Vice

by Jane Feather

  He grinned wolfishly and stuck his fork into the dish of eellike fish, scooping diem into his mouth without pause until the dish was empty; then he launched an attack on a steamed pudding studded with currants.

  Two hours later, overcome by sleepiness, but having first ensured that he was sitting firmly upon his money pouch, he allowed his head to fall upon the table and was soon snoring loudly amid the debris of his dinner. No one took the slightest notice of him.

  Viscount Edgecombe took a gulp of cognac and gave a crack of amusement as he stared at his wife in her parlor after dinner. “By all means, I’ll show you the town, m’dear.” He hiccuped once and chortled again. “I can show you some sights. Gad, yes.” He drained his glass and laughed again.

  Juliana said steadily, “His Grace will not care for it.”

  “Oh, no, that’s for sure.” Lucien blearily tried to focus his eyes, producing only a squint. “He’ll forbid it, of course.” He frowned. “Could make himself a nuisance, you know.”

  “But you’re not under his control, are you, sir?” She opened her eyes wide. “I can’t imagine your submitting to the orders of anyone.”

  “Oh, ordinarily, I wouldn’t,” he agreed, refilling his glass from the decanter. “But I’ll tell you straight: Tarquin holds the purse strings. Very generous, he is, but I’d not care to risk his closing the purse on me. I can’t tell you how expensive it is to live these days.”

  “Why does he finance you?” She waited for a coughing fit to subside as he choked on the cognac.

  “Why, m’dear, in exchange for agreeing to this sham marriage,” he told her with a final wheeze.

  “Then surely you could say that if he doesn’t continue, you’ll repudiate me as your wife,” suggested Juliana, idly smoothing the damask on the sofa where she sat.

  Lucien stared at her. “Gad, but you’re a devious creature. Why’s it so important to have at Tarquin?”

  Juliana shrugged. Lucien presumably didn’t know the full details of her contract with the duke. “I object to being manipulated in this way.”

  A sly look crept into Lucien’s hollowed eyes. “Ah,” he said. “Tarquin said you would do his bidding. Have something on you, does he?”

  “Merely that I am friendless and without protection,” she said calmly. “And therefore dependent upon him.”

  “So why would you want to put his back up?” The sly look hadn’t left his eyes. “Not in your interests, I would have said.”

  “I have a legal contract that he can’t renege upon,” Juliana replied with a cool smile. “It was drawn up by a lawyer and witnessed by Mistress Dennison. He is obliged to provide for me whatever happens.”

  Lucien produced his skeletal grin at this. “Out of the goodness of my heart, m’dear, I’ll tell you you’ll have to get up very early in the morning to put one over on Tarquin.”

  “That may be so,” Juliana said with a touch of impatience. “But I wish to go to Covent Garden. I wish to see what it’s like there, how the people live, particularly the women. Your cousin wouldn’t take me to the places I wish to visit, but you can. Since you spend your time there, anyway, as I understand it, taking me along shouldn’t inconvenience you in any way.”

  “Well, I daresay it won’t. But it’ll inconvenience Tarquin.” He took more cognac and surveyed her costume critically. “Of course, society women do frequent the bagnios. Poor Fred always has some courtier’s lady in tow.”

  “Poor Fred?”

  “Prince of Wales. Everyone calls him Poor Fred—poor devil can never get anything right, leads a dog’s life. His father loathes him. Humiliates him in public at every opportunity. Wouldn’t change places with him for all the crowns in Europe.”

  “So there wouldn’t be anything really objectionable about my coming with you?”

  He choked again on his cognac. “Nothing objectionable! Little simpleton!” he exclaimed. “It ain’t respectable, m’dear girl. But not everyone in society is as high starched as my estimable cousins.” He set his glass down with a snap. “It’ll be worth it, just to see Tarquin’s face. We’ll do it, and if he threatens to cut me off, I’ll threaten him back.”

  “I knew you had spirit,” Juliana declared warmly, hiding her revulsion under a surge of triumph. “Shall we go at once?”

  “If you like.” Lucien surveyed her again with a critical frown. “Don’t suppose you’ve a pair of britches, have you?”

  “Britches?” Juliana looked astonished. “I did have, but—”

  “No matter,” he said, brusquely interrupting her. “You’ve too many curves to be appealing. No way you could look like a lad, however hard you tried.”

  For a moment Juliana could think of nothing to say. She remembered the look of repulsion in his eyes when he’d seen her in her nightgown. Finally she asked slowly, “You like your women to dress up as lads, sir?”

  He grimaced. “I prefer the lads themselves, my dear. But if it must be a woman, then I’ve a fancy for the skinny kind, who can put on a pair of britches and play the part.”

  Dear God, what eke was she going to learn about her husband? She’d heard of men who liked men, but it was a capital crime, and in the bucolic peace of Hampshire such preferences carried the touch of the devil.

  “What a little innocent you are,” Lucien mocked, guessing her thoughts. “It’ll be a pleasure to rid you of some of that ignorance. I’ll introduce you to the more unusual amusements to be had in the Garden. And who knows, maybe you’ll take to them yourself. Fetch a cloak.”

  Juliana had a moment of misgiving. What was she getting herself into? She was putting herself in the hands of this vile, pox-ridden degenerate … but, no, she wasn’t. She had money of her own and could return home at any time without his escort. And she did want to see for herself what happened to the women who earned their living in the streets of Covent Garden.

  “I’ll only be a moment.” She went to the door. “Will you await me here?”

  “My pleasure,” he said with a bow. “So long as the decanter’s full.” He strolled to the table to refill his glass.

  Juliana took a dark hooded cloak from her wardrobe and clasped it at her throat. She wore no jewelry because she had none, except for the slim gold band on her wedding finger, and the richness of her gown was concealed by the cloak. It made her feel a little easier about this expedition, almost as if she were going incognito.

  She hastened back to her parlor, where Lucien was slumped on the sofa, sunk in reverie, twirling the amber contents of his glass. He looked up as she came in, and it seemed to take a minute for recognition to enter his dull eyes. “Oh, there you are.” He stood somewhat unsteadily, and Juliana noticed that his speech had become more slurred in the few minutes she’d been absent.

  “Are you sure you’re well enough to go out?”

  “Don’t be a fool!” He threw back his head and in one movement poured the remaining liquid in his glass down his throat. “I’m fit as a flea. And I’ve no intention of spending the evening in this mausoleum.” He weaved his way toward her where she stood in the doorway and rudely pushed past her.

  Frowning, she followed him out of the house and into a passing hackney.

  Five minutes later Tarquin emerged from the drawing room. He had decided to go to White’s Chocolate House on St. James’s Street for an evening’s political discussion and a game of faro. Taking his cloak and gloves from the footman, he told him to leave the front door in the charge of the night watchman since he expected to be back late. He then went forth into the balmy evening. It didn’t occur to him to ask where Juliana might be. He assumed she was in her parlor, or sitting with the invalid in the yellow bedchamber.

  Juliana, swathed in her cloak, sat back in a corner of the hackney, watching the scene through the window as the vehicle stopped and started through streets as thronged as if it were midmorning. The main thoroughfares were lit with oil lamps, but when they turned onto a side street, the only light came from a link boy’s lantern as he escorted a pair
of gentlemen, who walked with their hands on their sword hilts.

  Covent Garden was as lively as it had been the previous evening. The theater doors were already closed, the play having begun, but the hackney took them to the steps of St. Paul’s Church and halted. Juliana alighted, drawing her cloak tightly around her. Lucien followed somewhat unsteadily and tossed a coin up to the jarvey, who, judging by his scowl, considered it less than adequate payment.

  A noisy crowd was gathered before the steps of the church; a man played a fife barely heard above the ribald yells and drunken curses as the throng swayed and surged.

  “What’s going on over there?”

  Lucien shrugged. “How should I know? Go and look.”

  Juliana made her way to the outskirts of the crowd, standing on tiptoe to see over the heads.

  “Push your way to the front,” Lucien said at her shoulder. “Politeness won’t get you anywhere in this place.” He began to shove his way through the throng, and Juliana followed, trying to keep at his heels before the path closed behind him. She remembered how Tarquin and Quentin had cleared a way through the crowd at the theater; but they’d done it almost by magic, never raising their voices or appearing to push at all. Lucien cursed vilely, using his thin body like a battering ram, and he received as many curses as he threw out. Somehow they reached the front of the crowd.

  A man in rough laborer’s clothes stood on the steps, beside him a woman in a coarse linen smock and apron, her hair hidden beneath a kerchief. Her hands were bound and she had a rope halter around her neck. She kept her eyes on the ground, her shoulders hunched as if she could make herself invisible. The crowd roared with approval when the man caught her chin and forced her to look up.

  “So what am I bid?” he called loudly above the noise. “She’s good about the ’ouse. Sound in wind and limb … good, strong legs and wide ’ips.” He touched the parts in question and the woman shivered and tried to draw back. But the man grabbed the loose end of the halter and jerked her forward again.

  Lucien laughed with the crowd. Juliana, horror-struck, glanced up at him and saw such naked, malevolent enjoyment on his face that she felt nauseated. “What’s going on?”

  “A wife-selling. Isn’t it obvious?” Lucien didn’t take his eyes off the scene on the steps as the husband enumerated the wretched woman’s various good points.

  Suddenly a voice bellowed above the crowd. “Ye’ve ’ad yer fun, Dick Begg. Now, let’s be done with this.” A brawny man pushed his way to the steps and jumped up beside the couple. The woman flushed deepest crimson and tried to turn aside, but her husband jerked again on the halter he still held, and she was able only to avert her head.

  “Ten pound,” the newcomer declared. “An’ ye leave ’er alone from now on.”

  “Done,” the husband announced. Both men spat on their palms and clapped them together to seal the bargain. The second man counted ten coins into the other’s hand while the crowd roared its approval again; then he took the end of the halter and led the now weeping woman away from the crowd, toward the rear of the church.

  Dick Begg pocketed his coins. “Good riddance to bad rubbish,” he stated, grinning. “Niver did get on wi’ the bitch anyways.”

  “How disgusting!” Juliana muttered. She’d heard of such auctions but had never seen one before. The crowd was dispersing now that the entertainment was over, until a fight started up between two burly costermongers. They were going at each other with bare fists, and swiftly a cheering, catcalling circle formed around them.

  It was Lucien’s turn to look disgusted. “Animals,” he said with a curling lip. He strode away toward the Green Man tavern, not troubling to wait for Juliana.

  She followed him into the low-ceilinged taproom, her eyes immediately beginning to water with the tobacco smoke that hung in a thick blue haze in the air.

  “Blue niin!” Lucien bellowed at a passing potboy as he pulled out a bench at a long table and sat down. The bench was as filthy as the stained encrusted planking of the table. Juliana brushed ineffectually at the grime and then sat down with an internal shrug. Her cloak was dark and would keep most of it off her gown.

  “Not too nice in your tastes, I trust,” Lucien said with a sneer.

  “Not overly,” Juliana responded evenly. “But this place is a pig sty.”

  “Don’t let mine host hear you saying that.” Lucien chuckled. “Very proud of his establishment is Tom King.” He slapped a sixpence on the table when the potboy appeared with a stone jar and two tankards. “Fill ’em up.”

  The lad did so, wiping the drips from the table with his finger, which he then licked. His hands were as filthy as his apron, and his hair hung in lank, greasy locks to his shoulders. He took the sixpence and vanished into the crowd as someone else yelled for him. He didn’t arrive quickly enough apparently, because he was greeted with a mighty clout that sent him reeling against the wall.

  Juliana gazed at the scene in horrified fascination, blinking her watering eyes. When Lucien pushed a tankard toward her with the brisk injunction “Drink,” she carried it to her lips and absently took a large gulp.

  Her throat was on fire, her belly burning as if with hot coals. She doubled over the table, choking, her eyes streaming.

  “Gad, what a milksop you are!” Lucien thumped her back with his flat palm, using considerable force. “Can’t stomach a drop of gin!” But she could hear his malicious amusement as he continued to pound her back. Presumably, she was reacting exactly as he’d intended.

  “Leave me alone!” she said furiously, straightening and shaking off his hand. “Why didn’t you warn me?”

  “And spoil my fun?” He clicked his tongue reprovingly.

  Juliana set her lips and pushed the tankard as far from her as she could. She wanted a glass of milk to take away the taste, but the thought of asking for such a thing in this place was clearly absurd.

  “Gad, it’s Edgecombe!” A voice called from the mists of smoke. “Hey, dear fellow, what brings you here? Heard you’d become leg-shackled.”

  Three men weaved their way through the room toward them, each carrying a tankard. Their wigs were askew, their faces flushed with drink, their gait distinctly unsteady. They were young, in their early twenties, but the dissipation behind the raddled complexions and bloodshot, hollowed eyes had vanquished all the bloom of youth.

  Lucien raised a hand in greeting. “Come and meet my lady wife, gentlemen.” He rose from the bench and bowed with mock formality as he indicated Juliana. “Lady Edgecombe, m’dear fellows. Madam wife, pray make your curtsy to Captain Frank Carson, the Honorable Bertrand Peters, and the dearest fellow of them all, Freddie Binkton.” He flung his arm around the last named and hugged him before kissing him soundly.

  Juliana stood up and curtsied, feeling ridiculous in these surroundings, but not knowing how else to behave. The three men laughed heartily and bowed, but she sensed a hostile curiosity in all their expressions as they scrutinized her in the dim light.

  “So why the devil did ye take a wife, Lucien?” Captain Frank demanded, having completed his examination of Juliana. “Thought you was sworn to bachelorhood.”

  “Oh, family pressure, m’dear.” Lucien winked and took another swig of his tankard. “My cousin thought it would avoid scandal.”

  They all went into renewed laughter at this, and Juliana sat down again. There was something indefinably horrible about the group. They made her skin crawl, and she could feel their covert glances even though they appeared now to ignore her, all of them absorbed in some scandalous tale of the captain’s. She glanced toward the door, where an elegant lady stood, a footman at her back, deep in conversation with a rotund gentleman in an old-fashioned curly wig.

  As Juliana watched, the elderly gentleman counted out five coins into the lady’s hands. She passed them to the footman, who pocketed them; then she tucked her arm into the gentleman’s, and they entered the tavern and went up a rickety pair of stairs at the rear of the taproom. The footman le
aned against the doorjamb, idly picking his teeth, watching the passersby.

  The woman had looked too prosperous to be soliciting on the streets, Juliana reflected. And certainly too well dressed to be taking her clients to a back room in this noisome place. She must remember to ask Lilly to explain it.

  “Lud, madam, you’re not drinking?” the Honorable Bertrand declared in mock horror. “Lucien, Lucien, you neglect the dear lady shamefully.”

  Lucien grinned. “Tried her on blue ruin, but it didn’t seem to suit her. What else can I offer you, my dear? Ale, perhaps? Port?”

  “Milk punch, if you please, sir,” Juliana said, her nerves prickling as she realized they wanted to make sport of her in some way. She glanced around, but there would be no help available in this riotous assembly. A couple were rolling around on the floor, the woman’s legs in the air, her skirts tumbled about her head, exposing her body to the waist. Juliana felt sick. She pushed back the bench and stood up.

  “If you’ll excuse me, my lord, I find I have the headache. I’ll take a hackney outside.”

  “Oh, but I don’t excuse you,” Lucien slurred, grabbing her hand and pulling her back beside him. “You owe obedience to your husband, madam, and your husband bids you keep him company and drink your milk punch.”

  Juliana thought she could probably break Lucien’s hold without too much difficulty, but the eyes of the others were fixed upon her with a sinister intensity, waiting to see what she would do. She couldn’t break free from them all if they tried to hold her. No one in this place would come to her aid. And she would be utterly humiliated. And Lucien would relish every minute of it. It was what he’d enjoyed about the wife-selling. The woman’s total degradation had made him lick his lips like a hyena salivating over a rotting carcass.

  She sat down again with a calm smile. “As you please, my lord.”

  Lucien looked a trifle disappointed; then he clapped his hands and bellowed for the potboy to bring milk punch. Juliana sat still, trying to maintain her calm smile and an air of nonchalant interest in her surroundings. The woman on the floor was on her hands and knees now, the man behind her, striking her flanks with his open palms as he mimicked the act of copulation to the roaring acclamation of his audience, who raised their tankards in a series of cheering toasts. The woman was laughing as much as anyone, throwing her head back and thrusting backward as if to meet him with orgasmic enjoyment.