Vice (16 page)

“Try to relax, Juliana. It’ll ease in a minute.” He drew back a fraction, then thrust deeply. Her body seemed to split apart, and she heard her own cry of pain. Then everything was smooth and even, and her body was responding to the strong, rhythmic thrusts of his flesh, and the tension that built now was of the most blissful kind. And when it exploded, Juliana dissolved yet again into a scatter of shooting stars.

His body rested heavily on hers, their sweat mingling. Juliana stroked his back as she floated down to earth and took possession of her self again. She could feel him still within her, growing smaller, and a wave of pleasure washed gently through her with the sense that he remained a part of her. Instinctively, she tightened her inner muscles around him and felt the flicker as his flesh responded.

Tarquin kissed the hollow of her throat. “Have patience,” he said with a lazy chuckle. He disengaged slowly and rolled away from her. Juliana made a soft murmur of protest at the loss and followed him with her body, curling against him in blissful languor.

Tarquin pushed an arm beneath so her head rested on his shoulder. He caressed her breast, feeling her slide into a light sleep. He lay listening to her breathing, his own eyelids
drooping in the candle glow. He hadn’t expected such a passionate and trusting response. He’d expected to arouse her; he’d intended to make the loss of her maidenhead as painless as possible. He’d expected to enjoy her as much as he enjoyed most women. He had not expected to be moved by her. But her fresh innocence combined with that lusty, uninhibited passion stirred him. She had every reason to mistrust him, to hold herself back from him, and yet she’d ridden the wave of pleasure with a wonderful candor, giving herself to him and to sexual joy without reservation.

As he held her in his arms, he had the sense that he had found something to cherish. It was a strange, fanciful idea, and he wasn’t sure where it had come from. Except that he’d given himself once with such joyful trust and he’d been betrayed. Juliana would not experience such betrayal at his hands.

Juliana stirred and awoke. She burrowed against him with a little murmur of pleasure. “How long was I asleep?”

“About five minutes.” He stroked down her back and patted her bottom before extricating himself and sliding off the bed. “Wine,
mignonne?”

“Yes, please.” Juliana stretched and sat up. Blood smudged the long, creamy length of her thigh. She hopped off the bed with a little exclamation. “We should have pulled back the coverlet.”

Tarquin turned from the table with a glass of wine. He smiled at her worried domestic frown as she examined the heavy damask for stains. He put down the glass and filled the basin on the washstand with warm water from the ewer. “Come, let me make you more comfortable,” he invited, wringing out a washcloth.

Suddenly shy, Juliana approached him hesitantly. She reached to take the cloth from him, but he said, “Let me do it for you.”

He gently nudged her thighs apart and Juliana submitted to his deft, intimate attentions, her awkwardness fading when she realized that he was enjoying what he was doing
to her. That he was making of the simple cleansing a delicately arousing ritual.

Her eyes were heavy when he straightened and tossed the washcloth back into the basin. “That wasn’t so bad, was it, now?” he teased, kissing her mouth.

“I feel most peculiar,” Juliana confided matter-of-factly. “As if I’ve lost touch with the ground.”

“Perhaps a little supper will bring you back to reality.” Tarquin opened the armoire and drew out a man’s velvet chamber robe. He shrugged into it and picked up Juliana’s wrapper from the floor. “Put this on again for a little while.”

Juliana took it. “A little while” seemed promising. Vaguely, she wondered how long his own robe had been hanging in her armoire. Equally vaguely, she wondered how he’d known it would be there. She took the glass of wine he handed her.

She shook her head when he offered lobster and asparagus but nibbled on a candied fruit, sipping her wine, watching him eat.

“I suppose we should make haste with the marriage ceremony,” she said after a minute or two. “If I’ve conceived, it might be awkward to explain a premature infant.”

Tarquin looked up from his supper with a quick frown. “There’s no need to discuss that tonight, Juliana.”

“But since it’s the object of the exercise …” She didn’t know why she was bringing it up now. It had immediately cast a pall over her rosy glow. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “I beg your pardon, my lord duke.” She sketched a curtsy. “It was very clumsy of me to bring it up. I daresay it’s because I’m inexperienced in the art of pleasing men. When I’ve become more accustomed to life in a bawdy house, I’m certain I won’t offend again.”

The duke stared at her for a moment; then he chuckled. “What a provoking child you are,” he said. “Have another sweetmeat.” He passed her the basket.

Juliana hesitated; then, with a tiny shrug, she took a sugared almond and sat down on the chaise longue.

Tarquin’s brief nod indicated approval, and he returned to his lobster. “As it happens, I believe we should proceed with the marriage ceremony with all speed,” he observed, dabbing his mouth with his napkin. “In my waistcoat pocket you’ll find something that might interest you.”

Juliana went to the chair where his clothes still lay. She felt in the pocket of his waistcoat and drew out a piece of folded parchment. “What is it?”

“Take a look.” He leaned back in his chair, sipping his wine, regarding her closely as she unfolded the paper.

“Oh? It’s me!”

“That was the conclusion I came to.”

Juliana stared at the poster. There was an artist’s likeness of her … somewhat crude but accurate enough. The physical description, however, was minute and unmistakable, right down to the freckles on her nose. She glanced up at the mirror, comparing herself with the likeness and the description. Her hair and eyes were the giveaway.

“Where did you find this?”

“They’re posted all over town.” He selected an asparagus spear with his fingers and lifted it to his mouth.

Juliana read the description of her crime.
Wanted for the murder of her husband: Juliana Ridge of the village of Ashford in Hampshire. Substantial reward offered for any information, however small Contact Sir George Ridge at the Gardener’s Arms in Cheapside.

“I wonder how much he’s offering,” she mused, initially more intrigued than alarmed by this evidence of George’s pursuit.

The duke shook his head. “Whatever it is, you’re not safe outside this house until you’re beyond the reach of that country bumpkin. So once the contracts have been drawn up with Copplethwaite, I’ll procure a special license. It should all be over by the end of the week.”

“I see. And what will I think of your cousin?” Juliana still stood by the chair, still holding the poster.

“You’ll undoubtedly dislike him heartily.” He refilled his wineglass. “But you need have nothing to do with him
in private. You will both lodge in my house in separate quarters. Lucien will leave you strictly alone.”

“And once I’ve conceived, I imagine that will apply to you too, my lord duke?”

“That will depend on you,” he snapped. He tossed his napkin to the table and stood up, not sure why her question disturbed him; it was, after all, a perfectly fair question. “It seems not impossible that I might set you up as my mistress after Lucien’s death. It would be easy enough to arrange discreetly. My cousin’s widow with a child in my wardship would have a natural claim upon my attention and protection.”

“I see. A duke’s established mistress. I’ll be the envy of every courtesan in town, my lord.”

“I’ll bandy words with you no longer.” He strode to his clothes on the chair.

“But can’t you understand!” Juliana cried passionately. “Can’t you try to understand what I feel?”

Tarquin paused in his dressing and turned to look at her flushed face framed in the flaming halo of her hair, the jade eyes expressing an almost desperate frustration. “I suppose I can,” he said eventually. “If you can try to trust in me. I mean you no harm. Quite the opposite.”

He dressed swiftly in the silence his words produced, then came over to her and kissed her. He kissed the corners of her mouth, the tip of her nose, and her brow. “There were a few moments this evening when you
didn’t
wish to consign me to Lucifer’s fires, weren’t there?”

Juliana nodded. “Don’t go,” she said, suddenly sure of one thing she wanted.

“It’s best if I do.”

Juliana said nothing further, and he left her immediately. She took a sip of her neglected wine. Apparently she was not to have disagreeable arguments or unsettling opinions, or to ask provoking questions. Clearly His Grace of Redmayne didn’t like that in a woman. In which case he’d picked the wrong woman for his schemes; she wasn’t about
to curb her own nature just to fit the duke’s image of a suitable mistress.

Lord of hell! She was a mistress. A duke’s mistress! The realization hit her for the first time. Abruptly she sat on the bed, aware of every inch of her sensitized skin, the vague soreness between her legs, the utterly pleasurable sense of having been used, filled, fulfilled. Did whores enjoy their work? Did they retire every morning filled with this wonderful, languid bodily joy? Somehow Juliana didn’t think so. Did wives feel it? She knew with absolute certainty that the wife of John Ridge wouldn’t have. If John hadn’t died in the midst of his huffing and puffing, she would be his wedded, bedded wife, condemned never to know the glories that she’d just shared with the Duke of Redmayne.

So what did it all mean? That she should accept with a glad heart the hand fate had dealt her? Count her blessings and embrace the duke with cries of joy?

Oh, no! That was not the way it was going to be. She’d find a way to enjoy the benefits of this liaison while giving the duke a serious run for his money.

Juliana reached for the bellpull to summon Bella, her mind seething with energy, quite at odds with her body’s languor.

L
awyer Copplethwaite was a small, round man whose waistcoat strained over an ample belly. He had a worried air and his wig was askew, revealing a polished bald pate that he scratched nervously.

“Mistress Ridge.” He bowed as Juliana entered Mistress Dennison’s parlor in response to a summons the following morning. His eyes darted around the room, looking everywhere but directly at her. In fact, he seemed thoroughly ill at ease. He appeared such an unlikely frequenter of a whorehouse that Juliana assumed his discomfort arose from his present surroundings.

She curtsied demurely to the lawyer, then to Elizabeth, who was seated on a sofa beneath the open window, a sheaf of papers in her lap.

“Good morning,
mignonne.”
The duke, clad in a suit of dark-red silk edged with silver lace, moved away from the mantel and came over to her. Juliana hadn’t been sure how she would greet him after the previous evening. They hadn’t parted bad friends, but neither had they parted intimate lovers. Now she covertly examined his expression and saw both a glint of humor in his eyes, and very clear pleasure as he smiled at her.

On a mischievous impulse she curtsied low with an exaggerated
air of humility. Tarquin took her hand and kissed it as he raised her. “I may be a duke, my dear, but I don’t warrant the depth you would accord a royal prince,” he instructed gravely. “Delighted though I am to see such a sweetly submissive salutation.” The amusement in his eyes deepened, and she couldn’t help a responding grin. She was going to have to get up very early in the morning to best the Duke of Redmayne in these little games.

“I trust you slept well,” he said, drawing her farther into the room.

“I never have difficulty sleeping,” she said meekly.

He merely raised an eyebrow and drew a chair forward. “Pray sit down. Mr. Copplethwaite is going to read that part of the contracts that concerns you.”

The lawyer cleared his throat diffidently. “If I may, madam.”

“Yes, of course.” Elizabeth handed him the sheaf of papers. There was a moment’s silence, disturbed only by the rustling of paper as the lawyer selected the relevant documents. Then he cleared his throat again and began to read.

There were a series of clauses, all very simple, all very much as had been explained to Juliana already. She listened attentively, and most particularly to the clause that concerned her possible failure to conceive within the lifetime of the present Viscount Edgecombe. The lawyer blushed a little as he read this and scratched his head so vigorously, his wig slipped sideways and was in danger of sliding right off its shiny surface.

Juliana tried to keep her own expression impassive as she listened. If she failed to conceive in the viscount’s lifetime she would receive a reasonably generous pension on her husband’s death. If she did give the duke the child he wanted, then she would receive a large stipend, and she and the child would be housed under the duke’s roof until the child’s majority. His Grace of Redmayne would be the child’s sole guardian and the sole arbiter of his existence. His mother would have all the natural rights of motherhood
and would be consulted on decisions concerning the child, but the duke’s decision would always be final.