Jane Feather - Vice

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?"

Tarquin jumped from the phaeton. "Take the reins," he instructed, thrusting them into the astonished guard's hands. "Where will I find the keeper of this place?"

"Eh, Yer 'Onor, at 'is breakfast, I don't doubt." The guard looked in alarm at the two pawing horses that had become his charge. "In 'is 'ouse," he added helpfully.

"And where might that be?" Quentin asked swiftly, sensing Tarquin was within an inch of throttling the guard.

" 'Cross the yard, on the left. 'Ouse that stands alone."

"Thank you." Quentin fished out a sovereign. "For your trouble. There'll be another when we return." Then he set off after Tarquin, who had already disappeared through the postern gate.

The yard was surrounded by high walls. A whipping post stood prominently in the middle, stocks and a pillory beside it. To one side a massive treadmill turned, groaning with each revolution. A team of women, petticoats kilted to their knees, feet bare, wearily trod its circumference, a jailer with a long-lashed whip exhorting them to greater effort as he paced around them.

One quick glance told both men that Juliana had not been harnessed to that barbarous toil. Tarquin banged on the door of a squat cottage standing apart from the long, narrow, low-pitched building that housed the Bridewell.

"All right… all right… I'm a-comin'." The door opened and a woman poked her head out. She would once have been pretty, smooth-cheeked, with merry blue eyes and golden hair. But her face now was pitted with smallpox, her eyes shadowed with spite and the barren acceptance of a barren existence, her gray-streaked hair hanging in lank ringlets to her scrawny shoulders. Her eyes widened as she took in the visitors.

"I wish to have speech with the keeper of this place," Tarquin stated brusquely. "Fetch him, my good woman."

" 'E's at 'is breakfast, my lord." She bobbed a curtsy. "But if'n ye'd care to step this way." She gestured behind her into a dingy, smelly passageway.

Tarquin took the invitation, Quentin on his heels. The passage gave onto a square room, reeking of stale fried onions and boiling cods' heads. A man in a filthy waistcoat, collar unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, was scooping boiled tripe into his mouth with the blade of his knife.

He looked up as the door opened. "Agnes, I told you I weren't to be disturbed..,." Then his voice faded as he saw his visitors. A sly look came into his eyes. He wiped his dripping chin with the back of his hand and said in a fawning tone, "Well, what can Jeremiah Bloggs do fer ye, good sirs?"

Tarquin could see he was already calculating how much of a bribe he could squeeze out of whatever this situation was. Keepers of the prisons earned no salary, but they were free to extort and "fee" both prisoners and their visitors for anything they could come up with.

"I have an order for the release of a woman brought in here by mistake this morning," he said, laying the document on a corner of the dirt-encrusted table. "If you'd be so good as to have her fetched."

The sly look intensified. Bloggs stroked a loose-flapping lower lip with a thumb tip. "Well, it ain't quite that easy, 'onored sir."

"Of course it is," snapped the duke. "This document states that the prisoner Juliana Beresford is to be released immediately. Without let or hindrance. If you have difficulty performing your duties, my good man, I shall ensure that you are replaced by someone who does not."

The sly look became a malevolent glare. "I don't know where she might be 'eld, Yer 'Onor," he whined. "There's a dozen or so wards, includin' the lunatic ones. Per'aps ye'd like to look fer 'er yerselves. Might be quicker, like."

"Certainly. But you are accompanying us."

Muttering under his breath, the keeper abandoned his tripe, drained his mug of blue ruin, picked up a massive ring of keys, and stomped ahead of them out to the court.

The stench of excreta overwhelmed them the minute the door was opened onto the building. Quentin choked. Tarquin pulled out his handkerchief and held it to his nose, his expression even grimmer than before. The keeper was unaffected by the reek. He maneuvered his large bulk down the passage, stopping at each barred ward, unlocking the door and gesturing sullenly that they should look in.