MISTRESS TO THE MARQUIS (5 page)

Alice had been his mistress. The woman walking by his side could be his wife.

Duty. The word seemed to resonate with every beat of his heart.

Du-ty.

Du-ty.

Du-ty.

He had no choice.

He turned his eyes away from Alice. Kept his focus steadfastly elsewhere. Cutting her, as the rules of polite society dictated. As if she were some stranger. As if she were not the woman he had loved every night of the past six months.

But he could see her in his peripheral vision, that blur of yellow and cream and blonde, slight beside the tall loom of Hawick’s darkness. And he could hear the rustle of the silk of her skirts, hear the distinctive lilt of her softly spoken words, smell the faint scent of her perfume.

His heart beat faster.

He could sense her, feel her, the awareness as sharp as if his eyes were studying her every detail.

He measured every step that brought them ever closer on this path, knowing that they must pass one another, that it was far too late for retreat. Neither of them could turn away from this.

He knew that Alice’s attention was all fixed on Hawick. As if she had not even noticed Razeby. As if she were cutting him every bit as much as he were cutting her. And he should be glad of it. Truly he should. But it was not gladness that he felt as the little group strolled towards him and his party through the sunshine.

Every step brought her nearer.

Five feet... She was so close now that he could hear the soft breathiness of her laughter at Hawick’s joke.

Four feet... Everything sharpened. Everything focused. The hushed ripple of grass blades in the breeze. The sweep of her eyelashes, soft as a butterfly’s wing.

Three feet... The sound of his breath.
Alice.

Two feet... The beat of his heart...and of hers.
Alice.

One foot... Razeby turned his gaze to Alice. And in that very last moment, that second in which all of time seemed to slow and stop, she raised her eyes to meet his.

The jolt hit his stomach and rippled right through his body. It was as if they were the only two people in the park. As if all of the past six months flashed between them in stark vivid clarity. As if the dark blue depths of her eyes swallowed him up and submersed the whole of him in this moment and this woman and all that was beating through him.

Their gazes locked and held. And he could not look away, not if all of the future depended on it, which in a way it did.

And then the moment was past.

She was past.

Walking on with Hawick and the others. Walking away from him.

His steps never faltered. He kept on walking. As if nothing had just happened.

No one else noticed. Everything else went on just the same. Miss Pritchard’s fingers still lay upon his arm. Mrs Pritchard was still selling the family pedigree behind him, her younger daughter chipping in smart little comments here and there.

But Razeby was not the same.

Something had just happened and the force of it shook him more than he wanted to admit. Something had just happened, something which Razeby did not understand.

* * *

Alice did not hear what it was that Hawick had been saying to her, all she could hear was the rush of her own blood too loud in her ears and all she could feel was the tremor that vibrated through her body. She deliberately kept her gaze low as if playing coy with Hawick, when in truth, it was to hide the storm of emotion suddenly raging within her.

She had seen Razeby and his party, the rich, beautiful young woman clinging so possessively to his arm, and the women who could only be her mother and sister walking so proudly behind, the minute she had rounded the corner. And she had prepared herself. Knowing that he had no choice but to cut her. Knowing she had no choice but to not give a damn. To cut him right back.

And she had almost done it. Would have done it, despite the pound and throb of her heart, and the raw rush of air that rasped in her lungs, and the tight knot that worked itself ever tighter in her stomach, except for that last moment, when it felt like his voice had whispered her name, calling her. The sound of it stroking right down her spine. Tingling against her skin. And she had answered without pausing to think. Yielded to it instinctively.

And when she looked, those liquid brown eyes had been on hers, not looking away, not cutting her, only holding her as intensely as they ever had done, perhaps even more so. As if all that had gone between them had not ended, but grown only stronger. Her heart was still beating nineteen to the dozen.

By her side Hawick shifted infinitesimally closer.

‘So you will come, Miss Sweetly?’ he was saying.

She calmed herself, hid the shock of what had just passed between her and Razeby. By the time she raised her eyes to meet Hawick’s she had herself under control again.

She smiled at him, although she had not the slightest idea of what he had just invited her to. ‘If I’m free,’ she said. ‘I’ll need to check my diary.’ Truly the consummate professional. Venetia, her teacher, would have been proud of her.

Hawick smiled, too, with a particular interest in his eyes that made her want to shiver in the warmth of the spring sunshine. She hid the urge, along with all the others.

The party walked on through the park.

Hawick began another story, but Alice was not listening to Hawick or his story. She was thinking of Razeby and why, despite everything, it felt just like it had done when she had seen him for the very first time.

Chapter Seven

R
azeby dreamed that night that Alice was with him in the bed, that they were still together and all was as it had been.

‘Razeby,’ she had whispered in her soft Celtic lilt and stroked her fingers against his cheek. ‘Razeby.’

Alice.
In the dream he had whispered her name through the darkness. ‘Alice,’ the word murmured aloud on his lips as he held her to him, so glad she had found him, to save him from the terrible thing that was coming, although in the dream he could not remember the nature of the dawning threat, no matter how hard he tried.

The early morning sunlight danced across his eyes, waking him from sleep, dragging him back from his dream world to reality. His body was primed and hard, his erection throbbing for release, but Alice was not in his arms.

He was alone.

And he knew the terrible dark thing that was coming.

The warm comfort of the dream world fell away, leaving in its place the hard coldness of reality and a sinking feeling in his gut. His arousal deflated.

The sunlight that had crept through the crack in his curtains dimmed behind the greyness of cloud. Razeby threw aside the covers and sat up, swinging his legs round to sit on the edge of the bed, relishing the sting of the cool morning air against the nakedness of his skin. It helped clear his mind of Alice and the bittersweet echo of the dream.

The clock chimed nine just before his valet knocked on the door and entered, followed by a maid bearing a pitcher of hot water and his secretary carrying a diary that Razeby knew was crammed full of appointments. He pushed aside the dream as surely as he had pushed aside what had happened yesterday in Hyde Park. Guilt, lust, desire—whatever it was. He could not name it otherwise. He would not name it otherwise.

Not Miss Pritchard, he thought. But tonight there was dinner at Mrs Padstow’s at which twenty young respectable women would be present. And tomorrow afternoon, a débutante picnic organised by Lady Jersey. Then there was Almack’s, and Lady Routledge’s matchmaking ball. And he would find a wife at one of those.

He raked a hand through his hair and, taking a deep breath, rose to face the day.

* * *

Alice came offstage to rapturous applause that night. Three curtain calls and still the audience were whistling and calling for more. Her dressing room was so crammed with flowers there was scarcely room for the rail of costumes and table of face paints with its peering glass. Their perfume filled the air of the little room: roses, lilies, sprays of blooms she did not recognise. All with letters and cards attached. All sealed with red wax which displayed the crests or monograms of their senders so prominently. Her eyes scanned over the seals, searching for one in particular. She could not help herself. He had been too much in her mind since yesterday and Hyde Park. Although heaven only knew why. She caught what she was doing and, with a harsh sigh of annoyance, averted her eyes and got on with wiping the make-up from her face. Then she slipped into the fawn-silk evening dress that was hanging over the dressing screen.

A knock sounded on the dressing-room door. The stage hand’s voice shouted through the wood.

‘Five minutes to the Green Room, Miss Sweetly. Mr Kemble says to tell you that both the Duke of Hawick and the Duke of Monteith are in again tonight.’

‘Right you are, Billy. I’ll be right there.’ She checked her appearance in the peering glass. The woman that looked back from the glass was pale without the thick grease and colour of the stage make-up. And she thought again of that moment in Hyde Park.

‘Don’t be such a damned fool, Alice Flannigan, you’re imagining things,’ she whispered to herself, using the name with which she had been born, rather than that she had taken for the stage. ‘You put a smile on your face and get through there, girl. Life goes on—if you’re lucky. And he isn’t worth it.’ She rubbed a little rouge on to her cheeks, added a spot to her lips and tucked an errant strand of hair into place.

Taking a deep breath, she held her head high, fixed a smile on her face and went to sparkle and entice the gentlemen of the Green Room, just as her contract required.

* * *

‘Razeby,’ Viscount Bullford exclaimed, wandering over to where Razeby stood filling a plate with choice selections at the débutante picnic. ‘Thought Aunt Harriet would have lampooned you into coming this afternoon.’

‘Bullford.’ Razeby gave a nod.

The weather was sunny and dry, although a slight chill still sat about the fine spring day. The trees surrounding this corner of the park lent a level of protection against the breeze, but not enough to stop the gentle flutter of bonnet ribbons and muslin skirts amongst the ladies milling all around.

Bullford lifted a small, perfectly formed pork pie from one of the serving dishes on the nearby table and took a bite. ‘Couldn’t get out of it myself. Pater had m’arm up my back. Insisted I had to bring m’friends with me. Apparently too many ladies and not enough gentlemen.’

‘You managed to persuade the others to come?’ Razeby raised an eyebrow in surprise.

‘Not an easy task, I can tell you, old man.’ Bullford took a deep breath as if the memory of what that had entailed was difficult to bear. ‘Will be years till I can clear the favours owed over this one.’

Razeby smiled.

Fallingham, Devlin, Monteith and a few others wandered up, glasses of champagne and large chunks of food in hand.

‘How goes the bride search, Razeby?’ Devlin asked.

‘Well enough.’ He felt himself tense just at the question.

‘Found one yet?’ Fallingham enquired.

‘Not yet.’ He kept his face impassive, his manner cool.

‘Don’t seem quite yourself of late, Razeby,’ Monteith observed.

He smiled at the irony of Monteith’s remark. Would any man be the same were he to stand in Razeby’s shoes? ‘Can’t imagine why,’ he said drolly.

‘Losing one’s freedom, weddings, wives and nurseries,’ Devlin supplied and gave a shudder.

The rest of the group chuckled as if that was the reason.

‘Not regretting giving up the delightful Miss Sweetly, are you?’ Monteith asked as he helped himself to a bottle of champagne from a passing footman and topped up all their glasses.

Nonchalantly uttered words, yet they cut through everything to touch some raw inner part of Razeby. It was all he could do not to suck in his breath at the sensation.

‘Not at all,’ he said smoothly and held Monteith’s gaze, denying the suggestion all the more.

‘Do not know why.’ Monteith smirked. ‘The common consensus is that you have run mad. Dismissing such a little gem when all of London is panting after her.’

It took every bit of willpower to keep his jaw from hardening and the basilisk stare from his eyes, and to prevent the curl of his fingers into a fist.

‘You could have kept her on,’ said Devlin. ‘I would have, had it been me.’

‘We all would have,’ said Monteith.

‘I am not you.’ And Alice deserved a damn sight more respect than that.

‘Why exactly didn’t you keep her on?’ asked Fallingham and stopped sipping his champagne to hear the answer.

The rest of the group looked at Razeby expectantly, a speculation in their eyes that had not been there before.

‘Do you really have to ask?’ he drawled with a deliberate ambiguity that did nothing to answer the question.

‘What you need is to get her back in your bed,’ said Fallingham.

‘What I need is to get myself a wife.’ He gritted his teeth.

‘The two need not be mutually exclusive,’ Monteith commented.

‘For me they are,’ Razeby said it with nothing of his usual jest or charm. He smiled, but the smile was hard and his eyes cool. He saw the look that was exchanged between his friends. And he did not care.

The awkwardness of the moment was alleviated by Bullford’s mother, the formidable Lady Willaston, who appeared amidst their circle. ‘Sorry to interrupt your little chat, gentlemen, but, Lord Razeby, Miss Frome is nigh on ready to swoon with hunger from waiting for the plate of food you went to fetch her some considerable time ago.’

‘My humble apologies, ma’am.’ Razeby gave a nod. ‘If you will excuse me, gentlemen...’ Picking up the plate from the table next to him, he made his way back to Miss Frome and her friends.

* * *

On the day after the débutante picnic Alice’s visitors sat in her new little drawing room while she poured tea into the three china cups set on their saucers on the table before her.

Ellen and Tilly were old friends—they worked secretly as Miss Vert and Miss Rose at the blot in Alice’s past, London’s infamous high class brothel, Mrs Silver’s House of Rainbow Pleasures, in which the courtesans each dressed in a different colour and hid their identities behind feathered Venetian masks.

‘You ain’t half landed on your feet, Alice,’ said Tilly, glancing wide eyed round at the warm yellow decor of the drawing room with its gilt-and-crystal chandelier and peering glasses. ‘Razeby must have seen you all right in his severance settlement.’

Alice smiled and passed the teacups to each of her friends in turn. ‘Of course he did.’

‘What did you manage to wangle from him? A suitably large sum and a nice piece of expensive jewellery, I hope,’ Ellen said.

Alice thought of the diamond bracelet and felt that same chill ripple through her. ‘I couldn’t possibly comment,’ she said, still smiling. She could not tell them the truth. Everyone knew the deal in relationships like hers and Razeby’s. Everyone knew she would have taken everything she could from him. It was what any mistress would have done to her protector.

‘You held him to the letter of the contract between you?’ Ellen asked.

‘Absolutely.’ But Alice had no idea what was written within the legal contract that had defined her and Razeby’s arrangement. The document had never been unfolded; it still lay, tied in its green ribbon, in the drawer of the desk in Hart Street. She remembered the day that Razeby had presented her with it and how she had refused to accept it until the red ribbon that was used to secure all such legal documents was changed. Razeby had sent out immediately for a green ribbon and tied it in place himself as she stood and watched.

‘Don’t let the bastard wriggle out of it.’ Ellen grinned.

But Razeby had not tried to wriggle out of anything. Quite the reverse. It made her feel angrier, both at him and herself.

She stretched her smile wider, pushing the feeling away. ‘I’ve a good head on my shoulders when it comes to money.’ It was true. She thought of the money that Razeby had given her through the months they had been together, little of it spent on frivolities. A regular sum had been sent to her mother in Ireland, the rest she had saved.

‘And a good head when it comes to men.’ Tilly grinned. ‘You did all right out of Razeby.’

‘I did,’ she admitted and turned her mind away from why the knowledge made her feel queasy.

‘You’re a clever girl, Alice.’ Tilly poured her tea from her cup into her saucer and sipped it as daintily as any lady.

‘Aren’t I just?’ she exclaimed in a voice that made them all laugh.

* * *

‘Thank you, Mr Brompton. We will continue our discussions later, when you return.’ Razeby dismissed his steward from his study and turned to where Linwood was standing by the fireplace, examining the portrait of Razeby’s father that hung on the wall above.

‘I would have come back another time when you were not busy,’ said Linwood, turning to him. ‘I did not realise you had summoned Brompton down from the Razeby estate.’

‘One has to get one’s affairs in order...’ he glanced away ‘...before one’s marriage.’ The ticking of the clock punctuated the silence.

‘You do not seem yourself, Razeby.’

He did not feel himself. ‘Prospect of parson’s trap does that to a man.’ He attempted a light-hearted response. ‘You should know.’

Linwood’s dark eyes met his and there was not a trace of humour in them. ‘I do not,’ he said, admitting the truth outright of what lay between him and Venetia. ‘But then you are already aware of that.’

Razeby turned away and poured them both a brandy, handing one to Linwood.

‘It is not that. There is something more. There is a change in you,’ said Linwood, still holding him under scrutiny.

Razeby gave a laugh and turned his gaze away from those shrewd black eyes. ‘You grow both fanciful and poetic in your old age, Linwood. Have you been in Byron’s company?’

‘No.’ Linwood was to the point.

Silence.

Razeby gave a shrug, but made no more denials. ‘Maybe it is time for a change. A man must face his fate, sooner or later.’ The inescapable fate that they all would face in the end.

‘He must indeed. But it does not need to be like this.’

‘Believe me, it does,’ said Razeby with a grim smile.

‘There is a rumour circulating about you and Hart Street.’

‘There is always some rumour or other circulating,’ he said curtly, not wanting to discuss anything of that.

‘And Alice?’

‘I have already told you, it is over with Alice.’ His voice sounded too harsh and defensive.

Linwood knew better than to probe further.

* * *

Before heading to the Green Room within the Theatre Royal that night, Alice called in at the dressing room that Sara shared with two other actresses.

‘Oh, Alice, I’m not ready yet! I just can’t get my hair to sit right. All the curls have fallen out because of that damn wig! Look at the state of it!’ Sara wailed.

‘Just leave it as it is, Sara!’ one of the other actresses said. ‘Or we’re all going to be late for the Green Room and Kemble will have something to say about that.’

‘You two go on ahead and keep Kemble happy. I’ll help Sara with her hair,’ Alice said.

‘If you’re sure, Alice?’ They did not look certain.

‘Go! The pair of you!’ Alice ordered with a grin.

The two younger women smiled and hurried away, while Alice, elbows akimbo, hands on hips, turned to where Sara sat before a peering glass, her hair lying limp and straight from three hours of compression beneath a hot heavy wig.

‘Lucky for you I’m a dab hand with hair that’ll not take a curl. Now, missus.’ Using just her fingers she scraped Sara’s hair back into a ponytail, twisted it round, gave it a flick and secured it in place with just three pins.