Free Vice by Jane Feather

Juliana’s superiority in this field.
    “I use vinegar at home,” Juliana said.
    “Oh, but ’enna’s a powerful lot better fer yer color, miss.”
    In for a penny, in for a pound.
“Very well. Whatever you think Bella.”
    Looking mightily pleased, Bella whisked herself out of the room, and Juliana returned her attention to the garments on the bed. It was true that they were in the first style of elegance. Lady Forsett had pored over the periodicals and patterns of London style and had all her clothesmade up in Winchester to the latest specifications, although Juliana assumed that since the periodicals and patterns had been at least six months old by the time they’d reached Winchester, they were probably unmodish by court standards. Not that she’d expressed this opinion to her guardian’s wife.
    Lady Forsett had insisted that Juliana herself wear only the simplest country clothes suitable to a schoolgirl who had no business in the drawing room. She had softened a little over the wedding dress and trousseau, but Juliana had been well aware that the garments had deliberately been made up to outmoded patterns. Lady Forsett had said quite bluntly that Juliana would have no need of a truly fashionable wardrobe married to Sir John Ridge. He was a wealthy man, certainly, but not sufficiently refined to be received by the leaders of county society.
    But that wardrobe had been left behind with her dead husband. Her britches and shirt had disappeared. The only clothes she had were those on her back and now these luscious, rippling, rustling silks and lawns. Juliana couldn’t help but be seduced by the delicious image of herself dressed in such finery.
    Bella returned with a footman and the boot boy, laboring with copper jugs of steaming water and a wooden hip bath. The footman and the lad bowed deferentially to Juliana as they left, and she began to feel that her position in the house had insidiously changed.
    “Everyone’s very excited, miss, that ye’ll be joining the ladies tonight,” Bella confided, pouring water into the tub. “Mr. Garston says as ’ow y’are already promised to a great patron. Everyone’s very curious to meet ye.”
    It occurred to Juliana as she stripped off her clothes that while she had been kept in isolation above stairs, the entire household had been free to speculate on her position. Somehow she’d assumed that her lack of interest in them would be reciprocated. Not so, apparently.
    She said nothing, however, stepping into the tub and lowering herself into the steaming water with a sigh ofpleasure. She was unaccustomed to the services of a maid, Lady Forsett considering them unnecessary, but she soon discovered that Bella was as experienced as she was enthusiastic. In fifteen minutes Juliana was sitting on the ottoman while Bella vigorously dried her henna-rinsed hair.
    “There y’are, miss, what did I tell you?” Bella held up a hand mirror as she took the towel from Juliana’s head. “Glowin’ like the sunrise.”
    Juliana ran her hands through the damp, springy curls until they stood out around her head like a sunburst. “But what are we to do with it now, Bella?” she inquired with a grin. “It’s always been completely unmanageable after it’s been washed.”
    “Mr. Dennison said as ’ow I was to leave it loose, miss. I’m to thread a velvet ribbon through it.”
    Juliana frowned. Mr. Dennison’s voice, it seemed, penetrated into the intimate corners of his whores’ bedchambers. She wouldn’t have found Mistress Dennison’s sartorial instructions offensive, she decided, but her husband’s were quite a different matter. She would be obeying the orders of a pimp. But perhaps they were orders from the Duke of Redmayne, relayed through Mr. Dennison. If so, she had even less inclination to obey them.
    “I shall pin it up myself,” she declared, twitching the towel from Bella’s slackened grip. She ignored the maid’s protestations and roughly finished toweling the