Vice (13 page)

A tap at the door broke the charmed circle, and Juliana jumped back with a little cry of alarm. She turned away, blushing, her hand covering her tingling lips, as the footman placed a tray on the sideboard and asked the duke if there was anything else he needed. Tarquin responded as coolly as if nothing untoward had happened in the last minutes. Juliana, vividly remembering the feel of his erection pushing so urgently against her couldn’t believe he could sound so matter-of-fact. She was relatively hazy about male anatomy, but surely such a manifestation couldn’t be comfortably ignored.

She jumped when his hand touched her shoulder. Spinning round, she saw that the room was now empty. Tarquin laughed at her startled expression.
“Mignonne
, you are delightful.” He caressed her mouth with his forefinger. “I do believe we are going to enjoy ourselves.”

“No!”
she cried, finding her voice at last. “No. I won’t let you do this to me.” She flung herself away from him just as the door opened without ceremony.

“The footman said you were in here, Tarquin, I wanted … Oh, I do beg your pardon.” Quentin’s eyes ran over Juliana in one quick, all-encompassing assessment. “I didn’t realize you had company,” he said steadily. “Catlett should have told me.”

“Allow me to present Miss Juliana Beresford, as she likes to be known.” Tarquin took her hand, drawing her forward. “Juliana, this is my half brother, Lord Quentin Courtney. I’m sure you’ll be getting to know him quite well.”

Juliana was too flustered for a moment to do more than stare at the new arrival. Then she realized that he was bowing
to her, and hastily she curtsied. “I give you good day, my lord.”

Quentin surveyed her gravely, and she felt her blush deepen. She wondered if her lips were marked by the duke’s kiss, if this man could detect something on her, something that would give away the shameless arousal that still pulsed in her belly. Was there an aura? A scent, perhaps? Unable to bear his gaze any longer, she turned away.

“Is it fair to the poor child to bring her here unchaperoned, Tarquin?” Quentin’s voice was harshly reproving. “If she was seen on the street, her reputation will be compromised.”

A flicker of hope sprang into Juliana’s disordered mind. Perhaps in this mad world she had found a champion. “My lord, His Grace does not believe I have a reputation that could be compromised,” she said in a low, plaintive voice. Slowly she turned and raised her eyes to the somber-suited man, noting the strong physical resemblance between the two men. “Are you perhaps a man of the cloth?” she asked, guessing from his dark, modestly cut coat and plain starched stock.

“I am, child.” Quentin took a step toward her, but suddenly she flung herself to the floor at his feet, clasping his knees with a sob.

“Oh, sir, save me. Please, I beg you, don’t let the duke have his wicked way with me.” Ignoring the strange, strangled sound from the duke standing behind her, she burst into wrenching sobs.

“Oh, hush, child. Hush. Pray don’t distress yourself so.” Quentin bent to lift her to her feet. “Tarquin, this has got to stop! I won’t permit this to go one step further.” He stroked Juliana’s bent head and handed her his handkerchief. “Dry your eyes, my dear. You have nothing to fear in this house.”

Juliana took the handkerchief with a mumble and buried her face in the starched folds, every muscle strained to sense how the duke was reacting.

“Tarquin?” Quentin demanded. “You must let her go.”

“Certainly.”

Juliana’s head shot up at this. She regretted it immediately when the duke caught her chin and turned her face toward him. “That was quite a performance,
mignonne
, I congratulate you. Real tears, too.” He smudged the track of a tear on her cheek with his thumb. “Not many, but a respectable showing.”

“Oh, you are loathsome!” she whispered, tugging her head free. “Let me go.”

“But of course.” He strode to the door and opened it. “You’re free to go where you wish … except, of course, back to Russell Street. Mistress Dennison will have no incentive to continue to provide you with hospitality.”

Juliana stared, uncomprehending. Was he really going to permit her to walk out of the house after everything that had been said?

“You may keep the clothes you have on your back, since the ones you arrived in appear to have been mislaid,” he continued with an amiable smile that gave no hint of his inner uncertainty. Would she call his bluff? Or had he judged her correctly? Impulsive and yet far from irrational. Stubbornly defiant and yet clearheaded and intelligent.

Juliana looked down at her bronze silk gown, the fringe of the silk shawl. Where could she possibly go in such finery? She couldn’t hire herself out as a servant dressed like this.

“Forgive me,” he said gently, “but I grow weary holding the door for you.”

Juliana walked past him, drawing her skirts aside. She marched down the stairs. The footman opened the door for her, and she stepped out into the street.

In the morning room Quentin turned on his half brother, rare anger snapping in his eyes. “How dare you treat her like that!”

“She’s free to go. I won’t keep her against her will. D’you care for sherry?”

“No,” Quentin said shortly. “What’s she to do now?”

“I really don’t know.” Tarquin poured himself a glass of
sherry. “She must have had a plan when she arrived in town. I imagine she’ll put it into effect now.”

Quentin went uneasily to the window, but it looked out over the back of the house, and he could see nothing of the street. “I’ll go after her,” he said. “Offer her money, at least. She’s so young to be let loose on the city.”

“My sentiments exactly, dear boy.” Tarquin sipped his sherry, regarding his brother with narrowed eyes. “Far too young. And far too innocent.”

“Gad, Tarquin, but you’re a cold bastard,” Quentin said as if he’d never spent three years in a seminary. “But if you’ll do nothing for her,
I
will.” He marched to the door just as it opened again.

Juliana stood there. Her eyes were on Tarquin. “Where am I to go?” she asked. “What am I to do?”

“Wherever and whatever you wish,” he responded, but his voice had lost its hardness.

“You know what will happen to me. That’s why you showed me all those things this morning, isn’t it?” Her face was paler than ever, the dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose standing out in harsh relief. Her eyes burned like green fire.

“My dear girl, you have no need to worry. I will give you some money and you can go home, back to your family.” Quentin fumbled in his pockets.

Juliana shook her head. “Thank you, my lord. You are very kind, but you see I cannot go home, as the duke well knows. He also knows that I have no real choice but to do what His Grace demands.”

M
istress Dennison asks that Your Grace would do ’er the honor of waitin’ upon her.” Mr. Garston bowed low, delivering this message as the Duke of Redmayne ushered Juliana into the hall at Russell Street half an hour later. “If you can spare the time, Your Grace.”

“Certainly,” Tarquin said. “I wish to speak with her anyway.” He turned to Juliana. “Stay within doors. You’ll be sent for shortly.” He strode up the stairs without a backward glance.

“Looks like you and ’Is Grace ’ave come to some arrangement,” Mr. Garston observed with a benign smile. “Lucky girl. A right proper gent is ’Is Grace. ’E’ll see you right.” He pinched her cheek. “Such a long face, missie. There’s no call fer that. The other young ladies will be green with envy, you mark my words.”

“Then I wish one of them would take my place,” Juliana said wanly. She turned restlessly back to the front door, still open behind her.

“Now, now, missie. You ’eard what ’Is Grace said.” Mr. Garston moved his large bulk with surprising speed to close the door. “Y’are to stay within doors till yer sent for.”

Like a slave obeying her master, Juliana thought, still stunned by the magnitude of what she’d agreed to. She
heard Emma’s voice in the drawing room, followed by a giggle, and then a chorus of laughing voices.

They sounded so lighthearted. How could they accept this degrading servitude so cheerfully? Perhaps they could teach her a valuable lesson in resignation. Juliana went into the drawing room.

“Oh, Juliana, come and sit down.” She was greeted with warmth and enthusiasm by the trio of women sitting heads together on the sofa, leafing through a pattern magazine. “You’ve been driving with the duke. Has he formalized his offer for you yet?”

“What do you mean … formalized?” Juliana perched on the arm of a chair.

“Oh, he has to make arrangements with the Dennisons. They draw up contracts if someone wants us exclusively,” Rosamund explained. “Will you stay here, or will the duke set you up somewhere on your own? I don’t think I’d like that myself, it would be so lonely.” Her plump, pretty face beamed contentedly as she squeezed Emma’s arm beside her.

“I am to marry the duke’s cousin, Viscount Edgecombe,” Juliana said flatly. She couldn’t bring herself to tell them of the other half of the arrangement.

“Marriage!” gasped Emma. “Oh, my dear Juliana. How wonderful for you. You’ll be set for life.”

“So long as it’s not a Fleet wedding,” Lilly said darkly. “D’you remember Molly Petrie? She left Mother Need-ham’s to marry Lord Liverton, only he took her to a marriage shop instead. And when he’d had enough of her, he threw her out with just the clothes on her back. And she ended up sleeping under the stalls in Covent Garden and taking anyone who’d give her a penny for gin.”

“What’s a Fleet wedding?” Juliana asked, curiosity finally penetrating her stunned trance.

“Oh, it’s when they get an unfrocked preacher to perform the ceremony. There’s marriage shops all around the fleet,” Lilly told her. “It’s not a proper marriage, although sometimes the girl doesn’t know it … like poor Molly.”

“But that’s dreadful!” Juliana exclaimed. “Wicked. It’s evil to trick a woman like that.”

Emma shrugged. “Of course it is. But men don’t care. They do what they want. And there’s not much any of us can do to stop ’em.”

Juliana frowned fiercely, her straight brows almost meeting. “If you all got together and refused to be treated badly, then they’d have to change their behavior.”

Lilly laughed indulgently. “My dear Juliana, don’t be a simpleton. For every one of us who refused to give them what they wanted, there’d be half a dozen eager to take our place.”

“It’s not as if treating whores badly is a crime,” Rosamund pointed out. “I mean, you couldn’t go to a magistrate and lay a charge or anything.”

“No, the magistrates are too busy persecuting us,” Emma declared in disgust. “It’s hard to earn any kind of a living if you’re not in a respectable house. The others are always being raided, and the girls find themselves making a trip to Bridewell at the cart’s arse.”

Men and women whipped at the cart’s tail through the streets of Winchester for vagrancy or disorderly behavior was a common enough sight, but Juliana had never expected to find herself in a world where such punishment was accepted as an occupational hazard. “I still think that if everyone protested, something would change.”

“Brave talk, but you’re new to the game, Juliana,” Lilly said. “Wait for six months and see how brave you are then.”

“If she’s to be properly married to a viscount, she won’t have to become accustomed,” Rosamund pointed out. “But why is the duke procuring you for his cousin? It seems very peculiar.”

“You’d best try to find out if this cousin wants anything special,” Emma said. “Sometimes they have to have whores because respectable women won’t do what they want. But he might want something bad … something hurtful. You want to be sure you know what you’re getting into.”

She couldn’t tell these women that she was being blackmailed and that whatever the duke and his cousin wanted of her, she’d be obliged to provide. She couldn’t tell them that all her brave protestations about making a stand and forcing a change in their conditions of service were so much posturing. She was as firmly caught as any one of them, with no more power to alter her destiny at this point than a pinned butterfly.

“’Is Grace bids you join ’im and Mistress Dennison in the small salon, Miss Juliana,” Mr. Garston spoke from the doorway.

Bids, not asks.
Juliana rose. She had no choice but to do His Grace’s bidding.

Outside the door to the small salon, she hesitated. She should knock. Then, with a little tilt of her chin, Juliana decided to make one small gesture. She threw open the door and stepped into the room.

“Oh, there you are, Juliana.” Elizabeth looked startled.

“Not a surprise, madam, surely. I understood you had asked to see me.”

Tarquin’s lips twitched. Miss Juliana seemed to have recovered her spirit. He stood up and came over to her. “Come and sit down,
mignonne”
Taking her hand, he brushed it with his lips, then deliberately and very lightly kissed her mouth.

It seemed a casual greeting, but Juliana understood it for what it was. A public statement of possession. A shiver ran up her spine, and she looked away.

“My dear, someone has been inquiring for you at the Bell,” Mistress Dennison said. “Do you know who it could be?”