Vice

by Jane Feather

  A footman moved around the table filling wineglasses. “Will you taste the partridge, Juliana?” Lilly inquired, deftly carving the breast of a bird on a platter before her.

  Juliana noticed that most of the girls were occupied with one of the serving platters, filleting carp swimming in parsley butter, carving ducks, pigeons, and partridges.

  “Are you skilled at carving, Juliana?” inquired Richard. “We consider it a necessary domestic art for a well-educated young lady of fashion.”

  For a whore? Juliana was tempted to ask, but she managed not to. It was not appropriate to insult her fellow diners even if she was engaged in a conflict with their keepers. “My guardian’s wife also considered it necessary,” she said neutrally. The fact that she could no more carve a bird elegantly than she could sew a straight seam was neither here nor there. She was well versed in the principles of both, just too ham-fisted to do either skillfully.

  She took a sip of wine and listened to the conversation. The women in their rich gowns chattered like so many bright-plumaged birds. They all seemed to be in the greatest good humor, told jokes, discussed both their customers and the prospects of other women who’d left the house for secure establishments with some member of the nobility.

  Juliana said nothing, and no one tried to draw her into the conversation, but she was aware of sidelong glances as they talked, as if they were assessing her reactions. She wondered whether this display of conviviality had been put on for her benefit … whether they’d been instructed to try to persuade her that they led charming, amusing lives under the Dennisons’ roof and had only the brightest of futures to look forward to. If so, it was making not a dent in her prejudice and did nothing to relieve her suspicion and apprehension.

  Richard Dennison also said little, leaving it up to his wife to direct the conversation. But Juliana felt his eyes were everywhere, and she noticed that some of the girls would hesitate in their speech if they felt him looking their way. Their whoremaster clearly exerted a powerful influence.

  She could find no fault with the dinner, though. The first course was removed with a second course of plover’s eggs, quail, savory tarts, Rhenish cream, a basket of pastries, and syllabub. Juliana quashed her apprehension for the time being and ate with considerable appetite, remembering how she had sat in her chamber trying to identify the various toothsome aromas wafting from the kitchens. Boiled beef and pudding, steak-and-kidney pie, stewed fish, were all very well for filling one’s belly, but they did little to titillate the palate.

  Eventually, Mistress Dennison rose to her feet. “Come, ladies, let us withdraw. Our friends will be arriving soon. Lilly, dear, you should touch up your rouge. Mary, there’s a tiny smudge of sauce on your sleeve. Go to your maid and have it sponged off. There’s nothing more off-putting to a gentleman than a slovenly appearance.”

  Involuntarily, Juliana’s hands went to her hair, escaping from its pins as she’d known it would.

  “Did Bella not tell you we wished you to leave your hair loose?” inquired Richard, still seated at the table as the ladies rose around him. He poured port into his glass and glanced up at Juliana.

  “Yes, but I prefer it like this,” she responded evenly. There was an almost imperceptible indrawing of breath in the room.

  “You must learn to subdue your own preferences in such matters to those of the gentlemen, my dear,” Elizabeth said gently. “It was a most specific request that you leave it loose this evening.”

  “No one’s preferences have more weight than my own, madam,” Juliana replied, her throat closing as her heart thundered in her ears. She would not submit to them without a fight.

  To her astonishment Elizabeth merely smiled. “I dareswear that that will change quite soon. Come.”

  Juliana followed them out of the dining room and into the long salon she’d peeped into that first morning. It was candlelit with tall wax tapers, although the evening sun still shone through the windows. There were flowers on every surface, the scent of lavender and beeswax in the air. A long sideboard carried decanters, bottles, and glasses; there was both tea and coffee on the low table before the sofa, where Mistress Dennison immediately took her seat. The girls ranged themselves around her, took teacups, and sat down. An air of expectancy hung in the room.

  Juliana refused tea and walked over to a window overlooking the street. Behind her the murmur of voices, the soft chuckles, filled the air. She heard Lilly and Mary return and Mistress Dennison approve of their adjustments. Someone began to play the harpsichord.

  Along the street strolled two gentlemen coming toward the house. They swung their canes as they talked, and their sword hilts showed beneath their full-skirted velvet coats. When they reached the house, they turned up the steps. The front door knocker sounded. A whisper of tension rustled around the room. The girl on the harpsichord continued to play, the others shifted on their chairs, rearranged their skirts, opened fans, glanced casually toward the door as they waited to see who their first guests would be.

  “Lord Bridgeworth and Sir Ambrose Belton,” Mr. Garston announced.

  Mistress Dennison rose and curtsied; the other women followed suit, except for Juliana, who drew back against the embroidered damask curtains. Deborah and a pale, fair girl she remembered as Rosamund fluttered toward the two gentlemen. Juliana recalled that Bella had said Lord Bridgeworth was Deborah’s particular gentleman. Presumably Sir Ambrose and Rosamund made a similar pair.

  The door knocker sounded again and a party of six gentlemen were announced. Juliana drew even farther back into the shadows, watching the scene as she nervously pushed loosening ringlets back into their pins. One of the new arrivals caught sight of her and bent to say something to Mistress Dennison. Juliana distinctly heard “His Grace of Redmayne” in amid Elizabeth’s reply. Then Elizabeth turned with a smile and beckoned.

  “Juliana, Viscount Amberstock wishes to be acquainted with you.”

  It seemed she had little choice. Juliana moved reluctantly from the semiconcealment of the curtains and crossed the room, taking tiny steps, feeling as insecure on the high heels as a baby who was just learning to walk.

  “Redmayne’s a lucky dog,” the viscount boomed, taking her hand and raising it to his lips as he bowed with a lavish flourish. Juliana curtsied in silence, averting her eyes. “Good God, ma’am, is the wench too shy to speak?” the viscount exclaimed to his hostess.

  “Far from it,” Elizabeth replied calmly. “Juliana has a very ready tongue when it suits her.”

  “But it belongs to Redmayne, what?” The viscount laughed merrily at this risqué sally. “Ah, well, the rest of us must pine.” He dropped Juliana’s hand. She curtsied demurely and returned to her place by the window.

  “You will annoy Mistress Dennison if you remain apart in this way.” Emma spoke softly as she drifted casually up to Juliana in a mist of pink spider gauze.

  “I find that a matter of indifference.”

  “You won’t if they become really angered with you,” Emma said, frowning. “They look after us very well, but they expect cooperation. It’s hardly unreasonable.”

  Juliana met Emma’s frowning regard and read both curiosity and a desire to be helpful in her dark-brown eyes. “But I am here against my will,” she explained. “I see no reason why I should cooperate. I wish simply to be allowed to leave.”

  “But, my dear, you don’t know what you’re saying!” Emma protested. “There are bawds and whoremasters out there who will take every farthing you earn in exchange for the right to ply your trade in a shack in the Piazza. They charge five shillings for a used gown and shawl, and they’ll squeeze the last drop of blood from your veins for the wine and spirits that you must have for the customers. If you refuse, or can’t pay, then they’ll throw you into the Fleet or the Marshalsea and you’ll never be released.”

  Juliana stared at her, both horrified and fascinated. “But I have no intention of becoming a whore,” she said at last. “Not here, nor anywhere.”

&nb
sp; Emma’s frown deepened. “But what else is there for any of us?” She gestured around the room. “We live in the lap of luxury. Our clients are noblemen, discriminating, considerate … for the most part,” she added. “And if you play your cards right, you could find a keeper who’ll treat you well and provide for your future.”

  “But I’m not here because I wish to be,” Juliana tried again.

  Emma shrugged. “Are any of us, dear? But we count our blessings. You should do the same, or you’ll find yourself lying under the bushes in St. James’s Park every night. Believe me, I know…. Oh, here’s Lord Farquar.” With a little trill of delight—that may or may not have been feigned Emma hastened across the room toward an elderly man in a snuff-sprinkled scarlet coat.

  Five minutes later Garston announced the Duke of Redmayne. Juliana’s stomach dropped to her feet. She turned away from the room and stared out into the gathering dusk on Russell Street.

  Tarquin stood in the doorway for a minute and took a leisurely pinch of snuff. His eyes roamed the room, rested on the averted figure in green by the window. Her hair blazed in a ray of the sinking sun. He couldn’t see her face, but there was a rigidity to the sloping white shoulders. As he watched, a ringlet sprang loose from its pins and cascaded down the slender column of her neck. She remained immobile.

  He strolled across the room to his hostess. “Elizabeth, charming as always.” He bowed over her hand. “And the ladies … a garden of delights.” He raised his quizzing glass and surveyed the attendant damsels, who curtsied as his gaze swept over them.

  Elizabeth glanced pointedly over her shoulder to Juliana before raising an expressively questioning eyebrow. His Grace shook his head and sat down beside her on the sofa. “Leave her for the moment.”

  “She is as obstinate as ever, Your Grace,” Elizabeth said in a low voice, passing him a cup of tea.

  “But I see that you persuaded her to dress and come downstairs.”

  “With difficulty.”

  “Mmm.” The duke sipped his tea. “You were obliged to coerce her?”

  “To point out the realities of her situation, rather.”

  The duke nodded. “Well, I’m glad she’s not stupid enough to ignore those realities.”

  “Oh, I don’t believe Miss Juliana is in the least stupid,” Mistress Dennison declared. “She has a tongue like a razor.”

  The duke smiled and laid his cup on the table. “If you’ll excuse me, madam, I’ll go and make my salutations.” He rose and strolled across to the window.

  Juliana felt his approach. Her spine prickled. A thick strand of hair worked its way loose from the knot and slid inexorably down her neck. Automatically her hands went to her head.

  “Allow me.” His voice at her shoulder was deep and dark, and although she’d been expecting him, she jumped visibly. “Did I startle you?” he inquired gently. “Curious … I could have sworn you knew I was here.” His hands put hers aside and moved through her hair.

  It took Juliana a moment to realize that he was removing the pins. “No!” she exclaimed, reaching for his hands. “I will not wear it loose.”

  “Your hair seems to have a different idea,” he commented, capturing both her wrists in one hand. “It really seems to have a mind of its own, my dear Juliana.” His free hand continued its work, and the fiery mass fell to her shoulders. “There, now, I find that infinitely more desirable.”

  “I am not in the least interested in what you find desirable, Your Grace.” She tugged at her imprisoned wrists and they were immediately released.

  “Oh, I hope to change that,” he responded, smiling as his hands on her shoulders turned her to face him. “You look ready to thrust a dagger into my heart!”

  “I would like to twist it like a corkscrew in your gut,” she declared in a savage undertone. “I would carve my initials on your belly and watch you hanged, drawn, and quartered! And I would laugh at your agonies.” She brushed her hands together with the air of a task well completed as she delivered the coup de grace, her eyes sparking with triumph as if she really had disposed of him in such an utterly satisfying fashion.

  Tarquin laughed. “What a fierce child you are, mignonne.”

  “No child!” she hissed, twitching herself out of his grasp. “If you think I’m no more than an inexperienced simpleton to he twisted to your design like a straw, I tell you, sir, you quite mistake the matter!”

  “I fear we’re drawing attention to ourselves,” he said. “Come, let us go somewhere private, and you may rail at me to your heart’s content.”

  Juliana, aware that a curious hush had fallen over the room, glanced around. Eyes were swiftly averted and the buzz of conversation was immediately renewed.

  “Come,” he repeated, offering his arm.

  “I will go nowhere with you.”

  “Come,” he repeated, and a hint of flint lay beneath the smiling good humor in the deep-set gray eyes. As she still hesitated, he took her hand and tucked it into his arm, advising softly, “You have nothing to lose by behaving with good grace, my dear, and everything to gain.”

  Juliana could see no way out. All around her she saw men whose faces reflected the lascivious greed of those hungry for flesh. She could scream and create a scene, but she’d meet no sympathy or support from either the buyers or the sellers in this whorehouse masquerading as a softly lit, gracious salon. No one here would have any sympathy for a recalcitrant harlot.

  Could she break free and run? But even supposing she could get past Garston and the burly footmen in the hall, where would she go? Dressed as she was, she could hardly lose herself in the narrow, twisting alleys around Covent Garden.

  Her only chance was to appeal to the Duke of Redmayne’s finer nature—Supposing he had one. Putting his back up wouldn’t help.

  In silence she allowed him to escort her from the salon. Covertly curious glances followed them. Richard Dennison was crossing the hall to the salon as they stepped through the double doors.

  “Your Grace.” He bowed low. His gaze flicked over Juliana, and he nodded as he noted her loosened hair. He smiled at her. “You will show His Grace all the hospitality of this house, Juliana.”

  “Were I a member of this household, sir, I should feel obliged to do so,” Juliana retorted.

  Richard’s mouth tightened with annoyance. Tarquin chuckled, thinking he’d rarely met a creature with so much spirit. “I give you good evening, Dennison.” He bore Juliana up the stairs and into the small parlor where she’d first met him.

  Once inside, he released her arm, closed the door, and pulled the bell rope. “As I recall, you drink only champagne.”

  Juliana shook her head. That was a pretense that had little point now. “Not really.”

  “Ahh.” He nodded. “You were attempting to put me in my place, I daresay.”

  “Is that possible?”

  That made him laugh again. “No, my dear, I doubt it. What shall the footman bring for you?” “Nothing, thank you.”

  “As you please.” He asked the footman for claret, then stood behind an armchair, one long white hand resting on the back, his eyes on Juliana. She stood by the fireplace, staring down into the empty grate.

  There was a quality to her that Tarquin found moving. A vulnerability that went hand in hand with the fierce determination to hold her own against all the odds. She was not in the least beautiful, he thought. She had an unruly, ungainly quirk that denied conventional beauty. But then he remembered her naked body, and his flesh stirred at the memory. No, not beautiful, but a man would have to be but half a man not to find her desirable. By the same token, she would be safe from Lucien. Her body was too voluptuous to appeal to him.

  Suddenly she flung herself into a chair and kicked off her shoes with such vigor that one of them landed on a console table. The candlestick shook violently under the impact, and hot wax splashed onto the polished surface.

  “A plague on the damnable things!” Juliana bent to massage her feet with a groan. “How could an
yone wear such instruments of torture?”

  “Most women manage without difficulty,” he observed, much amused at this abrupt change of demeanor. Her hair obscured her expression as she bent over her feet, but he could imagine the disgusted cud of her lip, the flash of irritation in her eyes. Strange, he thought, that after only two meetings he could picture her reactions so accurately.

  She looked up, shaking her hair away from her face, and he saw he’d been exactly right. “I don’t give a damn what other women manage! I find them insupportable.” She extended one foot, flexing it to stretch the cramped arch.

  “Practice makes perfect,” Tarquin said, taking the discarded shoe off the console table. He picked up the other one that had come to rest in the coal scuttle. He blew coal dust from the pale silk, murmuring, “What cavalier treatment for a fifty-guinea pair of shoes.”

  So he had paid for them. Juliana leaned back in her chair and said carelessly, “I’m sure they won’t go to waste, Your Grace. There must be harlots aplenty eager to accept such gifts.”

  “That might be so,” he agreed judiciously. “If women with feet this size were easy to find.”

  The return of the footman with the claret gave Juliana the opportunity to bite her tongue on an undignified retort. When the man had left, she was prepared to launch her appeal to the duke’s finer feelings.

  “My lord duke,” she began, getting to her feet, standing very straight and still. “I must beg you to cease this persecution. I cannot do what you ask. It’s preposterous … it’s barbaric that you should demand such a thing of someone you know has no protection and no friends. There must be women who would be willing … eager, even … to enter such a contract. But I’m not of their number. Please, I beg you, let me leave this place unmolested.”

  Almost every woman Tarquin could think of in Juliana’s situation would leap at what he was offering—wealth, position, security. The girl was either a simpleton or very unusual. He kept his thoughts to himself however, remarking, “Somehow, I have the impression that pleading is foreign to your nature, mignonne” He took a sip of his claret. “That little speech lacked a certain ring of conviction.”