Vice (52 page)

Lucien had tricked him. Had wanted him out of the house.

He spun on his heel. “Home!” he snapped to the drenched coachman. “And be quick about it.” He leaped into the chaise, slamming the door shut as the horses plunged forward under the zealous coachman’s whip.

His mind was in a ferment. Whatever reason Lucien had had for luring him away must have to do with Juliana. But what? It was so unlike the impulsively vicious Lucien to plan.

He was out of the carriage almost before it had halted. “Stay here. I may need you again.”

The coachman nodded miserably and pulled his hat brim farther down.

The night porter opened the door at the duke’s vigorous banging. “Who’s been here in my absence?” the duke snapped.

The man looked alarmed, defensive, as if he were being accused of something. “No one, Your Grace. I’ve been sittin’ ’ere all alone. Not a soul ’as come in or out, I’ll swear to it.”

Tarquin didn’t respond but raced up the stairs two at a
time. He flung open Juliana’s door, knowing what he would find and yet praying that he was mistaken.

He stared at the empty bed. There were no signs of a struggle. The armoire door was ajar, the dresser drawers opened, their contents tumbled. He pulled the bell rope again and again until feet came running along the corridor. Catlett pulling on his livery, Henny bleary-eyed, Quentin in his nightshirt, eyes filled with alarm.

“Lady Edgecombe is not in the house,” the duke rasped. “Henny, find out what’s missing from her clothes. Catlett, ask the servants if they heard anything … saw anything unusual in the last two hours.”

Quentin stared stupidly at the empty bed. “Where would she go on a night like this?”

“Nowhere of her own volition,” Tarquin said bleakly. “Lucien has a hand in this, but how in God’s name did he manage to spirit her out of here? She’s stronger than he is. And even if he managed to overpower her, he couldn’t possibly carry her down the stairs.”

“Why would he?”

“Why does Lucien ever plot mischief? … Well?” he demanded of Henny, who’d finished her examination of the armoire and dresser.

“Just a heavy cloak, Your Grace, and a pair of stockings,” she said. “Can’t see nothin’ else missing.”

“No shoes?”

Henny shook her head. “Seems like she’s gone in nothin’ but her shift, sir.”

“George,”
said Tarquin softly, almost to himself.
“George Ridge.”
He’d miscalculated, grossly misread the man’s character. Instead of intimidating him, he’d succeeded in rousing the devil. Lucien would have provided the means to get to her, George the brute force to remove her.

“What are you saying?” asked Quentin, still too shocked to absorb the situation.

“George and Lucien, the devil’s partnership,” Tarquin said bitterly. “God, I’ve been a fool.” He turned as Catlett
hurried in, his livery now neat, his wig straight. “Well? Anything?”

“No, Your Grace. The household’s been abed since before you left. I was up myself for a short while, in my pantry, but I retired soon after your departure.”

Tarquin nodded, tapping his lips with his fingertips as he thought. They all watched him, hanging on every nuance of his expression. “We have to guess,” he said finally. “And God help us all if I guess wrong. Henny, pack up a cloak bag for Lady Edgecombe. Basic necessities … her riding habit, boots. You’ll know what she needs. Catlett, tell the coachman to bring around my phaeton with the grays harnessed tandem. Quentin, do you accompany me?”

“Of course. I’ll dress.” Quentin didn’t ask where they were going; he would know soon enough. A night drive in an open phaeton in the pouring rain was not a particularly appealing prospect, but speed was obviously of the essence, and the light vehicle would make much better time than a coach.

T
hey changed horses three times before dawn. Juliana didn’t move, even when a strand of hair tickled her nose and she was sure she was going to sneeze. Lucien coughed and shivered and was generally silent, taking frequent pulls from a cognac flask. George stared fixedly at the bundled figure on the opposite bench.

A gray dawn broke, the sky weeping a thin drizzle. They rattled into the yard of the Red Lion at Winchester, the horses drooping. The coachman had driven them hard, a substantial bonus resting on achieving the seventy miles to Winchester in seven hours. Twice the speed of a stagecoach. George stuck his head through the window.

“Change the horses. We’ll not stop for more than that.”

“Flask is empty,” Lucien muttered through clenched teeth. “Get it filled.” He leaned to open the door and was seized with another paroxysm, doubling over, the reddening handkerchief pressed to his mouth.

“Here, give it to me.” Impatiently, George snatched the flask from his Ump grasp. He left the carriage and hurried across the yard to the taproom. “Fill this, and give me three extra bottles.” At the rate Lucien was drinking, he reckoned that three bottles should last for the rest of the day.

He returned to the chaise, returned to his watch on
Juliana. He couldn’t understand why she hadn’t regained consciousness. She was breathing. Her face was deathly white, it was true, but her complexion was always milky pale against the vivid name of her hair. He leaned over her, touched her cheek. Her skin was reassuringly warm.

Juliana knew that she couldn’t keep up the pretense for much longer. Her muscles screamed for relief, and worst of all, she had a pressing need for the privy. How she would express the need with the gag in her mouth she didn’t know, but if they didn’t stop soon, she was going to have to make some effort to communicate. She’d been given no clues to their destination during the changes, but she guessed from the length of the journey, and from what she knew of George, that he was taking her back to his house. To the scene of the crime. Was he going to haul her before the magistrates immediately? Or did he have a more devious plan? The chaise jolted violently in a pothole, and her discomfort magnified. She closed her mind to it, forcing herself to remember, room by room, the physical plan of the house. To envisage the windows, the doors, the outbuildings, the lane that ran behind the stables.

The chaise turned up the drive to the Ridges’ squat redbrick house and came to a halt before the front door. George jumped down, reached in for Juliana, and dragged her out feet first. Her head bumped on the floor, and she opened her eyes.

“Ah, my sleeping beauty, that woke you,” he said with satisfaction, toppling her forward over his shoulder again. “We’re going to amuse each other, I believe.” He carried her up to the door. It opened as he reached it. An elderly housekeeper curtsied, her eyes startled.

“Eh, Sir George, we wasn’t expectin’ ye.”

He merely grunted and pushed past her. Lucien followed, hunched over the deep, deep chill in his body, teeth chattering, limbs trembling.

“See to my guest, Dolly,” George ordered as he strode to the stairs. “The man needs fire, hot water, bed.”

“Cognac,” Lucien declared feebly, raising the flask to his lips.

The woman stared at him in horror. She knew when she looked upon the dying. “This a-way sir.” She took his arm, but he shook off her hand with a curse.

“Just bring me cognac and hot water, woman.” He stumbled into a room to the side of the hall, handkerchief pressed to his mouth as the bloody phlegm was dredged from his lungs.

Juliana, listening to this, felt a smidgeon of hope. Lucien was clearly too ill to be capable of serious violence. That left only George. But trussed up as she was, George was quite enough to deal with.

George kicked open a door at the head of the stairs and threw Juliana down onto the bed. “Remember this room, my dear? Your wedding chamber.” He pulled the cloak loose, flinging her onto her belly as he dragged it away from her.

Juliana was conscious of her shift riding up on her thighs, the air cool on the backs of her legs. With a jerk she twisted onto her back, trying to push down her shift with her bound and bandaged hands.

George chuckled and twitched it up again. “I like it just the way it was.”

She moved her hands to her mouth, trying to pluck at the gag, her eyes signaling frantically. At this point she had only one thing on her mind.

“Want to say something?” He smiled. “You’ll be doing a lot of talking soon, my dear stepmother. You’ll be giving me a full confession of murder. You’ll write it out for me, and then we’ll visit the magistrates, and you’ll be able to tell them all about it, too.”

Juliana heaved her legs over the side of the bed and kicked her feet backward under the bed, trying to locate the chamber pot. George looked puzzled for a minute; then he smiled again.

“Ah, I understand. Allow me to help you.” Bending, he pulled the pot out and pushed it with his foot into the
middle of the chamber. “There,” he said solicitously. “I trust you can manage. I’ll be back when I’ve breakfasted.”

Juliana’s eyes spat green fire. But at least he’d left her to struggle alone. And her hands were tied in front rather than behind. There was always something to be thankful for, she thought wryly, standing up and hopping across to the chamber pot.

She managed somehow, and with little shuffles also managed to push the pot back beneath the bed; then she hopped over to the windowsill and took stock. The gag was so tight in her mouth, she couldn’t work it loose with her fingers and, with her wrists tied, couldn’t get at the knot behind her head. The strips of silk stocking were tight, and she couldn’t slip her bandaged hands free.

Her eyes roamed around the room, saw Sir John’s razor strop hanging on the wall by the washstand. Where there was a strop, there was usually a razor. She hopped to the washstand. The straight blade lay beside the ewer and basin, waiting for Sir John, as it had every morning of his adult life. No one had touched the room since his death.

Gingerly, she picked up the blade with her fingertips and tried to balance it on its edge, the cutting blade uppermost. She slid her hands forward until the silk at her wrists was directly over the blade, then sawed the material against the edge. It was blunt, in need of the strop, but she was too impatient now to attempt to sharpen it. It fell over. Carefully, she rebalanced it, holding it steady with the tension of the silk. Began again. Little by little the thin, strong silk began to fray. Twice the blade fell over when the tension of the silk lessened. Patiently, she replaced it, her heart thudding, ears strained to catch the sound of a footstep outside, the creak of a floorboard. Her throat hurt so badly, she wasn’t sure she would be able to talk even if she weren’t gagged. Then the material parted, the razor clattered to the washstand.

Juliana shook out her wrists, cramps running up her arms, clawing her fingers. Then she struggled with the gag and freed her mouth. Wool stuck to her tongue and her
lips, reminding her vividly of Ted’s ruthless lesson in the dangers of the London streets. Sleeping in one’s bed seemed to be as hazardous as anything else, she thought, slashing the razor through the bonds at her ankles.

She was free. Her hurts were forgotten under a rush of exhilaration. She had heard George turn the key in the lock of the door as he’d left. She ran to the window. It was a long drop to the soft earth of a flower bed beneath. But the ivy was strong. Or looked it, at least. Whether it would bear her weight remained to be seen. There was no other option.

She pushed up the casement. The wind blew cold and wet, pressing her thin shift against her body, but she ignored it. Twisting sideways, she dropped from the window-sill, gripping the edge with her fingers, ignoring the pain in her torn palms. Her feet scrabbled for purchase in the ivy. Found a toehold of brick. Heart in her mouth, she let go of the sill with one hand, moved it down to clutch at the creeper. It held. She brought the other hand down, and now her entire weight was supported by the ivy and the toehold. Hand over hand she inched downward, feeling the creeper pull away from the wall. But each time she managed to move her hands and feet to another site before the vine gave way.

She was concentrating so hard on her hazardous climb, she didn’t hear the pounding feet in the room above. But she heard George’s wild bellow. Looked up, saw his face suffused with rage, staring down at her. She let go and dropped the last ten feet to the soil. She landed awkwardly, twisting her ankle. For a fateful minute or two she sat in the soil, gasping with pain. Then she heard George’s bellow again, knew he was running downstairs, would appear out of the kitchen door. She was up and running through the drizzle, ignoring the pain of her ankle, making for the driveway around the house. Instinctively seeking somewhere out in the open, where there might be other eyes to witness.

She could hear George behind her now, hear his heavy,
panting breath, imagined she could almost feel it on the back of her neck. In ordinary circumstances she could have outstripped him easily. But she was barefoot and the gravel was sharp. Her ankle turned with each step, bringing tears to her eyes. She rounded the side of the house. The gravel drive stretched ahead to the lane. If she could make it to the lane, maybe there’d be a carter passing, a farm laborer … someone … anyone.