Vice (18 page)

Lucien straightened, burying his streaming face in his handkerchief. “Odd’s blood!” he rasped when he could catch his breath. “Thought I was never goin’ to breathe again.” He wiped his nose and mouth and thrust the handkerchief back into his pocket. Then he surveyed his wife with a distinct leer. “Sorry about that, m’dear. Not a particularly good first impression for a man to make on his bride, what?”

“No,” Juliana said faintly. “Must we continue to stand on the street in this fashion?” She flicked at her bridal white with an expression of deep disgust. Of all the travesties, to be dressed up like this for such a diabolical mockery.

“My carriage is here.” Tarquin took her arm, directing her across the street to where stood a light town chaise with the Redmayne arms emblazoned on the panels. “Quentin, do you accompany us back to Albermarle Street?”

His brother hesitated, still angry. But when Juliana looked at him in silent appeal, he gave a curt nod and crossed the street.

“You won’t mind if I don’t join you?” Lucien popped his head through the open carriage window. “Think I need to quench m’thirst without delay. Can’t risk another fit. There’s a tavern on the corner.” He gestured with his hat.

“By all means,” Tarquin said amiably.

“But I’ll be there for the bridal feast … count on me for that.” laughing, Lucien went off, heading purposefully for the Lamb and Hag on the corner.

“Bridal feast?”
Juliana glared at the two men sitting opposite her. “When will this mockery end, my lord duke?”

“Lucien’s idea of a jest,” Tarquin said. “I had planned no such thing. What I had planned was a visit to the play, followed by supper in the rotunda at Ranelagh. If that would please you, Juliana. D’you care to accompany us, Quentin?”

“If Juliana would permit me to join you,” his brother said still coldly. “But maybe she would prefer to retire to her own quarters and weep.”

“Oh, I don’t believe Juliana is given to such melodrama,” Tarquin responded. He was hoping his bracing words would keep her from losing courage. He knew instinctively that if she broke down now, it would be much more difficult for her later.

“And how would you know, sir?” Juliana was hunched into the corner, her baleful eyes never leaving the duke’s face.

“An educated guess,” he said. “Now, don’t fall into a fit of the sullens, child. I’m suggesting an evening of pleasure. You’ll not see Lucien—indeed, it’s possible you won’t see him until you have to make your society debut. Oh, I sent notices of the marriage to the
Morning Post
and the
Times
, so you can expect to receive bride visits within the week, I imagine.”

“Without my husband’s support, I suppose?”

“Oh, it’s hardly Lucien’s kind of thing. But Quentin and I will be there to lend our own support. Won’t we, dear brother?”

“Of course.” Quentin realized that whether he wished it or not, he was now deeply entangled in his brother’s scheme. Juliana had embroiled him much more effectively than Tarquin. Juliana, who could be no match for Tarquin … no match for Lucien … would need all the friendship and protection he could provide. Her eyes were shadowed as they gazed out of the window, her mouth taut, her hands tightly knotted in her lap.

She was so young. So vulnerable. So innocent. Poor child. She could never have dreamed she’d find herself caught up in this twisted scheme of the Duke of Redmayne’s. Tarquin had always preferred a devious route to his goals, and this was as cunning and artful as any route he’d ever taken. But how inexcusable that he should involve someone as unprotected and as inexperienced as Juliana.

He glanced sideways at the still figure of his brother beside him. Tarquin was leaning back against the squabs, arms folded, eyes half-closed. But Quentin knew they were resting intently on Juliana. Tarquin’s mouth was slightly curved as if he found something amusing or pleasing. Startled, Quentin felt a curious softness emanating from his brother. He had always been able to read Tarquin’s mood; it was a skill that arose from the years of closeness, from the years when he’d worshiped his half brother and tried to emulate him.

He no longer tried to emulate him … no longer chose to. Quentin had found his own path, and it was not his brother’s. But the bond between them was as strong as ever. And now Quentin, to his astonishment, sensed a tenderness in Tarquin—a warmth, as he looked at Juliana, that belied the dispassionate cynicism of his manner.

Quentin returned his gaze to Juliana, so tense and still in her bridal white, the veil thrown back so that her hair blazed in the dimness of the carriage. If Tarquin was stirred
by her in some way, then perhaps this would not turn out as badly as Quentin feared.

The chaise slowed and drew up. Juliana came out of her bitter, angry reverie. She looked out of the window and recognized the house on Albermarle Street. The house that was to be her home for the foreseeable future. And if she managed to give the duke the child he desired, then it would be her home for many, many years.

The footman opened the door. Tarquin jumped lightly to the ground, disdaining the footstep, and held out his hand to Juliana. “Welcome to your new home, Lady Edgecombe.”

Juliana averted her face as she took his hand and stepped to the ground, Quentin following. Her anger burned hot and deep as the earth’s core. How could he have wedded her to that defiled wreck of a man without telling her the truth? To his mind she was no more than an expensive acquisition with no rights to knowledge or opinion. He’d asked for her trust, but how could she ever trust in his word when he would keep such a thing from her?

But she would be revenged. Dear God, she would be revenged a hundredfold. The resolution carried her into the house with head held high, and her dignity didn’t desert her even when she caught her heel on the doorstep and had to grab the bowing footman to stop herself from falling to her knees.

Quentin jumped forward to steady her with a hand under her elbow.

“Thank you,” she said stiffly, moving away from both Quentin and the footman.

“Juliana has a tendency to topple and spill,” Tarquin observed. “In certain circumstances she can produce the effect of a typhoon.”

“How gallant of you, my lord duke,” she snapped, roughly pulling the veil from her head and tossing it toward a rosewood pier table. It missed, falling to the marble floor in a shimmering cloud.

“Well, let’s not brawl in front of the servants,” Tarquin
said without heat. “Come with me and I’D show you your apartments.” Cupping her elbow, he urged her toward the stairs.

Left behind, Quentin picked up the discarded veil, placed it carefully on the table, then made his way to the library and the sherry decanter.

Juliana and the duke reached the head of the horseshoe stairs.

“As I’ve already mentioned, I thought you might like to use the morning room as your own private parlor,” the duke said with a determined cheerfulness, gesturing down the corridor to the door Juliana remembered on the first landing. “You’ll be able to receive your own friends there in perfect privacy.”

What friends?
Juliana closed her lips firmly on the sardonic question. “Your bedchamber and boudoir are at the front of the house, on the second floor.” He ushered her up the second flight of stairs to the right of the landing. “You’ll need an abigail, and I’ve engaged a woman from my estate. A widow—her husband was one of my tenant farmers and died a few months ago. She’s a good soul. Very respectable. I’m sure you’ll deal well together.”

He didn’t say that he’d decided that Juliana needed a motherly soul to look after her, rather than one of the haughty females usually engaged as abigails to ladies of the fashionable world.

Juliana was still silent. He flung open a pair of double doors.

“Your bedchamber. The boudoir is through the door on the left.” He gestured for her to precede him into a large, light chamber furnished in white and gold. The enormous tester bed was hung with gold damask, the coverlet of white embroidered cambric. The furniture was delicate, carved spindle legs and graceful curving arms and backs, the chaise longue and chairs upholstered in gold-and-white brocade. Bowls of yellow and white roses perfumed the air. Juliana’s feet sank into the deep pile of the cream carpet patterned with gold flowers as she stepped into the room.

“Oh, what an elegant room!” Her bitter anger faded as she gazed around in delight. The involuntary comparison of this epitome of wealth and good taste with the ugly, heavy, scratched, dented, and faded furnishings in Sir John Ridge’s house would not be quashed.

Tarquin smiled with pleasure, then wondered faintly why this chit of a girl’s approval meant so much to him. Juliana had bounced over to the door of the boudoir, and he could hear her delighted exclamations as she explored the small, intimate room. “How pretty it is.” She came back to the bedchamber, her eyes shining. “I never expected to find myself inhabiting such elegant surroundings,” she confided.

“You will grace them, my dear,” Tarquin said, an involuntary smile still on his lips at the sight of her ingenuous pleasure.

“Oh, I dareswear within ten minutes the entire chamber will look as if a typhoon hit it,” she retorted.

Tarquin held out his hands to her. “Come, cry peace. I meant no offense. Actually, I find your … your haphazard locomotion very appealing.”

Juliana regarded him incredulously. “I fail to see how anyone could find clumsiness appealing.”

“There’s something utterly alluring about you, Juliana. Whether you’re on your head or your heels.” His voice was suddenly a caress, his smile now richly sensual, issuing an irresistible invitation.

Juliana stepped toward him as the clear gray eyes drew her forward like the pull of gravity. He held her by the shoulders and looked down into her upturned face. “There are so many more enjoyable things for us to do, my sweet, than quarrel.”

She wanted to tell him that he was a deceitful whoreson. She wanted to curse him, to bring down a plague on his house. But she simply stood, gazing up at him, losing herself in his eyes while she waited for his beautiful mouth to take hers. And when it did, she yielded with a tiny moan of sweet satisfaction, opening her lips for him, greedily pushing
her own tongue deep into his mouth, inhaling the scent of his skin, running her hands through his hair, urgently pulling his face to hers as if she couldn’t get enough of him.

He bore her backward to the bed, and she fell in a tumble of virginal white. His face hovered over hers, no longer smiling, expressive now of a deep, primitive hunger that set answering pangs deep in her belly. He was pushing up her skirts and petticoats, ignoring the awkward impediment of the hoop. His free hand loosened his britches, then slid beneath her bottom, lifting her on the shelf of his palm as he drove within her.

Juliana gasped at the suddenness of his penetration, but her body welcomed him with joy, her hips moving of their own accord, her buttock muscles tight against the warmth of his flat palm. He supported himself on one hand as he moved within her in short, hard thrusts. And her belly contracted with each thrust, the spiral tightening until a cry burst from her lips and waves of pleasure broke over her. His head was thrown back, his neck corded with effort, his eyes closed. Then he spoke her name in a curious wonder, and his seed gushed into her with each pulsing throb of his flesh, and when she thought she could bear no more, a surge of the most exquisite joy flooded every cell and pore of her body.

“Such enchantment,” Tarquin murmured as he bent and kissed the damp swell of her breast rising above her décolletage.

Juliana lay sprawled beneath him, unable to move or speak until her racing heart slowed a little. With an effort she raised a hand and touched his face, then let it flop back again onto the coverlet. “I got lost somewhere,” she murmured.

Tarquin slipped gently from her body. “It’s a wonderful landscape to roam.”

“Oh, yes,” Juliana agreed, pushing feebly at her disordered skirts. “And one doesn’t even need to get undressed for the journey,” she added with an impish chuckle, suddenly
invigorated. She sat up. “Where are my husband’s apartments?”

“On the other side of the house, at the back.” The duke stood up, refastening his britches, regarding her with a quizzical frown.

She slid off the bed, shaking down her skirts. “And where are
your
apartments, sir?”

“Next door to yours.”

“How convenient,” Juliana observed, beginning to unpin her loosening hair.

“Let me show you just how convenient.” He turned to the armoire on the far side of the room. “Come, see.”

Juliana, still pulling pins from her hair, followed curiously. He opened the door, and she gasped at the rich mass of silk, satin, and taffeta hanging there. “What’s that?”

“I told you I’ve been busy with your wardrobe,” he said. “But that’s not what I wish to show you right now.” He pushed the garments aside and stepped back so Juliana could see into the interior.

She saw a door at the back of the armoire.

“Open it,” he said, enjoying her puzzlement.

Juliana did so. The narrow door swung open onto another bedchamber quite unlike her own. No dainty, feminine chamber, this one was all dark wood and tapestries, with solid oak furniture and highly polished floors.

“Oh,” she said.

“Convenient, wouldn’t you agree?” His eyes were alight with amusement.

“Very.” Juliana stepped back, shaking her hair free of its plaited coronet. “Did you install it specially?”

He shook his head. “No, it was put in by the third duke, who, it was said, like to play little tricks on his duchess. He was not a pleasant man, by all accounts. But I imagine we can put it to better use.”

“Yes.” Juliana was beginning to feel dazed again. “Does everyone know of its existence … the viscount, for instance?”

“No. It’s known to very few people. And I’ll vouch for
it that Lucien is not one of them. He doesn’t know this house well.”

“Lord Quentin?”

“Yes, he knows, of course.”

“Just as he knows everything about this scheme?” She ran her fingers through her hair, tugging at the tangles.