Chapter 1
The Duke Returns
London, 1825The docks
T
hey said he had been a pirate. It seemed utterly believable. The other rumors about SebastianDigby, the Duke o Wycli, were equally riveting.It was said that he had charmed and seduced hisway across countries and continents; that there ex-isted no law or woman he couldn’t bend to suit hiswhims; that he had lived among the natives in Tahitiand swam utterly nude in the clear turquoise waters;that he had escaped the dankest o prisons and thor-oughly enjoyed himsel in a sultan’s harem.A gentleman he clearly was not.And now this charming, adventurous, scandalousduke had returned home, to London.Miss Eliza Fielding had joined the throngs onthe dock to witness the long-awaited return o thisduke, as per the orders o her employer, Mr. DerekKnightly. She wrote or the monstrously popularnewspaper he owned and edited,
The London Weekly
.In act, she was one o the our inamous Writing
M
aya
R
odale
2
Girls who wrote or the paper. For the moment, atany rate.
If she didn’t get this story . . .
Eliza tugged her bonnet lower across her brow toprotect against the light drizzle alling and dug herhands into the pockets o her coat.“I you don’t get this story,” Mr. Knightly had toldher plainly as she stood in his Fleet Street oce justyesterday, “I can no longer employ you as a writer or
The London Weekly
. I cannot justiy it i you are notsubmitting publishable works.”It was perectly logical. It was only business. Andyet it elt like a lover’s betrayal.Knightly didn’t need to say that she hadn’t beenturning in any decent stories—they both knew it.Weeks had turned into months, and not one article ohers appeared in its pages.Oh, she used to write the most marvelous sto-ries—a week in the workhouse undercover to exposethe wretched conditions, exclusive interviews withNewgate prisoners condemned to death, detailingthe goings-on in a brothel to show what the lives oprostitutes were really like. I there was a truth inneed o light, Eliza was up to the task. I adventure,danger, and the dark side o London were involved,so much the better.Lately she hadn’t been inspired. The wordswouldn’t come. Hours, she spent with a quill in hand,dripping splotches o ink o a blank sheet o paper.
But this story . . .
Knightly’s assignment was plain: to uncover everylast secret o the Duke o Wycli. All o Londonwas panting or the intimate details o his ten yearsabroad. It wasn’t
just
that he was a duke—and the
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The Tattooed Duke by Maya Rodale
Maya Rodale’s wonderfully witty Writing Girls series is a winner! Her third delectable love story to feature a plucky Regency heroine with a pen, The Tattooed Duke follows a scandal sheet reporter posing as a common…
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