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
T
he 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.’
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 floor. 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.