MISTRESS TO THE MARQUIS

by Margaret McPhee

  He thought he saw something shift in Venetia’s eyes, but when she looked at him again her expression revealed nothing.

  ‘Where is she, Venetia?’

  ‘You will find out soon enough.’

  He arched an eyebrow and felt his nostrils flare. ‘Which means?’

  Venetia’s gaze was steady and composed as it held his.

  ‘Please, Venetia...’ he begged. ‘I love her.’

  Venetia glanced away. ‘Oh, Alice,’ she whispered softly beneath her breath and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath before she looked at him once more. ‘She does love you, Razeby, no matter that it may appear otherwise. All that she has done, all that she does...she has her reasons. She would not stay here or let me help her because she was convinced it would turn the ton against me. Her family has troubles of its own. And there are other complicating factors at play of which I can say nothing. Had you come last week...’ He saw the concern and worry on her face and the tiny furrow that wrinkled her brow. ‘You are too late, Razeby.’ She hesitated and he saw the pain in her eyes. ‘She is gone to Hawick a week since, to his house at 44 Sackville Street.’

  ‘Hawick,’ he said and even to his own ears his voice sounded too quiet and loaded with danger.

  ‘I am sorry.’

  But Razeby was already halfway down the stone stairs that led from the front door down on to the street.

  * * *

  Alice felt the surreptitious caress of Hawick’s hand against her hip as he turned her on the dance floor.

  ‘Red becomes you well, Alice, but I am in anticipation of divesting you of it tonight,’ he whispered close by her ear. Her stomach tightened with trepidation, but she was saved from having to answer by the steps of the dance which drew them apart.

  She stared through the crowd towards the exit, wishing with all her might that she might turn away from what lay ahead, thread her way through the bodies on the dance floor to walk out of the hallway, out of the main door and keep on walking away from Hawick, away from this nightmare. As she looked she saw at the edge of the dance floor was a group of men cloaked in black dominoes like so many others, but who had not yet fixed in place their masks. Alice stared in horror as her eyes moved over the faces that she recognised too well: Devlin, Fallingham, Bullford, Monteith and Linwood.

  Her heart stumbled and gasped. Her stomach plummeted in fear and dread. Her blood ran cold as ice as her eyes scanned frantically for the sixth member of that male party, dreading to find him. Her heart was hammering so hard and fast that she felt herself tremble, her blood roaring in her ears. Of all that she had thought she must endure this night... Please, God, she begged, do not let him be here, for she could not bear Razeby to see her with Hawick, to see her dressed like this. God must have heard her pleading. Razeby was not there with his friends. And for that she could only be grateful.

  Across the dance floor Linwood’s dark gaze shifted to meet hers. And she felt her blood run cold and her face burn with shame for she knew that the viscount recognised her. Then the bodies on the dance floor moved to block her view and she saw him no more.

  She glanced longingly at the exit. But Alice could not run away from her responsibilities. She turned her gaze away and followed the steps of the dance that led her back to Hawick.

  * * *

  ‘Miss Sweetly is not at home.’ The footman standing at the door of 44 Sackville Street was young, still wet behind the ears, but he knew who was paying his wages. ‘Nor is His Grace the Duke of Hawick.’

  ‘Where have they gone?’ Razeby asked in a deceptively soft voice.

  ‘I’m not at liberty to say, sir.’

  ‘Of course not.’ Razeby smiled. ‘One must have trustworthy staff. It would be more than your job’s worth to tell me, I suppose.’

  The young man gave a nod.

  ‘How much is your job worth?’ Razeby leaned against the door jamb in a relaxed fashion.

  The footman looked uncomfortable.

  Razeby smiled again and, slipping a wad of white banknotes from his pocket, began to flick through them. ‘This much?’ he asked after a few pound notes had passed and saw how the footman’s eyes were transfixed by the sight. ‘Or perhaps this much?’ He fanned through half the pile. ‘Or, maybe even a little more?’ He opened out the whole wad of notes and smiled at the footman. ‘Two hundred pounds, such a lot of money for such a little answer. London is a busy place, in which I could have heard the same answer from any number of sources.’

  ‘His Grace took Miss Sweetly to the grand masquerade ball at the Argyle Rooms.’

  Razeby smiled and handed the money to the footman, who slipped it straight into his pocket before glancing around suspiciously.

  Razeby climbed into his waiting coach and tied the black mask in place across the upper half of his face.

  * * *

  In the heaving masquerade ballroom of the Argyle Rooms, Razeby wondered how the hell he was going to find Alice and Hawick. The crowd was a rainbow of coloured dominoes and masks. Most of the men had opted for black, while the women were in gold and silver, white and yellow, blue and green. The music swayed and lilted, reverberating throughout the stone walls of the hall.

  Razeby wove his way through the revellers, past footmen who waited with silver salvers laden with glasses of champagne. The light glittered on the jewels on the women’s masks and around their bare throats and décolletages. It was one of those rare events in which ton and demi-monde mingled side by side and all of scandal and intrigue and whispered debauchery was acceptable behind hidden identities.

  He saw Linwood and the rest of his friends, their smart white-tie evening wear hidden beneath the shrouds of their black dominoes, but their faces unmasked. He gave a grim smile, knowing that they had deliberately removed their masks that he might find them.

  The music played on, the sets moved upon the floor. Razeby made his way to Linwood. ‘Linwood.’

  ‘Razeby,’ said Linwood and tied his mask back in place as did the others once they saw him.

  ‘Alice is here with Hawick. I need to find her.’

  Linwood’s eyes glittered black as the devil’s behind his mask. ‘This is your stag night. You are marrying Miss Darrington on Tuesday.’

  ‘Am I?’ he muttered. His jaw clenched tight. ‘I will have the truth from Alice regardless of what happens on Tuesday.’

  ‘Razeby...’ Linwood lowered his voice and leaned closer ‘...there is something you should know before you see her. I am sworn to silence, but you are my friend, and you did ask me to tell you if I were ever to know that all was not well with Alice.’

  Razeby stilled, seeing the intensity in Linwood’s eyes, and waited with a fear beating in his chest.

  Linwood hesitated for a second before saying, ‘She is carrying your child.’

  ‘God in heaven,’ Razeby whispered, then gritted his teeth with determination. ‘How the hell am I going to find her in here?’

  Linwood’s eyes gestured to the figures moving in unison upon the dance floor. ‘Perhaps with a deal less difficulty than you anticipate.’

  And there, in the middle of the floor, dancing with a black-cloaked man was a woman in a scarlet-silk domino that swirled around her legs when she moved to reveal the figure-hugging scarlet dress beneath. Her fair hair hung long and straight and wanton over her shoulders in such contrast to the current fashion. And across her eyes and nose was tied a scarlet Venetian mask with holes cut for the eyes. Miss Rouge for all the world to see. His heart skipped a beat. He knew what being Miss Rouge had done to Alice, knew how very much she loathed even to see the colour. He pushed emotion aside, sharpened his focus.

  ‘Be careful how you do this, Razeby,’ cautioned Linwood.

  ‘I am done with care.’ Razeby gave a hard smile. ‘I need to find myself a dance partner. And so do the rest of you. It is my stag night, after all.’

  * * *

  The dance came to a halt and Hawick kissed Alice’s mouth, hard and brief, right there on the dance floo
r. No one seemed to mind. Other men were kissing their masked ladies, too.

  ‘Shall we have a little rest for a while, over in the corner?’ he breathed so close to her ear that her skin crawled.

  The next dance was called.

  ‘Can we not stay upon the floor a little longer? Please, Anthony?’

  ‘It is a progressive dance. Are you so eager to find yourself a new partner, Alice?’ He smiled as if joking, but there was no joke in his eyes.

  ‘The dance will deliver me back to you. One turn round the circle.’

  ‘I do not know if I wish to wait that long.’ Hawick’s gaze drifted lower to linger upon her exposed décolletage where the scarlet domino gaped. ‘I want you, Alice.’

  ‘What an impatient man you are,’ she managed.

  ‘Only when it comes to you.’ He smiled.

  And so did she, but the horrible sensation in her stomach churned all the more.

  Upon the dance floor, the ladies formed one large circle, the gentlemen a slightly smaller inner one, like dark masked ravens in their black dominoes. Each faced their own partner. The music started up once more. The ladies curtsied. The gentlemen bowed.

  The melody played and Hawick took her in his hold. They moved with and around each other, dancing the steps before Hawick handed Alice on to the next gentlemen and received his new lady in her stead. And so she gradually passed on from one gentleman to another.

  Every gentleman that Alice partnered was garbed in the same long black-silk domino, overlying the same black-and-white formal evening wear. Every face was obscured with the same dark domino mask. She did not speak to them, barely even looked at them, feeling only relief that they were not Hawick. The music with its slight macabre undertone seemed to resonate through her. She moved through the dance, its every step taking her further away from him, through one man and then the next, dancing with each one in turn until they handed her on. Five men, all tall, all dark, all masked, all in black dominoes. And on to the sixth. She stepped in towards him and something made her glance up into his face. And masked though it was, what she saw there made the breath catch in her lungs.

  The eyes behind the mask glittered too dark, too familiar. Even masked she would have known him anywhere. Her heart leapt into her throat. Her blood rushed too hard, pounding loud in her ears. She swallowed hard, forced herself through one step and then the next. He reached out, caught her hand in his and, even had she not recognised him through the mask, her skin thrilled to his touch and her whole body reacted to his proximity, making it impossible not to realise his identity.

  He pulled her close to turn her beneath his arm, and the scent of him, so familiar, sent a shiver of longing all the way down her spine. It was only halfway through the turn that she realised he had shifted them both out of the circle. The space closed invisibly behind them, and when she looked more closely she realised that the men with whom she had danced before Razeby were all of Razeby’s friends. But she was already being hustled away.

  ‘Alice, you did not really think to escape me so easily, did you?’ Razeby whispered into her ear as he steered them both to be swallowed up by the surrounding crowd. She tried to turn, but his grip was unyielding. She could do nothing other than go where he directed her, away from the dance floor, threading a path through the close-packed bodies out into the crowded hallway where he pushed her against the recess of a wall and, shielding her with his body, unfastened the ties of her domino. The expensive red silk slipped to land on the floor by her feet.

  ‘What are doing? You can’t just—’

  ‘I thought you did not like red, Alice.’

  ‘You know I don’t, but—’

  He unfastened his own domino and swept it around her shoulders, enveloping every inch of the indecent scarlet dress in which Hawick had dressed her with the black silk. For a moment she yielded to her instinct, snuggling into his domino, breathing in the scent of him, before common sense reasserted itself. Razeby stepped closer still, until his body was hard against hers and her face touched against the lapels of his black evening tailcoat.

  ‘What are you—?’

  But his fingers were untying the red mask that hid her face. Throwing it to the floor as if it were a piece of worthless tat.

  She gasped and had to crick her neck to stare up into his face. ‘Would you reveal me to all of London that is here? Have mercy on me, for pity’s sake, Razeby, I beg of you.’

  ‘I have told you before, Alice, that when it comes to you, I have no mercy.’ His voice was hard, but from his pocket he produced a plain black Venetian mask and tied it where the red mask had been.

  ‘Razeby...’ She hated to say the words, but knew that she must tell him, now, before any more harm was done. ‘I’m with Hawick now.’

  ‘Are you? I do not see Hawick out here.’ He smiled, but it was a chilling smile, a dangerous smile. ‘Besides, I want to talk to you, Alice.’ And the quiet, determined, angry way he said it stroked a shiver all the way down her spine. ‘Shall we go somewhere a little quieter?’

  He took hold of her arm, in a grip that was firm but unbreakable, and led her up the staircase towards the upper floor. Behind them the crowd closed and the scarlet domino and mask were trampled underfoot.

  Upstairs he drew her into one of the dark shadowy private rooms that led off the main floor. Beside the brightness of all the candles and crystal of the ballroom and hallway the room seemed to be in blackness. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust enough to see the soft flood of moonlight that glowed through the window.

  ‘You’re marrying Miss Darrington on Tuesday. I’m Hawick’s mistress. What more is there to say between us?’ She tried to make her voice sound as if she did not care, but it was impossible. It hurt to look him in the eyes, knowing the truth of what she had done to him and the truth of their child within her belly. But she could not look away.

  ‘What more indeed?’ he said quietly and behind the mask his eyes looked blacker than Linwood’s. ‘How about the truth, Alice?’

  Her heart gave a stutter. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Shall we start with this?’ From inside his tailcoat he produced some sheets of paper folded over.

  Oh, God! She knew what they were before he opened them up and showed her. She dropped her gaze, biting at her lip and feeling the shame scald her cheeks.

  ‘You said that you did not love me. But...’ He had found the sheets on which she had written both their names together a hundred times or more.

  ‘Idle scribbles,’ she murmured and could not look at him.

  ‘I do not think so, Alice.’

  ‘I have to go. Hawick will have noticed I’m missing.’

  ‘You are not going anywhere.’ He stepped closer, backing her against the wall, catching hold of both her wrists and securing them behind her back. ‘There is another matter of which you have been remiss in telling me.’ He held both her wrists in one hand, leaving the other free to brush gently against her lips.

  Her breathing grew heavy. She was too conscious of his touch, of his body so near to hers, of the dangerous quiet control that barely leashed the force of his anger.

  He trailed his fingers slowly over her chin, traced them down over the column of her throat.

  ‘Please, Razeby,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t do this.’

  But the dark eyes just glittered dangerously behind the mask. ‘Why not?’

  ‘You know why not!’ she cried, her voice hoarse with emotion.

  His fingers trailed against her collar bones, then lower over her décolletage, tantalisingly close to her breasts, so pale and barely concealed by the blood red of the dress. ‘Because of what is in here?’

  She gasped and arched as he slid his fingers beneath the bodice to cover her heart. Beneath the dress she wore no shift, no underclothes of any description. He stroked gently against the aroused peak of her nipple, before capturing the fullness of her breast, making her heart thrill and thud to his touch.

  In one smooth movem
ent he had ripped the bodice of the dress open, the tear of silk a hiss in the silence between them. Her breath grew ragged as his hand explored lower, over her rib cage, over her stomach, sliding tortuously, slowly, to her abdomen where it rested flat against her skin and what lay beneath. He could not know, she told herself.

  But Razeby lowered his voice and looked directly into her eyes. ‘Or what is in here?’ he said.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Alice closed her eyes against the accusation she saw on Razeby’s face.

  ‘Venetia told you,’ she whispered.

  ‘Not Venetia,’ he corrected. ‘Her lips were sealed, on that secret at least.’

  ‘Then how...?’ She opened her eyes and looked at him.

  ‘It does not matter,’ he said harshly. ‘What does matter is why the hell you did not come to me? You are carrying our child, Alice. Did you honestly think I would have turned you away?’

  ‘You don’t understand...’

  ‘Damn right, I do not understand!’ he snapped. ‘Were you even going to tell me? Or perhaps you were planning on cuckolding Hawick?’ He stared down into her eyes with a ruthless and tightly coiled rage she had never seen there before.

  ‘No!’ she cried, horrified at the suggestion. ‘How could you think I’d do such a thing?’

  ‘I wonder,’ he said.

  She caught her breath as the words cut her, but she knew she deserved his wrath. After what she had made him believe of her, she could not blame him for thinking so badly of her.

  ‘Hawick would have to be a complete fool to believe the babe his, when I’m two months gone and haven’t even slept with him.’

  ‘You have not slept with him? How have you managed to avoid it when you have been with him for a week?’

  She sagged back against the wall. ‘The oldest excuse in the book.’

  ‘How ironic.’

  She said nothing, just averted her gaze to a distance beyond him.

  He removed his hand from where it lay warm and flat and possessive against her belly. The chill of the night air against her naked skin made her feel its loss all the more. Capturing her chin between his fingers, he brought her face round, forcing her to meet the full raze of his gaze.