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.
Chapter 26
George Ridge stepped out of the sedan chair, wincing as the skin on his back creased with the movement. He glowered up at the cracked stone facade of Viscount Edgecombe's town house on Mount Street. The budding had a seedy, run-down air, the brass on the door unpolished, the windows dingy, the paintwork scuffed. Despite the early hour a small group of men, whom George immediately recognized from both dress and manner as bailiffs, were gathered lounging against the iron railings at the bottom of the steps leading to the front door. As George approached the steps, their air of weary waiting dissipated, and they straightened, eyes suddenly alert.
"Ye 'ave business with 'Is Lordship, sir?" one of them inquired, picking his teeth with a dirty fingernail.
"What's it to you?" George pushed past him, scowling.
"Jest that if Yer 'Onor's goin' to get that door open, y'are a sight cleverer than we are," the man said scornfully. " 'Oled up in there, tighter than a chicken's arse."
George ignored him and hammered on the knocker. There was no response. He stepped back, looking up at the unyielding facade, and glimpsed a face in an upstairs window, peering through the grime. He hammered again and this time, after a few minutes, heard the scraping of bolts. His companions heard it too and surged up the steps. The door opened a crack. A disembodied hand grabbed George's sleeve and dragged him through the aperture. The door crashed shut on a bailiff’s foot. There was a roar of outrage from outside, then violent banging on the knocker, setting a dusty porcelain figurine on a table shivering on its pedestal.
"Viscount's upstairs." The body belonging to the hand was skinny, the narrow face weasel-like, with a pair of very long incisors that jutted beyond the thin lips. The man jerked his head toward the stairs. "First door on the left." Then he slithered away into the shadows beyond the staircase.
George, his scowl deepening, stomped up the stairs, which were thick with dust. His eyes were red with drink and burned with a rage so fearsome it was almost inhuman. George Ridge was a goaded bull, only one thought and one aim in view. Vengeance on the man who had ordered him thrashed like a serf. A vengeance he would obtain through Juliana. The Duke of Redmayne had made it painfully clear that Juliana's health, reputation, and general well-being were vitally important to him. Juliana would burn at the stake in Winchester marketplace. And before she did, her stepson would possess her… would bring her arrogant contempt to the dust. He would see her humbled, he would see her protector powerless to protect. And with her conviction he would regain his own inheritance.
He pushed open the door at the left of the staircase. It creaked on unoiled hinges, revealing a sparsely furnished apartment, its air of neglect failing to mask its handsome proportions and the elaborate moldings on the ceiling.
Lucien was slumped in a sagging elbow chair by a grate filled with last winter's ashes. A cognac bottle was at his feet, another, empty, lying on the threadbare carpet. A glass dangled from his fingers.
He jerked upright as George entered. "Dick, you bastard, I told you I… oh." He surveyed his visitor with an air of sardonic inquiry. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"
"You're going to help me," George stated. He bent to pick up the cognac bottle, raised it to his lips, and drank deeply.
Lucien's eyes sharpened. Something very interesting had occurred. Sir George had lost his air of bumbling, overawed ineptitude.
"Help yourself, dear boy," Lucien invited, his languid tone belled by the arrested look in his eyes. "There's more where that came from. At least I trust there is."
"Thankee." George drank again, his throat working as the fiery liquid burned down his gullet to add fuel to the fire that raged in his belly.
"So how can I be of assistance?" Lucien took back the bottle and tilted it to his own mouth. "Damnation, it's empty! Ring the bell for Dick, dear fellow." He gestured to the frayed bell rope beside the door.
George pulled on it, half expecting it to come away in his hand, but faintly, from the bowels of the silent house, came the jangle of the bell.
"I am going to take Juliana," he said, pacing the room, each movement generating a painful stab, reminding him with hideous clarity of his humiliation at the hands of the duke's groom. "And this time I'll not be stopped."
"Oh?" Lucien sat up, the gleam of malevolent curiosity in his eye intensifying.
"I intend to abduct her tomorrow," George said, almost in a monotone, as if he were reciting a well-learned lesson. "I will have a closed carriage ready, and we'll take her immediately to Winchester. The Forsetts will be compelled to identify her if the magistrates demand it. And there are plenty of other folk in the neighborhood who'll recognize her. She won't have that devil to run to, and once she's locked up in Winchester jail, there'll be nothing he can do to save her."
Lucien tugged his right earlobe. "Something happen to rouse you, dear boy… Ah, Dick. Bring up another bottle of that gut-rotting brandy."
"Not sure there is any," the surly manservant muttered.
"Then go and buy some!"
"Wi' what, m'lord?" he demanded with a mock bow.
"Here." George dug a note from his pocket and handed it to him.
"Ah, good man!" Lucien approved. "Get going, then, you lazy varlet. I'm dry as a witch's tit."
Dick sniffed, pocketed the note, and disappeared.
"Impudent bugger," Lucien observed. "Only stays around because I haven't paid him in six months and he knows if he leaves before I'm dead, he won't see a penny. So," he continued with another sharp glance, "why the urgency about this abduction?"
George was not about to reveal to his malicious partner what the duke had done to him. He shrugged, controlled a wince, and said, "I've an estate to get back to. I can't hang around here much longer. But I need your help."
Lucien nodded. "And what incentive are you offering, dear boy?"
George looked startled. He'd assumed that Lucien's own desire for vengeance would be sufficient incentive. "You'll have her in your hands," he said. "You can have her first… for as long as you like."
He was astounded at the look of repulsion that crossed the viscount's expression.
"I want to be rid of her, man. Not have her," Lucien pointed out disgustedly. "I thought you understood that. You lay charges against her. I can repudiate her. Tarquin is helpless and mortified. The girl is destroyed. But I ask again, what incentives are you offering for my assistance?" His eyes narrowed.