‘It is.’
‘The house is Number 44.’
‘You have leased it already?’
‘I own the street,’ he said.
‘Oh, I did not realise,’ she replied.
They looked at one another.
‘Until tomorrow, Miss Sweetly.’ Hawick took hold of her hand and it was all she could do not to snatch it from his grasp. He took it to his lips and kissed her gloved fingers, holding her gaze with his own as he did so, so that she saw the lust there and the arrogance and sense of ownership. A ripple of panic shivered through her. She lowered her eyes that he would not see it and curtsied.
‘Your Grace,’ she murmured.
‘I would offer to walk you home, but I have a feeling that you will refuse me that pleasure.’
‘Your feeling is right, Your Grace.’
‘But you will not refuse me tomorrow, will you, Alice?’
‘No. I’ll not refuse you tomorrow,’ she said quietly.
He smiled at that and, mounting his horse, rode away.
Chapter Twenty
A
lice finished the last of her explanation and turned away from the expression in Venetia’s eyes.
‘You do not have to do this, Alice. You can stay here.’
‘I can’t stay here, Venetia. We both know that. You’re risking much in just having me here for a few days. If it gets out, it could undo all the good work that your ball accomplished.’
‘Alice...’ Venetia’s brow furrowed with concern as she came to take her hand, but she could not deny the truth; they both knew Alice’s presence here was a liability. ‘You can stay at the house in Whitechapel, it is a rough part of town, but there would always be food and shelter. They would not turn you away.’
‘I know.’ But it was too late for that. Besides, Alice needed to earn money for the baby and for her family back home in Ireland. She smiled to soften the refusal. ‘I didn’t unpack my travelling bag. I’ll leave for Sackville Street first thing in the morning.’
‘What are you going to do when Hawick discovers you are pregnant?’
‘I’ll deal with that when it happens.’
‘If you change your mind about Hawick, or if there is trouble with him or anything else, you must come to me. Promise me that, at least.’
‘There won’t be any trouble.’ Alice said it with a confidence she did not feel.
She felt Venetia’s hand squeeze around her own. ‘Promise me, Alice.’
She looked into her friend’s eyes and saw the compassion and concern in them. She remembered all that they had shared and how very much Venetia had done for her.
‘I promise,’ she vowed but she knew she would not risk ruining Venetia’s reputation unless it was a matter of utter desperation.
Venetia hugged her and they both wiped the tears from their eyes.
* * *
The next afternoon Alice faced Hawick across the finely furnished drawing room of the town house he kept for his mistress in Sackville Street. Upstairs in the master bedchamber her travelling bag was already unpacked, her dresses hanging in the wardrobe, her underclothes folded neatly in the drawers.
‘So let me get this straight—you are telling me that you have your monthly courses and cannot sleep with me this night?’
‘It is most unfortunate in its timing.’ She looked him boldly in the eye to tell the lie.
‘Unfortunate indeed,’ he drawled and did not look pleased. ‘You made no mention of it yesterday...when you were abroad in the park. Does not such a malady usually keep women housebound?’
‘It only came on this morning,’ she said and saw his gaze drop to where her fingers were worrying at the crocheted strap of her reticule. A little spurt of fear rippled through her at the direction of his interest and she threw it down on to the corner of the sofa behind her, casually, as if the reticule and its contents meant nothing to her. She wondered what he would do if he were to open it and discover the letter and the engraved silver pen from Razeby.
‘You are not having doubts over our arrangement, are you?’
‘Of course I’m not.’ Another lie to compound all the others. ‘I can’t defy nature, now can I? No matter that I would wish it otherwise.’ She smiled teasingly and forced herself to touch her lips to his cheek.
‘How long do your courses last, Alice?’ he asked, and for all the intimacy of the question the strange thing was that she was thinking that at no point had he asked her permission to call her by her given name.
‘Only a week.’ It was the longest she could ask for without arousing his suspicion. And until she had at least his first payment in her hand she could not afford to do that.
‘Next Saturday?’ He raised a brow to ask the question.
She nodded.
‘Then I will wait a week,’ he said and traced along the edge of her bodice, his fingers skimming the skin of her breasts that were constrained within it. ‘And hope our union is all the sweeter for it.’
She nodded again, but her flesh was crawling where he touched her and the sickness in her stomach was not from the baby.
She had a week’s graciousness. One week. And then there could be no more deferring. She would have to give Hawick what he was paying for. She heard the retreat of Hawick’s footsteps. Heard the close of the front door. She sagged back against the wall and prayed that the days would pass slowly.
* * *
Razeby had prayed the same thing. But the week during which he spent too few of the days with Miss Darrington and too many of the nights carousing in White’s or some gaming hell, trying hard to prove to the world that he was having a great time in his life, passed in a blur of speed. That he was just making the most of his remaining bachelor days, rather than hiding a man whose life felt like it was falling apart. He did not want time to think, to brood, to ponder. He spent every night in company and then, when it was late and he was alone in his town house, he drank himself into oblivion.
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 genuine 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—’