The Earl with the Secret Tattoo Read online

  “You’re welcome,” Lord Tumbridge said in a pleasant enough voice.

  Damn him, thought Eleanor, and sucked in a shaky breath as best she could in the stifling curtain. She never in a million years thought she’d want to damn the man with the secret tattoo. Never. She’d wanted only to be in the same room with him. To thank him. To admire him. To bask in his bravery.

  She spit a piece of velvety fuzz from her mouth. Yet here she was, wishing the man of her dreams to perdition.

  <#>

  James Dawbry, Earl of Tumbridge, shut the door behind the idiot Lord Andrew and quickly pivoted on his foot to face the curtains.

  As expected, Lady Eleanor came flying out from behind them, her eyes flashing. She strode straight up to him and put her hands on her hips. “I hate you, Lord Tumbridge,” she said low. “But you already know that.”

  “You’d hate Lord Andrew more if you ever had to marry him. I’ve saved you years of misery.” The Brotherhood had had nothing to do with his helping to sabotage this particular romance. That had been a spur-of-the-moment decision on his part. “Perhaps you should consider thanking me.”

  “Why,” she begged to know, “do you keep interfering in my life? What have I ever done to you?”

  “Do you mind if I—?” He pointed to the jacket he’d cast off and thrown over a chair in the middle of his seduction of Lady Clare.

  “Your hair needs arranging as well.” Her tone was disapproving yet also distracted. She held her hands so tightly together, her knuckles were white. And her eyes—big and brown—were clearly troubled.

  He kept his eye on her as he tucked his shirt in properly and donned the jacket, glad to see he’d made her blush despite the defiant glare she cast him.

  “There’s a pattern here,” she said. “You—sabotaging my marital opportunities. As of this evening, not once but twice. And now you’re after ruining Clare’s.” She looked around as if wishing for a frying pan with which to knock him over the head. Alas, there were none, so she merely skewered him with a damning look. “Not to mention you ruined my prospect for employment in Yorkshire.”

  Oh, yes. He had done. She’d never be the governess to a passel of brats on the dales now, nor the latest sexual conquest of their lecherous father.

  “I’ve nothing against you, Lady Eleanor.” Quite the opposite, in fact.

  “I don’t believe you.” If her glare were a fire, he’d be nothing but ashes by now. “I’m going to find out why you’re doing this,” she said with all the passion of a wronged Athena, “with or without your cooperation.”

  She was shrewd, bold, and persistent. But what did he expect from the daughter of the founder of the Brotherhood?

  “This isn’t the time,” he said coolly. “Go back to the ballroom.”

  He saw her pause, but then she drew herself up. “Perhaps I won’t. Perhaps I’ll stay with you.”

  He girded himself to ignore the heat flooding his veins. “Not advisable, my lady.”

  “Why? Are you afraid you might be brought up to scratch?”

  He admired her bravado. “Not a bit.” He moved lazily toward her. “Two can play that game.”

  His admiration went up a notch when he lifted her chin and she didn’t flinch.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” she whispered, her voice a balm to his soul. “It’s really not fair.”

  He wished he could. He wished he could confide everything in her. But that wasn’t possible. When he dropped his hand, it was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do.

  “What’s going on,” he said in his practiced, jaded way, “is that you and I must part immediately. Good night.”

  He ignored the anger emanating from her in waves and held open the door.

  Yet still she wavered.

  “The longer you stay, the more likely we’ll be discovered,” he reminded her. “And you know what that would mean.”

  “Oh, all right.” Despite her best efforts to intimidate him with her threatening tone, she let out a gusty sigh he found endearing. “You win tonight. But rest assured, I’m not going to sit back anymore and see you continue to play with me—and now Clare—the way a cat plays with a mouse.”

  She breezed by him, the scent of gardenias tantalizing his nostrils.

  “Lady Eleanor?”

  She refused to look back at him, but she did pause.

  “I suggest you say nothing to anyone concerning my identity as your masked savior turned arch nemesis,” he said quietly.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” Her tone was deceptively light.

  “Because your life might depend upon keeping my identity that long-ago day a secret.”

  Slowly, she turned to face him. “What?” she whispered.

  He looked deep into her eyes. “Things aren’t always what they seem. Remember that.”

  And then he shut the door in her face before she could say anything back.

  <#>

  Heroes didn’t exist.

  At least, heroes in Eleanor’s own life didn’t, other than her late father, a quiet genius with a big heart.

  And now her life was in danger.

  How long had it been so?

  The next morning, she felt raw, frightened, and angry. At their ten thirty breakfast, Clare was hostile. Nothing new, really. But she eyed Eleanor over her cup with a trace of fear in her eyes, too.

  Clare was never so confident as she put on. In fact, when they were robbed, she’d been shaking all over, her hand clamped around Eleanor’s arm—at least until Eleanor jumped out of the carriage.

  What did Clare remember about the man on horseback who’d ridden up to save them?

  “Tell me your plans this morning,” Eleanor’s mother, Lady Pritchard, said in expansive tones, looking at each of them in turn as if she were a charming queen and they were her devoted court.

  She and Papa had been complete opposites. Eleanor often wondered how they’d come together.

  Eleanor’s stepfather, Lord Pritchard, was much more like Mother: vibrant, good-looking, sure of himself, politically astute.

  “You know very well, dear, that I’m off to save the world.” His smile was smug, as was the one Mother returned. “I’ve a grand speech to present today in Parliament.”

  “Well, then,” said Mother archly. Eleanor knew she fancied herself bewitching.

  “Parliament is in for a treat.” She swiveled her slender neck to look at Clare and Eleanor. “Girls? Shall you be receiving this morning?”

  Clare pushed her eggs about her plate. “No. I’m off to Pantheon Bazaar with Elsa.”

  Elsa was her best friend, another diamond of the first water a tad less attractive than Clare and not nearly so bright. Eleanor’s stepsister wouldn’t befriend any young ladies she considered true visual competition, and if it meant she had to endure stupidity, she would.

  “I’m to pay a call on the Sherwood household,” Eleanor said.

  Mother drew in her youthful chin. “And why, pray tell?”

  Eleanor shrugged. “I haven’t had a good long chat with any of them in a very long time.”

  Her stepfather put down his cup of tea. “The Marquess of Brady is not a man of whom I’m terribly fond.”

  “Why is that?” asked Eleanor carefully. She wasn’t fond herself of conversing with her stepfather, whom she always addressed as if they weren’t related at all.

  Mother and her husband exchanged silent glances.

  “He’s rather dull,” said Lord Pritchard.

  “Dull?” Eleanor couldn’t help exclaiming. “He’s one of the most entertaining gentlemen I know.”

  “It depends on your definition of entertaining.” Mother’s brow puckered as if they were discussing someone’s unfortunate illness.

  “Yes, if you call the Irish penchant for exaggeration a gift,” said Lord Pritchard with a half-pitying smile.

  “Are you suggesting he makes things up?” asked Eleanor between them.

  “He does, my dear.” Mother gave a great sigh.

&nb
sp; “Well, of course, he does,” Eleanor replied. “He’s known as a supreme joke teller.”

  “Indeed,” said Lord Pritchard on a yawn. “How many more anecdotes about Irishmen, attorneys, and priests meeting Saint Peter at the gates of Heaven must we endure?”

  Eleanor pushed away from the table. Mother and Lord Pritchard were entirely jealous. That was the problem. They grasped at straws—and in illogical fashion—whenever someone threatened to cast them in shadow.

  Clare was in good company, sadly.

  Feeling alone, as she often did after interacting with her family, Eleanor climbed the stairs to her bedchamber to prepare for her visit to the Brady mansion. But dogging her steps was a sense of threat, thanks to the Earl of Tumbridge.

  So her life depended upon her keeping his identity a secret?

  Fine. She wouldn’t tell anyone that she knew who the tattooed man was. But she was intent on going over everything else about that day, and she wouldn’t allow the earl to intimidate her into not reexamining it.

  She was going to find out what he was about, once and for all, and perhaps then, he’d leave her alone.

  On her way back downstairs, she passed Clare coming up. They both stopped on the same step.

  “Remember what I said last night,” Clare hissed. “You and the baron. I’ve loads of stories.”

  Eleanor gripped the stair banister. “Do you remember that day we were stopped by highway robbers?”

  “What does that have to do anything?” Clare’s delicate brows lowered over her nose.

  “Don’t you care that I can destroy your reputation in an instant?”

  “What do you remember about that day?”

  Her stepsister huffed. “Really?”

  Eleanor nodded.

  “Why do you want to talk about it?” Clare pursed her lips in another wondrous pout. “It happened so long ago, and it wasn’t pleasant.”

  “Because occasionally I’ve dreams about it,” said Eleanor. “I did again, last night.”

  Which was true, although last night Lord Tumbridge had replaced her usual vision of the masked man. “I suppose I want to get it out of my mind, once and for all.”

  Also true. She especially wanted to purge her mind of dreams of the earl kissing her madly—he with no shirt on; she, caressing his tattoo, which had been inked at a tempting spot on his right shoulder. In the dream, her fingers curled around that shoulder to pull him closer.

  “Very well.” Clare surrendered with a graceful sigh. “I was excited to go on an impromptu visit to London with the Sherwoods, if only to escape the air of gloom at my house. Your mother stayed behind with my father, both of them mourning the loss of your father.”

  “Yes.” Eleanor still felt a tinge of bitterness. “They made me go with you and the Sherwoods, even though it was the last thing on earth I wanted to do. I wanted to stay with Mother.”

  “You sulked in the carriage,” Clare accused her.

  “Of course I did.” Eleanor was indignant. “If your father had just died on holiday with you in the Cotswolds, wouldn’t you have?”

  Clare’s brow furrowed. “I suppose so, although I’d never go to the Cotswolds. I prefer Cornwall.”

  Eleanor couldn’t help sending her a flat stare. “Please go on with your story.”

  “All right.” Clare flung a curl off her neck. “You and your mother stopped at our house to find some support before you returned home to an empty house, but you were told you needed to go to London with me and the Sherwoods for some cheering up. You were furious that the Sherwood siblings came to escort us there.”

  “Yes, I was. We already established that, did we not?”

  “But your mother is friends with Lady Brady. It was the least the family could do in your time of mourning. And we were only a brief stop off their regular route.”

  “I know all that,” Eleanor gritted out, “but it doesn’t negate the fact that no one cared what I wanted. Let’s get to the actual robbery, shall we?”

  “Wait. Are you paying me for this?”

  “No.”

  “Then why am I—?”

  “Because I asked you to,” Eleanor reminded her. “What do you remember about the robbery?”

  Clare’s brow furrowed. “That the carriages suddenly lurched to a halt, which was frightening in and of itself. And then we heard shouting. We looked out the window and saw two robbers pulling Lord Westdale out of the boys’ carriage. One began choking him when he fought back and managed to knock the pistol from the robber’s hand. Lord Westdale was surprisingly strong for a boy of fifteen.”

  “Were you frightened?”

  “Of course.” Clare’s eyes flashed annoyance. “I was only thirteen. I remember there was another scoundrel guarding our carriage. Lord Westdale’s sisters were screaming and crying out the carriage window, despite the thug guard telling them to shut up. And then the carriage door flew open because the Sherwood girls were pressed against it.”

  It seemed that Clare had forgotten all about how much she didn’t want to speak to Eleanor. “You pulled me toward the opening,” she went on avidly, “and we could see much better then. Westdale’s brothers jumped out of their carriage and threw rocks, and Lord Peter beat that robber’s back with a stick, hard enough that Westdale almost broke free.”

  She was silent a few seconds.

  “What then?” asked Eleanor.

  “Both the two robbers and the boys were trying to get to the pistol,” Clare said quietly, “while the tutor stayed in the carriage sobbing loudly and their coachman attempted to calm the horses from his box. They were stamping and whinnying when the pistol landed between them. And then you jumped out suddenly from the other door of our carriage, which had been closed, and I—I thought you were going to get killed for being so foolish.”

  Her face actually turned slightly pink at that point.

  “Well, I obviously didn’t,” Eleanor said, feeling embarrassed at the sudden awkwardness between them. “I only wanted to help get to the pistol, but I couldn’t.” She paused. “How did you feel when the masked horseman made an appearance?”

  “Surprised and impressed. Seeing him thunder up on a horse, throw himself off, and immediately dispatch the two robbers, then their guard…it was like a glorious theatrics enacted in front of us.”

  “It was,” Eleanor murmured in agreement.

  For a brief moment, they looked at each other without any animosity between them. There was even the sense that they’d shared in something that would usually bond anyone else.

  “I wonder what they were after?” Clare’s sincere interest surprised and somehow pleased Eleanor. “They didn’t seem to care about the rest of us. Only Lord Westdale.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He was wearing that talisman around his neck, remember?” Clare relaxed her shoulders and leaned back against the banister, as if settling in for a coze.

  “Yes, he was,” said Eleanor, feeling some excitement. “I’d forgotten that he had it.”

  “Lord Robert found it in the cave by our house. He gave it to Lord Westdale the night before at dinner. We all passed it round first. Your mother said it might be dirty and we should wash our hands.”

  “She did,” Eleanor murmured. “Then Westdale put it on a string around his neck. But it was such a modest token. It hardly seems as if it would be worth holding up two carriages for.”

  “But the robbers ignored the rest of us, didn’t they?”

  “Yes, but Westdale was the oldest and most likely to fight back. That could be why they picked on him.”

  “True.” Clare’s brow furrowed.

  “You don’t think—?”

  “That the talisman was important somehow?” Clare asked.

  “I don’t know. I wonder now.”

  “I do, too.”

  “Thanks for speaking with me.” Eleanor tossed her a light smile—any more, and her friendliness would set up Clare’s hackles. “It’s been enlightening. Have fun at the Pantheon
Bazaar.”

  Clare didn’t smile or speak, but when Eleanor looked over her shoulder at the stair landing, she saw her stepsister watching her thoughtfully.

  There was no one else about, not even the butler. He’d gone back to the kitchens, apparently, likely for a quick cup of tea.

  A gut inclination gripped Eleanor, and this time she would follow it. “Clare?” she called up the stairs when she opened the front door.

  “What?” Clare’s tone was resentful again.

  “Do you ever question why my mother stayed behind that day? I mean, do you think she and your father were”—she could barely say the word—“together, even before my father died?”

  Clare’s eyes widened. “I—I don’t know. I’ve often wondered.”

  “So have I.”

  They stared at each other a long moment. Clare’s eyes grew so shiny, she blinked several times. Eleanor, clinging to the front doorknob, felt as lost and sad as her stepsister appeared.

  “I’m your sister now,” she told Clare in a firm, loving tone, “however we were brought together. And I have one bit of advice for you. If you want a life of misery, keep acting smug and superior, like our parents. But if you crave true happiness, then consider that Viscount Henly can offer you just that.”

  Before Clare could answer, Eleanor crossed the threshold into the outdoors and pulled the door shut behind her. It was a magnificent, sunny morning, the perfect climate in which to pull hidden hurts, old secrets, and unsolved mysteries out of the corner, dust them off, and expose them to the light of day.

  <#>

  In the weak light of a single candle in the kitchen of his London town house, James looked at the talisman he kept in his pocket at all times. It had been given to him by the late Lord Kersey, who’d taken him under his wing a few years after James’s diplomat father, in talks with the Austrians at Vienna to declare war against France, had been killed in an ambush by an elite French team outside Hamburg on his way back to England.

  It was Lord Pritchard, a white-faced Lord Kersey had told James one dark, rainy night, who revealed your father’s location to the French. He did it to others, too. But he won’t get away with it, James. We won’t let him. And he’d put the talisman in James’s hand, curling his fingers around it.