"We did what we could," Tarquin said, still steadily. But as always, even as he asserted this, he wondered if it was true. It was certainly true that he and Quentin had despised their scrawny, deceitful, cunning cousin, but they had both tried to hide their contempt when Lucien had come to live among them, and then, when Tarquin had become his guardian, they had both tried to exert a benign influence on the twisted character. Tried and most signally failed.

For a moment he met his cousin's eyes, and the truth of their relationship lay bare and barren for both of them. Then he said with cold deliberation, "Get out of my house, Edgecombe, and stay out of my sight. I wash my hands of you from this moment."

Lucien's mouth twisted in a sly smile. "And how will that look? Husband and wife living apart after a few days of marital bliss?"

"I don't give a damn how it will look. I don't want you breathing the same air as Juliana." Tarquin turned contemptuously.

"I'll repudiate her," Lucien wheezed. "I'll divorce her for a harlot."

Tarquin turned back very slowly. "You aren't good enough to clean her boots," he said with soft emphasis. "And I warn you now, Edgecombe, you say one word against Juliana, in public or in private, and I will send you to your premature grave, even faster than you can do yourself." His eyes scorched this truth into his cousin's ghastly countenance. Then he swung on his heel and stalked away.

"You'll regret this, Redmayne. Believe me, you'll regret it." But the promise was barely whispered and the duke didn't hear. Lucien stared after him with fear and loathing. Then he dragged himself down the passage to his own apartments, soothing his mortified soul with the promise of revenge.

Chapter 20

Lucien emerged at twilight from Mistress Jenkins's Elysium in Covent Garden. He bore the well-satisfied air of a man who has relieved both mind and body. Jenkins's flogging house was a highly satisfactory outlet for anger and frustration. The Posture Molls knew exactly how to accommodate a man, whichever side of the birch he chose to be, and he had given free rein to his need to punish someone for the humiliation of his debacle with his wife and Tarquin's subsequent edict.

His eyes carried a brutal glint, and his mouth had a cruel twist to it as he strolled up Russell Street and into the square. But it didn't take long for the reality of his situation to return. He'd been thrown out of his cousin's house, cut off from that bottomless and ever-open purse. And he had a cursed woman to blame for it.

He entered the Shakespeare's Head, ignored the greetings of acquaintances, and sat down in morose silence at a corner table, isolated from the company. He was well into his second tankard of blue ruin when he became aware of a pair of eyes fixed intently upon him from a table in the window. Lucien glared across the smoke-hazed taproom; then his bleary gaze focused. He recognized the overweight man looking as if he was dressed up to ape his betters, squashed into the clothes of a fashionable man-about-town, his highly colored face already suffused with drink. As Lucien returned the stare, the man wiped a sheen of grease from his chin with his sleeve and pushed back his chair.

He made his ponderous and unsteady way through the crowded tables and arrived in Lucien's corner. "Beggin' your pardon, my lord, but I happened to be here last even when you were selling your wife," George began, as intimidated by the death's-head stare and the man's sickly, greenish pallor as he was by the depthless malice in the sunken eyes.

"I remember," Lucien said grudgingly. "Five hundred pounds you offered for her. Fancied her, did you?"

"Is she truly your wife, sir?" George couldn't disguise the urgency of his question, and Lucien's eyes sharpened.

He buried his nose in his tankard before saying, "What's it to you, may I ask?"

George started to pull back a chair, but the viscount's expression forbade it. He remained standing awkwardly. "I believe I know her," he said.

"Oh, I should think you and half London knew her," Lucien responded with a shrug. "She came from a whorehouse, after all."

"I thought so." George's flush deepened with excitement. "She's not truly your wife, then. A Fleet marriage, perhaps?"

"No such luck." Lucien laughed unpleasantly. "I assure you she's Lady Edgecombe all right and tight. My cursed cousin made sure of that. A plague on him!" He took up his tankard again.

George was nonplussed. His disappointment at hearing that Juliana was legally wed was so great that for a moment he could think of nothing to say. He'd convinced himself that she couldn't possibly be what she seemed, and now all his plans came crashing around his ears like the proverbial house of cards.

"So why are you so interested in the whore?" Lucien demanded.

George licked his dry lips. "She murdered my father."

"Oh, did she now?" Lucien sat up, his eyes suddenly alive. "Well, that doesn't surprise me. She half killed me this afternoon. If I had my way, I'd put a scold's bridle on her, strap her in the ducking chair, and drown her!"

George nodded, his little eyes glittering. "She's a murderess. I won't rest until I see her burn."

"Take a seat, dear fellow." Lucien gestured to the chair and bellowed at a potboy, "A bottle of burgundy here, you idle lout!" He leaned back in his chair and surveyed George thoughtfully. "It seems we have a desire in common. Tell me all about my dear wife's sordid history."

George leaned forward, dropping his voice confidentially. Lucien listened to the tale, his expression unmoving, drinking his way steadily through the bottle, for the most part forgetting to refill the other man's glass. He had no difficulty reading the lust behind Ridge's desire for vengeance, and he knew it could be put to good use. The man was a country-bred oaf, with no subtlety. But when the twin devils of lust and vengeance drove a man, he could be an invincible enemy under proper direction. A most valuable tool.

If Lucien could expose Juliana, could see her quivering in the dock to receive the death sentence, Tarquin's disgrace would be almost as devastating as the girl's. His damnable pride would crumble in the dust. He'd be the jesting stock of London.

George finished the story and drained his glass. "I thought I would tell the duke first," he said, looking mournfully at the empty bottle. "Expose Juliana to him and see what he says."

Lucien shook his head. "Depend upon it, he knows it all."

George pointedly picked up the empty bottle and upended it into his glass. "How can you be sure?"

"Because he as good as told me." Lucien finally beckoned the potboy for another bottle. "Told me the harlot would do his bidding. Thought then he must have something on her. Something to hold over her." His voice was becoming increasingly slurred, but the spite in his eyes grew more pronounced.

"If I laid a charge against her," George said eagerly, "if I did that, she'd have to answer it, even if she denied that she was who she was. But if I could get her guardians to identify her as well as myself, well, surely that should convince the magistrates."

Lucien looked doubtful. "Problem is, Tarquin's up to every trick. A man has to be sharp as a needle and slippery as an eel to put one over on him."

"But even the duke couldn't withstand the testimony of Juliana's guardians. She lived with them from the time she was four years old. If they swear and I swear to her identity, surely that would be enough."

"It might. So long as Tarquin didn't get wind of it first." Lucien stared into his glass, swirling the rich red contents. "It might be easier to work on the whore herself."

"Kidnap her, you mean." George's eyes glittered. "I've been thinkin' along those lines myself. I'd soon get a confession out of her."