Vice

'You are right that I am obliged to help those in trouble. ' His mouth took a sardonic quirk that made him look even more like his half brother. 'I am also obliged to keep people out of trouble. And I assure you, my dear Juliana, you will be up to your neck in hot water if Tarquin discovers you've been roaming around a debtors' prison.'

Juliana was standing on the top step, half facing the open front door. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of Lucien crossing the hall toward the drawing room. 'If my husband doesn't object, I fail to see why the duke should.' she said with a flash of inspiration. 'I do beg your pardon for teasing you, Lord Quentin. Of course you mustn't trouble yourself over this for another minute.'

She gave him a radiant smile and turned to the three young women. 'I'll be back in an instant. Wait here for me.' She hurried into the house, leaving Quentin staring uneasily after her, unsure whether he'd heard her aright.

'Oh, dear,' Emma said. 'Do you think Juliana is perhaps a little impetuous?'

'I fear that 'a little' is something of an understatement, ma'am,' Quentin said. 'Surely she's not intending to enlist Edgecombe's support?'

'I believe so, my lord,' Rosamund said, her brown eyes wide and solemn in her round face.

'Excuse me.' Quentin bowed briefly and strode into the house in search of Tarquin, leaving the women still on the steps.

Juliana had followed Lucien into the drawing room and closed the door behind her. 'My lord, I need your leave to go on an errand,' she stated straightaway.

'Good God! What's this?' Lucien exclaimed. 'You are asking me for permission?'

'Indeed, my lord.' Juliana curtsied. 'You are my husband, are you not?'

Lucien gave a crack of laughter. 'That's a fine fabrication, my dear. But I daresay it has its uses.'

'Precisely,' she said. 'And since you are my husband, yours is the only leave I need to run my errand.'

Lucien's harsh laugh rasped again. 'Well, I'll be damned, m'dear. You're setting yourself up in opposition to Tarquin, are you? Brave girl!' He flipped open an enameled snuffbox and took a liberal pinch, his eyes like dead coals in his grayish pallor.

'I'm not precisely in opposition to His Grace,' Juliana said judiciously, 'since I haven't consulted him on the matter-indeed, I don't consider it his business. But I am consulting you, sir, and I would like your leave.'

'To do what?' he inquired curiously.

Juliana sighed. 'To go to the Marshalsea with bail for a friend of my friends.'

'What friends?'

'Girls from the house where I was living before I came here,' she said a touch impatiently, hoping that the duke wouldn't suddenly appear, summoned by Lord Quentin.

Lucien sneezed violently, burying his face in a handkerchief. It was a few minutes before he emerged, a hectic flush on his cheeks, his eyes streaming. 'Gad, girl! Don't tell me Tarquin took you out of a whorehouse!' He chuckled, thumping his chest with the heel of one hand as his breath wheezed painfully. 'That's rich. My holier-than-thou cousin finding me a wife from a whorehouse to save a family scandal. What price family honor, eh!'

Juliana regarded him with ill-concealed distaste. 'You may believe what you please, my lord. But I am not and never have been a whore.'

Lucien raised a mock-placatory hand. 'Don't eat me, m'dear. It doesn't matter to me what you were … or, indeed, what you are. You could have serviced an entire regiment before dinner, for all that I care.'

Juliana felt her temper rise. Her lip curled and her eyes threw poisoned daggers at him. Firmly she told herself that Viscount Edgecombe was not worth her anger. 'Will you give me leave to go to the Marshalsea, my lord?' she demanded impatiently.

'Oh, you may have leave to do anything you wish if it'll irritate Tarquin, my lady.' He chuckled and wheezed. 'By all means visit the debtors’ prison. By all means choose your friends from the whorehouses of Covent Garden. By all means do a little business of that sort on the side, if it appeals to you. You have my unconditional leave to indulge in any form of debauchery, to wallow in the stews every night. Just don't ask me for money. I don't have two brass farthings to rub together.'

Juliana paled and her freckles stood out on the bridge of her nose. 'Rest assured, I will ask you for nothing further, my lord.' She dropped an icy curtsy. 'If you'll excuse me, my friends await me.'

'Just a minute.' He raised an arresting hand, impervious to her anger. 'Perhaps I'll accompany you on this errand. Lend a touch of respectability…' He grinned, the skin stretched tight on his skull. 'If your husband bears you company, Tarquin will have to gnash his teeth in silence.'

Juliana wasn't happy at the prospect of enduring her husband's company. On the other hand, the idea of thwarting the duke had an irresistible appeal. He did, after all, have it coming.

'Very well,' Juliana murmured.

'Well, let's be about this business.' He sounded relatively robust at the prospect of sowing mischief and moved to the door with almost a spring in his step. Juliana followed, her eyes agleam now with her own mischief.

Just as they reached the front door, Quentin and the duke emerged from the library.

'Juliana!' Tarquin's voice was sharp. 'Where do you think you're going?'

She turned and curtsied. 'For a drive with my husband, my lord duke. I trust you have no objections.'

The duke's mouth tightened and an ominous muscle twitched in his cheek. 'Lucien, you're not encouraging this outrageous scheme.'

'My wife has asked for my permission to help a friend, and I've offered her my company in support, dear boy.' Lucien couldn't hide his glee. 'Wouldn't do for Lady Edgecombe to go alone to the Marshalsea… but in my company there can be no objection.'

'Don't be absurd,' the duke snapped. 'Juliana, go upstairs to your parlor. I'll come to you directly.'

Juliana frowned at this curt order. ''Forgive me, my lord duke, but my husband has commanded my presence. I do believe that his commands must take precedence over yours.' She curtsied again and whisked herself out of the house before Tarquin could gather his wits to react.

Lucien grinned, offered his cousin a mock bow, and followed his wife.

'Insolent baggage!' Tarquin exclaimed. 'Who the hell does she think she is?'

'Viscountess Edgecombe, apparently,' his brother said, unable to hide a wry smile. It wasn't often that Tarquin was routed.

The duke stared at him in fulminating silence; then he spun on his heel and strode back to the library. He left the door ajar, so after a moment's hesitation Quentin followed him.

'If that child thinks she can use Lucien to provoke me, she'd better think again,' the duke said, his mouth a thin, straight line, his eyes cold and hard as agate. 'What could she possibly hope to gain by such a thing?'

'Revenge,' Quentin suggested, perching on the wide windowsill. 'She's a lady of some spirit.'

'She's a minx!' The duke paced the room with long, angry strides.

'They won't come to any harm,' Quentin soothed. 'Lucien will-'

'That drunken degenerate is only interested in putting one over on me,' Tarquin interrupted. 'He's not concerned about Juliana in the least.'

'Well, no one need know about it,' Quentin said.

'No one need know that Viscountess Edgecombe in the company of three whores went to the rescue of a pauper harlot in the Marshalsea!' Tarquin exclaimed. 'Goddammit, Quentin! They may not recognize Juliana, but they will certainly recognize Lucien.'

'Not if they take a closed carriage.' Quentin suggested lamely.

A dismissive wave showed what Tarquin thought of this possibility. He resumed his pacing, an angry frown knotting his brow. Lucien would cause whatever evil he could. Juliana was only a country innocent, and she had no idea what she was dealing with. Somehow he would have to put a stop to her foolish alliance with Lucien.

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George Ridge climbed up from the basement steps of the house opposite the duke's mansion on Albermarle Street and stood watching the group of four women and a man followed by a footman stroll down the street. He stood with his feet apart, adjusting his waistcoat with a complacent tug, his right hand resting on his sword hilt. He'd been watching the house on Albermarle Street since midmorning, and nothing he'd seen made any sense. Last night he'd assumed that Juliana had been bought for the night by the two men who'd taken her into the house. But now it seemed as if she lived there. His first thought was that it was a whorehouse and the men were visiting her there. But two ladies, evidently irreproachable in their somber clothes, had arrived in a carriage with an earl's arms on the panels. Then the two men he'd seen the previous night had escorted them back to the carriage with all due ceremony and courtesy. Then the three young women, accompanied by a footman, had arrived. Some altercation had occurred, he was convinced, between Juliana and one of the two men who seemed to live in the house, and now there she was in the company of yet another man, prancing down the street with the other women.

None of it made any sense. Juliana's dress was fine as fivepence and didn't look in the least whorish, but there was an air about her present companions that he would swear labeled them as Impures. High Impures, certainly, but definitely not fit companions for a young lady of Juliana's birth and breeding. And what of the man whose arm she held? Unsavory-looking creature, George thought, although the view from his hiding place was partially obscured by the iron railings. Something very rum was going on, and the sooner he got to the bottom of it, the sooner he'd be able to decide on his next move.

He stood for a few more minutes until the party reached the end of the street; then he strolled off toward the mews at the back of the house. Someone there would tell him to whom the house belonged. It would be a start.

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'Don't you think we should get a hackney, sir?' Juliana inquired as they emerged onto the crowded thoroughfare of Piccadilly.

'Oh, all in good time… all in good time,' Lucien responded easily. 'I've a mind to show myself to the world in such charming company. It's a rare sight for me to be surrounded by a bevy of the doves of Venus. We're bound to meet up with some of my friends… an acquaintance or two. Introduce you, m'dear wife… and of course your friends… your previous fellow laborers.' He chuckled.

Juliana's lips thinned. She wasn't prepared to sacrifice her reputation just to annoy the duke. Lucien was taking matters too far.

A hackney carriage trundled along Piccadilly toward them, and with swift resolution she hailed it. 'Forgive me, my lord, but I don't believe we have the time for social dalliance.' She tugged on the handle of the carriage door as it came to a stop beside them. 'I think we can all fit in, if you don't mind sitting on the box, sir.' She offered him a placating smile and was taken aback by the flash of sullen anger in the ashy coals of his eyes.

'I say we walk along Piccadilly, madam.'

Juliana's smile remained unwavering as her three friends were handed into the coach by the footman. 'Indeed, my lord, but we cannot spare the time. Poor Lucy could even now be dying of starvation in that place. We don't have a minute to lose.' She turned to follow her companions into the hackney. Seating herself, she leaned out of the still-open door.

'If you don't wish to sit on the box, my lord, perhaps you could follow us in a separate hackney.'

Lucien glowered at her. Juliana coaxed, 'Please come, my lord. If I go alone, His Grace will feel he has cause to be vexed with me. But as you so rightly said, if you come, he'll have to bite his tongue.'

It worked. The viscount, still glowering, climbed onto the box beside the jarvey. 'The Marshalsea,' he growled. The jarvey cracked his whip and the hackney moved off, the footman leaping onto the step behind, hanging on to the leather strap.