Regency Desire. Margaret McPhee

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СКАЧАТЬ All sealed with red wax which displayed the crests or monograms of their senders so prominently. Her eyes scanned over the seals, searching for one in particular. She could not help herself. He had been too much in her mind since yesterday and Hyde Park. Although heaven only knew why. She caught what she was doing and, with a harsh sigh of annoyance, averted her eyes and got on with wiping the make-up from her face. Then she slipped into the fawn-silk evening dress that was hanging over the dressing screen.

      A knock sounded on the dressing-room door. The stage hand’s voice shouted through the wood.

      ‘Five minutes to the Green Room, Miss Sweetly. Mr Kemble says to tell you that both the Duke of Hawick and the Duke of Monteith are in again tonight.’

      ‘Right you are, Billy. I’ll be right there.’ She checked her appearance in the peering glass. The woman that looked back from the glass was pale without the thick grease and colour of the stage make-up. And she thought again of that moment in Hyde Park.

      ‘Don’t be such a damned fool, Alice Flannigan, you’re imagining things,’ she whispered to herself, using the name with which she had been born, rather than that she had taken for the stage. ‘You put a smile on your face and get through there, girl. Life goes on—if you’re lucky. And he isn’t worth it.’ She rubbed a little rouge on to her cheeks, added a spot to her lips and tucked an errant strand of hair into place.

      Taking a deep breath, she held her head high, fixed a smile on her face and went to sparkle and entice the gentlemen of the Green Room, just as her contract required.

      ‘Razeby,’ Viscount Bullford exclaimed, wandering over to where Razeby stood filling a plate with choice selections at the débutante picnic. ‘Thought Aunt Harriet would have lampooned you into coming this afternoon.’

      ‘Bullford.’ Razeby gave a nod.

      The weather was sunny and dry, although a slight chill still sat about the fine spring day. The trees surrounding this corner of the park lent a level of protection against the breeze, but not enough to stop the gentle flutter of bonnet ribbons and muslin skirts amongst the ladies milling all around.

      Bullford lifted a small, perfectly formed pork pie from one of the serving dishes on the nearby table and took a bite. ‘Couldn’t get out of it myself. Pater had m’arm up my back. Insisted I had to bring m’friends with me. Apparently too many ladies and not enough gentlemen.’

      ‘You managed to persuade the others to come?’ Razeby raised an eyebrow in surprise.

      ‘Not an easy task, I can tell you, old man.’ Bullford took a deep breath as if the memory of what that had entailed was difficult to bear. ‘Will be years till I can clear the favours owed over this one.’

      Razeby smiled.

      Fallingham, Devlin, Monteith and a few others wandered up, glasses of champagne and large chunks of food in hand.

      ‘How goes the bride search, Razeby?’ Devlin asked.

      ‘Well enough.’ He felt himself tense just at the question.

      ‘Found one yet?’ Fallingham enquired.

      ‘Not yet.’ He kept his face impassive, his manner cool.

      ‘Don’t seem quite yourself of late, Razeby,’ Monteith observed.

      He smiled at the irony of Monteith’s remark. Would any man be the same were he to stand in Razeby’s shoes? ‘Can’t imagine why,’ he said drolly.

      ‘Losing one’s freedom, weddings, wives and nurseries,’ Devlin supplied and gave a shudder.

      The rest of the group chuckled as if that was the reason.

      ‘Not regretting giving up the delightful Miss Sweetly, are you?’ Monteith asked as he helped himself to a bottle of champagne from a passing footman and topped up all their glasses.

      Nonchalantly uttered words, yet they cut through everything to touch some raw inner part of Razeby. It was all he could do not to suck in his breath at the sensation.

      ‘Not at all,’ he said smoothly and held Monteith’s gaze, denying the suggestion all the more.

      ‘Do not know why.’ Monteith smirked. ‘The common consensus is that you have run mad. Dismissing such a little gem when all of London is panting after her.’

      It took every bit of willpower to keep his jaw from hardening and the basilisk stare from his eyes, and to prevent the curl of his fingers into a fist.

      ‘You could have kept her on,’ said Devlin. ‘I would have, had it been me.’

      ‘We all would have,’ said Monteith.

      ‘I am not you.’ And Alice deserved a damn sight more respect than that.

      ‘Why exactly didn’t you keep her on?’ asked Fallingham and stopped sipping his champagne to hear the answer.

      The rest of the group looked at Razeby expectantly, a speculation in their eyes that had not been there before.

      ‘Do you really have to ask?’ he drawled with a deliberate ambiguity that did nothing to answer the question.

      ‘What you need is to get her back in your bed,’ said Fallingham.

      ‘What I need is to get myself a wife.’ He gritted his teeth.

      ‘The two need not be mutually exclusive,’ Monteith commented.

      ‘For me they are,’ Razeby said it with nothing of his usual jest or charm. He smiled, but the smile was hard and his eyes cool. He saw the look that was exchanged between his friends. And he did not care.

      The awkwardness of the moment was alleviated by Bullford’s mother, the formidable Lady Willaston, who appeared amidst their circle. ‘Sorry to interrupt your little chat, gentlemen, but, Lord Razeby, Miss Frome is nigh on ready to swoon with hunger from waiting for the plate of food you went to fetch her some considerable time ago.’

      ‘My humble apologies, ma’am.’ Razeby gave a nod. ‘If you will excuse me, gentlemen.’ Picking up the plate from the table next to him, he made his way back to Miss Frome and her friends.

      On the day after the débutante picnic Alice’s visitors sat in her new little drawing room while she poured tea into the three china cups set on their saucers on the table before her.

      Ellen and Tilly were old friends—they worked secretly as Miss Vert and Miss Rose at the blot in Alice’s past, London’s infamous high class brothel, Mrs Silver’s House of Rainbow Pleasures, in which the courtesans each dressed in a different colour and hid their identities behind feathered Venetian masks.

      ‘You ain’t half landed on your feet, Alice,’ said Tilly, glancing wide eyed round at the warm yellow decor of the drawing room with its gilt-and-crystal chandelier and peering glasses. ‘Razeby must have seen you all right in his severance settlement.’

      Alice smiled and passed the teacups to each of her friends in turn. ‘Of course he did.’

      ‘What did you manage to wangle from him? A suitably large sum and a nice piece of expensive jewellery, I hope,’ Ellen said.

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