Vice v-7

by Jane Feather

  Ted, however, was aware of their follower. He took his charge on a roundabout route to the park, down side streets and through alleys, always at a pace that wouldn't outstrip a determined pursuer. The man dogged them every step of the way.

  George was filled with an impotent rage. He'd been waiting for her to emerge for hours, imagining how he would go up to her, how he would scoop her up from the street, bundle her away. But she was still way beyond his reach, accompanied by that ugly-looking customer who gave the unmistakable impression of a man who would know how to handle himself in a tight.

  George was in the grip of an obsession. He'd lost all interest in the fleshly pleasures of London; his dreams both waking and sleeping were filled with Juliana and the corrosive fear that even though he was so close to her, yet he might still be too far. He had followed her back to Albermarle Street from Russell Street and taken up his usual stand on the basement steps opposite. He'd watched with greedy, predatory eyes when she'd appeared on the steps with the two men and the roan mare. He couldn't hear what they said, but it was clear they were discussing something pleasing. He watched her go into the house, and his gut twisted at the bitter reflection that the men behaved toward her with a consideration more suited to a respectable wife than to a harlot.

  And now she was riding through London, dressed in the very peak of fashion, on a well-bred and very expensive lady's horse, in the company of a groom. He had to get his hands on her. Force her to acknowledge him. His hands curled into fists at the thought of how she'd looked straight through him. It had been with such conviction that he could almost have believed that he was mistaken-that this pampered creature of fashion was not Juliana Ridge, the neglected and unsophisticated country girl, his father's murderess and the legal owner of a substantial portion of George Ridge's inheritance.

  But he knew from the way his loins were afire and his blood ran swift whenever he was in her vicinity that he was not mistaken. This was Juliana. His Juliana.

  His quarry turned into Hyde Park, and he dodged behind a tree as they reined in the horses and seemed to be having a discussion about which direction to take. He could achieve nothing by continuing to follow them. He couldn't haul her from her horse . . . not here . . . not now. They would return to Albermarle Street eventually, and he'd do better to scout around there while he waited, but he couldn't bring himself to turn his back on Juliana. His eyes drew him forward onto the tan strip of sand running beside the pathway, where they put their horses to the trot and then to a canter, too fast now for him to keep them in sight.

  He could sit and wait for them to come full circle, or he could go back to his post. His belly squalled, reminding him that he'd been so intent on his vigil, he'd had no dinner. He decided to return to the Gardener's Arms and drown his frustrations. He would return to watch and await his opportunity in the morning. It was the sensible decision, but he still had to force himself to walk away.

  Juliana settled comfortably into the roan's rhythm. The mare had an easy gait and seemed to be enjoying the exercise as much as her rider. The dour Ted kept pace on his cob.

  They were on their second circuit when she saw Quentin on the path ahead, walking toward them with a lady dressed in black taffeta. Juliana recognized Lady Lydia despite the heavy black veil concealing her face. She drew rein as she came up with them. "I give you good day, Lady Lydia. Lord Quentin."

  For a moment she read dismay in Quentin's eyes, and she was convinced her interruption was unwelcome; then his customary serene smile returned. "Dismount and walk with us awhile." He reached up a hand to help her down. "Ted will take Boadicea."

  "Boadicea? What an unusual name for such a pretty lady," Lydia said in her soft voice, responding to Juliana's curtsy with her own, but not lifting her veil.

  "She's pretty," Juliana agreed, "but I believe she has a mind of her own." She handed the reins to Ted and took Quentin's other arm, turning with them on the path. "How fortuitous that we should all meet like this. I didn't realize you were going to be in the park, too, Lord Quentin."

  "It was a sudden impulse," he responded. "Such a beautiful afternoon."

  "Yes, quite lovely," Lydia agreed. "I couldn't bear to be inside another minute. We are still in strict mourning, of course, but there can be no objection to my taking a walk when I'm veiled."

  "No, of course not," Quentin said warmly.

  "Are you enjoying London, Lady Edgecombe?"

  "Oh, immensely, Lady Lydia. It's all so very new to me. Hampshire is such a backwater."

  Quentin kicked her ankle at the same instant she realized her mistake.

  "Hampshire?" Lydia put up her veil to look at her in surprise. "I thought your family came from York, in the north."

  "Oh, yes," Juliana said airily. "I was forgetting. I used to visit relatives in Hampshire and liked it much better than York. So I always think of it as home."

  "I see." Lydia's veil fell again. "I didn't know there were any Courtneys in Hampshire."

  ''My cousin's family," Juliana offered. "A very distant cousin."

  "How curious that you should be closer to a distant cousin's relatives than to your own," Lydia mused, puzzled.

  "Lady Edgecombe has some unusual views on the world," Quentin said flatly. "I'm sure you must wish to continue your ride, Juliana. It must be dull work walking when a new mount awaits you."

  Juliana wasn't sure whether he was getting rid of her for his sake or hers, but she took her cue, signaling to Ted, who rode a little way behind them, leading Boadicea.

  Lydia put up her veil again to bid her farewell. "I do hope we'll be like sisters," she said, kissing Juliana's cheek. "It will be so pleasant to have another woman in the house."

  Juliana murmured something and returned the kiss. She glanced again at Quentin. His face was almost ugly, and she knew he was thinking, as was she, of Tarquin's setting up two families under his roof. Installing the woman Quentin loved as the mother of one of them.

  Juliana was no longer in any doubt that Quentin loved Lydia Melton, and she suspected his love was reciprocated. Tarquin had admitted that he did not love Lydia, yet he was her betrothed. There must be a way to sort out this tangle. Quentin was not quite such a magnificent catch as his brother, but he was still the younger son of a duke, wealthy in his own right, and clearly destined for great things in the Church. He would be an excellent match for Lydia-once her engagement to Tarquin could be broken off.

  But that would leave Tarquin without a wife. Without a mother for his legitimate heirs.

  A problem for another day. She remounted with Ted's assistance, waved a cheerful farewell to Quendn and his lady, and trotted off. "Have you known the Courtney family for long, Ted?"

  "Aye."

  "Forever?"

  "Aye."

  "Since His Grace was a boy?"

  "Since 'e was nobbut a babby."

  That was a long sentence, Juliana thought. Maybe it was a promising sign. "Have you known Lady Lydia and her family for long?"

  "Aye."

  "Always?"

  "Aye."

  "So they've known the Courtneys for always?"

  "Aye. Melton land marches with Courtney land."

  "Ah," Juliana said. That explained a lot, including a marriage of convenience. Ted might well prove a useful source of information if she picked her questions correctly. However, his lips were now firmly closed, and she guessed he'd imparted as much as he was going to for the present.

  She dismounted at the front door and Ted took the horses to the mews. Juliana made her way upstairs. As she turned toward her own apartments, she came face-to-face with Lucien. Her heart missed a beat. Tarquin had said she'd never have to face her vile husband again. He'd said he would deal with him. So where was he?

  "Well, well, if it isn't my not so little wife." Lucien blocked her passage. The slurring of drink couldn't disguise the malice in his voice, and his eyes in their deep, dark sockets burned with hatred. His chin was blue-bruised. "You left in such a hurry last night, my de
ar. I gather the entertainment didn't please you."

  "Let me pass, please." She kept her voice even, although every millimeter of skin prickled, her muscles tightened with repulsion, and the hot coals of rage glowered in her belly.

  "You weren't so anxious to be rid of me yesterday," he declared, gripping her wrist in the way that sent a wave of remembered fear racing through her blood. He twisted her wrist and she gave a cry of pain, her fingers loosening on the riding crop she held. He wrenched it from her slackened grasp.

  "What an unbiddable wife you've become, my dear." Catching a clump of her hair that was escaping from her hat brim, he gave it a vicious tug as he pulled her closer to him. "I promised you would pay for that kick last night. It seems you're getting quite above yourself for a Russell Street harlot. I think I must teach you proper respect."

  Out of the corner of her eye Juliana caught the flash of movement as he raised the whip. Then she screamed, with shock as much as pain, as it descended across her shoulders in a burning stripe.

  Lucien's eyes glittered with a savage pleasure at her cry. He raised his arm again, at the same time pulling brutally on her hair as if he would tear it from her scalp. But he'd underestimated his victim. It was one thing to take Juliana by surprise, quite another to face her when she'd had a chance to gather her forces. She had learned over the years to control the worst of her temper, but she made no effort to quench it now.

  Lucien found he had one of the Furies in his hands. He clung on to her hair, but she seemed oblivious of the pain. The whip fell to the ground as her knee came up with lethal accuracy. His eyes watered, he gasped with pain. Before he could protect himself, she kicked his shins and was going for his eyes with her fingers curled into claws. Instinctively, he covered his face with his hands.

  "You filthy bastard . . . son of a gutter-born bitch!" she hissed, driving her knee into his belly. He doubled over on an anguished spasm and was racked with a violent coughing fit that seemed to pull his guts up from his belly. Juliana grabbed up the whip, raised her arm to bring it down across his back.

  "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" Tarquin's voice pierced the scarlet circle of her blind rage. He had hold of her upraised wrist and was forcing her arm down. "What in the name of damnation is going on here?"

  Juliana struggled to regain control. Her bosom was heaving, her cheeks deathly pale, her eyes on fire, seeing nothing but the loathsome, squirming shape of the man who had dared to raise his hand to her. "Gutter sweeping," she said, her voice trembling with fury. "Slubberdegullion whoreson. May you rot in your grave, you green, slimy maggot!"

  Tarquin removed the whip from her hand. "Take a deep breath, mignonne."

  "Where were you?" she demanded, her voice shaking. "You said I would never have to see him again. You promised you would keep him away from me." She touched her sore scalp and winced as the movement creased the stripe across her back.

  "I didn't know until just now that he'd returned," Tarquin said. "I wouldn't have let him near you if I had. Believe me, Juliana." She was shivering violently and he laid a hand on her arm, his expression tight with anger and remorse. "Go to your apartments now and leave this with me. Henny will attend to your hurts. I'll come to you shortly."

  "He hit me with that damned whip," Juliana said, catching her breath on an angry sob.

  "He'll pay for it," Tarquin said grimly. Fleetingly, he touched her cheek. "Now, do as you're bid."

  Juliana cast one last, scornful look at the still convulsed Lucien and trailed away, all the bounce gone from her step.

  Tarquin said with soft savagery, "I want you out of my house within the hour, Edgecombe."

  Lucien looked up, struggling for breath. His eyes were bloodshot, filled with pain, but his tongue was still pure venom. "Well, well," he drawled. "Reneging on an agreement, my dear cousin! Shame on you. The shining example of honor and duty has feet of clay, after all."

  A pulse flicked in Tarquin's temple, but he spoke without emotion. "I was a fool to have thought it possible to have an honorable agreement with you. I consider the contract null and void. Now, get out of my house."

  "Giving up on me at last, Tarquin?" Lucien pushed himself up until he was sagging against the wall. His deep-sunk eyes glittered suddenly. "You promised me once you would never give up on me. You said that you would always stand by me even when no one else would. You said blood was thicker than water. Do you remember that?" His voice had a whine to it, but his eyes still glittered with a strange triumph.

  Tarquin stared down at him, pity and contempt in his gaze. "Yes, I remember," he said. "You were a twelve-year-old liar and a thief, and in my godforsaken naivete I thought maybe it wasn't your fault. That you needed to be accepted by the family in order to become one of us-"

  "You never accepted me in the family," Lucien interrupted, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "You and Quentin despised me from the first moment you laid eyes on me."

  "That's not true," Tarquin said steadfastly. "We gave you every benefit of the doubt, knowing the disadvantages of your upbringing."

  "Disadvantages!" Lucien sneered, the blue bruises standing out against his greenish pallor. "A demented father and a mother who never left her bed."

  "We did what we could," Tarquin said, still steadily. But as always, even as he asserted this, he wondered if it was true. It was certainly true that he and Quentin had despised their scrawny, deceitful, cunning cousin, but they had both tried to hide their contempt when Lucien had come to live among them, and then, when Tarquin had become his guardian, they had both tried to exert a benign influence on the twisted character. Tried and most signally failed.

  For a moment he met his cousin's eyes, and the truth of their relationship lay bare and barren for both of them. Then he said with cold deliberation, "Get out of my house, Edgecombe, and stay out of my sight. I wash my hands of you from this moment."

  Lucien's mouth twisted in a sly smile. "And how will that look? Husband and wife living apart after a few days of marital bliss?"

  "I don't give a damn how it will look. I don't want you breathing the same air as Juliana." Tarquin turned contemptuously.

  "I'll repudiate her," Lucien wheezed. "I'll divorce her for a harlot."

  Tarquin turned back very slowly. "You aren't good enough to clean her boots," he said with soft emphasis. "And I warn you now, Edgecombe, you say one word against Juliana, in public or in private, and I will send you to your premature grave, even faster than you can do yourself." His eyes scorched this truth into his cousin's ghastly countenance. Then he swung on his heel and stalked away.

  "You'll regret this, Redmayne. Believe me, you'll regret it." But the promise was barely whispered and the duke didn't hear. Lucien stared after him with fear and loathing. Then he dragged himself down the passage to his own apartments, soothing his mortified soul with the promise of revenge.

  Chapter 20

  Lucien emerged at twilight from Mistress Jenkins's Elysium in Covent Garden. He bore the well-satisfied air of a man who has relieved both mind and body. Jenkins's flogging house was a highly satisfactory outlet for anger and frustration. The Posture Molls knew exactly how to accommodate a man, whichever side of the birch he chose to be, and he had given free rein to his need to punish someone for the humiliation of his debacle with his wife and Tarquin's subsequent edict.

  His eyes carried a brutal glint, and his mouth had a cruel twist to it as he strolled up Russell Street and into the square. But it didn't take long for the reality of his situation to return. He'd been thrown out of his cousin's house, cut off from that bottomless and ever-open purse. And he had a cursed woman to blame for it.

  He entered the Shakespeare's Head, ignored the greetings of acquaintances, and sat down in morose silence at a corner table, isolated from the company. He was well into his second tankard of blue ruin when he became aware of a pair of eyes fixed intently upon him from a table in the window. Lucien glared across the smoke-hazed taproom; then his bleary gaze focused. He recognized the over
weight man looking as if he was dressed up to ape his betters, squashed into the clothes of a fashionable man-about-town, his highly colored face already suffused with drink. As Lucien returned the stare, the man wiped a sheen of grease from his chin with his sleeve and pushed back his chair.

  He made his ponderous and unsteady way through the crowded tables and arrived in Lucien's corner. "Beggin' your pardon, my lord, but I happened to be here last even when you were selling your wife," George began, as intimidated by the death's-head stare and the man's sickly, greenish pallor as he was by the depthless malice in the sunken eyes.

  "I remember," Lucien said grudgingly. "Five hundred pounds you offered for her. Fancied her, did you?"

  "Is she truly your wife, sir?" George couldn't disguise the urgency of his question, and Lucien's eyes sharpened.

  He buried his nose in his tankard before saying, "What's it to you, may I ask?"

  George started to pull back a chair, but the viscount's expression forbade it. He remained standing awkwardly. "I believe I know her," he said.

  "Oh, I should think you and half London knew her," Lucien responded with a shrug. "She came from a whorehouse, after all."

  "I thought so." George's flush deepened with excitement. "She's not truly your wife, then. A Fleet marriage, perhaps?"

  "No such luck." Lucien laughed unpleasantly. "I assure you she's Lady Edgecombe all right and tight. My cursed cousin made sure of that. A plague on him!" He took up his tankard again.

  George was nonplussed. His disappointment at hearing that Juliana was legally wed was so great that for a moment he could think of nothing to say. He'd convinced himself that she couldn't possibly be what she seemed, and now all his plans came crashing around his ears like the proverbial house of cards.