MISTRESS TO THE MARQUIS

by Margaret McPhee

  Saturday came. Saturday. He lay in his bed and winced against the lance of sunshine that crept between the curtains to impale his eyes. His stag night. Three more nights and he would be standing before an altar with Miss Darrington and, once the deed was done, this torment would be over. Once she was his wife and he had begotten his heir upon her, he would welcome his thirtieth birthday and the end it would bring. He had spent a lifetime dreading it, doing every damn thing to deny it. Now he longed for it and the relief it would bring. For only that final end would wipe the spectre of Alice from his mind. God help him, nothing else did.

  The clock downstairs in the hallway struck midday. He pushed back the covers, sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He sat there, naked, unshaven, feeling dreadful; too many late nights, too much brandy and wine and champagne. Too many cigars. And not a one of them salved the anger that raged in his blood or the bitter taste in his mouth...or the damnable ache he would not admit to another living soul that throbbed in his chest.

  He leaned forwards, elbows on knees, hands cradling his head, wondering how the hell he was going to get through marrying Miss Darrington on Tuesday when he did not even know if he could maintain this façade through the night that was to come. He raised his head and peered across the room at the black domino that hung on the outside of the changing screen and the black face mask that hung by its side. No matter that he did not feel one bit like celebrating, a stag night at a masquerade ball was preferable to one spent in Mrs Silver’s high-class brothel. With a snarl he crushed the thought of Alice that had crept into his head and rang the bell for his valet.

  * * *

  At four o’clock that afternoon Hawick arrived at the house in Sackville Street in which Alice had spent the week alone in the bedchamber, feigning a woman’s condition that was the very opposite of the condition which beset her body.

  ‘Alice,’ he said, capturing her hand in his and touching it to his lips.

  She ignored the string of maids and footmen that hurried past them carrying parcels and packages and long covered garments on hangers and managed to resist the urge to snatch her hand from his grasp.

  ‘Won’t you come through to the drawing room?’ she offered. ‘I’ll have some tea brought up for us, or something stronger, if you prefer.’ Anything to keep him occupied so that he would not kiss her or get other even worse ideas.

  He gave a nod of agreement and followed her as she led them through to the drawing room. ‘I trust you have recovered from your affliction.’

  She was so tempted to beg just one more night, but she knew she could not do that. ‘Indeed.’ She nodded. ‘I’m my usual self, Your Grace.’

  ‘I am relieved to hear it.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘And I think, given the intimacy of our...friendship, that you may dispense with “Your Grace”. My given name is Anthony.’

  ‘Anthony,’ she said, and the smile she forced to her face felt more like a grimace. ‘But “Your Grace” comes so readily to my lips.’

  ‘Well, we’ll have to see what we can do about changing that tonight, will we not?’

  Her stomach clenched tight at the thought. She smiled all the harder to hide her dread.

  ‘In view of your recovery and to celebrate our new arrangement, I have a little surprise planned for tonight.’

  ‘A surprise?’ She tried to sound pleased rather than worried.

  ‘A ball,’ he said, ‘with a little twist to make it a bit more exciting. I thought we could attend.’

  ‘That would be a grand way to spend our first night together,’ she said. All the while she was out with him in public there was a limit to the intimacy of what he could do. And then she remembered Razeby and the Covent Garden theatre and what they had done there in that public place.

  ‘I love to dance.’ The dance floor would be safe.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’ll look forward to our dancing together.’

  The smile was starting to hurt her mouth. ‘I’ll ring for the tea, shall I?’

  ‘I did not come here for tea, Alice.’

  ‘No?’ It came out a little too high pitched.

  ‘Let’s go upstairs.’

  ‘Upstairs? Isn’t it a little early in the day for—’

  He laughed and, taking her hand in his, led her up the stairs to her bedchamber.

  Her knees were knocking by the time she got there. The sweat prickled beneath her arms and her hands felt both clammy and chilled.

  He stopped her outside the door. ‘Close your eyes,’ he instructed.

  ‘Why?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘Because if you do not it will spoil the second half of the surprise I have waiting for you inside.’

  ‘To be honest, I’m not great on surprises, Anthony.’

  ‘Trust me, you’ll like this one.’

  Alice was not so sure, yet she could do nothing other than close her eyes.

  She heard him open the door, then he took hold of her arm and guided her inside.

  ‘You can look now.’

  She opened her eyes and there laid out on the bed before them was a dress of brilliant scarlet silk, the bodice sewn with a thousand glass beads that glittered like rubies in the sunshine. The neckline plunged indecently low. The silk of the skirt was so sheer as to be almost transparent. Beside the dress was spread a scarlet domino with a deep-cowled hood. And positioned between them on the bed sat a Venetian mask to match their colour precisely. It was adorned with tiny glittering glass beads and vibrant red feathers, and from either side there was a length of thin scarlet ribbon that would bind it to her upper face.

  Whatever horror Alice had been anticipating, all of her expectations paled into insignificance beside the reality of what lay upon that bed. The dress and the mask were similar to those she had worn as Miss Rouge during her time in Mrs Silver’s brothel.

  ‘For every woman needs a new dress to attend a ball. And none more so than for a masquerade ball.’

  She felt a dizziness swim through her head at the shock of seeing the outfit and clutched a hand to the thick mahogany poster of the bed to support her. Her heart was hammering in her throat and it felt like her stomach had dropped clear of her body, through the floor beneath her feet into the drawing room below.

  ‘It’s red,’ she said in a stilted voice that sounded nothing like her own. She turned her head to look at him, wondering if somehow he knew the secret of her background—that she had been the woman forced to play Miss Rouge behind the mask. Wondering if this was some cruel torture he was inflicting upon her.

  But Hawick’s gaze held only lust and appreciation. ‘I have always found red to be a most stimulating colour.’

  ‘I’ve never thought of red as a colour that suited me,’ she said carefully through stiff, cold lips.

  ‘On the contrary, I think it will suit you very well indeed.’ He paused and stepped closer, brushing his fingers against her décolletage.

  She could feel the heat and moisture of his breath against her forehead. She could smell the cologne scent of him too strong in her nose.

  ‘Wear it for me tonight, Alice,’ he commanded, and she knew she could not refuse without raising his suspicions as to her aversion to the colour, or their arrangement, or both.

  ‘Of course.’ She nodded.

  She saw his gaze was focused on her breasts, watched it drop lower to sweep over the rest of her. He skimmed a hand against her buttocks, making her jump.

  ‘You seem a little nervous, Alice.’ His gaze met hers.

  ‘You’re a duke, for goodness’ sake, Anthony. That’s enough to make any woman nervous,’ she said by way of excuse and prayed with all her might that he did not mean to take her right here and now.

  ‘I wish I had time to show you that you have nothing to be nervous about right now, but, unfortunately, I have another commitment elsewhere. So we will just have to wait until after the masquerade.’

  She could barely contain her relief. Her smile was all g
enuine this time.

  ‘I will pick you up at nine,’ he said.

  She nodded and did not think to ask what colour of domino he would be wearing.

  * * *

  The bell of St James’s Church sounded ten o’clock. The sky overhead was as dark as the long dominoes and moulded black face masks that Razeby and Linwood were wearing within the dimmed interior of Razeby’s town coach.

  The coach slowed as it approached the Argyle Rooms on the north side of Little Argyle Street at the corner of King Street. The entire building lit up the darkness of the night with the candlelight from the huge crystal-dropped chandeliers glittering through the windows that lined the west ballroom and the flambeaux that flamed in their holders high on the wall outside the magnificent front door.

  ‘Go in without me. I will join you later. There’s something I have to do,’ Razeby said.

  ‘You do intend on coming later?’ Linwood asked.

  ‘It is my stag night. I can do nothing other. The ton will expect a dissolute celebration of the end of my bachelorhood—and we shall not disappoint them.’ He glanced across at his friend, glad of the shadowed gloom of the interior. ‘I am glad it is not Mrs Silver’s House to which we go this night.’

  Linwood gave a nod of acknowledgement. ‘This thing you have to do...’

  ‘It is closure, Linwood. Something I should have done weeks ago.’

  Linwood gave a nod, but he made no move to leave. ‘Razeby...’ Linwood leaned forwards ‘...there is something that I think you should know, concerning Miss—’

  But at that very moment the coach door was opened by the footman.

  ‘I will tell you later,’ said Linwood and climbed from the coach, leaving Razeby inside alone. The door closed again and he was off and travelling through the night towards Hart Street.

  * * *

  Inside the house everything was just as he had left it. The candles had been lit in the hallway and the main rooms as he had instructed. A low fire burned on each hearth, so that the house was warm in contrast to the chill that clung to the night air outside. He had not slept here in weeks, but everything was prepared just as if he was due to arrive, just as Alice had run it.

  He set the black Venetian mask he was holding down on the opened surface of the bureau as he surveyed the room around him. A small fire burned on the hearth just as it had done when he and Alice had spent their evenings in here. Darkness already shadowed the skies outside and although the candles of the chandelier had not been lit, those of the wall sconces and on the branch upon the occasional table blazed. The room had a comfortable atmosphere to it as if Alice and he still lived here. The faint scent of lavender and beeswax polish still hung in the air.

  Tomorrow he would terminate the lease. And there would be no trace left of his life with Alice. He did not even know why he had kept the place on. Why even now he felt reluctant to let it go. It was nothing but torture to realise what a fool he had been and how close he had come to throwing everything away for a cold-hearted harlot. His jaw tightened. His father would have turned in his grave. His mother would never have forgiven him. He wondered if he ever would have forgiven himself. Looking back at those days, he could barely believe he had even considered such a ridiculous course of action. Some kind of madness had fixed himself upon his brain...upon his heart. And Razeby swore that in the short time he had left that nothing would ever affect him like that again.

  He let his gaze wander around the room, from the two armchairs on either side of the card table where Alice and he had played vingt-et-un, to the sofa on which they had played games of a more intimate nature and the rug before the hearth on which they had made love. There was a bitter taste in his mouth. He hardened his heart and his expression and made to pick up the face mask from the bureau, remembering all the times he had come in and caught her hiding secret letters, her fingers stained with ink, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. His eyes narrowed at the memory. He felt the suspicion stir through him as he wondered just who the hell she had been writing to so often.

  He left the face mask where it was and searched the bureau.

  In the pen holder lay an old cheap pen, its nib blunted from excessive use. Of the expensive silver pen he had bought for her and had engraved there was no sign. She had probably hawked it, he thought sourly. Most of the compartments and drawers were empty. There were a few stubby pencils, some eraser putty and a stick of sealing wax in one. And in another, a pile of his old letters, letters that his footman had brought following their daily delivery to his town house each morning. Letters that he had dealt with here and left with Alice to be burned. He frowned and pulled the pile out, wondering what she had been up to.

  The letters appeared just as he had left them, until he turned them over. Across every sheet of paper were lines and lines of letters of the alphabet. A row of a’s followed by a row of b’s and so on, pages of them, like pages from a copy book, crudely formed as if from the hand of a young child. Some had been written back to front or upside down. He leafed through the pages and then he stopped dead, for there was a page on which two words had been copied again and again and again. The pages underneath were the same. The same two words painstakingly practised until she had written them perfectly—Alice and Razeby and between the two words a heart. Razeby felt his chest tighten and his own heart shift. At the bottom of the pile was a sheet on which she had sketched a pencil portrait of him. It was roughly drawn, but it had captured his likeness, and in it he was smiling at the artist, smiling in a way he no longer smiled any more.

  Oh, God! He understood what she had been doing all of the hours of all of those days and why she had not wanted him to see them. And he understood, too, why he had never seen her read a newspaper, or receive a single letter, or ever even sign her name. Alice ‘heart’ Razeby—she did not know how to write the word ‘loves’. Alice loves Razeby. Not Razeby ‘heart’ Alice, as he had had engraved upon the silver barrel of the pen.

  In his head he heard again those words that had haunted his nightmares and made him turn his hurt into bitterness and anger. I never said I loved you. I never used those words. Both carefully and callously uttered. She had not said them, but she had written them again and again when the cost of doing so was very great. And as he stood there his blood trickled cold against his neck, there was a sinking realisation in his stomach and he had the horrible sensation that he had got this all wrong.

  Alice loves Razeby.

  He folded the pile of letters, placed them in his inside pocket and grabbed the black face mask from where it sat on the bureau. The length of his domino swept out like a great black wing behind him as he left the room.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The masquerade ballroom was crowded.

  Up on the balcony a small orchestra was playing. The high stone ceiling curved around the haunting baroque-inspired melodies so that the music seemed to come from the surrounding walls. The crowd was colourful as the courts of fifty years ago. Men and women wore dominoes of peacock colours, their upper faces hidden by intricate white or black masks similar to the ones that both Alice and Hawick wore. It seemed the masking lent an air of liberation and sensuality and barely suppressed recklessness to the night. Alice was very conscious of the scarlet that she wore. Beside her Hawick had chosen black, like many of the other gentleman that packed the floor.

  She thought she had escaped Miss Rouge and all that time in her life had held but, garbed in the bold sensual scarlet silk and with Hawick’s hand possessive against her arm, she knew she was that woman once more. Miss Rouge, a harlot, a whore who must sell herself to the highest bidder. The one mercy that would make the night bearable was the mask that covered her face, so that all of London would not know her shame.

  She closed down that part of her mind. Did not let herself think. Refused to feel. So the woman by Hawick’s side moved and danced and replied when she was spoken to, but she was not Alice, she was an empty façade. She was Miss Rouge. And Miss Rouge could get through
this night, when Alice could not.

  Everyone was drinking, laughing, dancing. It felt like some Bacchanalian orgy from days of old. Hawick’s hand slid beneath her domino, stroking against the small of her back, encircling her waist.

  ‘Let us dance, Alice.’ His breath was hot against her cheek. She could smell the tang of red wine on his breath. She let him guide them out onto the dance floor and take her hand in his as the music began again.

  * * *

  The hammering of the brass knocker against its strikeplate resonated through the street all around. The front door opened to admit him. Razeby did not wait for an invitation, just stepped past the gaping butler into Linwood’s hallway.

  ‘Lord Razeby to see Miss Sweetly,’ he said.

  The door closed behind him. The butler’s cheeks flushed as he tried to speak firmly, but politely. ‘There is no Miss Sweetly here, my lord.’

  ‘I know damn well she is here, so fetch her and be—’

  Venetia appeared in the doorway that led into the drawing room, dressed in a dress of pale fawn. She was as calm and confident as ever she was, with that air of assertion. ‘Razeby,’ she said in her smooth low voice.

  ‘I know she is here, Lady Linwood, and I am not leaving until I have seen her.’

  Venetia nodded her assurance to the butler and dismissed him before she addressed Razeby. ‘You are supposed to be at the masquerade ball for your stag night.’

  ‘I am going nowhere until I have spoken to Alice.’

  Venetia’s brow furrowed ever so slightly, the one small sign of discomposure. ‘Has Linwood spoken to you?’

  ‘Of what matter, ma’am?’

  She shook the expression away with a small half smile. ‘No matter,’ she replied smoothly and paused before adding, ‘Alice is not here.’

  ‘Do not seek to deceive me. Linwood told me you have been sheltering her since her return to London.’

  ‘She was here. And now she is gone.’

  ‘Gone where?’

  ‘What do you want with her?’

  ‘I have discovered that she has not been entirely honest with me.’