Vice by Jane Feather Read Free Book Online

the desperate maelstrom of Juliana’s thoughts.
    Her hand dropped from the doorknob. She was caught in the trap that she’d sprung herself with that foolish burst of confidence yesterday. There was nothing to be gained at this point by fighting the gin. Like a snared rabbit, she’d simply chew off her own foot.
    She stepped away from the door as Elizabeth billowed across the room.
    “Listen well to His Grace, my dear,” Mistress Dennison instructed, patting Juliana’s cheek. “And don’t show him such a long face. Lud, child, you should be dancing for joy. When I think what’s being offered—”
    “Thank you, madam.” There was a touch of frost in the duke’s interruption, and a tinge of natural color augmented the rouge on Elizabeth’s smooth cheek.
    She curtsied to the duke, cast another look, half warning, half encouragement, at Juliana, and expertly swung her wide hoop sideways as she passed through the door.
    “Close it.”
    Juliana found herself obeying the quiet instruction. Slowly she turned back to face the room. The Duke of Redmayne had moved to stand beside one of the balconied windows overlooking the street. A ray of sunlight caught an auburn glint in his hair, tied at his nape with a silver ribbon.
    “Come here, child.” A white, slender-fingered hand beckoned her.
    “I am no child.” Juliana remained where she was, her back to the door, her hands behind her, still clutching the doorknob as if it were a lifeline.
    “Seventeen from the perspective of thirty-two has a certain youthfulness,” he said, smiling suddenly. The smile transformed his face, set the gray eyes asparkle, softened the distinctive features, showed her a full set of even white teeth.
    “What else do you know of me, sir?” she inquired, refusing to respond to that smile, refusing to move from her position.
    “That you are called Juliana Beresford … although I expect that’s a false name,” he added musingly. “Is it?”
    “If it is, you wouldn’t expect me to tell you,” she snapped.
    “No. True enough,” he conceded, reaching for the bell-pull over the chimney piece. “Do you care for ratafia?”
    “No,” Juliana responded bluntly, deciding it was time to take the initiative. “I detest it.”
    The duke chuckled. “Sherry, perhaps?”
    “I drink only champagne,” Juliana declared with a careless shrug, moving away from the door. She brushed at her skirt with an air of lofty dismissal, and her fingertips caught a delicate porcelain figurine on a side table, sending it toppling to the carpet.
    “A plague on it!” she swore, dropping to her knees, momentarily forgetting all else but this familiar, potential disaster. “Pray God, I haven’t broken it…. Ah, no, it seems intact … not a crack.”
    She held the figurine up to the light, her fingers tracing the surface. “I dareswear it’s a monstrous expensive piece. I’d not have knocked it over otherwise.” She set the figurine on the table again and stepped swiftly away from the danger zone.
    The duke regarded these maneuvers with some astonishment. “Are you in the habit of destroying expensive articles?”
    “It’s my cursed clumsiness,” Juliana explained with a sigh, watching the figurine warily to make sure it didn’t decide to tumble again.
    Any response her companion might have made was curtailed by the arrival of Mr. Garston in response to the bell.
    “Champagne for the lady, Garston,” the duke ordered blandly. “Claret for myself. The forty-three, if you have it.”
    “I believe so, Your Grace.” Garston bowed himself out.
    Juliana, annoyed that her clumsiness had distracted her at a moment when she’d felt she was regaining some measure of self-possession in this frightful situation, remained silent. The duke seemed perfectly content with that state of affairs. He strolled to a bookshelf and gave great attention to the gilded spines of the volumes it contained until Garston returned with the wine.
    “Leave it with me,