Regency Desire: Mistress to the Marquis / Dicing with the Dangerous Lord. Margaret McPhee

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      ‘What do you mean?’ Sara looked hurt. ‘She’s fine about Razeby.’

      ‘Even so,’ countered Ellen.

      ‘What aren’t you telling me?’ Alice asked.

      There was a resounding silence.

      ‘Out with it,’ she said.

      ‘Razeby’s kept the house on,’ said Ellen at last.

      ‘That can’t be right,’ Alice murmured before she could stop herself.

      ‘It is,’ insisted Sara. ‘He’s been seen there.’

      ‘Why on earth would Razeby do that?’ Alice asked, her pace subconsciously slowing.

      Sara raised her brows, widened her eyes and gave her that look that brought a blush of embarrassment to Alice’s cheeks.

      It was Tilly who finally told her. ‘The rumour is it ain’t just a bride he’s looking for, Alice, but a new mistress. We thought you knew.’

      Alice felt the words hit her hard. She glanced away to hide her shock. ‘Rumours aren’t always true.’

      They all looked at her in a way that made her regret saying the words aloud.

      ‘Going in there late at night. Leaving early in the morning. A girl doesn’t have to be a bluestocking to work it out,’ said Sara.

      ‘You know what men are like.’ Tilly patted her arm as if to console her.

      ‘I do.’ And yet she thought Razeby different. Even now. Even after all that had happened. It could not be true. She knew Razeby. And what he was doing was about duty, no matter how much she disliked the way he had gone about doing it.

      ‘It’s always about what’s in their breeches,’ said Ellen.

      ‘It is,’ agreed Alice with a smile to mask how much she was still reeling from the revelation.

      ‘But you didn’t leave anything behind, did you?’ Sara persisted.

      Alice’s smile broadened. ‘I didn’t leave one thing.’ But, in truth, she had left a lot more than a diamond bracelet and some expensive dresses.

      ‘You don’t want some other woman getting her hands on anything that’s rightfully yours.’

      Tilly and Ellen nodded in agreement with Sara’s words.

      Alice laughed. ‘I don’t think there’s any danger of that.’

      ‘Glad to hear it, girl.’ Tilly slipped her arm through hers.

      ‘Come on—’ Ellen gave a smile ‘—I need some new stockings and Benjamin Preece has been advertising ladies’ white silk hose made of real China silk for only 7s 6d a pair.’

      ‘I could do with some stockings myself,’ said Alice, denying the disquiet she was feeling. ‘And then we’ll go and have tea.’

      ‘Like ladies.’ Ellen raised her eyebrows and affected a posh accent.

      They giggled like girls.

      ‘Preece’s it is,’ said Alice and, with her arm still linked in Tilly’s, the group made their way towards Preece’s warehouse.

      In all of the days that followed the shopping trip Alice could not stop thinking about Razeby keeping on the house in Hart Street. It worried at her, like a dog at a bone. She tried to push the thought out of her head, throwing herself all the more into her parts on the stage over those next few nights, and afterwards, in the Green Room, working the room with a charm and a control that would have done all of Venetia’s best teachings proud. But none of it stopped her thinking. At night, in bed, the thought was there just the same.

      She looked at herself in the peering glass. There were much prettier women out there. Women who put her ordinary looks in the shade. She sucked in her tummy, examined her teeth and scrubbed a finger against the faint freckles that marred the bridge of her nose. Maybe he really had just grown tired of her. Maybe he had lied and misled her because he did not have the courage to tell her the truth.

      She shook her head, unable to believe it. Razeby had more integrity in his little finger than the whole of any other man she had known. And rumours were just that, she told herself. A fire of gossip over nothing.

      But all rumours started with a grain of truth, the little sharp thought countered.

      And then pricked away at her relentlessly. Even if it was true, what difference did it make? she demanded.

      But it did make a difference. Alice knew that, no matter how hard she tried to pretend otherwise. And because of that she knew she was going to have to discover the truth for herself.

      She rose much earlier than normal the next day.

      ‘Shall I fetch you a hackney carriage, Miss Sweetly?’ the youngest maid, Rosie, asked.

      Alice shook her head. ‘It’s a fine morning. I’ve a mind to walk and take the air.’

      ‘I’ll just fetch my cloak, ma’am. At this hour of the day it’s still a bit chilly out there.’

      ‘Don’t bother yourself, Rosie. I’ve some lines to think through, it’s best if I walk alone.’

      ‘Very good, ma’am.’ The maid bobbed a curtsy and opened the door for her.

      The hour was still early enough that the streets were quiet. The ground was damp with rain that no longer fell, and, as the maid had warned, the morning was still cool with the night’s chill. But the sun was out and the air was bright and clear, just the way she liked.

      She walked slowly, breathing in the damp freshness of the air, while all around her London stirred. Carts with animals and vegetables come up from the country for the market rolled by. Milk maids leading cows by a rope, a gaggle of geese still wearing the little shoes to save their feet from all the miles they had walked. Alice walked, too, down Mercer Street and along Long Acre, crossing over to walk down Banbury Court. And, finally, onto Hart Street.

      She strolled as if it were just a street like any other. Pretended not to even look at the house in which she had lived with Razeby. She deliberately stayed on the other side of the road. But her feet trod slower and her heart beat faster, and as she came closer her eyes fixed upon the building that had been her home for half a year.

      It looked just the same as when she had left it. As if she could walk back in there right now and turn back time to be what it had been not so long ago. But then the fittings and furniture came with the house when Razeby had rented it, just as hers had come with the new rooms in Mercer Street. It did not mean that the house was not in other hands. It was just a damn rumour and she was a fool for even being here.

      But at the very moment she chided herself with that thought, the black glossy front door opened. And Alice’s heart jumped at the prospect of being caught here spying. She ducked out of sight behind a tree. Her fingers held hard on to the wide gnarled trunk as she watched while a tall, dark-haired handsome man she recognised too well emerged.

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