Vice

'The penalty for murdering a husband is death at the stake, I believe.'

Juliana stopped at the duke's low, considering drawl. Her hand on the door was suddenly slippery with sweat, and the blood pounded in her temples. Slowly she turned back to the room, and her great green eyes, living coals in her deathly pale complexion, fixed accusingly upon Mistress Dennison. 'You broke my confidence.'

'My dear, it's for the best,' Elizabeth, said. 'You'll see what a wonderful opportunity this is. if you'll only listen to His Grace. I know a hundred girls who'd give their eyes for such an opportunity. A life of luxury, of-'

'Allow me to lay out the benefits and rewards, madam.' The duke spoke with open amusement now, and the cleft in his chin deepened as his lips quirked in a tiny smile. 'It seems the young lady requires a deal of persuasion.'

'Persuasion… blackmail, you mean,' Juliana snapped. 'You would hold that over my head?'

'If I must, my dear, yes,' the duke said in tones of the utmost reason. 'But I trust you'll agree to accept my proposition simply because it's a solution to your problems, will not be too arduous for you, I believe, and will solve a major difficulty for myself.'

Juliana turned the porcelain handle of the door. All she had to do was push it, race across the hall and out into the street. But if she left the house in the clothes given her by Mistress Dennison, her erstwhile benefactress could set up a hue and cry and accuse her of theft. She wouldn't get far in those crowded streets once the cry went up. They'd hang her for theft. They'd burn her for petty treason.

'Elizabeth, would you leave us, please?' The duke's soft, courteous tones broke through the desperate maelstrom of Juliana's thoughts.

Her hand dropped from the doorknob. She was caught in the trap that she'd sprung herself with that foolish burst of confidence yesterday. There was nothing to be gained at this point by fighting the gin. Like a snared rabbit, she'd simply chew off her own foot.

She stepped away from the door as Elizabeth billowed across the room.

'Listen well to His Grace, my dear,' Mistress Dennison instructed, patting Juliana's cheek. 'And don't show him such a long face. Lud, child, you should be dancing for joy. When I think what's being offered-'

'Thank you, madam.' There was a touch of frost in the duke's interruption, and a tinge of natural color augmented the rouge on Elizabeth's smooth cheek.

She curtsied to the duke, cast another look, half warning, half encouragement, at Juliana, and expertly swung her wide hoop sideways as she passed through the door.

'Close it.'

Juliana found herself obeying the quiet instruction. Slowly she turned back to face the room. The Duke of Redmayne had moved to stand beside one of the balconied windows overlooking the street. A ray of sunlight caught an auburn glint in his hair, tied at his nape with a silver ribbon.

'Come here, child.' A white, slender-fingered hand beckoned her.

'I am no child.' Juliana remained where she was, her back to the door, her hands behind her, still clutching the doorknob as if it were a lifeline.

'Seventeen from the perspective of thirty-two has a certain youthfulness,' he said, smiling suddenly. The smile transformed his face, set the gray eyes asparkle, softened the distinctive features, showed her a full set of even white teeth.

'What else do you know of me, sir?' she inquired, refusing to respond to that smile, refusing to move from her position.

'That you are called Juliana Beresford… although I expect that's a false name,' he added musingly. 'Is it?'

'If it is, you wouldn't expect me to tell you,' she snapped.

'No. True enough,' he conceded, reaching for the bell-pull over the chimney piece. 'Do you care for ratafia?'

'No,' Juliana responded bluntly, deciding it was time to take the initiative. 'I detest it.'

The duke chuckled. 'Sherry, perhaps?”

'I drink only champagne,' Juliana declared with a careless shrug, moving away from the door. She brushed at her skirt with an air of lofty dismissal, and her fingertips caught a delicate porcelain figurine on a side table, sending it toppling to the carpet.

'A plague on it!' she swore, dropping to her knees, momentarily forgetting all else but this familiar, potential disaster. 'Pray God, I haven't broken it… Ah, no, it seems intact… not a crack.'

She held the figurine up to the light, her lingers tracing the surface. 'I dareswear it's a monstrous expensive piece. I'd not have knocked it over otherwise.' She set the figurine on the table again and stepped swiftly away from the danger zone.

The duke regarded these maneuvers with some astonishment. 'Are you in the habit of destroying expensive articles?'

'It's my cursed clumsiness,' Juliana explained with a sigh, watching the figurine warily to make sure it didn't decide to tumble again.

Any response her companion might have made was curtailed by the arrival of Mr. Garston in response to the bell.

'Champagne for the lady, Garston,' the duke ordered blandly. 'Claret for myself. The forty-three, if you have it.'

'I believe so, Your Grace.' Garston bowed himself out.

Juliana, annoyed that her clumsiness had distracted her at a moment when she'd felt she was regaining some measure of self-possession in this frightful situation, remained silent. The duke seemed perfectly content with that state of affairs. He strolled to a bookshelf and gave great attention to the gilded spines of the volumes it contained until Garston returned with the wine.

'Leave it with me, Garston.' He waved the man away and deftly eased the cork from the neck of the champagne bottle. 'I trust this will find favor, ma'am.' He poured a glass and took it to Juliana, still standing motionless by the table.

Juliana had but once tasted champagne, and that on her wedding day. She was accustomed to small beer and the occasional glass of claret. But with the bravado of before, she took the glass and sipped, nodding her approval.

The duke poured a glass of claret for himself, then said gently, 'If you would take a seat, ma'am, I might also do so.'

It was such an unlooked-for courtesy in the circumstances that Juliana found herself sitting down without further thought. The duke bowed and took a chair opposite her sofa.

Tarquin took the scent of his wine and examined the still figure. She reminded him of a hart at bay, radiating a kind of desperate courage that nevertheless acknowledged the grim reality of its position. Her eyes met his scrutiny without blinking, the firm chin tilted, the wide, full mouth taut. There was something uncompromising about Juliana Beresford, from the tip of that flaming head of hair to the toes of her long feet. The image of her naked body rose unbidden in his mind. His eyes narrowed as his languid gaze slid over her, remembering the voluptuous quality of her nudity, the smooth white skin in startling contrast to the glowing hair.

'If you insist upon making this proposition, my lord duke, I wish you would do so.' Juliana spoke suddenly, breaking the intensity of a silence that had been having the strangest effect upon her. Her skin was tingling all over, her nipples pricking against her laced bodice, and she had to fight against the urge to drop her eyes from that languid and yet curiously penetrating gray scrutiny.

'By all means,' he said, taking a sip of his wine. 'But I must first ask you a question. Are you still virgin?'

Juliana felt the color drain from her face. She stared at him in disbelief. 'What business is that of yours?'

'It's very much my business,' the duke said evenly. 'Whether or not I make this proposition depends upon your answer.'

'I will not answer such a question,' Juliana declared from a realm of outrage beyond anger.

'My dear, you must. If you wish to spare yourself the inconvenience of examination,' he said in the same level tones. 'Mistress Dennison will discover the answer for herself, if you will not tell me.'

Juliana shook her head, beyond words

He rose from his chair and crossed the small space between them. Bending over her, he took her chin between finger and thumb and tilted her face to meet his steady gaze. 'Juliana, you told Mistress Dennison that your husband died before your marriage was consummated. Is that the ruth?'

'Why would I say it if it wasn't?' Somehow she still managed to sound unyielding, even as she yielded the answer because she knew she had no choice but to do so.

He held her chin for a long moment as she glared up at him, wishing she had a knife. She imagined plunging it into his chest as he stood so close to her she could smell his skin, and a faint hint of the dried lavender that had been strewn among his fresh-washed linen.

Then he released her with a little nod. 'I believe you.'

'Oh, you do me too much honor, sir,' she said, her voice shaking with fury. Springing to her feet, she drove her fist into his belly with all the force she could muster.

He doubled over with a gasp of pain, but as she turned to run, he grabbed her and held on even as he fought for breath.

Juliana struggled to free her wrist from a grip like steel. She raised a leg to kick him, but he swung sideways so her foot met only his thigh.

'Be still!' he gasped through clenched teeth. 'Hell and the devil, girl!' He jerked her wrist hard and finally she stopped fighting.

Slowly Tarquin straightened up as the pain receded and he could breathe again. 'Hair as hot as the fires of hell goes with the devil's own temper, I suppose,' he said, and to Juliana's astonishment his mouth quirked in a rueful smile, although he still held her wrist tightly. 'I must bear that in mind in future.'

'What do you want of me?' Juliana demanded. An overwhelming sense of helplessness began to eat away at her, challenging bravado; and even as she tried to fight it, she recognized the futility of the struggle.

'Quite simply, child, I wish you to marry my cousin, Viscount Edgecombe.' He released her wrist as he said this and calmly straightened his coat and the disordered lace ruffles at his cuffs.

'You want me to do what?'

'I believe you heard me.' He strolled away from her to refill his wineglass. 'More champagne, perhaps?'

Juliana shook her head. She'd barely touched what was in her glass. 'I don't understand.'

The duke turned back to face her. He sipped his wine reflectively. 'I need a wife for my cousin, Lucien. A wife who will bear a child, an heir to the Edgecombe estate and tide.

'The present heir is, to put it kindly, somewhat slow-witted. Oh, he's a nice enough soul but could no more pull Edgecombe out of the mire into which Lucien has plunged it than he could read aq page of Livy. Lucien is dismembering Edgecombe. I intend to put a stop to that. And I intend to ensure that his heir is my ward.'

He smiled, but it had none of the pleasant quality of his earlier smiles. 'I shall thus have twenty-one years to put Edgecombe back together again… to repair the damage Lucien has done-as much as anything, I believe, to spite me.

'Why can't your cousin find his own wife?' she asked, staring incredulously.

'Well, I suspect he might find it difficult,' the duke said, turning his signet ring on his finger with a considering air. 'Lucien is not a pleasant man. No ordinary female of the right breeding would choose to wed him.'

Juliana wondered if she was going mad. At the very least she had clearly stumbled among lunatics. Vicious, twisted lunatics.

'You… you want a brood mare!' sht exclaimed. 'You would blackmail me into yielding my body as a vehicle for your cousin's progeny, because no self-respecting woman would take on the job! You're… you're treating me like a bitch to be put to a stud.'

Tarquin frowned. 'Your choice of words is a trifle inelegant, my dear. I'm offering a marriage that comes with a title and what remains of a substantial fortune My cousin doesn't have long to live, hence the urgency of the matter. However, I'm certain you'll be released from his admittedly undesirable company within a twelvemonth. I’ll ensure, of course, that you're well looked after in your widowhood. And, of course, not a word of your unforunate history will be passed on.'

He sipped his wine. When she still gazed at him, dumbstruck, he continued: 'Your secret will be buried with me and the Dennisons. No one will ever connect Lady Edgecombe with Juliana…