Vice

Chapter 25

Juliana stumbled forward under a vigorous shove from her escort, through a doorway and into a long, narrow, filthy room. An iron-barred door clanged behind her. A minute or two earlier the cart had drawn up in a stinking courtyard, surrounded by a high wall. The three women had been hauled down to the cobbles by two men wielding rods, and driven like cattle into the low building. Rosamund had tripped over an uneven flagstone and, unable to help herself with her bound hands, had fallen to her knees. One of the jailers had promptly brought his rod down on her shoulders, cursing her vilely. Sobbing piteously, she'd managed to stand up again and totter forward.

Now the three women stood with their bound hands facing a sea of hostile, predatory eyes as the women in the dimly lit room stared at them, hungrily taking in the quality of their clothes. The walls were of bare brick, glistening and slimy with oozing damp; the air was dank and foul; the only light came from a minute window high up in the far wall under the roof timbers. Far too high to reach from the ground, and far too small to admit even a climbing boy.

The women, for the most part clad only in ragged underpetticoats, coarse stockings, and clogs, stood in front of rows of massive tree stumps beating hanks of hemp with heavy wooden mallets. Juliana saw with dread that several of them wore leg irons, shackling them to the stumps. The dull, rhythmic pounding bounced off the stone walls. A woman with a slit nose cackled as Rosamund gave a low moan and swayed.

"First time 'ere, is it, dearies?" She dropped her mallet and came over to them. Her hands were flayed and bleeding from the hemp. Juliana wondered what crime had merited the slit nose, even as she drew back from the unequivocal malice in the woman's eyes. The woman reached for Rosamund's muslin fichu. 'Fancy gewgaws ye've got. Fetch quite a pretty penny, they will."

"Leave her alone," Juliana snapped.

The woman's eyes narrowed dangerously, and she tore the fichu from Rosamund's quivering neck. "I'll 'ave 'er clothes, and your'n, too, missie. Soon as the day's work's done. An' if ye don't watch yer tongue, we'll strip ye nekkid. We knows 'ow to tame a proud spirit in 'ere. Innit so, girls?"

There was a chorus of agreement, and the eyes seemed to move closer, although the women remained at their posts. Juliana involuntarily turned to the jailer as if seeking protection.

The man merely laughed. "Don't go upsettm' Maggie. She'll scratch yer eyes out soon as look at ye. An' 'er word goes in 'ere. What 'appens in 'ere, when y'are locked up fer the night, is none of me business." He moved in front of them and sliced their bonds with his knife. "Get to work now. Them three stumps over there." He gestured to three unoccupied work sites, the massive mallets resting atop.

Maggie followed them over and stood, hands on hips, as the jailer pulled three thick hanks of hemp from a basket on the wall and threw them onto the stumps. The woman reached over and took Rosamund's shrinking hand. "This'll not last long," she observed, turning the small white hand over in her grime-encrusted, blood-streaked palm. "I give ye an hour, an' yer 'ands'll be bleedin' so 'ard ye won't be able to bear to touch the mallet." She cackled, and a ripple of mirth ran around the room from the others, who had taken a rest from their labors to watch the induction.

The jailer grinned. "Them what won't work goes in the pillory."

Rosamund was dazed with fright and was weeping so hard now, she couldn't take anything in, but Juliana and Lilly both looked to where the man's finger was pointing. A wall pillory, the holes high enough to keep the victim on her toes and to put an intolerable strain on her shoulders. Above it inscribed the legend: Better to work than stand thus.

Juliana picked up the mallet and brought it down on the hemp with an almighty swing. The weight of the mallet astounded her, and any effect of the blow on the hemp was invisible. The stuff had to be pounded until the core fibers split and could be separated from the thick fibrous covering. After three blows her wrists ached, the skin of her palms was beginning to rub, and the hemp showed no more than a slight flattening. She glanced at Rosamund, who was tapping feebly through her tears and making no impression at all on her hank. Lilly, tight-lipped, white-faced, was swinging her mallet above her shoulder and bringing it down with resolute violence. In a short while she'd be exhausted, Juliana thought apprehensively. If she was exhausted, she wouldn't be able to continue.

She glanced again at Rosamund's hemp, then swiftly picked up her own partially split hank and swapped it with Rosamund's barely touched one. Lilly gave her a quick approving nod, whispering, "Between us we should be able to keep her going."

"Eh, stop yer jabberin' over there." The jailer came toward them swinging his rod. "There's no time fer talkin'. Ye'll 'ave six of 'em ready by noontime, or ye'll find yerself at the whippin' post."

A chilling desperation took a hold on Juliana. She could see no way out. There was no one to appeal to. They were imprisoned in this fetid hole so far from civilization that they could have dropped off the face of the earth for all the contact they would have with the outside world. But surely someone would be wondering where she was. The coachman would be looking for her. Someone would discover what had happened.

But why would they do anything to help her? What right had she to expect help? The duke would be thinking that it served her right. To obtain her release, he'd have to acknowledge his connection with a convicted whore in a house of correction. She couldn't imagine why anyone, let alone the Duke of Redmayne, would wish to do that.

Except, of course, to protect his investment. Furiously, she swung the mallet, ignoring the pain in her hands, ignoring the drops of blood that began to fall on the stump and made the handle of the mallet slippery. She welcomed the anger because it defeated the dreadful, numbing desperation that she knew instinctively was her greatest enemy.

She and Lilly must do their own six hanks and share Lilly's if they were to keep her from the pillory-or worse, the whipping post. In this hellhole, inhabited by the dregs of humanity, the weak would go to the wall. Juliana knew that she would be able to stand up to the jailer, and to the vile Maggie, as long as she kept her strength and diverted the deadening sense of helplessness. Lilly, too, would be difficult to break. But Rosamund stood not a chance. Her spirit was already broken, and to watch her complete disintegration would provide merry sport for the degraded wretches who surrounded them.

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Sir John Fielding regarded his visitors in polite astonishment. "Lady Edgecombe among the whores I sent to Tothill Bridewell? My dear sir, surely you must be mistaken."

"I don't believe so," Tarquin said, his mouth so thin and tight it was barely visible. "Red hair, green eyes. Tall."

"Aye, I marked her well. A bold-eyed wench," the magistrate opined, stroking his chin. "Now you mention it, she did seem rather out of the common way for strumpets. But why wouldn't she identify herself? How could she get caught up-"

"Forgive me for interrupting." Quentin stepped forward. "I believe it must have had something to do with Juliana's interest in the lives of the street women." He coughed discreetly. "She was much exercised over young Lucy's plight, if you recall, Tarquin. Insisted upon bringing her out of the Marshalsea. I believe it would be in character for her to… to extend her field of operations, if you will."

Tarquin nodded tersely. "It would certainly be in character."

"What's that you mean to say, your lordship?" Sir John looked puzzled. "Don't quite catch your meaning. What interest could a lady have in a whore's life?"

"The inequities of their position, I believe, troubles Lady Edgecombe most powerfully," Quentin explained gravely.

"Well, I'll be damned. Out to reform them, is she?" Sir John took up a dish of coffee and guzzled it with relish.

"Probably not reformation, Sir John," Quentin said, sipping his own coffee. "Juliana is of a practical turn of mind."

"Not when it comes to self-preservation," Tarquin stated grimly.

"Well, if she's been meddling in the profits of the likes of Mitchell and Cocksedge, it's no wonder she aroused the wrath of the demons," Sir John observed. "Devil take it, sir, but His Lordship should keep a tighter rein on his wife."

"Oh, believe me, Sir John, from now on the tightest rein and the heaviest curb," Tarquin promised, setting aside his coffee dish and standing up with an abrupt movement. "If you'll provide me with an order for her release, sir, we'll be about our business."

"Aye, Your Grace. Aye, indeed." The magistrate summoned his somber-suited secretary, who'd been listening with wagging ears to the conference. "Write it up, Hanson. Immediate release of Lady Edgecombe."

"I believe Her Ladyship called herself Juliana Beresford, sir," the secretary reminded. "It's down as that in the register of committal."

"I daresay she thought her real identity might prove an embarrassment for you," Quentin murmured to his brother.

"Juliana is always such a paragon of consideration," Tarquin retorted.

They waited, the duke in visible impatience, for the secretary's laborious penning of the order. Tarquin almost snatched it from the man, thrusting it into his coat pocket, throwing a curt thank-you over his shoulder to Sir John as he strode from the room, Quentin on his heels.

"How long has she been in there, d'ye reckon, Quentin?" Tarquin's voice was taut, his face a mask as he whipped up his horses, setting them at a racing pace through the rapidly crowding streets.

Quentin glanced at his fob watch. It was nine o'clock. "They were at Fielding's just before dawn. Reached Bridewell maybe two hours later."

"Seven o'clock, then. Two hours." A note of relief crept into his voice. It would take a lot longer than that to break Juliana. "Has she talked to you about this obsession she has with the whores?" He kept out of his voice his annoyance that she had not confided in him-an annoyance that was directed more at himself than at Juliana. He hadn't questioned exactly what she'd been doing in Covent Garden on her last excursion, which had led to George's attempted abduction. He'd assumed she'd been simply meeting her friends for her own entertainment. Now it seemed there may have been more to it.

"A little. Usually when we've been sitting with Lucy. Juliana's own experiences, I believe, have made her particularly sensitive to the women's plight. Exploitation, as she calls it."

"Death and damnation!" Tarquin overtook a lumbering dray on the narrow street, so close he shaved the varnish on the phaeton. "Exploitation! Who the hell has exploited her?"

"You have."

Tarquin's expression blackened, and his eyes took on the flat glitter of anger. But he said nothing, and Quentin prudently held his own peace.

The forbidding building of the Tothill Bridewell loomed before them. Tarquin drew his horses to a halt before the massive iron gate. The postern gate swung open and an ill-kempt guard stepped through. He took in the equipage and the haughty impatience of the driver. He tugged his forelock in a halfhearted gesture. "Sure ye 'aven't come to the wrong place, good sirs?"

Tarquin jumped from the phaeton. "Take the reins," he instructed, thrusting them into the astonished guard's hands. "Where will I find the keeper of this place?"

"Eh, Yer 'Onor, at 'is breakfast, I don't doubt." The guard looked in alarm at the two pawing horses that had become his charge. "In 'is 'ouse," he added helpfully.

"And where might that be?" Quentin asked swiftly, sensing Tarquin was within an inch of throttling the guard.

" 'Cross the yard, on the left. 'Ouse that stands alone."

"Thank you." Quentin fished out a sovereign. "For your trouble. There'll be another when we return." Then he set off after Tarquin, who had already disappeared through the postern gate.

The yard was surrounded by high walls. A whipping post stood prominently in the middle, stocks and a pillory beside it. To one side a massive treadmill turned, groaning with each revolution. A team of women, petticoats kilted to their knees, feet bare, wearily trod its circumference, a jailer with a long-lashed whip exhorting them to greater effort as he paced around them.

One quick glance told both men that Juliana had not been harnessed to that barbarous toil. Tarquin banged on the door of a squat cottage standing apart from the long, narrow, low-pitched building that housed the Bridewell.

"All right… all right… I'm a-comin'." The door opened and a woman poked her head out. She would once have been pretty, smooth-cheeked, with merry blue eyes and golden hair. But her face now was pitted with smallpox, her eyes shadowed with spite and the barren acceptance of a barren existence, her gray-streaked hair hanging in lank ringlets to her scrawny shoulders. Her eyes widened as she took in the visitors.

"I wish to have speech with the keeper of this place," Tarquin stated brusquely. "Fetch him, my good woman."

" 'E's at 'is breakfast, my lord." She bobbed a curtsy. "But if'n ye'd care to step this way." She gestured behind her into a dingy, smelly passageway.

Tarquin took the invitation, Quentin on his heels. The passage gave onto a square room, reeking of stale fried onions and boiling cods' heads. A man in a filthy waistcoat, collar unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, was scooping boiled tripe into his mouth with the blade of his knife.

He looked up as the door opened. "Agnes, I told you I weren't to be disturbed..,." Then his voice faded as he saw his visitors. A sly look came into his eyes. He wiped his dripping chin with the back of his hand and said in a fawning tone, "Well, what can Jeremiah Bloggs do fer ye, good sirs?"

Tarquin could see he was already calculating how much of a bribe he could squeeze out of whatever this situation was. Keepers of the prisons earned no salary, but they were free to extort and "fee" both prisoners and their visitors for anything they could come up with.

"I have an order for the release of a woman brought in here by mistake this morning," he said, laying the document on a corner of the dirt-encrusted table. "If you'd be so good as to have her fetched."

The sly look intensified. Bloggs stroked a loose-flapping lower lip with a thumb tip. "Well, it ain't quite that easy, 'onored sir."

"Of course it is," snapped the duke. "This document states that the prisoner Juliana Beresford is to be released immediately. Without let or hindrance. If you have difficulty performing your duties, my good man, I shall ensure that you are replaced by someone who does not."

The sly look became a malevolent glare. "I don't know where she might be 'eld, Yer 'Onor," he whined. "There's a dozen or so wards, includin' the lunatic ones. Per'aps ye'd like to look fer 'er yerselves. Might be quicker, like."

"Certainly. But you are accompanying us."

Muttering under his breath, the keeper abandoned his tripe, drained his mug of blue ruin, picked up a massive ring of keys, and stomped ahead of them out to the court.

The stench of excreta overwhelmed them the minute the door was opened onto the building. Quentin choked. Tarquin pulled out his handkerchief and held it to his nose, his expression even grimmer than before. The keeper was unaffected by the reek. He maneuvered his large bulk down the passage, stopping at each barred ward, unlocking the door and gesturing sullenly that they should look in.

Thin, dull-eyed women looked back at them without pausing in the rhythmic pounding of their mallets. Rats rustled through the filthy straw at their feet; their jailers sat taking their ease on stools against the walls, occasionally swinging their rods when they judged someone was slacking.

Quentin couldn't keep the horror from his face. He had always known these places existed and, indeed, had assumed that houses of correction were necessary for the smooth running of society. But in the face of this unutterable reeking misery, he began to question his assumptions. He glanced at his brother. Tarquin's countenance was utterly impassive-a sure sign of turmoil within.

At the sixth ward they stopped outside an iron-bound door. Mr. Bloggs inserted the key. "If she ain't in 'ere, sirs, I can't think where she'd be. Less'n she be lunatic already; or they've put 'er on the treadmill. Which it's to be 'oped they 'aven't. Seein' as 'ow it's all a mistake, like." He grunted with what could almost have been a chuckle at the thought of an innocent suffering from such an error. "Can't think what Sir John could be a-doin', makin' such a mistake." He swung the door open and stood aside.

Juliana was lost in the rhythm of the mallet. She allowed her eyes to see only the hemp in front of her. As the fibers began to separate, a grim satisfaction tilled her. She thought of nothing more than the disintegration of the hemp. The pounding was in her ears, in her blood, the condition of her hands a distant agony that she knew instinctively she mustn't focus upon. Beside her Lilly pounded away. Without exchanging a glance they flipped Rosamund's pathetic work from one stump to another. But despite their efforts Rosamund's hands were bleeding and mangled within the first hour, as Maggie had gleefully foreseen, and her tears mingled with the blood dripping onto the hemp.

There had to be a way out of this nightmare. But Juliana's brain was deadened by the numbing, repetitive noise and the creeping dullness of fatigue. She'd had no sleep for twenty-four hours, and this work would presumably continue until nightfall. It wasn't possible to think, to do anything, but force her body through the motions and watch the hemp.

At the moment the door opened, Rosamund cried out. The mallet dropped, bouncing on the tree stump. She stared with fixed intensity at her hands, her eyes widening in horror. She raised her eyes to gaze wildly around the room, as if coming to a realization of her surroundings for the first time; then, with another cry of despair, she crumpled to the filthy straw.

Juliana dropped to her knees, Lilly beside her. They ignored the commotion at the door. Lilly lifted Rosamund's head, laying it in her lap. Juliana wanted to chafe her hands but didn't dare to touch them. Her own stung unmercifully now that her concentration had been broken, but she stroked Rosamund's deathly white cheek.

"Fetch some hartshorn and water, man!" She threw the instruction over her shoulder in the direction of where she'd last seen the jailer.

Maggie cackled. " 'Arts'orn and water. And would m'lady like 'er smellin' salts, then? Or a burned feather, per'aps?"

Juliana was on her feet in one bound. She turned on the grinning woman, her eyes spitting rage, her bloody hands raised. Maggie took a step backward as the flaming-haired Fury advanced on her.

'"Juliana! Don't make matters worse than they are."

She whirled toward the door as the quiet voice crashed through her crimson rage. His voice was quiet but his eyes were hot as lava, and there was a white shade around his taut mouth, a muscle twitching in his cheek. Juliana saw only anger-no indication of his agonies of the last hour, not a hint of the glorious rush of relief as he saw her unbroken and not seriously harmed.

"What are you doing here?" She couldn't believe the petulant words even as they emerged from her lips. She wanted to rush to his arms, to be folded in the power of his body, secure in the knowledge of his protection. She wanted to be soothed and cuddled, to hear the soft words of love on his lips. She'd chosen to believe that if he came for her, it would be because it suited his purposes, not because he wished to. But as he stood there, such fearsome rage in every taut muscle, she felt a deeper disappointment than she'd ever known.

Her eyes flew to Quentin standing behind the duke, his expression a rictus of horror. Quentin would understand what had brought her to this. He would see, where his brother didn't, her weakness and her unimaginable relief that the ordeal was over.

"I might ask the same of you," the duke replied, coining toward her.

He took her hands, his own warm and strong, and turned them over. His rage knew no bounds at what he saw, and it was all he could do to keep himself from cradling the torn, bruised flesh, soothing the hurts with the balm of his kisses. But this was not the time. She was safe, and he had to get her out of this filthy place of terror before he did anything else.

"Come," he said, his voice curt with anxiety. He turned to the door.

Juliana snatched her hands from his grasp, their pain as nothing compared to the surge of angry disbelief. Did he really expect her to walk out with him, abandoning her friends?

"I'll not leave here without Lilly and Rosamund." She picked up her mallet again. "They're here because of me. They have no more business being here than I do. Those spawn of a gutter bitch betrayed us, and I'll not leave my friends in this hell. I neither need nor want your intervention." She raised the mallet with both bloody hands and brought it down again, fighting with every muscle the screaming agony of her torn flesh.

Tarquin swung back to her with an incredulous "What?" Quentin suppressed a smile at the sight of his unflappable brother so completely confounded.

Juliana ignored the question, and Tarquin, frowning fiercely, looked at the pathetic, crumpled body of the girl on the floor, the white-faced desperation of the other girl, and he suddenly felt ashamed.

It was not an emotion to which he was accustomed. Impatiently, he snatched the mallet from Juliana, throwing it to the floor. "Quentin, take her out of here while I arrange about the others." He seized her in his arms and spun her across to his brother, who caught her against him.

"I'm not leaving without them!" Juliana's protest was muffled against Quentin's black waistcoat.

"Juliana, for once in your short life do as you're bid," Tarquin declared dangerously.

"Come," Quentin murmured. "Tarquin will negotiate their release."

Juliana looked from one brother to the other and saw only truth and confidence in their eyes. "Rosamund will need to be carried," she said matter-of-factly. "We must find a litter for her."

"You may leave that with me. Now, get out of this foul air. There's no knowing what infection lurks in it… Bloggs, a word with you." He jerked his head at the keeper, whose eyes now glittered. Unless he'd misunderstood, he was about to receive a substantial bribe. He oiled his way over to the duke, who'd withdrawn to the far corner of the ward.

Juliana allowed Quentin to draw her away. When they reached the sunshine of the courtyard, she took the air in great gulps. "Did you know such places existed, Quentin?"

"Yes." he said shortly. "But I'd never been inside one before." The horror of what he'd seen still lingered in his eyes. He drew her toward the postern gate, anxious to leave the last vestiges of this hell behind.

"I won't be defeated," she said with low-voiced determination, stepping out into the street beside him. "I won't let those evil women get the better of me."

"In God's name, Juliana! You can't possibly take on the world of vice all on your own." He took the horses from the relieved guard, handing him another coin.

"I won't do it alone." she said fiercely. "People like you will help me. People like you with the power to challenge the exploitation and the misery. Then things would change."

Touched by her fervency, Quentin was unwilling to spoil her dreams with his own cynicism.

"Here's Tarquin," he said with relief. The duke, carrying Rosamund in his arms, Lilly a pace or two behind, appeared at the gate, Jeremiah Bloggs at his side, a beatific smile on his face as he counted again the wad of notes that had bought the women's release. The duke hadn't even haggled over the terms, just peeled off the bills with an expression of disgust and contempt that ran off the keeper like water on a greased hide.

Juliana hurried over to them. "We must get Rosamund to the physician… but no, Henny will be able to look after her as well as any physician. They can't go back to the Dennisons' until we discover whether Mistress Dennison had anything to do with the plot."

Once again Juliana was turning his house into a rescue mission and convalescent home for ill-used strumpets. Tarquin surprised himself with a wry grin. He lifted Rosamund into the phaeton and refrained from comment. He had one interest, and only one. He intended to have Juliana stripped, scrubbed, and in bed without a moment's delay.

Quentin climbed up and took Rosamund on his lap, cradling her tightly. Lilly, silent, white-faced, and shivering violently in the aftermath of this sudden escape from hell, took her seat beside him.

"There's not enough room for me," Juliana said. "I'll take a hackney… Oh, but I don't have any money. My lord duke, could you…?"

"No, I could not!" he snapped. "If you think I'm going to let you out of my sight again, you are vastly mistaken, my child." He half lifted her onto the step, put a hand under her backside with his customary familiarity, and shoved her upward. "You'll have to squash up."

"I would, but the hoop's in the way." Juliana struggled to sit down on the inch of bench available between Lilly and the driver's seat.

"Then take it off."

"Here?" She looked askance at the open street.

"Yes, here," he affirmed flatly. "Get down again." He reached up and pulled her to the ground. "Turn around and lift up your skirts."

After an instant's hesitation Juliana obeyed with a shrug. After everything else that had happened, being divested of her hoop before the gaze of curious passersby seemed little more than a minor inconvenience. She noticed, however, that Quentin discreetly averted his eyes when she raised her skirts, revealing the frothy if now grimy folds of her underpetticoat.

Tarquin deftly untied the tapes at her waist and freed the whalebone panniers. He tossed them from him into the side of the street and once again boosted Juliana into the phaeton, climbing up beside her.

She gathered the soft folds of her gown and petticoats about her and made herself as small as possible. Tarquin's thigh pressed hard against hers as he occupied the remaining space on the bench and gave his horses the office to start. Juliana touched Lilly's hand, as much for her own comfort as to offer it. Lilly gave her a wan smile, and they both looked at Rosamund, held tightly in Lord Quentin's arms. Her eyes were open, staring sightlessly up at the sky from her deathly pale countenance. She appeared to be in a state of shock, immobile and unaware of her surroundings.

Rosamund was not cut out for the hand life had dealt her, Juliana thought. Lilly could manage to live it without loss of self. Indeed, she often enjoyed it. Most of the girls on Russell Street could take pleasure in their lot. They found plenty to laugh about; they shared a close camaraderie. They were not in want, and there was always the possibility of a grand and secure future if luck looked in their direction. But there was also the possibility of a Bridewell. Of a Marshalsea. Of spreading their legs beneath the bulks at Covent Garden for half a loaf of bread. But they chose not to brood about the consequences of ill luck, and who could blame them?

Grimly, Juliana acknowledged that alone she couldn't work miracles. She glanced sideways at the duke's unyielding countenance. He would make a powerful advocate if he could be persuaded to wield his influence. But that was a forlorn hope.

Unless… Her bruised hand touched her belly. Soon she must tell Tarquin of the child she carried. Presumably he'd be delighted. Maybe he'd be so delighted that he'd be open to suggestion. Willing to exert himself in someone else's interests for once. But then again, maybe he'd simply become even more protective of her, even more anxious that she should not be sullied by contact with Covent Garden life. Maybe he'd just keep her even more closely confined, to protect his unborn child. She and that child were his investment, after all. And he was a man who looked after his investments.