The Tattooed Duke (26 page)

Chapter 51

In Which Our Heroine Is Thwarted

The ladies retiring room

O
h, the indignity of it all burned. Burned! Eliza scowled. Furious, furious!

First, she and Annabelle found themselves locked in the ladies’ retiring room.

No, first she was drenched in her own champagne, thanks to Lady Althea. Her new silk dress had been utterly ruined, despite her efforts to blot off the champagne.

“It’s all right, you now have ten thousand pounds, so you can just buy another,” Annabelle said in an attempt to console her.

“That wasn’t how I planned to spend it. And I still have to leave the ball early or wander around in a wet dress. I’m not completely familiar with the rules of high society, but I’m quite sure that is not done.” She couldn’t greet Wycliff while in a wet dress and stinking of champagne!

“We’ll just borrow one from Sophie. You’ll be gone for a half hour at the least.”

“Annabelle, I don’t have the time. It’s past midnight now!”

“Then we had better go. Never mind about your dress. I’m sure it will be dark enough.”

That was when they discovered the door had been locked. From the outside. Or perhaps it was stuck, or secured shut. One thing was obvious: the door would not open. One thing was painfully clear: there would be no midnight rendezvous for Eliza.

“Oh, Eliza, I am so sorry,” Annabelle moaned.

“Why are you sorry? None of this is your fault.” It was the fault of Lady Althea. Or fate. Something was conspiring to keep her away from her true love.

“I mean, I’m sorry as in I commiserate with you. I suppose you might say ‘commissorry,’ ” Annabelle said.

“Is that even a word?” Eliza asked.

“I think I just invented it,” Annabelle said, smiling in spite of the circumstances.

“If only you could invent a way out of this retiring room.”

Eventually they achieved escape by the utterly unremarkable method of waiting until another woman needed the necessary and opened the door from the outside. Eliza and Annabelle dashed out, walking at an exceedingly unladylike pace.

They were not alone. A steady stream of guests proceeded from the ballroom to the library. A Scene was most certainly in progress. The two Writing Girls arrived in time to hear Lady Althea (for it must be she!) announce, “The duke proposed!”

“Oh, Eliza!” Annabelle lamented in a tone of deep commissorry. But Eliza was already pushing her way through the crowds on her way out of the house. She wished only to be home, in her own bed at her parents’ flat near Covent Garden. She wished to remove this sodden dress and wake up in the morning able to pretend for a moment that none of this—the column, the duke, the scandal—had ever happened. To pretend for one brief shining moment that she hadn’t met the love of her life. And lost him.

To Hades’ Own Harpy.

At that, Eliza began to cry.

She raised her hand high, to hail a hack. That overwhelming desire to be home clouded any common sense and judgment she might have possessed. She had loved, and had lost. Nothing else mattered.

That is, until she was grabbed, bound, gagged, and tossed into a carriage that swiftly took off at a gallop.

Chapter 52

In Which Our Heroine Is Missing

Library, Wycliff House

T
hose damned newspapers trumpeted his betrothal and impeding marriage—the one he had never proposed, never agreed to, and flatly denied. Wycliff tossed the news rags aside. He did not even bother with the dramatics of getting up from his comfortable upholstered chair by the fire only to storm the vast distance of six feet, furiously crumple the sheets, and feed them to the flames.

There was no reason to put on a performance when there was no audience, no sly housemaid discreetly watching him with her ocean blue eyes. Eliza was gone and he could feel her absence—as if the house were suddenly empty of furniture. It was that obvious. It felt that spare. Hollow.

He would become accustomed to it, and then he would leave. Alone.

Good riddance, he told himself. But the thought wouldn’t hold; the feelings weren’t there to support it. He missed her, in spite of all logic and reason.

Just because the newspapers said he was going to marry Lady Althea Shackley did not mean that he would.

Perhaps if it had been an honest misunderstanding. Perhaps if lust had overpowered his wit and reason. Instead it was a plot by some starry-eyed society miss that had been hijacked by Hades’ Own Harpy. He valued his freedom more than any pretense to honor or society’s rules.

“Your Grace,” Saddler intoned from somewhere in the vicinity of his left shoulder. The duke shuddered, which was damned undignified.

“Good God, man, announce yourself! Cease sneaking up on me.”

“My apologies, Your Grace,” Saddler said in the same monotone voice. “You have callers. Ladies. Three of them.”

“Oh dear God,” Wycliff groaned. In no way could three female callers mean anything good.

“My thoughts precisely, Your Grace,” the butler took the liberty of saying.

“Is Lady Althea Shackley one of these ladies?”

“No, Your Grace. I believe they are the Writing Girls.” Saddler uttered the name in the same tone and with the same face he might say
Lucifer’s harem.
He did not hold “Satan’s own news rag” and the women who wrote for it in much regard.

“Show them to the drawing room,” Wycliff ordered. Because he was an adventurer. An explorer. And three Writing Girls begged the question: where was the fourth?

In the drawing room, three anguished faces peered up at him desperately. Much hand-wringing was in progress. Introductions were swiftly performed so they could get to the business of what was so devastating that they would ignore society’s rules to call upon the likes of him.

Eliza was not among them. Why?

He schooled his features into a passive, bored expression. But there was a gnawing sensation in his gut that foretold doom.

“Your Grace, we are sorry to intrude, but an urgent matter has come to our attention,” said the duchess, Lady Brandon.

“Eliza is missing,” the blond one blurted out, mercifully getting straight to the heart of the matter.
It is not my concern
, Wycliff tried to tell himself. But the thought wouldn’t take hold.

“We are not certain of Eliza’s whereabouts and thought you might shed light upon the matter. Is she here?” Lady Roxbury asked briskly.

He let out a rich baritone laugh at that.

“Why, pray tell, would I know?” he asked. “Perhaps I have taken her captive as punishment for her brutal portrayal of me in the press, which has thrown innumerable obstacles to my life’s work. Perhaps you suspect something more salacious. But if you haven’t heard, I am betrothed. To Lady Shackley. But you,” he said, focusing his gaze on the redhead, Lady Roxbury, “were present. And if I know women, there aren’t secrets between them, so I can only conclude that you two also know as well. Or at the very least, one might assume that you Writing Girls read the newspapers.”

“Lady Charlotte is very sorry,” the duchess said. She looked truly pained about it.

“Yes, well, she’ll get her comeuppance one day, and it will be entirely of her own making. Then you can be certain of one man who will not come to her rescue.”

“Speaking of rescue, we are afraid for Eliza,” Annabelle, the blond one, cut in. She seemed on the verge of tears. Horrors.

“That is why we are here,” Lady Roxbury said.

“I told you, I don’t know where she is.” He was irritated. She was no longer his concern. For better or for worse. He scowled, wondering why it felt like
worse.

“Which bring us to our second question,” Lady Roxbury said.

“Will you help us find her?” the duchess asked.

Wycliff laughed, and again it was not a merry sound. Of all the women, all over the world, none had gotten under his skin and wormed her way into his heart the way this one had. He wanted to bark out a no and send these chits scurrying for cover. He wanted, desperately, to not give a damn that she was missing. But his pulse hadn’t quite been steady since they said the words
Eliza
and
missing.

This must be love, Wycliff thought, very reluctantly. Any notion of pride or right or wrong or anything—anything!—paled in comparison to one truth: his beloved had to be well. Eliza had to be safe. That was all that mattered.

Only now did he pause to truly consider life without her. Cataloguing insects without her banter. Hothouse work without hothouse kisses. What were his scandalous tattoos without her hands, her mouth, her touch, her gaze upon them? He thought of her gaze over the breakfast table (she should be seated at his side not serving him coffee). He thought of her first thing in the morning and last thing at night. He thought of this emptiness in the house, without her in it.

Wycliff even imagined arriving at Timbuktu—and turning to Eliza for a kiss of joy and triumph.

But her deception . . .

But she told his secrets . . .

But she used him . . .

But she was married . . .

But suddenly it didn’t matter. At least, not enough.

There was not a second thought in his mind or a question in his heart: he would save her. He would make sure she was safe. He made no promises other than that.

Mrs. Buxby chose that moment to enter with a tray of tea.

“You rang for tea?” Wycliff inquired of his guests, who were making themselves right at home.

“I am with child,” Lady Roxbury replied. “I constantly require replenishment.”

“Then you might not wish to drink this,” Wycliff told her. She lifted her nose at him and proceeded to pour a cup for herself. He bit back a laugh as she sputtered upon the shock of whiskey-laced tea.

“The ladies need fortification,” Mrs. Buxby said defensively. “Especially if they are to search for Eliza.”

“How do you know about that?” Wycliff asked.

“Oh for Lord’s sake, Your Grace, all of your servants know everything! Any one of us could have penned that column. If we could write, that is.”

In all of his years, Mrs. Penelope Buxby had been a kindly, sweet, tipsy old matron. She hadn’t spoken to him like this since . . . since he was a boy sneaking out of the nursery in search of cake.

“Your are quite forthright today,” Wycliff told her. “Have you been drinking, Mrs. Buxby?”

“Only tea,” she retorted. One of the Writing Girls stifled a giggle. Mrs. Buxby said “Hmmph” and went off to eavesdrop from the hallway.

“When did you see her last?” Wycliff asked. She couldn’t be very lost; Eliza was too smart for that. All he needed to do was help them remember some perfectly logical and safe location where she’d planned to be. Or was that wishful thinking? His heart pounded heavily in his chest.
Eliza, missing.

“She and I were locked in the ladies’ retiring room from just before midnight to quarter after,” Annabelle explained.

“How does one lock oneself in a room?” he asked, leaning against the mantel and folding his arms over his chest.

“It was a nefarious plot,” Annabelle said solemnly. “I dare not make false accusations, however—”

“Oh, it was likely Lady Althea did it to conveniently remove her rival,” Lady Roxbury cut in. “That grand scene was supposed to be for you and Eliza, I am told.” She watched him closely, searching for his reaction. He wouldn’t give her one. But damn, how much simpler things would have been . . .

His heart beat hard. He thought about doing things on his time, not having his hand forced, of not bowing to society’s whims and dictations. He was not that kind of man, which was why Lady Shackley would remain Lady Shackley.

“Lady Charlotte is extremely apologetic,” Lady Brandon had to add. Again.

“Once you two managed to escape, what next?” Wycliff asked, in an attempt to focus his thoughts and avoid the hurricane.

“We joined the throngs outside the library just in time to hear Lady Althea announce that you proposed. And then she fled. I tried to follow her—I got as far as the front door of Wycliff House. But then I lost her in the courtyard. There were so many carriages and drivers. It was so dark.”

“Thus Eliza has been missing for nearly twelve hours,” he concluded.

“I had thought she was with Julianna,” Lady Brandon said. There were dark circles under her eyes. He only noticed this now.

“And I had thought she was with Sophie,” Lady Roxbury said, wringing her hands. She, too, looked like a wreck of nerves and lack of sleep.

“Me, too,” Annabelle said. “I thought she’d gone to change after Lady Althea bumped into her, spilling champagne down the front of her dress.”

“We didn’t notice until she failed to turn up this morning to discuss the ball, as we had planned,” Lady Roxbury added.

“Has it occurred to any of you that she might not have wished to join you?” Wycliff asked.

“No. Don’t be ridiculous,” Lady Brandon retorted.

“We sent a man to inquire with her parents,” Lady Roxbury explained. “And we have even inquired with Knightly. No one knows where she is.”

“We thought that if she were not with you,” Annabelle explained, “then that man Liam might know.” When he appeared blank, she clarified: “The one you keep locked in the basement dungeon.”

He heaved the sigh of a weary man plagued by females.

“First, there is no dungeon. Second, he escaped. Third, do you really believe all that rubbish when you write it yourselves?” Wycliff asked.

“Knightly wrote that column,” Lady Roxbury said. “The one Eliza had turned in was too flattering, since she was trying to repair the damage she’d done to your reputation. Knightly wouldn’t publish it. You should know that.”

What else did he not know? He had seen naught but treachery, deception, callous disregard for his privacy. But what of her own dreams and demons? Wycliff realized there was so much of which he was unaware. The woman who could enlighten him was missing.

He glanced around at the three anxious faces.

“Your Grace,” Annabelle said. “Eliza is our friend, and we love her, and we have good reason to believe she is in need of your help.” Her cheeks flushed pink with emotion as she continued her impassioned plea: “If you have a shred of tenderness in that heart of yours, please do assist us. But if you do not, please cease wasting our time. If we should find her moments too late, I should never forgive myself,”

“I will help,” he said quietly. The hurricane raged within. Eliza lost . . . what if they didn’t find her? What if she were lost to him forever?

Anguish wasn’t quite the word. Regret sounded too neat and tidy. There was a tremendous sense of loss. A hollowness that had always been there, that he was only now aware of when he realized the one thing—the one woman—who might fill it could have vanished without a trace. There was much to regret about their last encounters, for he had been cruel and merciless to a girl who had only been trying to survive in a world with all the odds stacked high against her.

No, anguish did not even begin to describe what he felt.

“Now where shall we begin our search?” Lady Roxbury said crisply.

A heart-wrenching silence descended upon the room, for not one of them had even the slightest clue.