The Duke's Tattoo: A Regency Romance of Love and Revenge, Though Not in That Order Read Online Free PDF Page B

let his unfinished thought hang in the air. He rummaged in his pocket for the squat glass jar then let Thatcher remove the coat. With a crisp bow, Thatcher silently disappeared down the dark hallway, the duke’s coat in hand.
    Ainsworth twisted off the jar’s metal lid and inhaled the scent yet again. Suddenly, he recalled more of his hellish glimpse of the after life. For on That Night, he thought he’d finally stuck his spoon in the wall and gone to hell.
    His education in the classics notwithstanding, one was actually conveyed to the underworld by common cart through the smudgy fog of London. No ferry boat. No River Styx. No ferryman Charon. His neoclassical escorts were a buxom woman with managing hands and a burly, mustachioed bald man.
    That Night, his eyelids were weighted with lead. His mouth was arid. His tongue had become a thick wad of cotton wool. He felt surprisingly clear-headed despite the fogginess of his senses. Painless but all-consuming lethargy gripped his body even as his mind raced in circles. It was nothing like his near death at Waterloo.
    Life flashed before his eyes That Night — none of the jolly parts, mind, only the moments that occasioned regret. This further convinced him he was dying.
    Foremost among his regrets was failing his family as the last of the direct Maubrey line. Through years of war, when dying as a second son would’ve only meant grief for his family, he took ridiculous risks, swaggered through close calls and laughed them off to do it again. His mother and sister begged him to have a care. What was the point of caution? He and his friends were invincible, or so they thought, and expendable if they were mistaken.
    While he recklessly tempted death, however, his loved ones fell to the reaper one after another. His father died peacefully, comforted by having two healthy sons and his duchess’ promise to hold Phillip’s son and heir in her arms before she passed. Then in a blink, Phillip died needlessly, without issue. The duchess relocated to Brussels with his sister only a few months before she had to search for her surviving son in the carnage of battle. Finding him wounded and trampled shortened her lifespan by years. Within a matter of weeks, his mother fell to fever herself, exhausted by her frantic efforts to save his life.
    Ainsworth’s last coherent thought That Night was how bloody irresponsible he was to have survived Waterloo only to die in inexplicable circumstances after a brandy or two at White’s.
    But once again, the duke’s luck held. A maid discovered him in his garden. He found himself miraculously back among the living. Given a second divine reprieve, he solemnly resolved to do his duty to the title henceforth.
    In addition to his newborn diligence, other repercussions of the tattoo rattled through the Duke of Ainsworth’s life.
    After their tryst, Lady Comstock swore each of her many confidantes to secrecy before gushing ecstatically over Ainsworth’s skill as a lover and his most impressive attribute.
    “He was,” she cooed to one and all, “a magnificent stallion.”
    In part, she did this because she was sincerely impressed. In part, she hoped her effusions would reach the duke’s ear and flatter him enough to lure him back for another romp. That was not what came to pass.
    In days, wags surreptitiously nicknamed the duke the ‘Mayfair Stallion.’
    Ainsworth remained oblivious. He was a new man and a dedicated, conscientious duke. He threw himself into fulfilling his obligations to the duchy. There was precious little time to read scandal sheets or to pay attention to ballroom scuttlebutt on his rare evenings out.
    Almost immediately, ducal responsibilities held in abeyance for more than a twelve-month inundated him. Unsigned papers, unanswered correspondence, unacknowledged harvest reports washed over him like a tidal wave. And like a drowning man trying to keep his head above water, he clutched desperately at Sterling, his highly efficient