The Tattooed Duke by Rodale Maya

Author:Rodale, Maya [Rodale, Maya]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2012-02-27T13:00:00+00:00

Chapter 30

In Which Our Heroine Experiences Utterly Devastating Public Mortification

Offices of The London Weekly

The meeting began as it always did, with Eliza dashing in at the last possible moment. It had been difficult to escape her chores and quit the household before being caught last week. Today it was well nigh impossible. She had actually shimmied out of the window in the music room, where she ought to have been dusting and sweeping. That was after spending an hour unsuccessfully attempting to break into that locked chamber.

Knightly strolled in, dark-haired, and blue-eyed, and utterly remote. To her left, Annabelle sighed. On her right, Julianna smartly mouthed the words along with Knightly as he said, “Ladies first.”

It was like any other meeting, until it wasn’t.

“There is a bounty on your head, Eliza,” Knightly said, bemused, as if not sure to take the threat seriously or to take it as an indication of spectacular success.

“Ten thousand pounds,” Julianna whispered. “From Lord Alvanley.”

“Can he afford that?” Eliza asked. It was an unthinkable sum to her.

“He once wagered three thousand pounds on which raindrop would trickle to the bottom of the bow window in White’s,” Julianna explained to the appalled gathering.

“Eliza, you could have ten thousand pounds!” Annabelle exclaimed.

“If she turns herself in,” Knightly said flatly. “Which she would not do if she wishes to remain a writer at this newspaper.”

And then Eliza understood: she was suddenly worth ten thousand pounds. A shiver of excitement raced up and down her spine.

If the earl’s word and finances were good, and if she never wished to darken the door of The London Weekly again.

Ten thousand pounds would make her an heiress.

The duke was looking for a rich wife.

Ten thousand pounds! If she had it, Wycliff wouldn’t need to marry Lady Shackley and off to Timbuktu he would go. Although there was the matter of the child, which would not be so easily resolved. And as for herself . . .

It wasn’t as if he would take her with him. One did not take women to Timbuktu, and dukes did not marry their housemaids. They especially did not do so when the female in question was authoring a scandalous, traitorous newspaper column. Even if her intentions were pure and her heart was true.

Ten thousand pounds could change everything.

Or she could find herself penniless, unemployed, and loveless.

“How many printings were there last week?” she asked. The gentlemen turned their heads to face her, instead of scribbling on scraps of paper as they usually did when the Writing Girls took their turn in the meeting.

“Four printings, twenty thousand copies sold,” Knightly answered, his blue eyes narrowing as he understood her point. A typical good week was ten to twelve thousand.

The question now was not, What was she worth to the Lord Alvanley? but, What was she worth to Derek Knightly?

“Let’s see what you have for us this week,” Knightly said. She handed over the latest, in which she tried to salvage the duke’s reputation.

Two houses, both alike in indignity. The debaucherous past of the Wicked Wycliffs is well known.

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