Vice

In the hall he paused to pull a heavy riding cloak from a hook on the wall and swathed Juliana in its thick and musty folds. She walked as if in a trance as he pushed her ahead of him out of the house and to the stables, Lucien stumbling behind. The wind still blew cold and damp from the sea, and Juliana was pathetically grateful for the cloak, even though she knew it had been provided not to lessen her miseries but to avoid drawing attention to her. Lucien shivered and shook, and it seemed he had no strength left even to cough.

A groom brought two horses from the stables, saddled them, looking curiously at the trio but knowing better than to say anything in front of his master. He assisted Lucien to mount. Lucien slumped in the saddle like a sack of potatoes, feebly grasping the reins, his head drooping.

George lifted Juliana onto his horse and mounted behind her, holding her securely against him as he gathered up the reins. Juliana tried to hold herself away from the hot, sweaty, triumphant maleness of his body, but he jerked her closer and she yielded before he did anything worse.

They trotted out of the yard and took the road to Forsett Towers.

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Tarquin drew up in the yard of the Rose and Crown in Winchester. Quentin stepped out of the phaeton, stretching his cramped, chilled limbs in the damp morning air. 'Where to now?'

Tarquin turned from giving the ostler instructions to change the horses. 'I'm not certain. Let's break our fast and make some inquiries.'

Quentin followed him into the inn. In a few minutes they were ensconced in a private parlor, a maid setting light to the kindling in the hearth.

'A drop of porter for the cold, my lord?' the innkeeper suggested, casting a critical eye around the wainscoted room, checking for tarnished copper, smudged window-panes, a smear of dust.

'If you please.' Tarquin peeled off his gloves. 'And coffee, sirloin, and eggs.' He strode to the window, peering down into the street. 'Where is the nearest magistrate?'

'On Castle Street, my lord.'

'Send a lad to me. I need someone to run an errand.'

The landlord bowed himself out.

'So?' Quentin leaned over the new flame, rubbing his hands. Rain dripped off his sodden cloak.

'So we discover if Ridge took her straightway to the magistrate,' Tarquin said succinctly, discarding his own dripping cloak. 'All, thank you.' He nodded at the girl who placed two pewter tankards of porter on the table.

'Ye be wantin' an errand run, sir?' A cheerful voice spoke from the doorway, where stood a rosy-cheeked lad in a leather apron, spiky hair resisting the discipline of water and brush.

Tarquin gave him brisk instructions. He was to go to the magistrate and discover if a woman had been brought before him in the last few hours.

'And if not?' Quentin took a grateful draft of porter.

'Then we assume he took her to his own house.'

'And if not?' Quentin tossed his own cloak onto a set-de, where it steamed gently in the fire's heat.

'Forsett Towers.' Tarquin drank from his own tankard. His voice was flat. 'If I'm wrong, then… I don't know.' He shrugged, but the careless gesture did nothing to conceal his bone-deep anxiety.

Breakfast arrived and they ate in silence, each distracted with his own thoughts. The lad returned. The magistrate had not yet left his bed and had spent an undisturbed night.

Tarquin nodded, gave him a coin, and summoned the landlord. 'D'ye know the Ridge estate?'

'Aye, sir. Ten miles south as the crow flies.' The man gave precise directions. 'Big stone gateposts… crumblin' like, m'lord. Ye can't miss it.'

'Ready, Quentin?'

'On your heels, brother.' Quentin put down his tankard and followed Tarquin downstairs and out into the yard. The incessant drizzle had stopped, and there was the faintest lightning in the sky. Tarquin paid their shot as fresh horses were harnessed to the phaeton.

They turned through the crumbling stone gateposts just as a feeble ray of sun poked through the clouds. The horses splashed through puddles along the driveway where Juliana had run with such desperation an hour earlier.

The housekeeper answered the furious tolling of the bell, her expression startled, her gray hair escaping from beneath her cap. She curtsied, her eyes like those of a scared rabbit. The morning had brought too many alarums and excursions into her normally peaceful routine.

'Sir George… is he at home?'

Dolly gazed up at the splendid figure in the caped driving cloak. His voice was cold and haughty, but his eyes were colder and carried a fearful menace.

'No, sir… no… 'E left… a short while ago. 'E and 'is visitors.'

'Visitors?' Tarquin raised an inquiring eyebrow.

'Yes… yes, indeed, sir. A gentleman… mortal sick 'e was. Coughin' fit to raise the dead… an' a girl… a young woman… sick, too. Sir George carried 'er upstairs. Then they all left.' Her scared eyes flitted sideways, found Quentin's reassuring gaze. She seemed to take courage, and her fingers loosed her apron where they'd been anxiously pleating and tucking.

'Do you know where they went?' Quentin asked gently.

She shook her head. 'No, sir. But they went on orseback. The three of 'em on two. So they can't 'ave gone far.'

'What road do we take to Forsett Towers?' Tarquin's voice still betrayed none of his agitation. He knew now that he was within a hand's grasp of Juliana, and his rage was cold and deadly. George and Lucien would have had to hurt her to compel her thus far. And they would pay. He drowned the images of what they might have done to her in the icy certainty of their punishment.

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Lucien fell just as they turned onto the gravel driveway leading to the gray stone mansion of Forsett Towers. He had been barely conscious throughout the ride, slumped over the horse's neck, the reins loose in his fingers. Every few minutes his body would be convulsed with violent spasms as he shivered and coughed into the now scarlet handkerchief. When his horse stumbled into a pothole on the drive, Lucien slipped sideways. The horse, startled, broke into a sudden trot, and his rider tumbled off the saddle.

Juliana watched in horror as the confused horse quickened his pace and Lucien, still with one foot in the stirrup, was bumped along the gravel. He was making no attempt to free his foot, just dangled inert until George managed to seize the animal's bridle and pull him to a halt.

George dismounted, hauling Juliana down with him. Still maintaining a tight grip on her wrist, he released Lucien's foot and then stared down at the still figure on the ground. Lucien had struck his head on something sharp, and blood pulsed from a gash on his forehead. His eyes were closed and he was barely breathing.

'Damn him to hell!' George declared, the calm, controlled facade cracking for the first time since he'd caught Juliana on the lane. He dragged Juliana back to his horse and pushed her up into the saddle, mounting behind her again.

'You can't just leave him.' Juliana at last found her voice again. She wished Lucien to the devd, but the thought of abandoning him unconscious and bleeding was appalling.

'He's no good to me in that condition.' George picked up the reins of Lucien's horse, roughly kicked his own mount's flanks, and started off again to the house, leading the riderless animal.

Juliana twisted round to look at the figure still lying on the drive. 'We should carry him into the house.'

'Someone else can do it. Now, hold your tongue!' He pulled on her hair in vicious emphasis, and she fell silent again. She'd always known George was a brute and an oaf, but she hadn't understood quite how brutal he was.

At the house George sprang down, dragging Juliana with him. He held her by the hair and the nape of the neck, shoving her up the steps to the front door, where he banged the knocker as if to sound the last trump. A footman opened it, looking both outraged and alarmed at such an uncivilized summons. He stared at Juliana as if he couldn't believe his eyes. 'Why, Miss Juliana…'

George pushed past him, thrusting Juliana ahead of him. 'Where's your master?'

'In the library… but…'

George ignored him, pushing Juliana toward the library door. Before he reached it. however, it opened. Sir Brian looked at them with an expression of acute distaste.

'I see you found her.' His voice expressed only annoyance.

'Yes… and I'll see her burn outside Winchester jail.' George stated, shoving Juliana into the library. He held her by the neck and glared in triumph at Sir Brian. 'And you, sir, and your lady wife will identify her before a magistrate this very day.'

'Goodness me, whatever's going on?' Amelia's irritated tones came from the door. 'Juliana, whatever are you doing here?'

'Nothing of my own volition, ma'am,' Juliana said, recovering some of her spirit in these drearily familiar surroundings. 'There's a badly injured man on the driveway. Would vou send some men to carry him in?'

Amelia looked between the sweaty, glowering, triumphant George and his pale prisoner. 'You were never anything but trouble,' she declared. 'First you bring this clod into my house… and now you want me to take in some accident victim. Who is he?'

'My husband, ma'am. Viscount Edgecombe.' Juliana began to feel a bubble of hysterical laughter welling in her chest. It was extraordinary that they should continue to behave toward her with the same exasperation of her childhood. She was about to be arraigned on murder charges. She was half-naked, battered and bruised, in the clutches of a vicious brute, her husband was lying near death in a puddle on their driveway, and they were both blaming her for disturbing their peace, as if she'd brought mud into the house, or broken a precious dish.

Amelia sighed and turned back to the hovering footman. 'Dawkins, take some men and see about it, will you?'

'Yes, my lady.'

'And send someone to the nearest magistrate,' George demanded belligerently. 'Tell him it's a matter of murder and he should come here immediately.'

Dawkins looked askance at his master. Sir Brian said shortly, 'You may ignore that instruction, Dawkins. If Sir George wishes to find a magistrate, he may go in search of one himself… and take his prisoner with him,' he added coldly.

'You would obstruct justice, sir?' George's sweaty face flushed crimson. 'I tell you straight, sir, I'll lay charges against you of impeding the process-'

'Oh, hold your tongue, man,' Amelia interrupted acidly. 'Do you think we wish to listen to your puffing and blowing? If you have a grudge against Juliana, then you may do what you wish, but don't expect us to assist you.'

Juliana was somewhat surprised. True, they weren't taking her part, but neither were they taking George's.

'A grudge!' George exclaimed. 'Is that how you would describe the willful murder of my father… her husband. Petty treason is what it is, and I tell you-'

'You will tell us nothing,' Sir Brian snapped. He turned to his erstwhile ward and asked calmly, 'Juliana, did you by any chance murder your husband?'

'No.'

'That's rather what we assumed. It was just another unfortunate piece of clumsiness, I daresay.'

'It was certainly very clumsy of you to run away,' Amelia scolded. 'I can't think what could have possessed-'

'Put him down on that settle… careful now. Send someone for the physician.'

The crisp tones of the Duke of Redmayne came from the open doorway to the hall. Amelia stopped in mid-sentence. George inhaled sharply. Juliana wrenched her head around, ignoring the savage tug on her captured hair. Her heart thudded so loudly, it was impossible that only she could hear it. She stared at the door.