Vice

Chapter 14

Where are you off to, Lady Edgecombe?" Quentin was coming up the front steps as they emerged from the house. He bowed courteously to her companions.

"To the Marshalsea," Juliana said cheerfully. "To bail someone out."

"To the Marshalsea?" Quentin stared at her. "Don't be absurd, child."

"The footman will accompany us," she said, gesturing to the flunky behind her.

"The footman may accompany your friends, but Lady Edgecombe does not go to a debtors' prison," Quentin stated.

"Truly it would be best to ask Mr. Garston to go for us, Juliana," Emma put in, laying a tentative hand on Juliana's arm.

"Tarquin would flay me alive if I permitted it," Quentin declared.

Juliana regarded him steadily. "I understood I was free to go where I please."

"Not to the Marshalsea."

"Not even if you accompanied me?"

"Juliana, I have not the slightest desire to visit a debtors' prison."

"But you're a man of the cloth. Surely you have a duty to help your fellow man in need? And this is an errand of mercy." Her voice was all sweet reason, her smile cajoling, but Quentin was aware of a powerful determination behind the ingenuous facade.

"Why not follow your friend's suggestion and ask this Mr. Garston to go for you?"

"But that will take time. And that poor girl shouldn't languish in that place a minute more than necessary. I heard that the jailers torture the inmates for money, when of course they can't have any funds, because if they did, they wouldn't be there in the first place." Her eyes sparked with indignation and her cheeks were pale with anger, all pretense of ingenuous cajoling vanished. "You have a duty, Lord Quentin, to help those in trouble. Don't you?"

"Yes, I like to think so," Quentin said dryly. He was uncomfortably reminded that as a canon of Melchester Cathedral, he hadn't spent much time tending a flock. He was beginning to wonder why he'd ever felt Juliana needed protection and guidance. At this moment she hardly seemed like anyone's victim.

"We have the money," Juliana continued. "All forty pounds of Lucy's debt. And if the jailers demand more, I shall tell them to go hang," she added with a flashing eye. "If we allow them to get away with extortion, they'll do it to everyone."

"I'm sure you will keep them in line," Quentin murmured. "I pity the man who tries to stand in your path."

"Oh, you sound just like the duke," Juliana said. "So toplofty. But I tell you straight, my lord, you won't persuade me out of this."

"You are right that I am obliged to help those in trouble. " His mouth took a sardonic quirk that made him look even more like his half brother. "I am also obliged to keep people out of trouble. And I assure you, my dear Juliana, you will be up to your neck in hot water if Tarquin discovers you've been roaming around a debtors' prison."

Juliana was standing on the top step, half facing the open front door. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of Lucien crossing the hall toward the drawing room. "If my husband doesn't object, I fail to see why the duke should." she said with a flash of inspiration. "I do beg your pardon for teasing you, Lord Quentin. Of course you mustn't trouble yourself over this for another minute."

She gave him a radiant smile and turned to the three young women. "I'll be back in an instant. Wait here for me." She hurried into the house, leaving Quentin staring uneasily after her, unsure whether he'd heard her aright.

"Oh, dear," Emma said. "Do you think Juliana is perhaps a little impetuous?"

"I fear that 'a little' is something of an understatement, ma'am," Quentin said. "Surely she's not intending to enlist Edgecombe's support?"

"I believe so, my lord," Rosamund said, her brown eyes wide and solemn in her round face.

"Excuse me." Quentin bowed briefly and strode into the house in search of Tarquin, leaving the women still on the steps.

Juliana had followed Lucien into the drawing room and closed the door behind her. "My lord, I need your leave to go on an errand," she stated straightaway.

"Good God! What's this?" Lucien exclaimed. "You are asking me for permission?"

"Indeed, my lord." Juliana curtsied. "You are my husband, are you not?"

Lucien gave a crack of laughter. "That's a fine fabrication, my dear. But I daresay it has its uses."

"Precisely," she said. "And since you are my husband, yours is the only leave I need to run my errand."

Lucien's harsh laugh rasped again. "Well, I'll be damned, m'dear. You're setting yourself up in opposition to Tarquin, are you? Brave girl!" He flipped open an enameled snuffbox and took a liberal pinch, his eyes like dead coals in his grayish pallor.

"I'm not precisely in opposition to His Grace," Juliana said judiciously, "since I haven't consulted him on the matter-indeed, I don't consider it his business. But I am consulting you, sir, and I would like your leave."

"To do what?" he inquired curiously.

Juliana sighed. "To go to the Marshalsea with bail for a friend of my friends."

"What friends?"

"Girls from the house where I was living before I came here," she said a touch impatiently, hoping that the duke wouldn't suddenly appear, summoned by Lord Quentin.

Lucien sneezed violently, burying his face in a handkerchief. It was a few minutes before he emerged, a hectic flush on his cheeks, his eyes streaming. "Gad, girl! Don't tell me Tarquin took you out of a whorehouse!" He chuckled, thumping his chest with the heel of one hand as his breath wheezed painfully. "That's rich. My holier-than-thou cousin finding me a wife from a whorehouse to save a family scandal. What price family honor, eh!"

Juliana regarded him with ill-concealed distaste. "You may believe what you please, my lord. But I am not and never have been a whore."

Lucien raised a mock-placatory hand. "Don't eat me, m'dear. It doesn't matter to me what you were … or, indeed, what you are. You could have serviced an entire regiment before dinner, for all that I care."

Juliana felt her temper rise. Her lip curled and her eyes threw poisoned daggers at him. Firmly she told herself that Viscount Edgecombe was not worth her anger. "Will you give me leave to go to the Marshalsea, my lord?" she demanded impatiently.

"Oh, you may have leave to do anything you wish if it'll irritate Tarquin, my lady." He chuckled and wheezed. "By all means visit the debtors’ prison. By all means choose your friends from the whorehouses of Covent Garden. By all means do a little business of that sort on the side, if it appeals to you. You have my unconditional leave to indulge in any form of debauchery, to wallow in the stews every night. Just don't ask me for money. I don't have two brass farthings to rub together."

Juliana paled and her freckles stood out on the bridge of her nose. "Rest assured, I will ask you for nothing further, my lord." She dropped an icy curtsy. "If you'll excuse me, my friends await me."

"Just a minute." He raised an arresting hand, impervious to her anger. "Perhaps I'll accompany you on this errand. Lend a touch of respectability…" He grinned, the skin stretched tight on his skull. "If your husband bears you company, Tarquin will have to gnash his teeth in silence."

Juliana wasn't happy at the prospect of enduring her husband's company. On the other hand, the idea of thwarting the duke had an irresistible appeal. He did, after all, have it coming.

"Very well," Juliana murmured.

"Well, let's be about this business." He sounded relatively robust at the prospect of sowing mischief and moved to the door with almost a spring in his step. Juliana followed, her eyes agleam now with her own mischief.

Just as they reached the front door, Quentin and the duke emerged from the library.

"Juliana!" Tarquin's voice was sharp. "Where do you think you're going?"

She turned and curtsied. "For a drive with my husband, my lord duke. I trust you have no objections."

The duke's mouth tightened and an ominous muscle twitched in his cheek. "Lucien, you're not encouraging this outrageous scheme."

"My wife has asked for my permission to help a friend, and I've offered her my company in support, dear boy." Lucien couldn't hide his glee. "Wouldn't do for Lady Edgecombe to go alone to the Marshalsea… but in my company there can be no objection."

"Don't be absurd," the duke snapped. "Juliana, go upstairs to your parlor. I'll come to you directly."

Juliana frowned at this curt order. ''Forgive me, my lord duke, but my husband has commanded my presence. I do believe that his commands must take precedence over yours." She curtsied again and whisked herself out of the house before Tarquin could gather his wits to react.

Lucien grinned, offered his cousin a mock bow, and followed his wife.

"Insolent baggage!" Tarquin exclaimed. "Who the hell does she think she is?"

"Viscountess Edgecombe, apparently," his brother said, unable to hide a wry smile. It wasn't often that Tarquin was routed.

The duke stared at him in fulminating silence; then he spun on his heel and strode back to the library. He left the door ajar, so after a moment's hesitation Quentin followed him.

"If that child thinks she can use Lucien to provoke me, she'd better think again," the duke said, his mouth a thin, straight line, his eyes cold and hard as agate. "What could she possibly hope to gain by such a thing?"

"Revenge," Quentin suggested, perching on the wide windowsill. "She's a lady of some spirit."

"She's a minx!" The duke paced the room with long, angry strides.

"They won't come to any harm," Quentin soothed. "Lucien will-"

"That drunken degenerate is only interested in putting one over on me," Tarquin interrupted. "He's not concerned about Juliana in the least."

"Well, no one need know about it," Quentin said.

"No one need know that Viscountess Edgecombe in the company of three whores went to the rescue of a pauper harlot in the Marshalsea!" Tarquin exclaimed. "Goddammit, Quentin! They may not recognize Juliana, but they will certainly recognize Lucien."

"Not if they take a closed carriage." Quentin suggested lamely.

A dismissive wave showed what Tarquin thought of this possibility. He resumed his pacing, an angry frown knotting his brow. Lucien would cause whatever evil he could. Juliana was only a country innocent, and she had no idea what she was dealing with. Somehow he would have to put a stop to her foolish alliance with Lucien.

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George Ridge climbed up from the basement steps of the house opposite the duke's mansion on Albermarle Street and stood watching the group of four women and a man followed by a footman stroll down the street. He stood with his feet apart, adjusting his waistcoat with a complacent tug, his right hand resting on his sword hilt. He'd been watching the house on Albermarle Street since midmorning, and nothing he'd seen made any sense. Last night he'd assumed that Juliana had been bought for the night by the two men who'd taken her into the house. But now it seemed as if she lived there. His first thought was that it was a whorehouse and the men were visiting her there. But two ladies, evidently irreproachable in their somber clothes, had arrived in a carriage with an earl's arms on the panels. Then the two men he'd seen the previous night had escorted them back to the carriage with all due ceremony and courtesy. Then the three young women, accompanied by a footman, had arrived. Some altercation had occurred, he was convinced, between Juliana and one of the two men who seemed to live in the house, and now there she was in the company of yet another man, prancing down the street with the other women.

None of it made any sense. Juliana's dress was fine as fivepence and didn't look in the least whorish, but there was an air about her present companions that he would swear labeled them as Impures. High Impures, certainly, but definitely not fit companions for a young lady of Juliana's birth and breeding. And what of the man whose arm she held? Unsavory-looking creature, George thought, although the view from his hiding place was partially obscured by the iron railings. Something very rum was going on, and the sooner he got to the bottom of it, the sooner he'd be able to decide on his next move.

He stood for a few more minutes until the party reached the end of the street; then he strolled off toward the mews at the back of the house. Someone there would tell him to whom the house belonged. It would be a start.

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"Don't you think we should get a hackney, sir?" Juliana inquired as they emerged onto the crowded thoroughfare of Piccadilly.

"Oh, all in good time… all in good time," Lucien responded easily. "I've a mind to show myself to the world in such charming company. It's a rare sight for me to be surrounded by a bevy of the doves of Venus. We're bound to meet up with some of my friends… an acquaintance or two. Introduce you, m'dear wife… and of course your friends… your previous fellow laborers." He chuckled.

Juliana's lips thinned. She wasn't prepared to sacrifice her reputation just to annoy the duke. Lucien was taking matters too far.

A hackney carriage trundled along Piccadilly toward them, and with swift resolution she hailed it. "Forgive me, my lord, but I don't believe we have the time for social dalliance." She tugged on the handle of the carriage door as it came to a stop beside them. "I think we can all fit in, if you don't mind sitting on the box, sir." She offered him a placating smile and was taken aback by the flash of sullen anger in the ashy coals of his eyes.

"I say we walk along Piccadilly, madam."

Juliana's smile remained unwavering as her three friends were handed into the coach by the footman. "Indeed, my lord, but we cannot spare the time. Poor Lucy could even now be dying of starvation in that place. We don't have a minute to lose." She turned to follow her companions into the hackney. Seating herself, she leaned out of the still-open door.

"If you don't wish to sit on the box, my lord, perhaps you could follow us in a separate hackney."

Lucien glowered at her. Juliana coaxed, "Please come, my lord. If I go alone, His Grace will feel he has cause to be vexed with me. But as you so rightly said, if you come, he'll have to bite his tongue."

It worked. The viscount, still glowering, climbed onto the box beside the jarvey. "The Marshalsea," he growled. The jarvey cracked his whip and the hackney moved off, the footman leaping onto the step behind, hanging on to the leather strap.

"Why are you so set on this, Juliana?" Lilly fanned herself in the warm interior, her languid air belied by the sharpness of her gaze. "I warrant it has to do with more than Lucy's plight."

"Perhaps it has," Juliana said with a serene smile. "But Lucy's situation is the first consideration."

Rosamund was sitting in silence in a corner, the muslin collar of her short cloak drawn up around her ears as if she were hiding from something. When she spoke, her voice was husky and awkward. "Forgive me, Juliana, I don't wish to pry. But… but that is your husband who's accompanying us?"

"Yes, for my sins," Juliana replied with a shudder. Once out of the viscount's presence she couldn't hide her repulsion.

"He's a sick man," Rosamund said hesitantly. "I don't know if-"

"He's poxed," Lilly stated flatly. "There's no need to beat about the bush, Rosamund, we all know the signs. Have you been in his bed, Juliana?"

Juliana shook her head. "No, and I shall not. It's not part of the arrangement."

"Well, that's a relief!" Emma sighed and relaxed. "I didn't know what to say… how to warn you."

"There's no need. I've had fair warning," Juliana responded, looking out of the window to conceal her expression from her companions. "And I'm in no danger… at least not of that sort," she couldn't help adding in a low voice.

"It's to be hoped we don't catch something in the Marshalsea," Rosamund muttered. "There's jail fever and all sorts of things in that place. Just breathing the air can infect you."

"Then you may stay in the hackney," Juliana said. "The viscount and I will go inside and procure Lucy's release."

"I'm certainly coming in," Lilly said stoutly. "You don't know Lucy. She won't know to trust you."

"No, she's had so much ill luck," Emma agreed with a sigh. "She won't know whom to trust."

The carriage came to a rattling halt on the uneven cobbles in front of a fearsome high-walled building. Great iron gates stood open to the street, and ragged creatures shuffled through them, exuding a desperate kind of defeat.

"Who are they?" Juliana gazed out of the door as the footman opened it.

"Debtors," Lilly said, stepping down to the road ahead of her.

"But they aren't incarcerated."

"No, they're paroled from dawn to dusk so they can beg-or work, if they can find something," Emma explained, following Juliana to the cobbles. "And they have visitors, who bring them food, if they're lucky. There are whole families in there. Babies, small children, old men and women."

Lucien clambered off the box, the maneuver clearly costing him some effort. He stood for a minute wheezing, leaning against the carriage, sweat standing out on his pallid brow. "I must be mad to agree to such a ridiculous scheme," he muttered, mopping his forehead with his handkerchief. "You go about your business, madam wife. I'm going to settle my chest in that tavern over yonder." He gestured to a ramshackle building with a crooked door frame and loose shutters. Its identifying sign was unreadable and hung bv a single nail over the door. "Come to me in the taproom when you're finished with your errand of mercy."

Juliana silently resolved to send the footman through that unsavory-looking door, but she curtsied meekly to her husband, eyes lowered to the mud-encrusted cobbles.

Lucien ignored the salutation and hurried off, the smell of cognac drawing him like a dog to a bone.

"Oh, dear, I thought the viscount was going to negotiate for us," Rosamund said, dismayed.

"We have no need of Edgecombe for the moment." Juliana gathered up her skirts and set off toward the gate, watching her feet warily as she picked her way through the festering kennel in the middle of the street, praying she wouldn't catch her high heel on an uneven cobble.

The gatekeeper stared blearily at them as they stopped at his hut. His little eyes were red-rimmed and unfocused, and he smelled most powerfully of gin. He took a swig from the stone jar on his lap before deigning to answer Juliana's question.

"Lucy Tibbet?" He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Tibbet, eh? Now, who'd 'ave put 'er in 'ere?"

"Mistress Haddock," Lilly said.

"Oh, that bawd!" The gatekeeper threw back his head and guffawed, sending a foul miasma into the steamy summer air. "Lucifer, but she's an 'ard one, she is. Worse than that 'ubby of ‘ers. That Richard. For' bless me, but 'e was worth a bob or two. weren't 'e?"

"If by that you mean he took every penny his girls earned, I'd agree with you," Lilly said acerbically. She was clearly made of sterner stuff than Rosamund and Emma, who were hanging back, holding their skirts well clear of the matted straw and rotting vegetables littering the cobbles.

"You one of 'em, missie?" The gatekeeper leered. "Mebbe we could come to some arrangement, like."

"And maybe you could tell us where to find Mistress Tibbet," Juliana said, stepping forward. The gatekeeper drew back involuntarily from the tongues of jade fire in her eyes, the taut line of her mouth, the tall, erect figure. This lady looked as if she were unaccustomed to meeting with opposition, and she held herself with an assurance that whores generally lacked.

"Well, now, mebbe I could, my lady… fer a consideration," he said, pulling his whiskery chin.

"I have forty pounds here to pay her debt," Juliana said crisply. "In addition I will give you a guinea, my good man, if you make things easy for us. Otherwise, we shall manage without you."

"Oho… hoity-toity, aren't we!" The gatekeeper lumbered to his feet. "Now you listen 'ere, my fine lady. The name's Mr. Cogg to you, an' I'll thankee to show a little respect."

"And I'll thank you to mind your manners," Juliana said. "Are you interested in earning a guinea or not?"

"Ten guineas it'll be to secure 'er release." His eyes narrowed slyly.

"Forty guineas to pay off her debt, and one guinea for your good self," Juliana said. "Otherwise, I shall visit the nearest magistrate and arrange for Mistress Tibbet's release with him. And you, Cogg, will get nothing."

The gatekeeper looked astounded. He was unaccustomed to such authoritative young women at his gates. In general, those who came to liberate friends and relatives were almost as indigent as the prisoner. They addressed Mr. Cogg as sir, with averted eyes, and crept around, keeping to the shadows. They were not comfortable with magistrates, and in general, a threatening word or two was sufficient to ensure a substantial handout for the gatekeeper.

Lilly had stepped up to Juliana's shoulder, and she, too, glared at the gatekeeper. Emma and Rosamund, emboldened by their friends' stand, also gazed fixedly at Mr. Cogg.

After a minute the gatekeeper snorted and held out his hand. "Give it 'ere, then."

Juliana shook her head. "Not until you've taken us to Mistress Tibbet."

"I'll see the color of yer money, first, my lady." He drew himself upright, but even standing tall, his eyes were only on a level with Juliana's. She regarded him as contemptuously as an amazon facing a pygmy.

"I'm going to find a magistrate." She turned on her heel, praying the bluff would work. It could take hours to find a magistrate and hours to secure Lucy's release by that route. And Juliana always hated to alter her plans. Having once set her heart and mind on walking out of this place with Lucy, she was loath to give up.

" 'Old on, 'old on," the gatekeeper grumbled. He knew that if a magistrate ordered the prisoner's release, he'd see not a penny for himself. A golden guinea was better than nothing. He took another swig from his stone bottle and came out of his little hut, blowing his nose on a red spotted handkerchief. "This a-way."

They followed him across a yard, thronged with people. Two small boys darted between the legs of the crowd and cannoned into the gatekeeper, whose hands moved seamlessly, clouting them both around the ears even as he continued to walk. The boys fell to the ground, wailing and rubbing their ears. A woman screamed at them and came running over, waving a rolling pin. The children scrambled to their feet and disappeared so quickly, it was almost as if they'd never been there.

The gatekeeper went through another gate into an internal courtyard, as busy as the other. There were cooking fires there, and women scrubbing clothes at rain butts. The stick-thin bodies were clad in rags, the children half-naked, for the most part. The scene reminded Juliana of the gypsy encampments in the New Forest during her childhood.

But inside the building things were very different. Here there was sickness and despair. Rail-thin, hunched figures sat on the filthy stone stairs, their eyes blank, as the gatekeeper, followed by Juliana and her companions, puffed his way upward. Juliana glimpsed rooms off the landings- rooms without furniture, with unglazed windows and straw on the floor. And in the straw lay huddled bodies, crumpled like pieces of discarded paper. The air reeked of death and desolation. These people were dying there. These were the folk for whom there was no salvation. Who had no one in the world with money either to procure their release or to ensure them at least sufficient bread to keep body and soul together.

Her three companions were silent, looking neither to right nor left, avoiding the sight of the horrors that hovered on the edges of their own lives. The horrors that inevitably came to the old and infirm of Covent Garden if they weren't clever or lucky enough to provide for the uncertain future.

"She's in 'ere." Mr. Cogg stopped at an open doorway at the top of the last staircase. He was breathing heavily, sweat running down his face. "Lucy Tibbet!" he bellowed into the dimly lit attic room. "Lucy Tibbet… show a leg there."

A faint groan came from the far wall, and Lilly pushed past him and almost ran into the room, her pink skirts swinging gracefully. The others followed, blue and palest green, bending together over a shape on the straw. They looked like summer butterflies in a dungeon, Juliana thought as she crossed the room to join them, her nose wrinkling at the powerful stench emanating from a tin bucket in the corner.

Lucy lay in the straw, her eyes half-closed. She was filthy, her hair matted, shoeless and clad only in a torn chemise. The hectic flush of fever was on her thin cheeks, and a clawlike hand fluttered in Lilly's palm.

"Sweet heaven, what have they done to you?" Emma cried, dropping to her knees on the dirty straw. "Where are your clothes?"

"Jailer took them," Lucy croaked. "To pay for bread and water. Until there was nothing left…" She turned her head on the straw, two tears trickling from behind her closed eyelids. "They took my good shift and gave me this one in its place. I suppose I should be thankful they didn't leave me naked."

"Oh, how wicked!" Rosamund's tears fell onto the straw.

"We've come to take you out of here," Juliana said, seeking in brisk action to mask her own appalled distress. "Rosamund, if you lend Lucy your cloak, it will protect her a little until we can get her into the hackney."

Rosamund eagerly unclasped her cloak. Lilly lifted Lucy from the straw and draped the soft silk garment around her shoulders. The contrast between the shimmering silk and the girl's filthy, matted hair, thin cheeks, and torn shift was shocking.

"Can you walk?" Juliana half lifted Lucy to her feet and held her as she swayed dizzily.

"My head's spinning." Lucy's voice was weak and shaky. "I haven't stood up for days."

"You'll feel stronger in a minute," Emma said, stroking Lucy's emaciated arm. "I could drive a knife into Mother Haddock!" she added ferociously. "We didn't know you were in here until a few days ago. The bawd told her girls to keep quiet about it if they didn't want to find themselves joining you."

"There has to be a way to get even," Lilly muttered, staring around the attic as if taking it in for the first time. "She intended you should die in this hole."

"We'll think about getting even later." Juliana slipped a supporting arm around Lucy's waist. "Lilly, you take her other arm."

The gatekeeper was still in the doorway, watching the scene with scant interest. His little eyes focused sharply, however, when he saw Lucy on her feet. "Eh, you don't leave 'ere until I gets me money."

Lilly, at a nod from Juliana, withdrew the two crisp notes from her muff. "This is the sum of her debt." Mr. Cogg stretched out a hand for them, but she held on to the notes.

"However did you-"

"Hush, dear, don't talk until we're safely outside," Rosamund said, patting Lucy's hand. "We'll explain everything then."

"Give it 'ere, then." Mr. Cogg snapped his fingers.

"It has to be paid to Mistress Haddock," Juliana said. "I'm not giving it to you until you give me a receipt for it."

Mr. Cogg shot her a look of intense dislike. "Fer such a young thing, you knows yer way around," he grumbled, turning back to the stairs. "Where was you brung up, then? In a moneylender's?"

It was intended to be a deep insult, but Juliana merely laughed, thinking that Sir Brian Forsett's example when it came to money dealings could as well have been set in a moneylender's.

She wrote out the receipt herself and stood over Mr. Cogg as he put his mark to it. Then she laid the forty pounds on the rickety table in his hut. "I have only a twenty-pound note. Does anyone have a guinea to give to this kind gentleman?"

Rosamund produced the required coin and they left the Marshalsea, Lucy hobbling on her bare feet between Juliana and Lilly. The footman and the hackney carriage were waiting where they'd left them; of Lucien there was no sign.

"Fetch Viscount Edgecombe from the tavern, if you please," Juliana instructed the servant, who was staring with unabashed curiosity at the pathetic scarecrow they were lifting into the hackney.

Lucy sank onto the cracked leather squabs with a groan. "Are you hungry, dear?" Emma inquired tenderly, sitting beside her and chafing her hands.

"I don't feel it anymore," Lucy told her, her voice still low and weak. "It was painful for the first week, but now I feel nothing."

"Where are we to take her?" Lilly sat opposite, a frown drawing her plucked eyebrows together. "We can't take her back to Mother Haddock."

"What about Mistress Dennison?" Juliana was looking out of the window, watching for her husband.

"No," Rosamund said. "She's already said she won't help Lucy."

"Lucy refused a wealthy patron that Mistress Dennison presented to her," Emma explained.

"He was a filthy pervert," Lucy said with more strength than she'd shown hitherto. "And I didn't need him or his money then."

"She was in the keeping of Lord Amhurst," Lilly said. "Mistress Dennison had arranged the contract and thought Lucy owed her a favor. It was only for one night, apparently."

"One night with that piece of gutter filth!" Lucy fell back, exhausted, and closed her eyes.

"Anyway, that's why Mistress Dennison won't help her," Rosamund stated.

"She can come back with me," Juliana declared with rather more confidence than she felt. The duke was not going to be best pleased with her as it was. Asking him to house the indigent Lucy in her present condition was a favor no one would blame him for refusing even in his most charitable frame of mind.

"Well, that's settled." Lilly sounded relieved as she set the seal on Juliana's offer. "And while you're getting better, Lucy, we'll try to persuade Mistress Dennison to take you in when you're ready to work again."

"She's quite good-hearted, really," Emma put in. "In fact they both are if you keep on the right side of them."

A discussion began on the likelihood of the Dennisons' relenting, but Juliana continued to peer out of the window toward the tavern. The footman finally reemerged and trotted back to the hackney. He was alone.

"Beggin' your pardon, m'lady, but his lordship says as how he's not ready to leave just yet and you should go on without him."

"Damn," Juliana muttered. The viscount was not a reliable partner in crime. Without him at her side things would go harder for her when they got back to Albermarle Street, and she wouldn't be able to refer Tarquin's complaints to her husband, as she'd intended doing. She debated going in after Lucien herself, then decided against it If he was far gone in cognac, she'd achieve only her own discomfort.

"Very well. Tell the jarvey to return to Albermarle Street," she instructed, withdrawing her head from the window. Lucy was huddled between Lilly and Rosamund, a tiny, frail figure in her thin shift against the butterfly richness of the other women. She didn't look more than twenty. What kind of life had she led so far that she could have been condemned so young to such a hideous death?