The Tattooed Duke by Maya Rodale Page A

describing extraordinarily passionate intimate relations with native women in such vivid detail that any maiden would be ruined to read them. And if she were to glance at the detailed illustrations? There would be a run on smelling salts.
As befitting such an avowed unconventional man, His Grace keeps company that would make a ton matron pale. His faithful companion is a sailor of unknown origins, with only one good eye and one good arm. The stories are wildly inconsistent and devilishly enthralling: wrestling with a shark, a duel with a foreign king, a pagan ritual gone awry, a pirate attack.
One waits with baited breath to see what this tattooed duke will do next. There are rumors that he is planning an expedition to the ever-elusive Timbuktu. So is his rival, mere mister Monroe Burke. This author, intimately acquainted with the facts, would put money on the Wicked Wycliff. To fund Burke Monroe is to surrender to the French. Perish the thought!
     
    Wycliff set the newspaper down. The stuff about Burke was just splendid. It almost made the rest of it forgivable.
    He was now portrayed as a heathen, friend of the devil, author of naughty diary entries, and owner of a locked room that contained God only knew what. Wycliff sighed, oddly curious as to what the gossip would claim the room contained.
    Harlan handed him a glass of brandy and asked, “Do you think it’s someone in this house?”
    He’d been wondering the same thing. Was it Jenny? No, she didn’t seem to think of much other than Thomas the footman. Mrs. Buxby was too drunk; Saddler not clever enough. There were all the other maids and footmen that he didn’t know.
    And then there was Eliza.
    It couldn’t be her. She couldn’t read and write. In fact, he’d seen the hot pink flush of her cheeks, like an African sunset, when he’d unthinkingly asked her to. He’d felt like such an ass.
    Even if she were acting as an informant, he couldn’t pinpoint anything to her—or any other staff member. The salacious details that made their way into print were all items that many had heard, or overheard, or that could be gleaned merely by snooping around.
    He had half a mind to cross the room and test and inspect the lock on the door to his private room.
    “I don’t know, Harlan. Any ideas? You fraternize with the household help more than I do.”
    “I go where the whiskey flows freely and companionship is to be found. That is most often Mrs. Buxby’s parlor. But no, it’s not me. You’re my ticket out of here.”
    “Or Burke. Can you believe his plot to launch a Royal Society funded expedition to Timbuktu? How many hours have we all discussed my intentions to do exactly that? I didn’t think he would blatantly steal my plans.”
    “Well, you’re not the first person to consider making the trip. I’m sure he is not planning his travels just to vex or to spite you. Not when there’s ten thousand on the line. He doesn’t have a title to fall back on,” Harlan remarked, oddly supportive of their rival. Wycliff decided not to press the point, but he filed that information away.
    “The lot of good this title has done for me. It’s money that’s required. Or at least a title that isn’t tainted by scandal, going back seven generations. But damn, Harlan, of all the places in the world . . .”
    Harlan shrugged. “You ought to make your pitch to the Royal Society sooner rather than later. The account books will wait . . .”
    Wycliff thought of the maid’s simple question— What about the tenants and your staff?— and he felt duty tugging at conscience. He thought, too, of adventure, and Timbuktu, and the wide-open plains of Africa and the pride of discovery. The past he inherited, or a future he forged for himself?
    “Let’s go, then,” he said. “We have work to do.”
    There were papers to write, to detail the customs of other cultures. There were more seeds to plant, specimens to catalogue, wild animals to feed. All in preparation for his