Chapter 23

George Ridge threw the dice. They rolled across the square of table cleared of debris and came to a halt in a puddle of ale. A six and a one. He spat disgustedly on the sawdust at his feet and tipped the bottle of port against his mouth, taking a deep draft. His guineas were scooped up with a gleeful grin by his fellow player, who spat twice in his hand, tossed the dice from palm to palm, murmured a blasphemous prayer, and rolled them. A groan went up from the crowd around the table as they saw the numbers. The one-eyed sea captain had had the luck of the devil all evening.

George pushed back his chair. He'd continued playing long past his limit and had the sinking feeling that his losses were probably greater than he realized. His brain was too addled by ale and port to function well enough for accurate calculation, but in the cold, aching light of day he'd be forced to face reality.

As he struggled unsteadily to his feet, a hand descended on his shoulder and a voice spoke quietly into his ear. It was a voice as cold as a winter sea, and it sent shivers down his spine as if he were about to plunge into such waters.

"Going somewhere, Ridge?"

George turned under the hand on his shoulder and found himself looking up into a pair of expressionless gray eyes in a lean and elegant countenance. The thin mouth was curved in the faintest smile, but it was a smile as cold and pitiless as the voice. He recognized the man immediately. His eyes darted around the room, looking for support, but no one was paying attention. Their bleary gazes were focused on the play.

"I think we'll find it more convenient to have our little discussion in the stable yard," said the Duke of Redmayne. He removed his hand from George's shoulder. Suddenly George found himself in the grip of a pair of fists that fastened on his elbows from behind as tenaciously as the tentacles of an octopus.

"This a-way, boyo," an encouraging voice said in his ear. George's feet skimmed the ground as he was propelled through the crowded taproom and out into the yard behind the inn.

The night was hot. Two ostlers, sitting on upturned water butts smoking pipes and chatting in desultory fashion, glanced up, at first with scant interest, at the three men who'd entered the yard. Their eyes widened as they took in the curious group. A gentleman in black, gold-embroidered silk looking as if he'd just walked out of the Palace of St. James's; a second gentleman, bulky and red-faced, in a suit of crimson taffeta and a yellow-striped waistcoat; a third man in the rough leather britches and jerkin of a laborer. The second gentleman was beginning to protest, trying to free himself from the grip of the laborer. The elegant gentleman leaned casually against a low stone wall. He carried a long horsewhip that snaked around his silver-buckled shoes of red leather.

"Take your hands off me!" George blustered thickly, finally managing to get a look at the man holding him. He had but a confused recollection of the disruption in the hackney before he'd lost consciousness, but there was something horribly familiar about his captor. He struggled with renewed violence.

"I just want a word or two," the duke said carelessly, snapping the whip along the ground.

George's eyes darted wildly downward. There was something menacingly purposeful about the thin leather lash flickering and dancing across the cobbles. Ted adjusted his grip almost casually, but his victim immediately recognized that he was held even more firmly than before.

"Listen to 'Is Grace, I should," Ted advised. "Listen well, boyo."

Tarquin subjected George Ridge to a dispassionate scrutiny before saying, "Perhaps you would care to explain why you issued such a pressing invitation to Lady Edgecombe. I understand from her that she was not at all inclined to enter your hackney."

Ted shifted his booted feet on the cobbles and gazed about him incuriously, but his grip tightened yet again, pulling George's arms behind his back.

George licked suddenly dry lips. "You have a murderess under your roof, Your Grace. The murderer of my father, Juliana Ridge's late husband." He tried to sound commanding with this denunciation, full of self-confidence and righteous indignation, but his voice emerged stifled and uncoordinated.

"And just, pray, who is this Juliana Ridge?" the duke inquired in a bored tone, withdrawing his snuffbox from the deep-cuffed pocket of his coat. He flipped the lid and took a leisurely pinch while George struggled to make sense of this. Viscount Edgecombe had been convinced the duke knew all Juliana's skeletons.

He took a deep breath. "The woman living in your house. The woman who calls herself Viscountess Edgecombe. She was married to my father, Sir John Ridge of the village of Ashford, in the county of Hampshire." He paused, regarding the duke anxiously. His Grace's expression hadn't changed; he looked merely politely bored.

George continued somewhat desperately, "I daresay, Your Grace, when you found her in the whorehouse you knew nothing of her history… but.…" His voice faded under the duke's now blazing gaze.

"You appear to have lost your wits, sir," the duke said softy, coiling the whip into his hand. "You would not otherwise insult the name of a woman wedded to my cousin, living under my roof and my protection. Would you?"

The last question was rapped out, and the duke took a step toward George, who couldn't move with the man at his back holding his arms in a vise.

"My lord duke," he said, clear desperation now in voice and eyes. "I do assure you I know her for what she is. She has hoodwinked you and she must be brought to justice. Her husband intends to repudiate her as soon as she's brought before the magistrate and-"

"I think I've heard enough," the duke interrupted. He didn't appear to raise his voice, but the two ostlers sat up attentively.

The duke pushed the shiny wooden handle of the whip beneath George's chin, almost gently, except that its recipient could feel the bruising pressure. "The lady living under my roof is a distant cousin of mine from York. You would do well to check your facts before you slander your betters."

The gray eyes pierced George's blurred gaze like an icicle through snow. But George knew the duke was deliberately lying. The man knew the truth about Juliana. But in the face of that bold statement, the derisive glare mat challenged him to dispute it, George was dumbstruck.

The duke waited for a long moment, holding George's befuddled gaze, before saying almost carelessly, "Do not let me ever see your face within half a mile of Lady Edgecombe again." He removed the whip, tossed it to Ted, who caught it neatly with one hand.

The duke gazed silently at George for what seemed to the disbelieving Ridge to be an eternity of cold intent; then he nodded briefly to Ted, turned on his heel, and walked out of the yard.

"Well, now, boyo," Ted said genially. "Let's us come to an understanding, shall us?" He raised his whip arm. George stared, horror-struck, as the lash circled through the air. Then he bellowed like a maddened bull as he finally understood what was to happen to him.

******************************************************************

Juliana found it impossible to concentrate on the opera, as much because her mind was on the meeting in Covent Garden as because everyone around her was chattering as if the singers on stage were not giving their hearts and souls to the first performance of Pergolesi's new work.

The Italian Opera House in the Haymarket was brilliantly lit throughout the performance with chandeliers and flaming torches along the stage. King George II was in the royal box with Queen Caroline, and Juliana found them more interesting than the incomprehensible Italian coming from the stage. It was probably as close as she would ever get to Their Majesties.