LITMIR.BIZ

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       Chapter One

       London—1817

      The Fleet prison loomed towering and intimidating as Juliet approached the huge doors. Unconsciously drawing her cloak tighter around her, she shuddered as she was admitted. How she hated the place. The guard knew her from her weekly visits and conducted her through the lobby and past the warden’s office and up to her brother’s cell. The guard pocketed the necessary coin she gave him and turned the key to admit her.

      Robby was stretched out on a narrow bed, seemingly fast asleep. Thoroughly frustrated by her brother’s inactivity, she shook him roughly by the arm.

      ‘Robby! Wake up.’

      At twenty-eight Robby, her half-brother, was five years Juliet’s senior, but prison had taken something away from him and she was for the moment the strong one, the support, her female instincts for her sibling flooding to comfort, to relieve his suffering, for despite his devil-may-care attitude on the outside, she knew as only a sister can the depth of his pain, his anger and frustration directed at himself for allowing himself to fall so low.

      At last, to her relief, he showed signs of stirring. His eyelids flickered in his gaunt face and he stared lazily around him, as if surprised to find himself in prison at all. Then he caught sight of Juliet and his eyes lit up with pleasure.

      ‘Juliet! I must have dozed off.’ Throwing his legs over the side, he sat up, smoothing his long white fingers through his fair hair.

      Robby was in the Fleet because, with an eye for the main chance, he had lived beyond his means. Every opportunity had been expended upon him by their father, and after finishing years of advanced learning he had declared an intense dislike for it and resigned his position as a teacher of history at a prestigious boys’ school in Surrey. At twenty-one, coming into a small inheritance from his mother, he had taken off on the Grand Tour with some of his contemporaries. The money spent, he had returned home.

      Living on his wits and boyish charm and possessed of arrogance, pride and a good deal of pigheadedness, he indulged in the usual pastimes open to a gentleman of urbane habits and wealth, spending his nights drinking and carousing and being over-generous to his friends. He was good looking—at least the ladies seemed to think so, for they hung around him like flies and he knew how to charm and coax. But his debts had finally caught up with him and he had ended up in this place.

      ‘You really should be at some kind of employment, Robby,’ Juliet said, wrinkling her nose with distaste at the dreadful odour that pervaded every corner of the prison, ‘not kicking your heels in this place.’

      ‘I admit I want to be out of here,’ he murmured, straining at this restriction to his freedom, ‘but what can I do?’

      Juliet placed a wrapped bundle on the table. ‘Here, I’ve brought you some food—bread and cheese—and some books to read to help pass the time.’

      He grinned at her fondly. ‘You and your books, Juliet. Where would you be without them?’

      ‘I really don’t know, Robby. Where would either of us be? It’s because of my love of books and what I’ve learned from Father that I’m able to do the work I do. And you may mock, but it’s my knowledge that enables me to pay the guards to provide you with special favours. It’s better than taking in washing, and, if I am to get you out of this dreadful place, I must earn all I can.’

      Robby was immediately contrite. ‘Sorry, sis. I know how hard you work and the small luxuries I have are down to you. I am grateful. I’m proud of you. Father would be, too … were he still with us. You’ve proved yourself as resourceful as you are clever. How’s Sir John?’

      ‘That’s what I’ve come to tell you. I’m leaving his employ, Robby. My work is finished. I’ve found new employment—out of London.’

      ‘And naturally you’ll be too busy to come and see me.’

      It was the undercurrent of disappointment in his voice that touched Juliet. ‘Not too busy, Robby. Too far away. I’m to take up a position for the Duke of Hawksfield in Essex, so I won’t be able to visit you for a while, but I will write often.’

      Robby’s look of surprise was quickly followed by one of displeasure. ‘Dominic Lansdowne?’

      ‘Yes—I believe that is his name.’

      ‘Well—Dominic Lansdowne of all people!’

      ‘You know him?’

      ‘I know of him—a military man, fought in Spain.’ He frowned, suddenly anxious for his sister. ‘He’s also a spectacularly handsome rake, Juliet, superior, arrogant, a despoiler of innocent girls and constantly gossiped about, but rarely seen. If all the stories are to be believed, the Duke of Hawksfield and his friends spend the majority of their time when in town perusing sexual conquests, and when he isn’t in London prowling the gaming halls, he’s roaming the countryside on his stallion searching for a complaisant wench to assuage his appetite.’

      Juliet flushed at Robby’s unsavoury description of the man she was to work for. ‘Really, Robby, you paint an unflattering picture of my future employer.’

      ‘With good cause. Have you met him?’

      ‘No. He was willing to employ me on Sir John’s recommendation and my written application. He can’t possibly be as dissolute as you have painted him.’

      ‘I’m sorry, Juliet, but that’s the way he is. You mean the world to me and I care about you—what happens to you. I know how independent you are, but when it comes to men like Dominic Lansdowne, then you are way out of your league. The ladies love him. Be wary. He’ll not make you a duchess.’

      ‘I don’t want to be a duchess, Robby. I only want to earn enough money to

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