Vice (5 page)

What was this? Juliana stared up at him, for the moment nonplussed. As she tried to order her thoughts, a burst of laughter came from the open front door as two women entered the hall, followed by a footman. They were in evening dress, dominoes over their wide-hooped gowns, black loo masks over their eyes.

“Lud, but that was a night and a half,” one of them pronounced, plying her fan vigorously. “Such a pair of swordsmen, I do declare, Lilly!”

The other woman went into a renewed peal of laughter and unfastened her mask. “That Lord Bingley, I dareswear, would have been all cut and thrust for another hour if I hadn’t near swooned with exhaustion…. Oh, Mr. Garston, would you be so good as to send a salt bath to my room? I’m in sore need.”

“Immediately, Miss Lilly.” He bowed. “I gather you and Miss Emma ’ad a good night. Mr. and Mistress Dennison will be right ’appy to ’ear it.”

“La, good enough, Mr. Garston.” Miss Emma yawned. “But a tankard of milk punch won’t come amiss.”

“I’ll order it straightway, miss. You go along up and leave it to me.” Mr. Garston sounded positively avuncular now as he beamed at the two yawning young women.

Juliana was staring with unabashed curiosity. They were both very pretty, richly gowned, elaborately coiffed, but they were so thickly painted and powdered, it was hard to tell their ages. They were certainly young, but how young she couldn’t decide.

“Lud, and who have we here?” Miss Lilly said, catching sight of Juliana behind the stolid figure of Mr. Garston. She regarded her with interest, taking in the simple gown and the roughly pinned hair. “A new servant?”

“I don’t believe so, miss,” Garston said with a meaningful nod. “But Mistress Dennison ’asn’t made clear to me quite what ’er plans are fer the young lady.”

“Oh?” Miss Emma examined Juliana with a raised eyebrow. Then she shrugged. “Well, I daresay we’ll find out soon enough. Come, Lilly, I’m dead on my feet.”

The two wafted up the stairs, chattering like magpies, leaving Juliana uneasy, annoyed, and exceedingly puzzled.

“Now, then, missie, you cut along to yer chamber,” Mr. Garston said. “Ring the bell, there, and the maid’ll come to ye. Anythin’ ye wants, she can provide. I daresay Mistress Dennison will be seein’ you when she rises.”

“And what time’s that?” Juliana debated whether she could duck past him and reach the door before he could catch her.

“Noontime,” he said. “That’s when she ’as visitors in ’er chamber, while she’s dressing. But she’ll not be ready fer ye much ’afore dinner.” As if guessing her thoughts, he turned to the open door and banged it closed.

Juliana stood frowning. It seemed she was a prisoner. And what kind of woman was it who had visitors in her bedchamber while she was dressing for the day?

There didn’t seem much she could do about the situation at present, so, thoughtfully, she returned upstairs to the peace of her own chamber to consider the situation. She couldn’t be kept there against her will indefinitely, and Mistress Dennison had so far given no indication of wishing to do so.

The maid who answered the bell seemed tongue-tied, capable of little more than a curtsy and a murmured “Yes, miss” to all conversational sallies. She either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer direct questions about Mistress Dennison’s establishment, and when she left, Juliana found her appetite
for her breakfast tray had diminished considerably under her growing unease.

When a few minutes later she heard the key turn in the lock outside, she started from her chair, raced across the room to try the door, and found it locked. For ten minutes she banged on the door and called at the top of her voice. But she could hear nothing in the passage outside.

She ran to the window and gazed at the street three floors down. There were no handholds in the brickwork, no convenient wisteria or creepers. The windows on the floor below had small wrought-iron balconies, but Juliana couldn’t imagine dropping safely onto one of them from the narrow sill outside her own chamber. She contemplated calling to the passersby in the street, but what could she say? That she was a prisoner? Who would take any notice? They’d assume she was an errant servant, locked in her garret for some peccadillo. No one would involve themselves in the domestic affairs of another householder.

Juliana flopped onto the chaise longue, nibbling at a fingernail, her brows drawn together in a fierce frown. It was her own fault for trusting a kind-seeming face. Just another piece of clumsiness, really. Tripping over her feet and stumbling headlong into something nasty. But there was nothing she could do until someone chose to explain matters to her and she fully understood the pickle she was in.

But the morning wore slowly onward, and it was early afternoon before the key turned again in the lock and the door opened to admit the little maid.

“Mistress is waitin’ on ye in the small salon, miss.” She curtsied. “If ye’d be pleased to come wi’ me.”

“It’s about time,” Juliana said, sweeping past the girl, who scurried after her, ducking ahead so she could precede her along the corridor, down a flight of stairs to a pair of double doors at the head of the main staircase.

The girl flung open the doors, announcing in shrill tones, “Miss is ’ere, madam.”

A smiling Mistress Dennison rose from her chair. “My dear, I do apologize for the locked door,” she said, coming
forward with her hands outstretched to take Juliana’s. “But after your little escapade this morning, I was so afraid you would run away before I’d had a chance to explain matters to you. Now, do say you forgive me.” She grasped the girl’s hands and smiled winningly.

Juliana could see no treachery in the wide blue eyes, could hear no devious undertone in the smooth and gentle voice. But she withdrew her hands firmly, although not discourteously, and said, “Madam, I find it hard to forgive something I don’t understand. Had you asked me to remain within doors, of course I would have done so, after your kindness yesterday.”

Elizabeth regarded her quizzically. “Would you?” Then she nodded. “Yes, perhaps you would have. Living in town makes one so suspicious, I’m afraid. One forgets the ingenuousness of the country girl.”

She sat down on a velvet chaise longue and patted the seat beside her. “Do sit down, my dear. I have a proposition for you.”

“A proposition?” Juliana sat down. “I am willing to work, madam, as I made clear yesterday. If you have work for me, then of course I shall be most grateful.”

“Well, I don’t know whether you would describe my proposition as work precisely,” the lady said with a judicious little frown. “But I suppose it is work of a certain kind.”

Juliana looked around the room. It was smaller and more intimate than the salon downstairs, its opulent, elegant furnishings seeming to invite the sensual pleasures of idleness.

“Madam, is this establishment a bawdy house?” She asked the question to which she’d already guessed the answer during her long hours of cogitation.

“Indeed not.” Mistress Dennison drew herself up on the chaise, looking distinctly put out. “We have only the most select company in our salons, and our young ladies take their places in the best circles of society.”

“I see,” Juliana said aridly. “A high-class bawdy house.”

Mistress Dennison abruptly lost some of her smiling
good humor. “Now, don’t be foolish and missish, child. You have barely a penny to your name. You are being pursued for the murder of your husband. You are cast upon the town with neither friend nor fortune. I am offering you both friendship and the means to make your fortune.”

“I am not interested in whoredom, madam.” Juliana rose from the chaise. “If you will return my clothes, I will leave here as I came. I’m grateful for your hospitality and will willingly pay for it by working in your kitchens if you wish it.”

“Don’t be absurd!” Mistress Dennison seized Juliana’s hands, examining the long fingers, the soft skin. “You’ve never done a day’s manual work in your life, I’ll lay any odds.”

“I am perfectly ready to begin now.” She pulled her hands free with an angry gesture. “I’m no milksop, Mistress Dennison. And I’m not in the least interested in harlotry. So if you’ll excuse me—”

“Perhaps I can be a little more persuasive.”

Juliana spun around at the soft drawl. A man stepped through a crimson velvet curtain at the end of the room, and she glimpsed a small chamber behind him. He wore riding britches and a deep-cuffed black coat edged with silver lace. A single diamond winked from the folds of his starched white stock.

He stood against the curtain, negligently taking a pinch of snuff. All the while his gray eyes rested on her face, and Juliana had the uncomfortable fancy that he was seeing into her soul, was seeing much more than she had ever revealed to anyone.

“Who are
you?”
she demanded, her voice sounding raw. She cleared her throat and took a step back toward the double doors behind her.

“Don’t run away,” the newcomer said gently. He dropped the silver snuffbox into his pocket. “There’s no need to be alarmed, as Mistress Dennison will assure you.”

“No, indeed not, my dear. This is His Grace the Duke
of Redmayne,” Elizabeth said, placing an arresting hand on Juliana’s arm. “He has a proposition to put to you.”

“I have told you, I am not in the least interested in your propositions,” Juliana declared, her voice shaking with anger. She flung Mistress Dennison’s hand from her. “I no more care whether they come from a duke or a night-soil collector.” She turned on her heel and made for the door, thus missing the startled look in His Grace’s eyes.

Annoyance chased astonishment across the cool gray surface, to be banished by interest and a reluctant admiration. The duke, accustomed to fawning obsequiousness, was surprised that he found such cavalier dismissal of his rank somewhat amusing. But his reaction didn’t sound in his voice.

“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.”