"If you're sure," Rosamund said, trying to conceal her relief but not quite succeeding.
"You would be better employed persuading the Dennisons to shelter Lucy when she's recovered her strength," Juliana said, supporting Lucy with a strong arm at her waist. "I'll come to Russell Street tomorrow and tell you how she is. Also," she added with an intent frown. "I have an idea that I want to talk over with you all. And the other girls, too, if they'd be interested."
"Interested in what?" Lilly leaned forward, her eyes sharp.
"I can't explain here. I have to think it through myself first, anyway." She smiled and raised a hand in farewell. "Until tomorrow."
There was a chorus of good-byes as she supported Lucy up the steps to the front door. Catlett opened it before she could knock, and for once his impassive expression cracked when he saw her companion. Juliana couldn't blame him. Lucy was a dreadful sight. Rosamund's incongruous, delicate, muslin-frilled cloak only accentuated her half-naked condition. However, Juliana merely nodded to Cadett as she helped the girl into a chair in the hall.
Lucy fell back, her face whiter than milk, her eyes closed, her heart racing with the effort of getting from the carriage to the chair. Juliana stood looking at her, for the moment nonplussed. What orders should she give? There must be spare bedchambers in the house, but did she have the right to dispose of one without the duke's leave? Probably not, she decided, but there didn't really seem to be much option.
"Catlett, would you ask the housekeeper to show me to-"
"What in the devil's name is going on here?"
Juliana spun round at the duke's voice. So he hadn't recovered his good humor in her absence-not that she'd expected that he would have. She glimpsed Quentin behind him, overshadowed by his brother, not so much by height as by Tarquin's sheer presence.
She cleared her throat and began, "My lord duke, this is the woman we brought from the Marshalsea, and-"
"Catlett, you may leave." The duke interrupted her with this curt order to the servant, who was staring at the pale, crumpled figure of Lucy, as fascinated as if she were a two-headed woman at the fair.
"Now you may continue," Tarquin said as Catlett melted away into the shadows behind the stairs.
Juliana took a deep breath. "If you please, sir-"
Lucy moaned faintly, and Quentin, with a muttered exclamation, pushed past his brother and bent over her.
Juliana tried again. "She's been starved." she said, her voice stronger as she thought of Lucy's plight. "Tortured with starvation and left to die in that filthy place. She needs to be looked after, and I said she could come here."
"Indeed, Tarquin, the girl has been shockingly mistreated." Quentin straightened, his expression stricken. "We should send for the physician as soon as she's put to bed."
The duke looked over at Lucy and his expression softened for a minute, but when he turned his eyes back to Juliana, they cooled again. "For the time being you may take her upstairs and hand her over to Henny. She will know what to do for her. But then I would like to speak with you in my book room."
Juliana stepped back from him and dropped a curtsy. "Thank you, my lord duke. I am yours to command." She lowered her eyes in feigned submission and thus missed the spark of reluctant amusement that flared in his eyes. When she looked up, it was extinguished. He gave her a curt nod and stalked off to his book room.
"Come, Juliana, I'll help you get the poor girl upstairs. She's barely conscious." Quentin lifted Lucy into his arms, seeming unaware of her filthy clothes and hair pressed to his immaculate white shirt and gray silk coat. He carried her to the stairs, Juliana following.
"I'll put her in the yellow bedchamber," Quentin said almost to himself, turning right at the head of the stairs. "Then we'll ring for Henny."
He laid Lucy on the bed and drew the coverlet over her with all the tenderness of a skilled nurse. Juliana rang for Henny and then sat on the edge of the bed beside Lucy. "How dare they?" she said with soft ferocity. "Look at her! And that place was full of skeletons… little children… Oh, it's disgusting!"
"I wish it were possible to change such things," Quentin said uncomfortably.
"But you could!" Juliana sprang to her feet, her eyes flashing with a zealot's enthusiasm. "You and people like you. You're powerful and rich. You could make things happen. You know you could."
Quentin was saved from a reply by the arrival of Henny, who took charge with smooth efficiency, showing no apparent surprise at the condition of her patient.
"Come, let's leave Henny to tend her." Quentin drew Juliana toward the door. "And you must go to Tarquin."
Juliana grimaced. "He seems very vexed."
"You could say that." A smile touched his mouth. "But if you play your cards right, he won't remain so. Believe it or not, he's really a very fair man. He was easygoing as a boy… except in the face of injustice or deliberate provocation." Quentin's smile broadened as he recollected certain incidents of their shared boyhood. "At those times we all learned to keep out of his way."
"I don't seem to be able to stay out of his way," she said with a helpless shrug. "If I'd been able to do that, I wouldn't be living here now."
Tarquin had been trying to recapture a sense of control over events. He couldn't understand how a chit of a girl could have such a profoundly disturbing effect on the smooth running of his life. But ever since he'd seen her through the peephole, naked in the candlelight, she'd exerted some power over him… a power that had intensified as he'd introduced her to the ways of passion. He was moved by her. He no longer knew what to expect-from her, from himself. It was not a pleasant sensation; indeed, he found it almost frightening.
When Juliana tapped at the door, he flung himself into the chair behind the massive mahogany desk and picked up a sheaf of papers. "Enter." He didn't look up from the documents as the door opened.
Juliana stood in the doorway, waiting for him to acknowledge her. Instead he said, still without looking up, "Close the door."
Juliana did so and stepped into the room. Her chin went up. If he was intending to humiliate her by this insulting treatment, he would find it didn't work. Without invitation she sat down casually on a chair, her wide skills flowing gracefully around her, and picked up a copy of the Morning Post from a side table.
Tarquin glanced up, and that same glimmer of reluctant laughter sprang to his eyes as he surveyed the red head bent over the newspaper, the graceful curve of her neck, the absolute resistance radiating from the still figure. Viscountess Edgecombe wasn't yielding an inch.
He put the papers aside and said, "Let's not beat around the bush, mignonne. As I understand it, you intend to form an alliance with Lucien. Is that correct?"
Juliana's eyebrows lifted. "I don't know what you mean, sir. The viscount is my husband. I am absolutely allied with him in the eyes of the Church and the law."
Tarquin's lips thinned. "I tell you straight, Juliana, that I will not tolerate it. Also, as of now, you will have nothing further to do with Mistress Dennison's girls. They will not visit you here, and you will not visit them. You mustn't be tainted with the whorehouse."
"But am I not already tainted? What am I but your whore, bought under contract to a bawd?"
"You are my mistress, Juliana. That doesn't make you a whore."
"Oh, come now, my lord duke," she said scornfully. "You bought me for three thousand pounds, as I recall. Or was it guineas? I'm flattered that I should be worth so much to you, but I suppose the breeding aspect to this arrangement makes me more valuable. I may be naive, but I do know that men don't buy their mistresses. They buy whores."