MISTRESS TO THE MARQUIS by Margaret McPhee Page B

same.
    Something had just happened and the force of it shook him more than he wanted to admit. Something had just happened, something which Razeby did not understand.
    * * *
    Alice did not hear what it was that Hawick had been saying to her, all she could hear was the rush of her own blood too loud in her ears and all she could feel was the tremor that vibrated through her body. She deliberately kept her gaze low as if playing coy with Hawick, when in truth, it was to hide the storm of emotion suddenly raging within her.
    She had seen Razeby and his party, the rich, beautiful young woman clinging so possessively to his arm, and the women who could only be her mother and sister walking so proudly behind, the minute she had rounded the corner. And she had prepared herself. Knowing that he had no choice but to cut her. Knowing she had no choice but to not give a damn. To cut him right back.
    And she had almost done it. Would have done it, despite the pound and throb of her heart, and the raw rush of air that rasped in her lungs, and the tight knot that worked itself ever tighter in her stomach, except for that last moment, when it felt like his voice had whispered her name, calling her. The sound of it stroking right down her spine. Tingling against her skin. And she had answered without pausing to think. Yielded to it instinctively.
    And when she looked, those liquid brown eyes had been on hers, not looking away, not cutting her, only holding her as intensely as they ever had done, perhaps even more so. As if all that had gone between them had not ended, but grown only stronger. Her heart was still beating nineteen to the dozen.
    By her side Hawick shifted infinitesimally closer.
    ‘So you will come, Miss Sweetly?’ he was saying.
    She calmed herself, hid the shock of what had just passed between her and Razeby. By the time she raised her eyes to meet Hawick’s she had herself under control again.
    She smiled at him, although she had not the slightest idea of what he had just invited her to. ‘If I’m free,’ she said. ‘I’ll need to check my diary.’ Truly the consummate professional. Venetia, her teacher, would have been proud of her.
    Hawick smiled, too, with a particular interest in his eyes that made her want to shiver in the warmth of the spring sunshine. She hid the urge, along with all the others.
    The party walked on through the park.
    Hawick began another story, but Alice was not listening to Hawick or his story. She was thinking of Razeby and why, despite everything, it felt just like it had done when she had seen him for the very first time.

Chapter Seven
    R azeby dreamed that night that Alice was with him in the bed, that they were still together and all was as it had been.
    ‘Razeby,’ she had whispered in her soft Celtic lilt and stroked her fingers against his cheek. ‘Razeby.’
    Alice. In the dream he had whispered her name through the darkness. ‘Alice,’ the word murmured aloud on his lips as he held her to him, so glad she had found him, to save him from the terrible thing that was coming, although in the dream he could not remember the nature of the dawning threat, no matter how hard he tried.
    The early morning sunlight danced across his eyes, waking him from sleep, dragging him back from his dream world to reality. His body was primed and hard, his erection throbbing for release, but Alice was not in his arms.
    He was alone.
    And he knew the terrible dark thing that was coming.
    The warm comfort of the dream world fell away, leaving in its place the hard coldness of reality and a sinking feeling in his gut. His arousal deflated.
    The sunlight that had crept through the crack in his curtains dimmed behind the greyness of cloud. Razeby threw aside the covers and sat up, swinging his legs round to sit on the edge of the bed, relishing the sting of the cool morning air against the nakedness of his skin. It helped clear his mind of Alice and the bittersweet echo of the dream.
    The clock chimed