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?"