‘What did you think he would do, Alice, when he discovered you were carrying my baby? Keep you on as his mistress? Claim my child as his own?’
‘Stop it!’ she cried. ‘He would have turned me off without a farthing more.’
‘And yet you went to Hawick knowing that, rather than come to me,’ he said in a hard voice.
‘I never went to Hawick. He came to me. I’ve nothing else I can do to earn a living.’
‘You are an actress.’
‘The theatres are closed for the holidays, Razeby. I’ve not a penny to my name. Do you think I’d be selling myself to Hawick were there any other way? I can’t read and write. I can’t write entries in a cash book or receipts for customers. I can’t sew or sing or dance. Without a character they’ll not take me in a shop or a workshop or in service. And I won’t ruin Venetia’s chances of happiness in her new life. What else could I do?’
‘You could have come to me,’ he said harshly.
‘When I had worked so hard to make you believe me a cold heartless whore who had used you for your money and was moving on to the next man who could offer her more?’ She stared at him incredulously. ‘I couldn’t come to you. What sort of man would leave his child to be raised by a woman like that?’
‘You thought I would take the child from you to raise myself.’ His voice sounded suddenly weary. He rubbed a hand against his forehead as if it ached there and glanced away.
She nodded. ‘Wouldn’t you have?’
‘It would never have come to that.’
‘Why not? Don’t you want the child?’
‘Oh, I want the child, all right. But you see, I want you, too, Alice.’
‘Even after I made you believe...’ She let the words peter out, realising just how much she had admitted.
He smiled a hard smile. ‘You admit that you lied to me.’
She swallowed and tried to look away, but he held her chin and would not let her.
‘You love me.’
She pressed her lips together to stop them from trembling. It had gone too far for lies. He knew too much. He knew the truth of her. He knew of the baby. She closed her eyes to stop the tears, but they leaked out just the same.
His breath was a caress against her cheek. She felt his lips brush against her mouth, her cheek, her ear. ‘Answer me, Alice,’ he demanded.
She opened her eyes and looked into his, ‘Of course I love you, Razeby. I’ve always loved you. Why else did I refuse to marry you?’
‘You were trying to save me from myself. It was my initial gut instinct to your refusal. I should have listened to it.’
‘I couldn’t let you give up the Razeby estate and title, all that you had worked so hard for, your birthright, your heritage. It’s your duty, your destiny. Razeby needs you. You would have regretted it for the rest of your life.’
‘What is left of it,’ he murmured beneath his breath. Then more loudly, his voice still harsh, ‘You were right, Alice. It would have been a mistake to turn my back on Razeby and my duty. If a man does not retain his integrity, he ceases to be much of a man. I will not dishonour either Razeby or myself.’
She nodded and her heart ached even as she smiled her approval and understanding.
‘So I suppose I should thank you for breaking my heart and putting me through sheer hell.’
‘If it’s any consolation, I broke my own in doing so.’
‘I do not doubt it.’
They looked at one another through the moonlight.
‘We have much to discuss, Alice. But not here. I am taking you home to Hart Street.’
‘We can’t!’
He arched an eyebrow and the dark dangerous look in his eyes made her shiver. ‘I will brook no refusal.’
‘What about Hawick?’
‘Do you want me to kill him?’ he asked softly.
‘No!’ The word shot from her mouth because she did not know whether he was serious or in jest. ‘He could sue, and the last thing you need is a scandal.’
‘Do not worry, I will sort matters with Hawick.’ He brushed his lips against hers, as if sealing a promise, and only then released her bound wrists.
Wrapping his domino more tightly around her to cover her semi-nakedness, he scooped her up into his arms and carried her down the stairs, through the crowded hallway and out into the night.
* * *
The house in Hart Street was exactly as she had left it. In every detail. All the servants were still in place. There were flowers in the hallway vase. Lamps were aglow.
It felt cosy and warm and safe. As if she had never left.
He took her straight upstairs and into the bedchamber, kicking the door shut behind him, before setting her down on her feet.
A small fire burned on the hearth, casting their shadows to dance upon the walls.
What had happened between them the last time they were in this room seemed a lifetime ago.
‘Take off that dress.’ She saw the way his expression hardened when he looked at the remains of the dress that still hung on her body.
She stripped it off, letting it fall on the floor around her ankles like the blood of her shame.
‘I couldn’t tell him of Miss Rouge. He didn’t understand when I said I didn’t like red.’ She stared at the dress, remembering the horror of everything that it represented for her and wondering if she would have been able to go through with it tonight with Hawick, had Razeby not saved her.
She let the silk fall away and stood there naked. Razeby’s glance held hers, then he lifted the dress from where it lay and, taking her hand in his, led her to the fireplace.
He passed her the crumple of red silk and she threw it into the flames. Hand in hand they stood there and watched it burn, watched in silence until it curled and blackened and crumbled away to ash.
Turning to him, she looked up into his face. The tears were spilling from her eyes to roll down her cheeks, but they were tears of love and relief, tears of what just being with him at this moment meant. ‘I don’t know why I’m crying. I hardly cried all my life. And now I just can’t seem to stop. I’ve turned into a watering can.’
He smiled and gently kissed away her tears.
He did not say a word. Just stripped off all of his clothes until he stood naked before her. Her man. Her lover. The father of the child that grew within her. A child made of their love. He was so tall and strong and handsome...so beloved.
She reached out her hand and laid it against his heart, feeling the rhythm of its strong steady beat. He captured her fingers, placed a kiss in the very centre of her palm that had lain against his heart. There was no need for words.
He carried her to the bed. And he made love to her. And she made love to him. And it was the gentlest, most moving moment of her whole life. A merging of hearts and souls. An acknowledgement of a love that defied all. And afterwards he held her in his arms and looked deep into her eyes. He said nothing in all those minutes. Just studied her.
His own eyes looked dark and serious in the amber glow of the firelight.
‘You do know that I am not going to let you go, Alice?’
She smiled at that, but there was a sadness in her heart. ‘You are marrying Miss Darrington on Tuesday.’
‘How can I marry Miss Darrington when I love you and you love me, and...’ his gaze dropped to her belly ‘...you are carrying our child?’
She swallowed. ‘Are you asking me to be your mistress?’
‘Not my mistress. And not asking.’
Her eyes widened as his meaning hit home. ‘We can’t marry, Razeby!’
‘We can’t not, Alice.’
She stared at him.
‘What would you not give to protect the babe in your belly from hardship and censure and danger? What would you not give to ease his way in a difficult world?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I would give my all.’
‘And so, too, would I, Alice.’
She could feel their hearts beat in unison, hear the s
oft sound of their breath as they lay there.
‘Would you have our child bear the label of bastard? Would you deny him the protection of my name, my wealth, my rank? Or our son his birthright, to accede to Razeby and inherit all that he is due?’
Her heart swelled with the enormity of what he was saying, what he was offering. She stared into his eyes, knowing he was right. ‘No,’ she said softly. ‘I would not.’
‘The child changes everything, Alice,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Yes, he does.’
Their eyes held, locked in such tenderness.
He smiled. ‘You do know you are going to have to marry me?’
She smiled, too. ‘I suppose that I do.’ But the tears began to spill again, tears of happiness and of joy.
He reached out and wiped each precious one away. ‘Console yourself, my love.’ A teasing light shone in his eyes. ‘I am a marquis, wealthy, good looking and great in bed—or so I once was told.’ He smiled with that wicked gleam that made her heart bloom.
‘Stop it, you wicked man!’
They smiled together.
But as he looked into her eyes the teasing faded away. His gaze was soft but serious. Very gently he brushed a tender kiss against her lips. ‘You are my love. You will be my wife and the mother of my child. And as such, there is something that you need to know, Alice. Something I probably should have told you a long time ago.’
A shadow moved in the depths of his eyes, and her heart tightened and she knew that something bad was coming, before he stoked her cheek one final time, before he moved away to sit naked on the edge of the bed.
* * *
How did a man tell the woman he loved such a thing? He did not know the words to say. They had been hidden for a lifetime, never spoken to another soul. Every single one that came to his tongue seemed clumsy and inadequate. He raked a hand through his hair and felt the dread seep through his blood. He took a deep breath.
Alice seemed to understand, for she rose and came to sit on the edge of the bed by his side and took his hand within her own.
‘Start at the beginning, Razeby,’ she said. She was so calm.
He nodded and did as she instructed. ‘I was seven years old when my father’s final illness claimed his life. He knew he was dying. On that last day he sent my mother away and bade me sit with him. The doctors had dosed him with so much laudanum, but he was still in pain.’
Alice did not rush him. She did not question. She was just there beside him, with him, and it was enough.
‘He told me that my grandfather had died at thirty years of age. That he, too, was dying at thirty. That a weakness of the lungs runs in the men of our family. That it was some sort of curse from which we could not escape.’
Razeby closed his eyes at the memory. He saw his father frail and wasted in that dim-lit room and heard again that laboured and breathless voice. ‘Marry and breed before you are thirty. Marry and breed an heir before it is too late.’ Razeby spoke those same words aloud.
For Razeby and its future. Do you understand, James?
In his mind he saw the boy who had stood there and answered, I understand, Father.
‘I held his hand and watched him die.’
‘Razeby,’ she whispered and her fingers warmed the chill from his own. ‘That is much for a boy of seven to bear.’
He swallowed and turned his gaze to meet hers. ‘I will be thirty in four months, Alice.’
It took a moment before the realisation crossed her face. ‘You have lived your whole life believing that you will die at thirty,’ she said slowly.
‘It sounds ridiculous now I come to say it out loud.’
‘You were seven years old, Razeby. It’s only natural for a boy to believe his father’s words and take them to his heart. Even a father who was dosed high on laudanum.’
Her words made him see it in a different way. When he looked back he saw how disturbed his father must have been by the drug and the prospect of his imminent death. ‘They never left my heart. Beneath their shadow I sought hedonism and thrills and pleasure. I had a plan, you see, of exactly when to undertake that last task of duty.’ He paused. ‘And then I met you.’ He threaded his fingers through hers. ‘And I did not want to give you up. You changed everything. You changed me. I fell in love.’
She smiled and brought his fingers to her mouth and kissed them.
‘It is why I did not ask you to marry me. I would have done it in a heartbeat, but we both know that the same people who love you as Miss Sweetly will despise you as the Marchioness of Razeby. I could not subject you to that cruelty, knowing I would not be here to protect you. But the baby changes everything.’
‘Oh, Razeby,’ she said with a sad smile.
They sat in silence and her eyes studied his. ‘Your father was a sickly man.’
‘Weak lungs, the doctor said. The same as my grandfather before him.’
‘But not you.’
‘We cannot know that.’
‘You’re forgetting, Razeby, I know exactly what you can do with that breath of yours. And there’s nothing weak about it.’ She arched her eyebrow, teasing him, but her eyes were soft.
He smiled.
‘Atholl’s father, your father’s brother—did he pass away at thirty?’
‘He died last year, aged fifty-seven, having drunk a bottle of port every day of the last twenty years.’
‘No weak lungs there, then.’
‘No.’
They smiled.
‘My granddaddy used to say that the length of a man’s life was as uncertain as the wind.’ She smiled, but it had a poignancy to it. ‘Thirty years, or three score and more, who knows? Why worry, Razeby? Just to live is the miracle. To love, even more so.’
‘Maybe you have the right of it. You are my miracle, Alice.’ She shone a light in the darkness and made it fade away.
‘And you’re mine. Come here, you foolish man.’ She rose and moved to stand before him. sliding her hand to rest against the nape of his neck and pulled his mouth to hers. ‘You should have spoken to me of your worry long ago.’
‘I should have,’ he admitted.
‘What am I going to do with you, Razeby?’
‘Do you wish me to give you a few suggestions?’ He smiled.
‘Maybe later,’ she teased and then the teasing dropped away and she kissed him in earnest, with tenderness and with love.
He wrapped his arms around her and they lay back on the bed and loved. And Razeby knew that she was right. Everything was going to be all right. Because of Alice and their love.
* * *
Razeby left Hart Street and had his coach take him directly to St James’s and Linwood’s apartments. It was midnight when he knocked on the door.
Linwood had not long returned from the masquerade. His black domino still lay over the back of the sofa where he had thrown it. The black Venetian mask sat on the occasional table alongside a half-full glass of brandy. Of Venetia there was no sign, but the door that led into Linwood’s bedchamber was closed.
‘Forgive the late hour of my call.’ Razeby moved to take the wing chair opposite Linwood’s and accepted the glass of brandy that his friend pressed into his hand. ‘I am come from Hart Street.’
‘You spoke to Alice?’
‘I did. Thank you for telling me, Linwood, and for all that you did this night. But there is one more favour I must ask of you. And it is not an insignificant one.’ He paused.
‘I am listening,’ said Linwood.
‘When your father pulled strings with the Archbishop of Canterbury to arrange your marriage to Venetia...’
Linwood smiled.
* * *
On Monday morning Alice woke alone in a beam of sunshine shining through the window. She felt a feeling of warmth that she was here and safe with Razeby, even if he had not yet arrived.
Over on the little hearth the maid had already been in and lit the fire. The bedchamber was warm and cosy. All it lacked was Razeby.
She was about to get up when there was a knock at the door and the maid appeared carrying a tray of light breakfast—bread rolls and toast, butter and jam and honey, a pot of chocolate and one of coffee.
‘Master’s orders,’ said the maid and sat the tray on the bedside table. ‘I’ll be back in half an hour to help you with your toilette.’
* * *
Alice glanced across at the emerald-green silk dress that hung ready and waiting for her, over the dressing screen, the dress that had so much significance for her and for Razeby. So much had happened to her wearing that dress. And today she would be wearing it when she married him.
She dressed carefully, hearing the front door open and the soft murmur of voices in the hallway downstairs as she did so, and knew that Razeby had arrived. He came to her, dropped a kiss on one exposed shoulder before leaning back against the bed post to watch while she pinned her hair up in the same simple style that he loved.
‘How did Miss Darrington take the news?’ She addressed his reflection in the looking glass.
‘She wept,’ he said.
Alice spun round to look at his face. ‘Oh, I feel terrible!’
‘Do not! They were tears of most adamant relief.’
‘I thought she wished to marry you.’ Alice looked at him quizzically.
‘So did I, but it transpires that wish belonged only to her parents. I suspect that Miss Darrington’s heart, like my own, is engaged elsewhere.’
‘Oh!’ Alice said.
‘Oh, indeed.’ Razeby smiled, his eyes moving over her in appreciative perusal. ‘You look beautiful, Alice. But there is something missing.’
‘What have I forgotten?’
‘This,’ he said and from his pocket he took a small black-leather box and handed it to her.
Within the box was the most beautiful emerald-and-diamond ring she had ever seen.
‘To match the dress,’ he explained as he slipped it onto her betrothal finger.
She touched the ring lovingly then slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him. ‘Oh, Razeby,’ she whispered. ‘My love.’
* * *
When Alice walked into the drawing room half an hour later, on the arm of Linwood’s father, the Earl of Misbourne, it was to find the room decked in the prettiest of summer flowers. The sunlight streamed through the window to light the room golden and bright as the love in her heart.
MISTRESS TO THE MARQUIS Page 22
