Vice

'Come,' he said, his voice curt with anxiety. He turned to the door.

Juliana snatched her hands from his grasp, their pain as nothing compared to the surge of angry disbelief. Did he really expect her to walk out with him, abandoning her friends?

'I'll not leave here without Lilly and Rosamund.' She picked up her mallet again. 'They're here because of me. They have no more business being here than I do. Those spawn of a gutter bitch betrayed us, and I'll not leave my friends in this hell. I neither need nor want your intervention.' She raised the mallet with both bloody hands and brought it down again, fighting with every muscle the screaming agony of her torn flesh.

Tarquin swung back to her with an incredulous 'What?' Quentin suppressed a smile at the sight of his unflappable brother so completely confounded.

Juliana ignored the question, and Tarquin, frowning fiercely, looked at the pathetic, crumpled body of the girl on the floor, the white-faced desperation of the other girl, and he suddenly felt ashamed.

It was not an emotion to which he was accustomed. Impatiently, he snatched the mallet from Juliana, throwing it to the floor. 'Quentin, take her out of here while I arrange about the others.' He seized her in his arms and spun her across to his brother, who caught her against him.

'I'm not leaving without them!' Juliana's protest was muffled against Quentin's black waistcoat.

'Juliana, for once in your short life do as you're bid,' Tarquin declared dangerously.

'Come,' Quentin murmured. 'Tarquin will negotiate their release.'

Juliana looked from one brother to the other and saw only truth and confidence in their eyes. 'Rosamund will need to be carried,' she said matter-of-factly. 'We must find a litter for her.'

'You may leave that with me. Now, get out of this foul air. There's no knowing what infection lurks in it… Bloggs, a word with you.' He jerked his head at the keeper, whose eyes now glittered. Unless he'd misunderstood, he was about to receive a substantial bribe. He oiled his way over to the duke, who'd withdrawn to the far corner of the ward.

Juliana allowed Quentin to draw her away. When they reached the sunshine of the courtyard, she took the air in great gulps. 'Did you know such places existed, Quentin?'

'Yes.' he said shortly. 'But I'd never been inside one before.' The horror of what he'd seen still lingered in his eyes. He drew her toward the postern gate, anxious to leave the last vestiges of this hell behind.

'I won't be defeated,' she said with low-voiced determination, stepping out into the street beside him. 'I won't let those evil women get the better of me.'

'In God's name, Juliana! You can't possibly take on the world of vice all on your own.' He took the horses from the relieved guard, handing him another coin.

'I won't do it alone.' she said fiercely. 'People like you will help me. People like you with the power to challenge the exploitation and the misery. Then things would change.'

Touched by her fervency, Quentin was unwilling to spoil her dreams with his own cynicism.

'Here's Tarquin,' he said with relief. The duke, carrying Rosamund in his arms, Lilly a pace or two behind, appeared at the gate, Jeremiah Bloggs at his side, a beatific smile on his face as he counted again the wad of notes that had bought the women's release. The duke hadn't even haggled over the terms, just peeled off the bills with an expression of disgust and contempt that ran off the keeper like water on a greased hide.

Juliana hurried over to them. 'We must get Rosamund to the physician… but no, Henny will be able to look after her as well as any physician. They can't go back to the Dennisons' until we discover whether Mistress Dennison had anything to do with the plot.'

Once again Juliana was turning his house into a rescue mission and convalescent home for ill-used strumpets. Tarquin surprised himself with a wry grin. He lifted Rosamund into the phaeton and refrained from comment. He had one interest, and only one. He intended to have Juliana stripped, scrubbed, and in bed without a moment's delay.

Quentin climbed up and took Rosamund on his lap, cradling her tightly. Lilly, silent, white-faced, and shivering violently in the aftermath of this sudden escape from hell, took her seat beside him.

'There's not enough room for me,' Juliana said. 'I'll take a hackney… Oh, but I don't have any money. My lord duke, could you…?'

'No, I could not!' he snapped. 'If you think I'm going to let you out of my sight again, you are vastly mistaken, my child.' He half lifted her onto the step, put a hand under her backside with his customary familiarity, and shoved her upward. 'You'll have to squash up.'

'I would, but the hoop's in the way.' Juliana struggled to sit down on the inch of bench available between Lilly and the driver's seat.

'Then take it off.'

'Here?' She looked askance at the open street.

'Yes, here,' he affirmed flatly. 'Get down again.' He reached up and pulled her to the ground. 'Turn around and lift up your skirts.'

After an instant's hesitation Juliana obeyed with a shrug. After everything else that had happened, being divested of her hoop before the gaze of curious passersby seemed little more than a minor inconvenience. She noticed, however, that Quentin discreetly averted his eyes when she raised her skirts, revealing the frothy if now grimy folds of her underpetticoat.

Tarquin deftly untied the tapes at her waist and freed the whalebone panniers. He tossed them from him into the side of the street and once again boosted Juliana into the phaeton, climbing up beside her.

She gathered the soft folds of her gown and petticoats about her and made herself as small as possible. Tarquin's thigh pressed hard against hers as he occupied the remaining space on the bench and gave his horses the office to start. Juliana touched Lilly's hand, as much for her own comfort as to offer it. Lilly gave her a wan smile, and they both looked at Rosamund, held tightly in Lord Quentin's arms. Her eyes were open, staring sightlessly up at the sky from her deathly pale countenance. She appeared to be in a state of shock, immobile and unaware of her surroundings.

Rosamund was not cut out for the hand life had dealt her, Juliana thought. Lilly could manage to live it without loss of self. Indeed, she often enjoyed it. Most of the girls on Russell Street could take pleasure in their lot. They found plenty to laugh about; they shared a close camaraderie. They were not in want, and there was always the possibility of a grand and secure future if luck looked in their direction. But there was also the possibility of a Bridewell. Of a Marshalsea. Of spreading their legs beneath the bulks at Covent Garden for half a loaf of bread. But they chose not to brood about the consequences of ill luck, and who could blame them?

Grimly, Juliana acknowledged that alone she couldn't work miracles. She glanced sideways at the duke's unyielding countenance. He would make a powerful advocate if he could be persuaded to wield his influence. But that was a forlorn hope.

Unless… Her bruised hand touched her belly. Soon she must tell Tarquin of the child she carried. Presumably he'd be delighted. Maybe he'd be so delighted that he'd be open to suggestion. Willing to exert himself in someone else's interests for once. But then again, maybe he'd simply become even more protective of her, even more anxious that she should not be sullied by contact with Covent Garden life. Maybe he'd just keep her even more closely confined, to protect his unborn child. She and that child were his investment, after all. And he was a man who looked after his investments.

Chapter 26

George Ridge stepped out of the sedan chair, wincing as the skin on his back creased with the movement. He glowered up at the cracked stone facade of Viscount Edgecombe's town house on Mount Street. The budding had a seedy, run-down air, the brass on the door unpolished, the windows dingy, the paintwork scuffed. Despite the early hour a small group of men, whom George immediately recognized from both dress and manner as bailiffs, were gathered lounging against the iron railings at the bottom of the steps leading to the front door. As George approached the steps, their air of weary waiting dissipated, and they straightened, eyes suddenly alert.

'Ye 'ave business with 'Is Lordship, sir?' one of them inquired, picking his teeth with a dirty fingernail.

'What's it to you?' George pushed past him, scowling.

'Jest that if Yer 'Onor's goin' to get that door open, y'are a sight cleverer than we are,' the man said scornfully. ' 'Oled up in there, tighter than a chicken's arse.'

George ignored him and hammered on the knocker. There was no response. He stepped back, looking up at the unyielding facade, and glimpsed a face in an upstairs window, peering through the grime. He hammered again and this time, after a few minutes, heard the scraping of bolts. His companions heard it too and surged up the steps. The door opened a crack. A disembodied hand grabbed George's sleeve and dragged him through the aperture. The door crashed shut on a bailiff’s foot. There was a roar of outrage from outside, then violent banging on the knocker, setting a dusty porcelain figurine on a table shivering on its pedestal.

'Viscount's upstairs.' The body belonging to the hand was skinny, the narrow face weasel-like, with a pair of very long incisors that jutted beyond the thin lips. The man jerked his head toward the stairs. 'First door on the left.' Then he slithered away into the shadows beyond the staircase.

George, his scowl deepening, stomped up the stairs, which were thick with dust. His eyes were red with drink and burned with a rage so fearsome it was almost inhuman. George Ridge was a goaded bull, only one thought and one aim in view. Vengeance on the man who had ordered him thrashed like a serf. A vengeance he would obtain through Juliana. The Duke of Redmayne had made it painfully clear that Juliana's health, reputation, and general well-being were vitally important to him. Juliana would burn at the stake in Winchester marketplace. And before she did, her stepson would possess her… would bring her arrogant contempt to the dust. He would see her humbled, he would see her protector powerless to protect. And with her conviction he would regain his own inheritance.

He pushed open the door at the left of the staircase. It creaked on unoiled hinges, revealing a sparsely furnished apartment, its air of neglect failing to mask its handsome proportions and the elaborate moldings on the ceiling.

Lucien was slumped in a sagging elbow chair by a grate filled with last winter's ashes. A cognac bottle was at his feet, another, empty, lying on the threadbare carpet. A glass dangled from his fingers.

He jerked upright as George entered. 'Dick, you bastard, I told you I… oh.' He surveyed his visitor with an air of sardonic inquiry. 'To what do I owe this pleasure?'

'You're going to help me,' George stated. He bent to pick up the cognac bottle, raised it to his lips, and drank deeply.

Lucien's eyes sharpened. Something very interesting had occurred. Sir George had lost his air of bumbling, overawed ineptitude.

'Help yourself, dear boy,' Lucien invited, his languid tone belled by the arrested look in his eyes. 'There's more where that came from. At least I trust there is.'

'Thankee.' George drank again, his throat working as the fiery liquid burned down his gullet to add fuel to the fire that raged in his belly.

'So how can I be of assistance?' Lucien took back the bottle and tilted it to his own mouth. 'Damnation, it's empty! Ring the bell for Dick, dear fellow.' He gestured to the frayed bell rope beside the door.

George pulled on it, half expecting it to come away in his hand, but faintly, from the bowels of the silent house, came the jangle of the bell.

'I am going to take Juliana,' he said, pacing the room, each movement generating a painful stab, reminding him with hideous clarity of his humiliation at the hands of the duke's groom. 'And this time I'll not be stopped.'

'Oh?' Lucien sat up, the gleam of malevolent curiosity in his eye intensifying.

'I intend to abduct her tomorrow,' George said, almost in a monotone, as if he were reciting a well-learned lesson. 'I will have a closed carriage ready, and we'll take her immediately to Winchester. The Forsetts will be compelled to identify her if the magistrates demand it. And there are plenty of other folk in the neighborhood who'll recognize her. She won't have that devil to run to, and once she's locked up in Winchester jail, there'll be nothing he can do to save her.'

Lucien tugged his right earlobe. 'Something happen to rouse you, dear boy… Ah, Dick. Bring up another bottle of that gut-rotting brandy.'

'Not sure there is any,' the surly manservant muttered.