Rosamund eagerly unclasped her cloak. Lilly lifted Lucy from the straw and draped the soft silk garment around her shoulders. The contrast between the shimmering silk and the girl's filthy, matted hair, thin cheeks, and torn shift was shocking.

"Can you walk?" Juliana half lifted Lucy to her feet and held her as she swayed dizzily.

"My head's spinning." Lucy's voice was weak and shaky. "I haven't stood up for days."

"You'll feel stronger in a minute," Emma said, stroking Lucy's emaciated arm. "I could drive a knife into Mother Haddock!" she added ferociously. "We didn't know you were in here until a few days ago. The bawd told her girls to keep quiet about it if they didn't want to find themselves joining you."

"There has to be a way to get even," Lilly muttered, staring around the attic as if taking it in for the first time. "She intended you should die in this hole."

"We'll think about getting even later." Juliana slipped a supporting arm around Lucy's waist. "Lilly, you take her other arm."

The gatekeeper was still in the doorway, watching the scene with scant interest. His little eyes focused sharply, however, when he saw Lucy on her feet. "Eh, you don't leave 'ere until I gets me money."

Lilly, at a nod from Juliana, withdrew the two crisp notes from her muff. "This is the sum of her debt." Mr. Cogg stretched out a hand for them, but she held on to the notes.

"However did you-"

"Hush, dear, don't talk until we're safely outside," Rosamund said, patting Lucy's hand. "We'll explain everything then."

"Give it 'ere, then." Mr. Cogg snapped his fingers.

"It has to be paid to Mistress Haddock," Juliana said. "I'm not giving it to you until you give me a receipt for it."

Mr. Cogg shot her a look of intense dislike. "Fer such a young thing, you knows yer way around," he grumbled, turning back to the stairs. "Where was you brung up, then? In a moneylender's?"

It was intended to be a deep insult, but Juliana merely laughed, thinking that Sir Brian Forsett's example when it came to money dealings could as well have been set in a moneylender's.

She wrote out the receipt herself and stood over Mr. Cogg as he put his mark to it. Then she laid the forty pounds on the rickety table in his hut. "I have only a twenty-pound note. Does anyone have a guinea to give to this kind gentleman?"

Rosamund produced the required coin and they left the Marshalsea, Lucy hobbling on her bare feet between Juliana and Lilly. The footman and the hackney carriage were waiting where they'd left them; of Lucien there was no sign.

"Fetch Viscount Edgecombe from the tavern, if you please," Juliana instructed the servant, who was staring with unabashed curiosity at the pathetic scarecrow they were lifting into the hackney.

Lucy sank onto the cracked leather squabs with a groan. "Are you hungry, dear?" Emma inquired tenderly, sitting beside her and chafing her hands.

"I don't feel it anymore," Lucy told her, her voice still low and weak. "It was painful for the first week, but now I feel nothing."

"Where are we to take her?" Lilly sat opposite, a frown drawing her plucked eyebrows together. "We can't take her back to Mother Haddock."

"What about Mistress Dennison?" Juliana was looking out of the window, watching for her husband.

"No," Rosamund said. "She's already said she won't help Lucy."

"Lucy refused a wealthy patron that Mistress Dennison presented to her," Emma explained.

"He was a filthy pervert," Lucy said with more strength than she'd shown hitherto. "And I didn't need him or his money then."

"She was in the keeping of Lord Amhurst," Lilly said. "Mistress Dennison had arranged the contract and thought Lucy owed her a favor. It was only for one night, apparently."

"One night with that piece of gutter filth!" Lucy fell back, exhausted, and closed her eyes.

"Anyway, that's why Mistress Dennison won't help her," Rosamund stated.

"She can come back with me," Juliana declared with rather more confidence than she felt. The duke was not going to be best pleased with her as it was. Asking him to house the indigent Lucy in her present condition was a favor no one would blame him for refusing even in his most charitable frame of mind.

"Well, that's settled." Lilly sounded relieved as she set the seal on Juliana's offer. "And while you're getting better, Lucy, we'll try to persuade Mistress Dennison to take you in when you're ready to work again."

"She's quite good-hearted, really," Emma put in. "In fact they both are if you keep on the right side of them."

A discussion began on the likelihood of the Dennisons' relenting, but Juliana continued to peer out of the window toward the tavern. The footman finally reemerged and trotted back to the hackney. He was alone.

"Beggin' your pardon, m'lady, but his lordship says as how he's not ready to leave just yet and you should go on without him."

"Damn," Juliana muttered. The viscount was not a reliable partner in crime. Without him at her side things would go harder for her when they got back to Albermarle Street, and she wouldn't be able to refer Tarquin's complaints to her husband, as she'd intended doing. She debated going in after Lucien herself, then decided against it If he was far gone in cognac, she'd achieve only her own discomfort.

"Very well. Tell the jarvey to return to Albermarle Street," she instructed, withdrawing her head from the window. Lucy was huddled between Lilly and Rosamund, a tiny, frail figure in her thin shift against the butterfly richness of the other women. She didn't look more than twenty. What kind of life had she led so far that she could have been condemned so young to such a hideous death?

Chapter 15

The carriage drew up on Albermarle Street and Juliana alighted, reaching up to help Lucy as her friends half lifted her down.

"Should we come in with you?"

Juliana, after a moment's reflection, shook her head. "No, I think I'd better do this alone, Emma. It could be a little awkward. I can manage to get Lucy up the steps without help."

"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.