MISTRESS TO THE MARQUIS

by Margaret McPhee

  Linwood gave no reply, so Razeby told him the answer. ‘I care for my mother, Linwood, but I am under no illusion as to her prejudices. She would feed Alice to the lions rather than have her in our family. Just now Alice is the ton’s darling, but it would not be so were I to make her my wife. She would be ostracised, cast out, treated like a leper.’ He rubbed a hand against his forehead. ‘And I will not always be here to protect her.’

  ‘You will be here long enough to—’

  But Razeby held up his hand to stop him. ‘I cannot marry her, Linwood.’

  The silence hissed between them.

  ‘The question is, feeling the way that you do, can you marry another?’

  ‘I have to.’ Every time he closed his eyes he saw the grains of sand slipping through that tea timer. ‘There must be an heir for Razeby.’

  ‘Then you had better stay away from Alice.’

  ‘I know.’ Razeby gave a smile that held nothing of happiness. ‘It should be easy enough done. She is avoiding me.’

  ‘Then it sounds as if she is doing the best that she can for you both.’

  Razeby knew that. He knew he had to stay away from her.

  He knew that he had to marry.

  He knew what was coming.

  And none of it made any difference. He still craved to see Alice with all of his heart.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Alice cancelled her engagements and stayed in her rooms for the next few days. She was no longer confident that if she were to see Razeby she would be able to hide from the world what she felt for him. Her sensibilities were running so wild that she felt like she was going mad. She needed to step back from it, to take charge of herself. Maybe Kemble was right, maybe she was just working too hard. Maybe she just needed to get some sleep. And then she would be able to don her mask once more, hiding the truth from the world, and from Razeby himself.

  She did everything she could to make that happen. And she polished, polished for hours, polished for days. Polished until every inch of wood in those rooms gleamed and the air was sweet with lavender and beeswax. But none of it helped.

  In the end she surrendered to the one thing that made her feel closest to him. She ran her fingers over the engraving on the barrel of the silver pen he had given to her, smiling a bittersweet smile at the message.

  She took Razeby’s letter from its hiding place at the bottom of her travelling bag and tried so many times to read the words he had written. It was useless, of course. There was no magical wand that made sense of the letters and words. And at the end of the day it did not really matter what he had written, for it did not change anything of the situation.

  At night she dreamed that Razeby was making love to her. It felt so real that she could smell the scent of him, feel the warmth of his skin against hers, hear his voice calling her name and her body was welcoming his as she woke.

  ‘Razeby,’ she whispered his name as the dream slipped away and, in realising that it was just a dream, she felt the loss stronger than ever.

  And so it went on, until her friends came to call.

  ‘Where have you been hiding yourself, girl?’ Tilly asked. ‘We ain’t seen you in an age and it’s all over the newspapers that Miss Bolton is in your part at the Theatre Royal.’

  ‘Kemble’s just trying to stir a bit extra interest in the place. Making a mystery out of nothing to intrigue them.’

  ‘He tell you to lie low, did he?’ Tilly asked.

  Alice gave a nod. ‘Just for the week.’ It wasn’t exactly a lie, just slightly misleading.

  ‘We were worried about you,’ said Ellen, her gaze too shrewd as she studied Alice’s face.

  ‘I appreciate the sentiment, but there’s nothing to worry about. Honest.’

  ‘What you been up to then?’ Tilly sat down beside her. ‘Bet you don’t know what to be doing with your time.’

  ‘Catching up with some long-overdue sleep and letting my skin breathe; that stage paint doesn’t half play havoc with my face.’ It was an excuse for the shadows beneath her eyes and the pallor of her cheeks.

  ‘We didn’t like to say,’ teased Ellen.

  Alice smiled. It was the first time she had smiled in days. Already she felt better with her friends’ presence.

  ‘You’re not being entirely honest with us, Miss sneaky Sweetly.’ Ellen drew her a look.

  Alice kept the smile on her face, but her heart skipped a beat. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.’ She said it teasingly, but there was a sudden tension in her stomach.

  Ellen gave a sniff of the air.

  Tilly giggled. ‘Your secret’s out, Alice. The place is stinking of lavender and beeswax.’

  Alice held her hands up. ‘I admit it. I did have a quick little polish.’

  All three women laughed.

  ‘We’ve organised a night out at the theatre tomorrow with a few of the girls,’ said Tilly. ‘Hired a posh box at the side, with a good view of the stage. We know visiting the theatre’s nothing special for you, I mean you’re there nearly every day. But it’d be an experience to see it from the other side. To be one of the audience. And you’ll be with us. It’ll be a laugh. Say you’ll come.’

  ‘I shouldn’t really.’ But Alice was tempted.

  ‘Staying in these four walls all day and all night until the end of the week will drive you mad, Alice,’ said Ellen.

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she admitted. Staying within them the last few days had not exactly helped.

  Ellen smiled. ‘You know we are.’

  ‘All right then. Tomorrow night it is.’ Alice smiled. Maybe a night with her friends was just what she needed.

  * * *

  Razeby knew he was being a fool, that still staying here alone in Hart Street was just torturing himself unnecessarily. But he had a perverse sense of needing to be here. Every room in the house held some lingering echo of Alice’s presence. Within the bedchamber they had shared he stood by the window and watched the sun set, sipping his brandy and trying not to think of the night ahead with Miss Darrington and his mother.

  * * *

  Tilly had been right. It was a novelty for Alice to see the theatre from the audience’s side. For too long she had only stood up there on that stage she knew so well. Tonight was different.

  She had taken care with the rice powder and rouge to repair the shadows and the pallor that betrayed the truth upon her face. She wore the green silk, not to prove that she did not care, but to prove that she did. It made her feel connected to him. And she had been safe in the knowledge that he would not be at the theatre. But she had been wrong.

  She sat in the box along with Tilly and Ellen and four other women, watching the players on the stage without seeing a thing of it. It was the dress that had brought him here, she thought. It had a magic all of its own. And she did not know whether to weep or to rejoice over it, because both those urges were vying in her breast.

  ‘I’m glad we persuaded you into accompanying us.’ Tilly slipped her arm through Alice’s. ‘We couldn’t leave you in your rooms all alone, on a Saturday night, polishing furniture. I don’t know why you don’t get them maids of yours to do it.’

  ‘I like wood polishing. It gives me a sense of satisfaction.’ Alice did not tell them that she only polished when she was feeling anxious.

  ‘I like polishing wood, too,’ said Ellen. ‘Just not the kind you’re talking of.’ She raised her eyebrows suggestively. Everyone laughed. Including Alice.

  She was strong and resolute for such a long time, keeping her gaze fixed firmly on the stage below. Not once did she turn her head to look over towards Razeby’s private box. But she knew he was there by the way Ellen’s eyes turned too often towards it and the looks the women exchanged when they thought she would not see.

  Tilly leaned closer to her and lowered her voice. ‘We didn’t know that he’d be here and with Miss Darrington, honest, we didn’t.’

  ‘Who’s here?’ she asked, as if there could be any other man in th
e world.

  Tilly smiled. ‘That’s the spirit, girl. Sod him!’

  Alice forced a smile. ‘I hope not.’

  They all laughed at the rude joke.

  Then they all settled to watch the play—All’s Well That Ends Well. A woman of low birth who was in love with a nobleman who was both beyond her and had no wish to be married to her. And then the low-born woman, Helena, spoke the words, ‘T’were all one that I should love a bright particular star, and think to wed it.’

  It was as if Alice could have spoken them herself of Razeby. They just seemed to reach inside her and touch the nub of all that was between them. It took so much effort not to flinch, not to tremble, not to show a single sign of it.

  She dare not look away from the stage lest her eye found Razeby and Miss Darrington. And yet there was a lump in her throat that she could not swallow and the dangerous prickle of tears in her eyes. She managed through all of the first act and most of the second, before she knew that if she did not get out of this auditorium at that very moment she, who never wept, would disgrace herself by weeping in public.

  ‘Please excuse me a moment, won’t you? I’m away to the ladies’,’ she whispered to Ellen.

  ‘Do you want me to come with you?’ Ellen asked.

  Alice shook her head. ‘I’ll only be few minutes.’

  She escaped from the box and hurried out into the foyer, desperate for some small place to be alone. Just a few minutes in which to compose herself. Just a moment’s relief from this torture of emotions. She could not hide from him for ever. It would get easier with time. It had to get easier with time, for she did not think she could keep going like this.

  The foyer was quiet, not another soul present. Floating through from the auditorium she could hear the faint voices from the stage and, more loudly, the audience’s reactions. She leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes, trying to find the strength to get through the rest of the evening.

  ‘Alice.’ At first she thought she was imagining his voice. Her heart missed a beat and then began to thunder. She opened her eyes to find Razeby standing before her.

  ‘I saw you leave your box. Are you unwell?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said and tried to smile, but her lips would not curve to her will. ‘I just needed a breath of air, that’s all.’

  They stared at one another. The faint noises from the auditorium and stage seemed very far away. Out here, standing with him, they might have been the only two people in the world.

  ‘You have not been on stage for the past few days.’

  ‘It’s Kemble’s idea of stirring more interest in the theatre.’ She used the same excuse.

  ‘When there’s not a seat to be had at your every appearance?’ He raised his eyebrows ever so slightly.

  The silence hissed between them.

  ‘Nor have you attended any of the dances or events.’

  ‘I’ve just been taking a bit of a rest.’

  ‘I know you are avoiding me, Alice.’

  She shook her head, but her eyes never left his and she saw the shadows beneath them where before there had been none. ‘You look tired, Razeby.’

  ‘So everyone keeps telling me.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘So am I,’ he said and she knew it was not the fatigue on his face that they were talking about.

  ‘I should go back in. The girls will be wondering where I’ve got to.’ But she made no move to leave.

  ‘About those dresses in your wardrobe...’

  ‘Don’t, Razeby...please.’

  ‘Not here, either?’ He raised his eyebrows again but he was smiling and there was a gentle teasing in his voice.

  ‘Definitely not here.’ She smiled.

  They looked at one another and there was such a depth of emotion between them that their smiles faded.

  ‘I do know the reason, Alice.’

  She closed her eyes. ‘No,’ she whispered and shook her head.

  ‘I thought that seeing you and not being able to have you was a torture. But not seeing you is even worse.’

  ‘I feel the same.’ She clutched a hand to her forehead. ‘But we can’t be doing this, Razeby.

  ‘I cannot stop, Alice.’

  She stared at him. There was no teasing between them now. There was no smile, no laughter. Only dark intensity and brutal honesty and the agony of longing.

  The silence seemed to roar.

  He stepped closer, his eyes locked with hers. ‘I miss you, Alice. So much.’

  He was so close she could see every golden striation in the dark velvet-brown of his eyes, every dark lash, the first hint of blue shadow upon his jaw line. She could smell the scent of him that she knew each night in her dreams. And she could not stop all that was in her heart to swell and respond.

  ‘I miss you, too, Razeby.’

  A noise sounded somewhere in the near distance, someone leaving their box and coming out into the foyer.

  Razeby reacted in an instant. He grabbed her hand and pulled her with him down the closest passageway that led from the foyer. Halfway along, he guided her along another passageway and then into another recess that led from it. He backed her against the wall, shielding her from view of anyone who might happen to pass. Except there was nobody else down this maze of passageways. No footsteps. Not even any noise from the auditorium. Only the sound of her breath too loud in her ears and the hard frenzied thud of her heart.

  He was standing too close, his fingers still wrapped around hers. She knew she should not be here with him, that she should disengage her hand and walk away, but she did none of those things.

  The touch of him, the feel of him... He rubbed his thumb against her fingers, in that small familiar gesture.

  ‘We shouldn’t be doing this,’ she whispered, but her fingers entwined with his.

  ‘We shouldn’t,’ he agreed as his free hand moved to gently cup her cheek. And in his eyes she saw all of what had always raged between them.

  ‘Razeby,’ she whispered. There was so much they could not say, so much tension, so much longing. She could feel it sparking in the air, like the terrible hush before the ferocity of a storm, feel it whispering across her skin and throbbing in her blood.

  ‘Alice.’ His eyes darkened. There was a fierceness to the handsomeness of his face, a torment that mirrored her own. She wanted him as she had never wanted him before. She needed him. It had been so lonely without him.

  His hand slid round to the nape of her neck, then up into her hair, holding it firm. ‘Alice,’ he said again and his voice was hoarse and tortured.

  Their eyes were locked only on each other, the moment stretched to a roaring eternity. And then, at last, he angled her face, and his mouth descended to crush hers.

  Razeby. His name echoed through her mind, through her very being as she gave herself up to him, yielding to the fierce possession of his lips, giving all her heart had to give and receiving all of his in return.

  There was nothing of the theatre. Nothing of shame or guilt or anything that was wrong. There was only this moment, this man that she loved with all that she was. He was the other half of herself. Her heart. Her very life. Here before her, like breath to a woman who had been slowly suffocating.

  ‘Razeby.’ This time the word escaped aloud, as her teeth scraped his chin, as her hands slid within his waistcoat and pulled his shirttails loose from his breeches that she might touch the familiar warm nakedness of his skin.

  There could be nothing of resistance. The torrent that whirled between them was too strong. She surrendered to it, giving herself up to his kiss and all of the fury and passion and love that was in it. Against her thigh she could feel the hard press of his arousal and she longed for him, wanted him, needed him. She could not stop herself. Her hand slid to touch him there in that most private of places, feeling the large rigid bulge through his breeches.

  He sucked in his breath, jerked beneath her fingers. ‘I need you, Alice,’ he whispered hot and hars
h against her ear, biting gently at its lobe so that the fire in her thighs flared hotter and higher.

  ‘I need you, too,’ she admitted, and her voice was breathless as his.

  All of time seemed to stop. Their eyes held for the expanse of the moment. They both knew it was inevitable. They both knew they were powerless against the force of what raged between them. In the silence all around the raggedness of their breath was deafening. Their gazes clung as the moment stretched beyond endurance. Trying to fight it and failing.

  ‘Oh, Razeby,’ she whispered. And then the last of their resistance, if there had ever really been any, crumbled. Razeby backed her against the wall and pulled her skirts up, sliding his fingers against her slick wetness.

  Her fingers fumbled with the buttons on his breeches. His own closed over their tremble for a moment, looking deep into her eyes as he made short work of the buttons and freed himself from his drawers.

  She moved her hand to stroke the silken length of him.

  He wrenched her skirts higher.

  She wound her arms around his neck as he lifted her up and plunged his heated length into her.

  She gasped her relief, welcoming him back to the place where only he belonged.

  ‘Do you want this?’ he whispered. ‘Do you want me?’

  ‘You and no other, Razeby,’ she replied with ragged breath.

  ‘You and no other, Alice,’ he said and thrust within her.

  It was everything that was right, this mating, this coupling with the man that she loved. She needed him. She needed this physical joining with him, this reunification of two halves to make a whole. She met his every urgent thrust with the power of her own, groaning aloud at the ferocious intensity of it. So much need, so much love that she did not know if she could bear it. Their bodies strove together, rode together in unfettered abandon until they gasped aloud, rocking and exploding simultaneously in a union of utter love. And the glory of it was blinding. Alice ceased to exist. Razeby, likewise. There was starlight and sunlight and time itself seemed to shatter into a silver white myriad so that there was nothing, absolutely nothing save the merging of their two souls.