Vice (31 page)

There was nothing she could do, outnumbered as she was, but watch and wait and try to escape. Maybe they would become so involved in the gambling, so besotted with drink, that she could slip away without their noticing. Maybe a visit to the outhouse at the tavern would give her an opportunity.

Covent Garden was still thronged, but the crowd’s inebriation had reached a new peak. Voices were loud and
slurred, raised in anger and curses as often as in laughter. Men and women swayed over the cobbles, clutching stone jugs of gin, and Juliana watched a woman tumble in a drunken heap into the kennel, spilling the drink all over her. The man she was with fell on her with a roar, throwing her skirts up over her head to chanting encouragement from passersby.

Juliana averted her eyes. She had no idea whether the woman was a willing participant in what was going on, or merely insensible. She didn’t seem to be struggling. Someone screamed from one of the shacks under the Piazza, a loud squeal like a stuck pig. Juliana shuddered, her scalp crawling. A woman came flying out of the building, wearing only a thin shift. A man raced after her, wielding a stick. His face was suffused with fury, the woman’s pale with terror. Juliana waited for someone to intervene, but no one took any notice as the woman weaved and ducked through the crowd, trying to escape the ever-swinging stick.

“Filthy whore—up to her tricks again,” Bertrand said, grinning. “The trollops think they can get away with murder.”

“So what’s she done?” Juliana demanded, her eyes snapping in the flickering orange light from flambeaux and oil lamps.

Bertrand shrugged. “How should I know?”

“Cheated, most like,” Frank said. “It’s what they all do. Cheat their customers, cheat their whoremasters, cheat their bawds. They all need a spell in Bridewell now and again. Shakes ’em up.”

Juliana swallowed her rage. It would only amuse them. There had to be a way to improve the conditions under which these women sold themselves. She understood that it was the only living available to them … understood it now from bitter experience. But surely they need not be so vulnerable to the merciless greed of those who exploited them.

She found herself being ushered with a determined arm
toward a tavern, where the door stood open to the square and raucous, drunken voices poured forth with the lamplight on a thick haze of pipe smoke.

A bare-breasted woman swayed over to them with a tray laden with brimming tankards of ale. “What can I do fer ye, m’lords?” She winked and touched her tongue to her lips in a darting, suggestive fashion.

“Ale, wench!” Bertrand announced, slapping her backside with unnecessary vigor so that the tray shook in her hand and the ale spilled over. “Clumsy slut,” he said with an offhand shrug, pulling out a bench from under one of the long tables.

Juliana sat down with the rest. She was parched, and ale was a welcome prospect. On the other side of the room, through the harsh babble of clamoring voices, she could hear the bets being called amid oaths and exclamations as the dice were rolled. There was a sharp edge of acrimony to the hubbub, a warring note that made the hairs on her nape prickle in anticipation of the violence that bubbled just beneath the surface of the apparent excitable jocularity.

A tankard of ale was thumped in front of her. The resulting spill dripped into her lap, but she’d long given up worrying about her clothes on this horrendous evening. If a soiled petticoat and a beer stain on her gown were the worst that would happen, she’d count herself fortunate. She drank deeply and gratefully.

After a few minutes, when it seemed that her companions were absorbed in wagering on the possible dimensions of a spreading ale spill, she rose to her feet, trying to slide unobtrusively away.

Lucien’s hand shot out and grasped her wrist. She looked down at the thin white fingers and was distantly surprised at how strong they were. The blood fled from her skin beneath the grip. “Where are you off to, madam wife?” he demanded, his tone acerbic, his words slurred.

“The outhouse,” she responded calmly. “You’re hurting me.

He laughed and released her wrist. “It’s out the back, past the kitchen. Don’t be long now.”

Juliana made her way through the room. She was accosted at almost every step by drunken revelers and dice players, but she avoided eye contact and shook the grasping hands from her arm with a disdainful air.

The privy was in an enclosed backyard, and Juliana could see no escape route. She wrestled with her skirts in the foul darkness, her head aching with the noise and the smoke, and her bone-deep weariness. How was she to get away? Lucien would delight in thwarting any attempt, and his friends would cheerfully lend their physical support. It wasn’t worth risking the humiliation of defeat and Lucien’s malevolent amusement.

She paused for a moment in the inn doorway before reentering the taproom. Lucien was watching the door, waiting for her reappearance. He beckoned imperatively and rose unsteadily to his feet as she approached. “We’re going to play,” he announced, taking her elbow. “You shall stand at my shoulder, madam wife, and smile on the dice.”

Juliana could see no option, so she forced a smile of cheerful compliance and accompanied them to the dice table. They were greeted with rather morose stares, and room was somewhat unwillingly made for them at the table. Juliana yawned, swaying with exhaustion as the excitement grew with each throw of the dice. Lucien’s voice grew increasingly slurred. A hectic flush stood out against his greenish pallor, and his eyes burned with a febrile glitter as the level in the brandy bottle he now held went steadily down.

He won initially and, thus encouraged, began to bet ever more immoderately. And as he grew more excited, so his losses mounted. He’d lost all his own money at the cockpit and now ran through Bertrand’s loan, threw down his watch, a ring, and his snuffbox before resorting to IOUs, tossing them onto the table with reckless abandon. It was clear to Juliana through “er sleepiness that his fellow players
were not happy with these scrawled scraps of paper, and finally one of them declared disgustedly, “If you can’t play with goods or money, man, I’ll not throw again. I’ve no use for promises.”

“Aye, what good’s a piece of paper when a man wants to buy ale?” The chorus swelled and the faces pressed closer to the table, glaring at Lucien.

“Devil take you all,” he swore. “My IOUs are as good as gold, I’ll have you know. Underwritten by His Grace, the Duke of Redmayne. Present them at his house on Albermarle Street in the morning, and he’ll pay you with interest.”

“Who wants to wait till mornin’?” There was a rumble around the table, and one man half rose from his seat. He had massive fists, like sledgehammers, and a wandering eye that lent added menace to his drunken squint. “Pay up,
my lord,”
he said with sneering emphasis, “or I’ll ’ave the coat off yer back.”

Lucien fumbled for his sword but not before Captain Frank Carson had hurled back his chair and leaped to his feet, his sword in his hand. “You dare to insult the honor of a gentleman!” he bellowed, his eyes rolling back in his head as he struggled to focus them. “Have at you, sir!” He lunged across the table. The burly man sidestepped with surprising agility, and the candlelight nickered on the blade of a cutlass. A woman screamed and the crowd in the taproom drew closer, some standing on their chairs to get a better view.

Juliana was now wide-awake. Her eyes flew to the door, tantalizingly open. But eager spectators pressed close behind them, and she was pinned to the table’s edge. The mood in the room was ugly. Lucien and his friends, with drawn swords, faced a veritable army of knife-wielding rogues. The dice lay abandoned in the middle of the table, and the rowdy clamor died as a moment of expectant silence fell.

It was Freddie Binkton who broke the menacing tension. They were hopelessly outnumbered, their retreat cut
off by the spectators. “Let’s not be hasty, now,” he said with a nervous titter. “Lucien, dear fellow, you must have something about you to raise a bit of blunt. We can all contribute something.” He patted his pockets as if he could conjure coins from their depths.

“I’d put in my watch,” Bertrand said, adding dolefully, “but I wagered it on that damn red cock … had no more spirit than a mewling lamb. Gave up without a fight … lost my watch … worth all of fifty guinea … lost it for a paltry ten-pound wager.” His voice trailed off with his wandering attention, the sword in his hand drooping.

As if acceding to the truce, the ruffianly group lowered their knives, relaxed their aggressive stance, and glared at Lucien, waiting for his response.

Lucien looked around, his mouth tight, a pulse throbbing in his temples, the same febrile flush on his face, as garish as a clown’s paint. Juliana, standing so close to him, could feel the savage fury emanating from his skin, mingling with the sour smell of fear and sweat. His gaze fell on her, and she shrank back, instinctively trying to merge with the people around her. Something flared suddenly in the pale-brown eyes, and he smiled slowly with a ghastly menace.

“Oh, I believe I’ve something to sell,” he said, barely moving his lips.

“No!” Juliana whispered, her hand at her throat as she understood what he intended. “No, you cannot!”

“Oh, but I believe I can, madam wife,” he said airily. “Wives are their husbands’ chattel. You are mine, and I may dispose of you how I please. You should be glad to be of service, my dear.” His hand shot out and gripped her wrist again in that painful vise. “Someone bring me a length of rope. We should do this properly.”

“Come now, Lucien, it isn’t right,” Frank mumbled, half-apologetically. He looked uneasily at Juliana, who simply stared back at him, unseeing in her horror.

“Don’t be such a ninny,” Lucien said with a petulant
scowl. “It’s not for you to say what’s right or not when it comes to my wife. Ah, rope.” He took the rope handed him by a grinning ostler and looped it into a halter. “Here, madam. Bend your head.”

“No!” Juliana pulled back from him, terrified as much by the evil embodied in the grinning death’s-head countenance as by his intention. Someone grabbed her arms and pulled them behind her so she was forced to stand still. Lucien, still with that venomous grin, roughly pulled the halter over her head. Hands tugged and pulled at her, shoving her up onto the table. She fought them, her rage now superseding her terror. She kicked and scratched, barking her shins on the edge of the table as she was pushed and pulled and dragged upward. But despite her struggles, they got her onto the table, and Lucien seized the end of the halter.

Juliana, blinded by her wild rage, kicked at him, catching him beneath the chin with the sole of her shoe. He went reeling backward, dropping the rope. She made to jump from the table, but two men grabbed her ankles, holding her still as Lucien came up again, his eyes narrowed, one hand to his chin.

“Bitch,” he said softly. “You’ll pay for that.”

She would have kicked him again if they hadn’t been holding her ankles so tightly. She swayed dizzily on her perch, nausea rising in her throat, a cold sweat breaking out on her back. How had she walked into this nightmare? She’d known Lucien was vile, but not even in her darkest imaginings could she have suspected him capable of such viciousness. But the duke had known. He had always known what his cousin was capable of. He’d known but it hadn’t stopped him from using her … from exposing her to this evil.

Lucien was calling in a drunken singsong, “So what am I bid for this fine piece, gentlemen? Shall we start at twenty guineas?”

A chorus of responses filled the air. Juliana looked down and saw little red eyes peering greedily up at her, stripping
her naked, violating her with their lascivious grins. She couldn’t move, her ankles were circled so tightly, and Lucien was pulling on the tope so that it cut into the back of her neck.

George Ridge awoke from his postprandial sleep as the shouts around him grew even more raucous. He raised his head, blinking, for a moment disoriented. He remembered where he was when he saw that he’d been sleeping in the midst of the detritus of his dinner. He belched loudly and lifted the bottle of port to his lips. There was a swallow left, and he smacked his tips, set the bottle down, and turned to call for another.

His eyes tell on the scene at the far side of the room. At first he couldn’t make out what was going on, the noise was so loud, the crowd so thick. They were wagering on something, and there was a frenzied edge to the bidding that struck him forcefully. He blinked, shaking his head to rid his brain of muzziness. Then he blinked again and sat up.

Juliana was standing on the table. It couldn’t be anyone else. Not with that tumbling forest fire of hair, those jade-green eyes flashing with such desperate fury, that tall, voluptuous figure.

But what in the devil’s name was going on here? He pushed back his chair and stood up slowly, trying to isolate the words from the general hubbub. He heard someone call, “A hundred guineas. Come, gentlemen. My wife is worth at least that.”

Wife!
He approached the outskirts of the crowd. The bidding was getting livelier. A hundred and fifty, two hundred. Juliana stood like a stone. The man holding the rope, the man calling himself her husband, worked the crowd to renewed frenzy as he began to point out Juliana’s attractions.

George’s mouth was dry. He swallowed, trying to produce some saliva. The situation was unbelievable, and yet it was real. He pushed through the crowd, cleared his throat. “Five hundred guineas!” His voice sounded cracked and
feeble, and at first no one seemed to hear him. He tried again, shouting. “I bid five hundred guineas for her.”

Juliana heard George’s voice, penetrating the trance into which she’d retreated from the unbearable humiliation, the waves of tenor sucking at her.
Don’t look at him. Don’t react.
The instruction screamed in her brain even through her daze. She mustn’t acknowledge him. If she refused to know him, then he couldn’t prove her identity. She was still Viscountess Edgecombe. She was still under the protection of the Duke of Redmayne. Dear God, was she?

“Five hundred guineas,” Lucien said, turning to George with another of his savage grins. “Why, sir, that’s a jump bid if ever I heard one. But she’s a prime article, and you’ve a fine eye.”