliff wanted to see more. He wanted to see her eyes.
“Well, best of luck to you upon reentering society,” Basil said, casting a critical eye on Wycliff’s appearance. “You’ll have to cut your hair, of course. And you will never get into Almack’s with … with … that earring.”
Little did Basil know, the small gold hoop—a sailor’s traditional burial funds—was the least of the decoration he’d picked up on his travels.
“Of all the placed I’ve traveled to, from Africa to Australia, and Almack’s is the one that’s inaccessible to me,” Wycliff drawled. “Pity, that.”
The maid couldn’t restrain a bubble of laughter. Definitely listening.
“If you want a wife and an heir, you’ll have to venture to Almack’s. Brave that, or else everything shall go to me!” Basil said with a touch of glee. “Sure would please my missus.”
Wycliff glanced at the maid, who lifted her brow, silently suggesting that he’d do best to take a wife rather than leave an entire dukedom to Basil, for Lord’s sake.
“Not that there is much to inherit, given the bothersome creditors by your door,” Basil added. “Still, my missus would fancy herself a duchess.”
Wycliff’s expression darkened. Then he reminded himself that he wouldn’t care about Basil inheriting because he himself would be dead. Quite frankly, that was the Wycliff tradition: worry not, for the heirs shall sort out the mess with the mortgaged estates, rampant debt, rebellious tenants, etc, etc.
Bastards.
The maid kept dusting—had it not been done in years?—moving on now toward his desk. Being bored and women-starved, Wycliff freely ogled her bottom and the hourglass shape of her hips. Her eyes, though—he wished to see her eyes. A man could tell so much about a woman by her eyes.
“But you must take a wife, if only for the fortune,” Basil continued, and Wycliff did not disagree with him. “First, you’ll need to cut your hair, visit Saville Row for proper attire—”
Wycliff wore plain buckskin breeches and a shirt that was open at the collar and rolled at the sleeves. His boots had carried him through Africa, pounded the decks of dozens of ships, waded through swamps and seas alike. Frankly, his clothing looked like it had suffered all that and worse.
“I thought it was enough to be a duke,” he interrupted rudely.
“Sometimes it is,” Basil replied. “But if you are desperate …”
“I am not desperate.”
In fact, he had no intention of shackling himself. He had other plans for his time in England—namely, to plan and seek funding for the expedition of a lifetime, before he set sail once more. But Basil would not accept this, so he didn’t even bother to try to persuade his cousin otherwise. Instead he allowed him to carry on.
“Well you ought to find a wife,” Basil said. “I’d be delighted to assist you, introduce you around, etcetera.”
If he was planning to take a wife, Wycliff mused, telling his idiot cousin would be the first mist
ake. That was the path to matchmaking disasters and other high society atrocities.
“Thank you, cousin. So very kind of you.”
And with that Basil slurped one last sip of tea, set down the cup, and stood to go. Finally, this visit would be over and he could get on with reacclimating himself to his native country. Beginning with the brothels.
Basil ambled through the study, slowing as he neared the desk. Wycliff swore under his breath.
“Don’t look,” Wycliff muttered. Basil looked. Of course he looked.
“I say, are those drawings of your travels?” his cousin exclaimed. He then took the liberty of lifting one up for a better view.
“Blimey, cousin! What the devil—” Basil’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head.
It was a portrait of a girl named Miri; she had graciously allowed him to draw her, including the tattoos that covered her hands, which were clutching her full, luscious breasts. She was laughing in the picture, and he couldn’t recall why; he would never know now, unless he sailed back to ask her.
He ignored a pang of longing, like homesickness.
“Tattooing,” Wycliff explained. “It’s a Tahitian custom that involves sharp bone tapping ink under the skin. It takes days. It’s excruciating—” He stopped when Basil’s skin adopted a greenish hue, matching his waistcoat.
The maid was angling for a look at the drawing, too, and he grinned, and allowed her to see. He watched her eyes widen and look up to him, searching for answers.
The look knocked the smile off his face and kicked his breath away. Blue. Her eyes were gray-blue like the ocean, where he longed to be.
“I suppose one would expect such customs from the savages,” said the idiot cousin. Wycliff rolled his eyes.
“They’re not savages, Basil, they are people who happen to live by a different set of cultural practices,” he lectured.
“Of course, given your travels you may have a different perspective, but really, no one on earth surpasses the British,” Basil replied, riffling through more sheets.
Of someone else’s private property. Idiot. Cousin.
The maid bit her lip. She wanted to speak, and Wycliff was very intrigued.
“Well that one is quite a stunner,” Basil said, referring to a watercolor of Orama, a lovely woman with soft lips and a warm embrace, who had allowed him to sketch her nude form as she rose like Aphrodite from the ocean with the turquoise water lapping around her hips. She was breathtaking, and it was some vile mistake that his idiot cousin Basil should be able to look at such raw beauty.
Out of the corner of his eye Wycliff saw the little maid’s cheeks turn pink. He’d forgotten how adorably prudish and modest English women could be.
Wycliff took the sheet away from Basil, and the other sketches, “For all your talk of civilized behavior in England, it seems quite uncivilized to sort through a man’s personal papers.”
“Indeed, indeed. I say, my apologies. One just has such a curiosity for all things exotic. You’ll have to join me at my club, cousin, and tell my friends of your travels,” Basil offered. Wycliff muttered something like agreement, even though he had no desire to sit around a stuffy old club with stuffy old men.
Finally, after much ado, Basil was gone and he was alone with the maid. She curtsied awkwardly before him, murmured “Your Grace” and asked if there was anything she could provide him with. All with that little pink mouth of hers. Wicked thoughts crossed his mind, but he would not give voice to those, even though it would be such a typical Wicked Wycliff thing to do.
“If you can, I’d like that hour of my life back,” he said frankly.
“If I had the ability to turn back time, I’d have no need of your wages,” she replied tartly as she gathered up the tea things. It ought to have been a simple affair, but china cups clattered against sauces and silver spoons clinked across the tray and she spilled the milk. She also swore under her breath, which delighted him. She must have met Harlan already, he thought, or had some unsavory past of her own.
Thus far this little maid with the sea-blue eyes and salty language was the only thing of interest in England.
“What is your name?” he asked.
She hesitated before answering. “Eliza.”
With her arms laden with the tea tray, she managed a short, awkward curtsey on her way out, treating him to a splendid view of her backside, again.
Once she was gone, he pulled the key from the leather cord he wore around his neck and used it to unlock and open the door leading from the library to a room otherwise cut off from the rest of the house. It was here that he kept those things he wished no one to see. Not yet.
CHAPTER THREE
* * *
In Which the Nudity Is His Grace’s
Later that day, dusk
ELIZA STOOD OUTSIDE the door to His Grace’s bedchamber, summoning the gumption to walk in unannounced while His Grace was in a bath. Naked. It wasn’t as if she’d never seen a naked man before. She wasn’t some sheltered missish thing.
The protocol for a situation like this eluded her: a naked duke, in the bath, without a drying cloth. She probably shouldn’t go in. Or should she? Having never grown up with servants, nor having been one herself, Eliza was learning everything about her new job the hard way.
She had filled that damned bathtub—hauling heavy buckets of boiling water up three floors—with the help of another housemaid, Jenny. The task required moving fast enough to keep the water warm, but not so fast that they’d spill it. It had been excruciating. The duke had better enjoy his damned bath.
In Eliza’s haste and inexperience, she had forgotten to leave a drying cloth. She did not yet know if he was the type to roar and holler in anger, and she did not care to find out, because he was an imposing, intimidating hulk of a man and because she was the type to roar and holler back. That spelled trouble. That spelled fired, and she could not lose this position or her story for The London Weekly.
Get the story. Get the story.
Thus, she debated. Leave him without a drying cloth? Or interrupt?
He hadn’t arrived with a valet, or hired one yet, which meant there was no one else to attend to him …
Such was the life of a writer, undercover and in disguise. The things she did for Mr. Knightly, and for The Weekly! If she had to go to such lengths to get a story published—employed as a housemaid in the most scandalous household in town—then by damn, she would. She would not lose her position. Not over this.
She ought to go in, she reasoned. She would not pay attention to him, and he would do the same because she was a servant and thus utterly beneath his notice. That much she knew about master and servant relations. Yet she had a feeling it would not be so simple.
Eliza recalled the way His Grace had looked at her in the study this afternoon, and how his gaze felt like an intimate caress. The man left her breathless.
“Bother it all,” she muttered, and entered his chambers. Then she stopped short.
She saw the duke in the bath, as expected. But it was no ordinary sight. His hair was wet and slicked back from his face, showing off strong, hard features. His mouth was full and firm and not smiling. Even in this pose of relaxation, he put her in mind of a warrior: always aware, always ready.
The water lapped at his waist, his chest a wide, exposed expanse of taut skin over sculpted muscle. As Eliza stepped toward him and saw more of the man illuminated by the burning embers in the grate and the flickering of candles, she noticed that his chest was covered in inky blue-black lines. Tattoos, like the drawing.
She gasped. His eyes opened.
“Hello, Eliza.” The duke’s voice was low, smoky, and sent tremors down her spine. The window was slightly ajar and the cool breeze made the candle flames dance wildly, casting slate-colored shadows, making the room seem like some strange, magical, otherworld.
“Your Grace,” she murmured, and bobbed into a curtsey.
“Have you come to join me?” he asked in a rough voice, and she cou
ld not tell if he was serious or bamming her.
“My wages don’t cover that, either, Your Grace,” she replied, not yet having mastered her subservience, but she was rewarded for her impertinence when his mouth curved into a grin.
Eliza’s gaze inevitably drifted back to his nudity. The tattooing covered the broad expanse of his muscled chest, wrapping up over the shoulders and generously covering his upper arms, even inching onto his forearms. A million questions were poised on the tip of her tongue. Yet her mouth was suddenly too dry to form words.
“Tattoos,” he confirmed, reading her mind. “It’s a Tahitian custom. When in Rome …”
“You mentioned that it was painful,” she said, referring to the exchange earlier. “It seems like it must be.”
“Like the devil.”
“Why would you do it, then?”
“Because to not do so is considered cowardly,” he explained in a low voice.
“That’s all? Because you do not wish to be seen as weak in front of men on the far side of the world?”
The duke laughed. “You don’t understand men, do you?”
“Apparently not,” she replied dryly.
“The sketches are one thing to see; this is another entirely. Wouldn’t you agree?” Eliza nodded yes. “It’s a record of my travels, and one of many artifacts that I have collected and brought back to England. There’s a whole world out there, beyond London. People should know that.”
“Can I look closer?” she asked in a whisper, because it seemed too illicit to ask a duke for an intimate glimpse of his person. But she had to see the tattoos up close. If she could touch them, she would. This was the sort of thing The Weekly would love. But also, her own curiosity impelled her to seek satisfaction.