Mistress to the Marquis. Margaret McPhee

he whispered, and caressed her cheek. His eyes were a dark liquid brown, so filled with both tenderness and desire as they stared into hers.

      ‘Razeby,’ she said softly.

      Their eyes held as he plucked a single deep intimate kiss from her lips.

      He rose, long enough to divest himself of his shirt over his head and unfasten his breeches and drawers. Her fingers were still working upon the buttons of her bodice when he returned.

      ‘Allow me to assist,’ he offered, and then in a move that would have done justice to any Viking warrior in the midst of some rape and pillage Razeby took hold of the neckline and tore the length of the bodice open.

      ‘Such impatience, my lord,’ she chided.

      ‘It is the state you push me to, wench.’

      ‘You’ll be tying me to the bed next.’

      He glanced up at the lengths of black silken cord that dangled from the headboard of the bed. ‘Let us save that game for later.’

      ‘If you insist, Lord Razeby.’

      ‘I do, Miss Sweetly.’

      She smiled at that and felt the place between her thighs grow hotter at the thought.

      He gave a growl as he pushed the flimsy torn linen and sprig muslin aside, exposing her nakedness to the hunger of his gaze.

      ‘Do you know what you do to me?’ She could hear the strain in his voice, see it in his face. He touched her lightly, trailing his fingers across her breasts, making their tips harden and grow unbearably sensitive.

      ‘I could hazard a guess,’ she murmured as he lowered his face, all the while keeping his gaze locked with hers, and flicked his tongue to taste her.

      The gasp escaped her, loud and needful, and in response his torture grew only more exquisite.

      She groaned her need of him, arching her back to thrust her breasts all the more into his mouth so that he suckled her in earnest. Her fingers threaded through the dark feathers of his hair, clutching him to her, wanting him never to stop, wanting this, and more, so much more. He laved her, worked each rosy nipple in full until it was bullet hard and so sensitive that she was in danger of finding the fullness of her pleasure before he had even touched between her legs. She tried to hold back, tried to resist, but, seeing how close she was teetering to the edge, he smiled.

      ‘No mercy, Alice,’ he said in his low, sexy velvet voice and then did something so clever with his tongue that rendered all resistance futile. She let go and exploded in a bliss that was blinding and overwhelming, making her body ripple and shimmer as the pleasure, absolute and all consuming, filled her from head to toe and she was gasping aloud with the wonder of it.

      She was still pulsing inside as his face came up to hers. ‘Razeby,’ she whispered.

      ‘Naughty girl,’ he said and he was smiling.

      She let her hands glide over the pale honey-coloured contours of his shoulders, over the muscles at the top of his arms. He was strong and lean from all the fencing and horse riding and pugilism, his body so different from hers, so much bigger, so masculine.

      ‘It’s all your fault,’ she said.

      ‘Guilty as charged,’ he admitted, and his eyes smouldered all the darker. He kissed all the way up the column of her neck, kissed the line of her jaw, kissed her chin.

      Already she could feel the desire stoke again within her. Her woman’s place between her legs ached for him.

      She scraped her teeth against the naked skin of his shoulder, licked him there, sucked him there while one hand slipped lower to caress the long hard length of him.

      She felt the involuntary contraction of his muscles, heard the sharp intake of his breath as she stroked him.

      ‘Alice.’

      She smiled and bit his shoulder.

      Razeby took her mouth with masterful possession, plunging his tongue into its depths as she wrapped her legs around him and welcomed him home.

      They moved in a dance as old as time itself. A man and his woman, mating, bonding, sharing all that was possible to share on this journey that could have only one destination for them both. Striving together until she was gasping and crying out his name as he spilled his seed within her and she pulsed around him and shattered into a myriad of stardust and magic that transcended all else.

      And afterwards, as ever, he held her safe in his strong arms, curving his body around hers as if he would protect her from all the world. She could feel the stir of his warm breath against her hair and the possessiveness of his hand around her breast, the warmth of his hard masculine body preventing the cooling of her own lover’s rosy glow. His lips brushed against the top of her head and her heart gave a little dance of utter happiness and joy. She snuggled in closer and basked in the aftermath of their lovemaking.

      But when she opened her eyes to look into his she glimpsed again something of that same pensive undercurrent that she had seen in the drawing room. She stroked her fingers against the faint blue stubble of his cheek. ‘What’s wrong, Razeby?’ He was not his usual self. He had not been entirely himself for the last weeks. ‘You’ve something on your mind.’ Please God, don’t let it be what she had been writing upon the desk. If he asked about that, she was not sure what she was going to tell him.

      He looked into her eyes, studied them, and just for a moment she thought he was going to tell her. Then it was gone, replaced by that smile of his that made her melt inside.

      ‘Nothing that cannot wait a little longer.’ He caught her fingers from his cheek and pressed them to his lips.

      But she was not so easily reassured. A little whisper of unease stroked down her spine. ‘Razeby,’ she began, but he rolled her on to her back and followed to cover her, staring down into her face all the while.

      ‘Please not yet,’ he said, and it sounded almost like a prayer; then he silenced any further protestations with a kiss. The kiss led to another, and another, until the passion that consumed them made all else fade away.

       Chapter Two

      Razeby stood by the window of his study in his town house in Leicester Square, observing all of normality go on in the street outside. A carriage rolled by, the Earl of Misbourne’s crest painted upon its door. A coal cart rattled slowly out of the nearby mews, its load lessened following its delivery. Two gentlemen upon horseback had pulled over by the gardens to greet each other. Servants hurried along the pavements on errands for their masters. A nursemaid was taking a baby for a walk in a child’s pushchair. He turned away from the window at that last sight.

      The brandy decanter was sitting on his desk. The heavyweight crystal engraved with the Razeby coat of arms and motto—The Name of Razeby Shall Prevail—was a taunting irony. Regardless of the earliness of the hour he lifted the decanter, filled one of the matching engraved glasses, and took a sip.

      The heat of the brandy hit the back of his throat, the smooth warmth tracing all the way down to his stomach. He took a deep breath and set the glass down upon the letter that lay open upon his desk. A bead of the rich tawny liquid trickled down from the glass’s rim, slipping slowly, inexorably, down the stem to the base, where it finally crept upon the paper beneath to blur the inky words his cousin Atholl had written there—Atholl, who had defied all advice to buy a commission in the cavalry and taken himself off to fight against Napoleon. Yet another reminder. Everywhere Razeby looked there were reminders.

      There was not a sound within the house. Only the slow steady tick of the tall clock in the corner, marking how quickly time was slipping away. He had left it so late, almost too late. He could leave it no longer.

      He thought of Alice, his Alice, with her beautiful dark blue eyes and her passion and her warmth of heart and spirit, of how much she had been looking forward to the fireworks tonight. He thought of Alice and all