Vice (10 page)

Tarquin laughed. “What a fierce child you are,
mignonne.”

“No child!”
she hissed, twitching herself out of his grasp.
“If you think I’m no more than an inexperienced simpleton to he twisted to your design like a straw, I tell you, sir, you quite mistake the matter!”

“I fear we’re drawing attention to ourselves,” he said. “Come, let us go somewhere private, and you may rail at me to your heart’s content.”

Juliana, aware that a curious hush had fallen over the room, glanced around. Eyes were swiftly averted and the buzz of conversation was immediately renewed.

“Come,” he repeated, offering his arm.

“I will go nowhere with you.”

“Come,” he repeated, and a hint of flint lay beneath the smiling good humor in the deep-set gray eyes. As she still hesitated, he took her hand and tucked it into his arm, advising softly, “You have nothing to lose by behaving with good grace, my dear, and everything to gain.”

Juliana could see no way out. All around her she saw men whose faces reflected the lascivious greed of those hungry for flesh. She could scream and create a scene, but she’d meet no sympathy or support from either the buyers or the sellers in this whorehouse masquerading as a softly lit, gracious salon. No one here would have any sympathy for a recalcitrant harlot.

Could she break free and run? But even supposing she could get past Garston and the burly footmen in the hall, where would she go? Dressed as she was, she could hardly lose herself in the narrow, twisting alleys around Covent Garden.

Her only chance was to appeal to the Duke of Redmayne’s finer nature—Supposing he had one. Putting his back up wouldn’t help.

In silence she allowed him to escort her from the salon. Covertly curious glances followed them. Richard Dennison was crossing the hall to the salon as they stepped through the double doors.

“Your Grace.” He bowed low. His gaze flicked over Juliana, and he nodded as he noted her loosened hair. He
smiled at her. “You will show His Grace all the hospitality of this house, Juliana.”

“Were I a member of this household, sir, I should feel obliged to do so,” Juliana retorted.

Richard’s mouth tightened with annoyance. Tarquin chuckled, thinking he’d rarely met a creature with so much spirit. “I give you good evening, Dennison.” He bore Juliana up the stairs and into the small parlor where she’d first met him.

Once inside, he released her arm, closed the door, and pulled the bell rope. “As I recall, you drink only champagne.”

Juliana shook her head. That was a pretense that had little point now. “Not really.”

“Ahh.” He nodded. “You were attempting to put me in my place, I daresay.”

“Is that possible?”

That made him laugh again. “No, my dear, I doubt it. What shall the footman bring for you?” “Nothing, thank you.”

“As you please.” He asked the footman for claret, then stood behind an armchair, one long white hand resting on the back, his eyes on Juliana. She stood by the fireplace, staring down into the empty grate.

There was a quality to her that Tarquin found moving. A vulnerability that went hand in hand with the fierce determination to hold her own against all the odds. She was not in the least beautiful, he thought. She had an unruly, ungainly quirk that denied conventional beauty. But then he remembered her naked body, and his flesh stirred at the memory. No, not beautiful, but a man would have to be but half a man not to find her desirable. By the same token, she would be safe from Lucien. Her body was too voluptuous to appeal to him.

Suddenly she flung herself into a chair and kicked off her shoes with such vigor that one of them landed on a console table. The candlestick shook violently under the impact, and hot wax splashed onto the polished surface.

“A plague on the damnable things!” Juliana bent to massage her feet with a groan. “How could anyone wear such instruments of torture?”

“Most women manage without difficulty,” he observed, much amused at this abrupt change of demeanor. Her hair obscured her expression as she bent over her feet, but he could imagine the disgusted cud of her lip, the flash of irritation in her eyes. Strange, he thought, that after only two meetings he could picture her reactions so accurately.

She looked up, shaking her hair away from her face, and he saw he’d been exactly right. “I don’t give a damn what other women manage! I find them insupportable.” She extended one foot, flexing it to stretch the cramped arch.

“Practice makes perfect,” Tarquin said, taking the discarded shoe off the console table. He picked up the other one that had come to rest in the coal scuttle. He blew coal dust from the pale silk, murmuring, “What cavalier treatment for a fifty-guinea pair of shoes.”

So he
had
paid for them. Juliana leaned back in her chair and said carelessly, “I
’m sure they won’t go to waste, Your Grace. There must be harlots aplenty eager to accept such gifts.”

“That might be so,” he agreed judiciously. “If women with feet this size were easy to find.”

The return of the footman with the claret gave Juliana the opportunity to bite her tongue on an undignified retort. When the man had left, she was prepared to launch her appeal to the duke’s finer feelings.

“My lord duke,” she began, getting to her feet, standing very straight and still. “I must beg you to cease this persecution. I cannot do what you ask. It’s preposterous … it’s barbaric that you should demand such a thing of someone you know has no protection and no friends. There must be women who would be willing … eager, even … to enter such a contract. But I’m not of their number. Please, I beg you, let me leave this place unmolested.”

Almost every woman Tarquin could think of in Juliana’s situation would leap at what he was offering—wealth, position,
security. The girl was either a simpleton or
very
unusual. He kept his thoughts to himself however, remarking, “Somehow, I have the impression that pleading is foreign to your nature,
mignonne”
He took a sip of his claret. “That little speech lacked a certain ring of conviction.”

“Oh, be damned to you for a Judasly rogue!” Juliana cried. “Base whoreson! Stinking gutter sweeping. If you think you can bend me to your will, then I tell you, you have never been more mistaken in your entire misbegotten existence!”

She leaped across the space separating them, tripped over the hem of her gown, grabbed at a chair to right herself, and turned on him, shaking her hair out of her eyes, her fingers curled into claws, her teeth bared, her eyes spitting hatred.

Tarquin took a hasty step back. Abruptly he lost the desire to laugh. Miss Juliana didn’t take kindly to mockery. “Very well.” He held up his hands in a placating gesture. “I ask your pardon for being so flippant. Sit down again, and we’ll begin anew.”

Juliana stopped. A hectic flush mantled her usually creamy cheeks, and her bosom rose and fell in a violent rhythm as she struggled to control herself. “You are the son of a gutter bitch,” she said with low-voiced savagery.

Tarquin raised his eyebrows. Enough was enough. He said nothing until her flush had died and her erratic breathing had slowed; then he asked coolly, “Have you finished roundly abusing me?”

“There’s no abuse I can inflict on you, my lord duke, to equal that which you would inflict upon me,” she said bitterly.

“I have no intention of abusing you. Sit down before the room disintegrates in your cyclone and take a glass of claret.”

The deliberately bored tone was deflating. Juliana sat down and accepted the glass of wine he brought her. The outburst had drained her, leaving her hovering on the
brink of hopelessness. “Why won’t you find someone else?” she asked wearily.

Tarquin sat down opposite her. “Because, my dear, you are a perfect choice.” He began to tick off on his fingers. “You have the necessary breeding to appear as Lucien’s wife without causing raised eyebrows. And you have both the breeding and certain qualities that I believe will make you a good mother to my child. And, finally, you need what I am offering in exchange. Safety, a good position, financial security. And most of all, Juliana, independence.”

“Independence?” She raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “And how does that square with being a brood mare?”

Tarquin stood up and went to refill his glass. The girl was not a simpleton, but he was beginning to wonder whether, unusual or no, she was worth the time and the trouble he was expending. There were other women, as she so rightly pointed out. Women who’d jump at what he was offering. He turned back and examined her in silence, reflectively sipping his claret.

She was sitting back again, her eyes closed, her hair living fire around her pale face. The deep cleft between her breasts drew his eye. There was something intriguing as well as unusual about her. Her defiant resistance was such a novel challenge, he found it irresistible. He wanted to know what made her so unexpected, so out of the common way. What soil had she grown in? Maybe he was being a fool, but his blood sang with the conviction that Miss Juliana was definitely worth the time and the trouble to persuade.

He put his glass down and came over to her. Bending, he took her hands and drew her to her feet. “Let me show you something.”

Juliana opened her mouth in protest and then gasped as his mouth closed over hers. His hands were in her hair, holding her head steady, and his lips were firm and pliant on hers. His tongue ran over her mouth, darting into the corners in a warm, playful caress that for a moment took her breath away. She was enclosed in a red darkness, all her
senses focused on her mouth, on the taste and feel of his. Her lips parted at the delicate pressure, and his tongue slid inside, moving sinuously, exploring her mouth, filling her mouth with sweetness, sending hot surges of confused longing from her head to her toes.

Slowly he drew back and smiled down into her startled face, his fingers still curled in her hair. “That was what I wanted to show you.”

“You … you ravished me!”

Tarquin threw his head back and laughed. “Not so,
mignonne.
I made you a promise.” He moved one hand to cup her cheek, his thumb stroking her reddened mouth.

Juliana stared up at him, and he read the confusion, the dismay, and the excitement in her eyes.

“I promised you that what happens between us will bring you only pleasure. Nothing will happen to you, Juliana, that you don’t wholeheartedly agree to.”

“Then let me go,” she begged, recognizing with quiet desperation that if she was compelled to remain, then Tarquin, Duke of Redmayne, would defeat her. She had yielded to his kiss. She hadn’t fought him. Sweet heaven, she’d opened her mouth for his tongue without a moment’s hesitation.

“No, you must remain in this house—that I insist upon.”

Slowly Juliana crossed the room and picked up her discarded shoes. Sitting down, she slipped her feet into them. She knew he would see it as a symbolic gesture of acceptance, but at the moment she was too dispirited for further fighting.

She rose as slowly and walked to the door. “I beg leave to bid you good night, my lord duke.” She curtsied formally, her voice low and expressionless.

“You have leave,” he responded with a smile. “We will begin anew tomorrow.”

Y
ou want me to take a wife!” Lucien threw back his head on a shout of derisive laughter that disintegrated into a violent fit of coughing. Tarquin waited impassively as his cousin fought for sobbing breaths, his chest rattling, a sheen of perspiration gathering on his pale, sallow complexion.

“By God, Tarquin, I do believe you’ve finally lost your wits!” Lucien managed at last, falling back into his chair. He was clearly exhausted, but he still grinned, a gleam of malevolent interest in the dark, burning sockets of his eyes.

“I doubt that,” the duke said calmly. He filled a glass with cognac and handed it to his cousin.

Lucien drained it in one gulp and sighed. “That’s better. Eases the tightness.” He patted his chest and extended his glass. “Another, dear fellow, if you please.”

Tarquin glanced at the clock on the mantel. It was ten in the morning. Then he shrugged and refilled the viscount’s glass. “Are you able to listen to me now?”

“Oh, by all means … by all means,” Lucien assured him, still grinning. “Why else would I obey your summons so promptly? Amuse me, dear boy. I’m in sore need of entertainment.”

Tarquin sat down and regarded his cousin in silence for a
minute. His expression was dispassionate, showing no sign of the deep disgust he felt for this wreck of a young man who had willfully cast away every advantage of birth, breeding, and fortune, pursuing a course of self-destruction and depravity that considered no indulgence or activity too vile.

Sometimes Tarquin wondered why Lucien had turned out as he had. Sometimes he wondered if he, as the boy’s guardian, bore any responsibility. He’d tried to be an elder brother to Lucien, to provide an understanding and steadying influence in his life, but Lucien had always evaded him in some way. He’d always been dislikable, defeating even Quentin’s determination to see the good in him.