by Maya Rodale
“Good Lord above,” Annabelle whispered, fanning herself furiously.
“That is nothing compared to Wycliff,” Eliza remarked truthfully, as she walked away from the statue and moved on to the next, leaving stunned companions in her wake.
It was a far cry from their usual Sunday afternoon activity: lolling about sipping tea and flipping through issues of La Belle Assemblée. Eliza knew it was vexing for Annabelle to see all those gorgeous dresses that she could not afford nor had occasion to wear. She felt the same.
After her week of hard labor, she wouldn’t have minded slouching on a settee, being served tea and cookies, and idly gossiping. Though she had to admit, gaping at nude male statues wasn’t altogether bad.
“I thought it would be pottery,” Annabelle said. Her cheeks were bright pink.
“Over here,” Sophie indicated. They all crossed the room to admire the pottery. Which, of course, had nude men chasing after nude women. And lutes.
“Who knew pottery could be so interesting?” Lady Charlotte mused. “And who knew the ancients were so . . . naked.”
“Charlotte!” Sophie hissed.
“Oh, when did you become such a stick in the mud, Sophie?” Julianna asked.
“Since I became responsible for the virtue of a young trouble-prone lady,” Sophie muttered.
“Imagine if we adopted this tendency toward nudity,” Lady Charlotte carried on.
Annabelle blushed furiously. Eliza’s face also took on a pinkish hue. Every image of an undressed male brought Wycliff to mind. He was so much more impressive than this collection of marble men. And that wasn’t even considering his tattoos, which made him so much more forbidden and wicked.
“Pray tell, Eliza, what has your cheeks burning?” Julianna prodded. That was the vexing thing about having a particularly observant friend.
“Oh, you know,” Eliza said airily. She couldn’t quite say it aloud. But could it be anything else?
“The duke. You must be smitten,” Sophie said, grinning.
“Of course she is, if he is anything like how he used to be,” Julianna added. “And, naturally, given how he is reputed to be of late.”
“What had he been like before?” Eliza asked. It was a fair question; any reporter ought to inquire about her subject’s past. She just happened to be interested for her own reasons as well.
Julianna explained in a hushed but excited tone: “Well, all the Dukes of Wycliff were utterly wicked and notorious rakes. Ballroom legend has it that no Duke of Wycliff has ever been reformed. They have married—and they tend to pledge their troth to the most stern and strict women, oddly enough—and they have produced heirs, but none has ever surrendered his wicked ways.”
“Doesn’t that sound like a challenge?” Lady Charlotte asked. “A delicious, tempting, splendid challenge?”
“No, Charlotte, it does not. At least not for you,” Sophie admonished.
Eliza wasn’t thinking of reforming him. No, her thoughts strayed to matters far less noble and much more wicked.
Wycliff hadn’t knocked on her door last night, as he warned he might. Would she have answered if he had? She felt a shiver of danger, because she would have opened the door—and not for the story.
“The duke mentioned an altercation with Lady Shackley,” Eliza began as the group strolled through the galleries, idly gazing at more nude statues and pottery. She couldn’t ask Wycliff about the slap heard ’round the ballroom, but she could ask Julianna.
“Oh, that was thrilling,” Lady Charlotte gushed.
“Did he mention it to you?” Julianna asked. “Are you conversing with the duke? Is the duke confiding in you?”
They were curious. Rightfully so. Dukes and housemaids tupping was one thing; confiding in each other was quite another.
“It’s nothing,” Eliza said with a shrug, because she didn’t know if in fact it was something or nothing. At the moment she was more interested in what existed between Wycliff and Lady Shackley. “I confess I am curious about her. And him. It might be useful information for my column. And I can’t possibly ask the duke.”
“Well, I presume the slap was a long time coming, and in response to the manner in which Wycliff left Lady Shackley years ago.”
“They had been sweethearts?” Eliza inquired.
“Lovers,” Julianna said, and Eliza felt it like a fist to her belly. “Wycliff was caught in bed with Lady Althea Shackley, by her husband. I have it on very good authority that Lord Shackley heard them all the way in the foyer—from behind closed bedchamber doors. On the third floor.”
“How shameless,” Eliza said. But she felt a shiver of . . . danger? Excitement? Craving?
“Lady Shackley was promptly sent off to the Outer Hebrides. She returned when her husband died, a few years ago, and has since refused numerous proposals. Everyone is of the opinion that she was saving herself for Wycliff’s return,” Julianna informed her as they continued their stroll. It was tremendously useful having a gossip columnist as a friend.
“A slap across the face is a curious way to greet one’s long-lost lover,” Eliza remarked.
“I can understand it perfectly,” Julianna said. But then again, she had shot her husband, before they married. “Because here is the other part of the story: the late Lord Shackley, upon discovering them, paid Wycliff one thousand pounds to leave the country. His friend, Burke, offered him a place on his ship. And the rest, they say, is history.”
“I’m not sure that I would forgive him if I were Lady Shackley,” Annabelle said thoughtfully. “But if he was forced by circumstances beyond their control . . .”
“If Roxbury accepted money to leave me, I would hunt him down and really make him pay for it,” Julianna said passionately.
“Ah, young love,” Lady Charlotte said with a sigh. They all laughed.
“I actually made the acquaintance of Lady Shackley yesterday,” Sophie said. “We met during Lady Walmsly’s calling hours. She was very well versed with your column, Eliza.”
“Her long-lost lover returns,” Annabelle said, “and she is now unattached. She must be tremendously excited.”
“And she is fueled by Eliza’s stories,” Julianna said. “It’s a wonder she stopped with the slap.”
“Oh, Eliza, your column was just delicious,” Sophie said with a smile. “I cannot believe the ruse you are up to.”
“I am enjoying the experience, other than the chores,” Eliza said. “I feel that I learned things about other cultures.”
“Yes, that’s why we enjoyed your column. For the educational benefits,” Lady Charlotte said primly—but with a wicked gleam in her eye.
“Not at all because of her lengthy descriptions of his lengthy—”
“Julianna, you are a lady,” Annabelle hissed.
“Oh Annabelle, you know how she is,” Sophie said, laughing.
“Scandal monger,” Eliza said, grinning.
“Yes, but now you are as well!” Julianna added, linking their arms together. “What shall be the subject of your next column?”
“The duke!” Eliza exclaimed in a strangled whisper.
“Of course it will be the duke,” Sophie said, looking puzzled.
“He’s here,” Eliza hissed before frantically dodging behind the nearest statue, ever mindful of her disguise. Housemaids were generally not in the habit of museum strolls with duchesses and countesses.
“What are you doing?” Sophie asked.
“I can’t let him see me here,” Eliza whispered. “That would ruin everything.”
From her hiding place, she watched as Wycliff conversed with an older, gray-haired bespectacled man. He fit in perfectly with the museum, and Eliza wondered if he worked there. He and the duke shook hands firmly before the duke took his leave.
After an hour of strategic loitering, eavesdropping, and inquiring, Eliza managed to learn that the duke had come to visit Professor James Warwick, of the British Museum. But why? That, she would have yet to discover.
; Chapter 12
In Which Our Heroine Discovers Timbuktu
Monday
It was ridiculous, but she did not know where Timbuktu was and she very much wanted to. Eliza cursed her girl’s education, yet was still thankful her father, a playwright, had taught her to read and to write. Her mother had taught her very creative household accounting and acting. Her geography lessons didn’t cover much beyond stage right, stage left, or the city of London, which she knew extraordinarily well.
In the duke’s private study there were dozens of maps scattered across the table and a blue-green globe that spun on a stand. Armed with her feather duster as an excuse, Eliza slipped in when His Grace was out with Harlan in the garden, tending to some of the bizarre creatures they’d brought back.
While Jenny daydreamed, whistled, and stared out the window she was cleaning on the other side of the room, Eliza spun the globe around fast. And then slowly, inch by inch. She found England, France, Australia, Africa. Tahiti was much harder to locate, and Timbuktu . . . where the devil was it?
She hadn’t noticed the duke’s arrival until he stood behind her and whispered in her ear: “What are you looking for?”
Eliza shuddered and gasped, “Oh my lord.”
“No, merely your lord and master,” Wycliff replied, stepping back and grinning.
“Oh for Lord’s sake,” she retorted, turning around and biting back a smile. She noted that Jenny was still washing the windows and humming to herself, and only mildly interested in the duke’s presence. “I was dusting. And curious. Where might a girl find Timbuktu?”
“If it were easy enough that a girl could find it, it’d already have been discovered and colonized,” Wycliff remarked.
“And there wouldn’t be a ten thousand pound prize for finding it,” Eliza added.
“Considering the venture yourself?” Wycliff asked. He leaned against the bookshelf that had been stocked with leather-bound volumes and all sorts of curiosities from his travels. She would have to dust those later, too.
“Well now that you mention it, Your Grace, I daresay it’d be more exciting than cleaning.”
“That, you could be assured of. And much, much more dangerous.” There was a devilish spark in his eye that made her think there was plenty of danger right here.
His Grace stepped uncommonly close to her and pointed to a spot on the globe. His hands were riddled with scars, which did not surprise her in the least.
“Timbuktu is here, in northern Africa. Or it’s rumored to be.”
“It doesn’t look too far. What is the great challenge?”
“Mainly surviving disease, the extreme heat, crossing the desert, and the vicious, murderous tribes that live here and want to keep Europeans out.”
“And why do you wish to go and endure all of that? You could live so comfortably here, ordering around your staff and taking hot baths every morning, afternoon, and night.”
“Tempting,” the duke said in a low voice that warmed her up. “But Timbuktu is a challenge. It will test the limits of my wits and ability. Then there is glory, when I succeed. It’s something I could accomplish and be damned proud to have done so.”
“Being a duke isn’t glorious and challenging enough?” Eliza asked. From her vantage point, it seemed so.
“All I did was get born; I did nothing to deserve it,” Wycliff said. “The challenge is surviving the tedium of balancing account books.”
“Not as thrilling as exploring,” Eliza agreed. And she could see his point, though empathizing was another matter entirely.
“The life of a peer does not appeal to me, really. Sitting around at Parliament, at the club, in the library with accounts. Going to the same old parties with the same old people. It is not exactly my idea of a life well lived,” Wycliff said.
“You should try dusting and mopping the floors. It will give you an appreciation for it. Or at the very least, sitting,” Eliza remarked.
“Aye to that,” Jenny muttered on the other side of the room, reminding them that they were not alone, even though it felt like there was no one else in the world.
Wycliff smiled at her. “Touché, Eliza.” He pushed a strand of hair behind his ear, and the gold hoop glinted in the afternoon sunlight.
“But what about your duties here, Your Grace? The tenants on your estates, or the wages of your household staff . . .” Left unspoken was the question, How can you just dash off around the world and leave those that depend upon you?
That grin of his vanished. His jaw tightened and his eyes clouded with anger. She had offended him. Surprisingly, he didn’t make her suffer for it.
Before her eyes, she saw the transformation—the flash of feeling, and the overpowering self-control that allowed him to process and store that emotion and then smile lazily at her.
“You’re a bold, impertinent thing, aren’t you,” he drawled.
She decided to play along. “I take my excitement where I may, Your Grace.”
“Until I am off on the next wave of my great adventures, I suppose you will have to be my amusement. I find you infinitely more entertaining than the account books,” he said, grinning down at her in a way that made her knees weak.
“Well now isn’t that a compliment, if ever there was one,” Eliza said dryly. But she knew her cheeks were pink with pleasure, and that he saw.
“I’ve cavorted around the world on my charm alone,” he remarked.
“If that is the case, then what is keeping you here?”
“Besides some sense of duty to my noble station, even if I wish to leave it?” he asked dryly. “I want to lead my own expedition and I lack the funds to do so.” The duke spoke quietly, so low that Eliza knew that Jenny cleaning the windows on the other side of the room could not hear. So low and rough that she suspected he was saying it aloud for the first time. To her.
The globe spun lazily between them. They fell silent. She thought of Lady Shackley and her riches. She would have wagered the duke was thinking about that, too.
He stopped the globe and pointed to another spot in Europe.
“I started my explorations in Paris, particularly women’s boudoirs. Circumstances forced me to flee to Italy and then it was onward to Greece,” the duke explained, identifying the countries as he spoke. “My valet refused to travel further, so I went off on my own, through Egypt, Turkey. Down to Zanzibar, where I met Harlan. Tahiti is here—that’s where Burke had abandoned me and then came to collect me with the grim news about my father.”
He pointed out all these foreign places on the map to her. He’d covered so much of the globe and she had only left London, that once, for the disastrous and ill-fated trip to Brighton where she’d acted stupidly and paid the price for it.
Some things, some people, were best kept in the past, and some adventures were not worth having. She shuddered at the thought of that disaster. The duke placed his hand on the small of her back.
“Are you alright?” He ducked his head to be close to hers.
“Just fine. Thank you.”
Her heart had begun to race, and it had nothing to do with fear. It felt like pleasure.
“What is the most beautiful place you have been to?” she asked. It was the perfect opportunity to collect stories from His Grace. He was talkative, and she was absorbed by the lovely sensations of such intimacy and proximity to him. Best of all, Jenny was on the other side of the room, listening and whistling while cleaning the windows, so the duke couldn’t concretely blame her if one of his travel tales ended up on the pages of The London Weekly.
He spun tales of warm ocean water, stormy seas, cannibals and strange customs, brightly colored birds, battles and wild escapes from certain death. All the while, he kept his palm on the small of her back, hot and possessive.
Chapter 13
In Which There Is a Rivalry
Monday Evening
Being a destitute peer and social outcast meant that Wycliff had no club to turn to. Instead, he indulged in the classic activity o
f 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.
