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

I don’t want your money, Razeby.

      The words whispered again in his ear. It was that one phrase more than any other that worried him.

      Last night had been about a clean, quick break. It was the only way. The best way for them both. Just as he had told Linwood. The theory of it had been easy, the practice anything but. He had handled it badly. More than badly. He wondered if he could have handled it worse.

      Alice had been good to him, good for him. She was like no one he had ever known. It explained the gnawing feeling he had felt since telling her. Guilt. He should make sure she was all right, now and for the future. He should up the sum of her severance payment from that which his lawyer had specified in the contract, regardless of what she said.

      He delivered Miss Thomson back to her mother. And bowed.

      Hurt me? Don’t flatter yourself, Razeby. He was not sure he believed her. The thought niggled him. He felt the guilt gnaw harder, even though he had spoken the truth to her. Arrangements like theirs were not meant to last. But he could not stop wondering how she was.

      ‘Leaving so early?’ Linwood raised an eyebrow. ‘The night is still young, Razeby.’

      ‘Breaking myself in gently, Linwood,’ he lied. ‘There are only so many débutantes a man can endure in one evening.’

      ‘Do you want to go to White’s to recover?’

      ‘Another night,’ said Razeby.

      The lights glowed through the blind-shuttered windows. The house in Hart Street looked as welcoming as ever it had done. He wondered if he had made a mistake in coming here. But he needed to reassure himself that she was all right.

      ‘What do you mean she is gone?’ It had been the early hours of this morning when he had left her here alone. Not even twenty-four hours had elapsed since that botched confrontation.

      He saw the awkwardness of the butler’s expression before the man remembered his professional decorum and schooled his face to the usual attentive impassivity.

      ‘Miss Sweetly was out all day, my lord, returning earlier this evening to pack a travelling bag.’

      Something twisted in his chest. ‘Did she leave a note?’

      ‘There is no note, my lord.’ There was something in the way the old man’s eyes looked at him that made him feel even more of a bastard. He paused before adding, ‘She gave instructions that she would not be returning.’

      ‘And did Miss Sweetly say where she was going? Or leave a forwarding direction?’ Razeby knew in his heart what the answer to those questions would be, but he asked them in the hope that he was wrong.

      ‘No, my lord, she did not.’

      ‘But she must have given a direction to John Coachman?’

      ‘Miss Sweetly did not travel by your lordship’s coach when she left.’

      He understood the significance of that very clearly. She did not want him to find her, and, in truth, he could not blame her.

      Razeby dismissed the butler and climbed the stairs to the bedchamber they had shared. Everything looked just the same as it always did, as if last night had been just some bad dream. The wall sconces on either side of the fireplace were lit, the flames of their candles reflecting soft and subdued in their adjoining looking glasses. The roses he had brought her not a week ago were still in their vase. A small fire burned on the hearth, making the room cosy and warm. The scent of her was in the air, the sense of her entwined in the very fibres of the place.

      Her jewel casket still sat upon her dressing table, beneath the lid all of what he had given her lying neat in their own little compartments.

      He walked to her wardrobe, opened up the door. There were only a few spaces where garments no longer hung. The myriad of coloured dresses that he had paid for from Madame Boisseron’s were still there. Their matching slippers and shoes sat in neat pairs at the bottom of the wardrobe. On an impulse he opened his own matching wardrobe and saw all of his clothes just as he had left them.

      He closed the doors over, letting his eyes survey the rest of the room. Nothing was out of place… except… His gaze stilled when it came to the ivory bedcovers, neat and smooth upon the mattress, for laid carefully upon them, in their very centre, was the brown-velvet box opened to reveal the cream-velvet cushion and the diamond bracelet that lay sparkling upon it.

      He felt his jaw clamp tight and a cold realisation seep through his blood. Alice had gone. He did not know where. Without her severance payment. Without a single thing he had bought for her. And there could be nothing for the best about that.

      ‘I came as soon as I got your message.’ Alice’s best friend and mentor, the woman who had saved her from her life in Mrs Silver’s bawdy house and set her up as an actress, Venetia Fox, or Viscountess Linwood as she was now, handed her cloak to Alice’s new maid and followed Alice through to the drawing room of her new home in Mercer Street.

      ‘You must have dropped what you were doing and come straight away. I only sent the boy half an hour ago.’

      ‘You are my friend, Alice. What else did you expect I would do?’ There was a concern in Venetia’s face that made Alice feel guilty.

      ‘I didn’t mean to worry you, Venetia. I was just letting you know where I was.’

      ‘I am glad that you did. I really have been worried.’ Venetia sat down next to her on the sofa and took her hands in hers. ‘What happened?’

      Alice smiled as if the words were easy to say. ‘He gave me my congé. Said it’s time he found himself a bride.’

      ‘Oh, Alice, I am so sorry.’

      ‘Don’t be. It had to happen one day. I’m an actress. He’s a marquis. How else was it going to end?’ She shrugged and gave a little laugh. ‘Besides, I was tired of him. I fancied a bit of a change, myself.’ The joking words tripped easily from her lips.

      Venetia did not look convinced. ‘Neither of you could have anticipated what happened to Atholl. I suppose it made Razeby see things differently.’

      ‘Atholl was a grand excuse for the both of us.’ An excuse for Razeby, more like. She knew now what had been bothering him all those weeks and months leading up to it and she was more fool for being worried over him. ‘Our time was on the wane.’

      ‘You left Hart Street very quickly.’

      ‘Striking while the iron’s hot.’ She smiled. ‘I’ve got myself sorted out. What do you think of the new rooms? I’ve had my eye on them for a little while.’ The smile broadened to become a grin. ‘Nice and handy for the theatre. And not too high a rent.’

      ‘They are very nice. But I did not come to see the rooms, Alice,’ Venetia said carefully.

      ‘You did warn me not to become his mistress. Do you remember?’

      Venetia gave no reply, only held her gaze with eyes that were filled with compassion.

      Alice hated to see it. It made her feel angry and even more determined. She did not want anyone’s pity, not even Venetia’s. ‘You told me it was better to earn your own money than put yourself in any man’s power.’

      ‘And did you put yourself in his power, Alice?’ Venetia asked softly.

      ‘Of course not! I’m not that daft. I knew the score with him. Just as he did with me. With my background, how could I not?’ The secret of her scandalous past whispered between them. She smiled again as if it meant nothing. ‘I kept my hand in at the theatre, didn’t I? Doing the odd appearance. Which is why Kemble’s agreed to take me back full time.’

      ‘I am glad of that.’ But whether Venetia’s gladness was due to Kemble taking her back full time or her attitude over Razeby was not clear. ‘But there is more to power than money, Alice.’ Venetia looked at her.