Vice by Jane Feather

sir, holding her jointure in trust for her,” snapped Sir George Ridge. He was in his late twenties, a corpulent, red-faced man, with hands like ham hocks. The son of his father, physically if not in character, he was the despair of his tailors, who recognized that all their skill and all their client’s coin would never make an elegant figure of him.
    “That is so,” Sir Brian said in his customarily austere tones.
    When he offered no expansion, his choleric guest began to pace the library from window to desk, muttering to himself, dabbing with his handkerchief at the rolls of sweating flesh oozing over his stock. “But it’s iniquitous that it should be so,” he stated finally. “Your ward has murdered my father. She runs away, and you still hold her jointure—a substantial part of my inheritance, I tell you, sir—in trust for her. I say again, sir, she is a murderess!”
    “That, if I might say so, is a matter for the court,” Sir Brian said, his nose twitching slightly with distaste. The warmth of the summer afternoon was having a malodorous effect on his visitor.
    “I tell you again, sir, she is a murderess!” Sir George repeated, his nostrils flaring. “I saw the mark on my father’s back. If she was not responsible for his death, why would she run away?”
    Sir Brian shrugged his thin shoulders. “My dear sir, Juliana has always been a mystery. But until she is found, there is nothing we can do to alter the current situation.”
    “A murderess cannot inherit her victim’s estate.” Sir George slammed a fist on the desk, and his host drew back with a well-bred frown.
    “Her children can, however,” he reminded the angry young man. “She may be with child, sir. Her husband died in such circumstances as to imply that …” He paused, took a pinch of snuff, and concluded delicately, “As to imply that the marriage had been consummated.”
    His visitor stared in dismay. Such a thought had clearly never entered his mind. “It couldn’t be.” But his voice lacked conviction.
    “Why not?” gently inquired his host. “You, after all, are proof that your father was not impotent. Of course, we may never know about Juliana. One would have to find her first.”
    “And if we don’t find her, then it will take seven years to have her declared legally dead. Seven years when you will hold her jointure in trust and I will be unable to lay hands on half my land.”
    Sir Brian merely raised an eyebrow. He’d negotiated his ward’s marriage settlement with the cold, calculated pleasure of a man who was never bested in a business deal. Bluff and kindly Sir John Ridge, heading into his dotage utterly infatuated with the sixteen-year-old Juliana, hadn’t stood a chance against the needle wits of his acquisitive opponent. Juliana’s benefit had been a mere sideline for Sir Brian inthe general pleasures of running rings around the slow-witted and obsessed Ridge.
    “Well, how are we to find her?” Sir George flung himself onto a sofa, scowling fiercely.
    “I suggest we leave that to the constables,” Sir Brian stated.
    “And just how much do you think that lazy gaggle of poxed curs will bestir themselves?”
    Sir Brian shrugged again. “If you have a better idea …”
    “Oh, indeed I do!” Sir George sprang to his feet with an oath. “I’ll go after the damned girl myself. And I’ll bring her back to face the magistrates if it’s the last thing I do.”
    “I commend your resolution, sir.” Sir Brian rose and moved toward the door, gently encouraging his guest’s departure. “Do, I beg you, keep me informed of your progress.”
    Sir George glared at him. There was only form politeness in Sir Brian Forsett’s tone. The longer Juliana remained at large and in hiding, the longer Forsett would have to manage her jointure as he chose. It didn’t take much imagination to understand that he would prove expert at diverting revenues from the trust into his own pocket.
    “Oh, Sir George … pray