The Tattooed Duke Read Free Page B

to get a story published—employed as a housemaid in the most scandalous household in town—then by damn, she would. She would not lose her position. Not over this.
    She ought to go in, she reasoned. She would not pay attention to him, and he would do the same because she was a servant and thus utterly beneath his notice. That much she knew about master and servant relations. Yet she had a feeling it would not be so simple.
    Eliza recalled the way His Grace had looked at her in the study this afternoon, and how his gaze felt like an intimate caress. The man left her breathless.
    “Bother it all,” she muttered, and entered his chambers. Then she stopped short.
    She saw the duke in the bath, as expected. But it was no ordinary sight. His hair was wet and slicked back from his face, showing off strong, hard features. His mouth was full and firm and not smiling. Even in this pose of relaxation, he put her in mind of a warrior: always aware, always ready.
    The water lapped at his waist, his chest a wide, exposed expanse of taut skin over sculpted muscle. As Eliza stepped toward him and saw more of the man illuminated by the burning embers in the grate and the flickering of candles, she noticed that his chest was covered in inky blue-black lines. Tattoos, like the drawing.
    She gasped. His eyes opened.
    “Hello, Eliza.” The duke’s voice was low, smoky, and sent tremors down her spine. The window was slightly ajar and the cool breeze made the candle flames dance wildly, casting slate-colored shadows, making the room seem like some strange, magical, otherworld.
    “Your Grace,” she murmured, and bobbed into a curtsey.
    “Have you come to join me?” he asked in a rough voice, and she could not tell if he was serious or bamming her.
    “My wages don’t cover that, either, Your Grace,” she replied, not yet having mastered her subservience, but she was rewarded for her impertinence when his mouth curved into a grin.
    Eliza’s gaze inevitably drifted back to his nudity. The tattooing covered the broad expanse of his muscled chest, wrapping up over the shoulders and generously covering his upper arms, even inching onto his forearms. A million questions were poised on the tip of her tongue. Yet her mouth was suddenly too dry to form words.
    “Tattoos,” he confirmed, reading her mind. “It’s a Tahitian custom. When in Rome . . .”
    “You mentioned that it was painful,” she said, referring to the exchange earlier. “It seems like it must.”
    “Like the devil.”
    “Why would you do it, then?”
    “Because to not do so is considered cowardly,” he explained in a low voice.
    “That’s all? Because you do not wish to be seen as weak in front of men on the far side of the world?”
    The duke laughed. “You don’t understand men, do you?”
    “Apparently not,” she replied dryly.
    “The sketches are one thing to see; this is another entirely. Wouldn’t you agree?” Eliza nodded yes. “It’s a record of my travels, and one of many artifacts that I have collected and brought back to England. There’s a whole world out there, beyond London. People should know that.”
    “Can I look closer?” she asked in a whisper, because it seemed too illicit to ask a duke for an intimate glimpse of his person. But she had to see the tattoos up close. If she could touch them, she would. This was the sort of thing The Weekly would love. But also, her own curiosity impelled her to seek satisfaction.
    Eliza knelt by the tub to see the tattoos, but her attention was also drawn to the scar she noticed on his upper lip, and the stubble upon his jaw. He had a clean, soapy scent that was at odds with the air of danger around him.
    His head was close to hers, his mouth only inches away.
    She wanted to touch his skin, to know if the tattoos left it rough or smooth. To feel the hard muscles of his arms and his chest underneath her palms. For The Weekly, of course.
    As if the duke could read her mind, he took her hand and rested