MISTRESS TO THE MARQUIS by Margaret McPhee Read Free Book Online

knew better than to write. But as soon as she turned the letter over in her hands she knew without opening it, without needing to be able to read a single word of it, the identity of the sender.
    ‘Have him wait, Meg,’ she instructed.
    The thick red-wax seal impressed upon the back was a crest she recognised too well. One that made her pulse thrum uncomfortably hard and her heart beat too fast with anger and too many other emotions she would rather not name. She swallowed, torn between not wanting to open it and the need to know what lay beneath that seal. Wetting her lips, she swallowed again and cracked the wax. The letter unfolded. Inside was a cheque with Razeby’s name signed against a sum she could not read. The letter itself was blank other than signed with his name. That familiar bold black scrawl—Razeby.
    It was her severance pay, a common enough negotiation between mistresses and the men in whose keeping they had been. A lump sum to tide them over until they found their next protector. Or to keep them for life. But for Alice there would be no new protector. And she would keep herself, earn her own money. Venetia had been right in that. Too late she realised just what her friend had been warning her against.
    She stared at the cheque. She might not know the figure written there, but she knew it was high. Common sense and practicality told her she should accept it. Take it to the bank this very day. You had to be careful with money. Save it. Look after it. The future was never certain and life without money could be very hard indeed. Who better than Alice knew that? But when she looked at the cheque, Razeby’s money, and all that it meant, she could not bring herself to do it.
    Folding the cheque within the letter just as it had been, she heated a blob of rich red wax and let it drip to cover and melt away Razeby’s crest. Within a few moments it had cooled and the letter was sealed once more, the wax disc smooth and even.
    She took it out to the footman who waited in the hallway. A footman she recognised from Razeby’s town house in Leicester Square. He recognised her, too, although he said nothing. If he knew the contents of the letter, he gave no sign.
    ‘If you would be so kind as to return this to Lord Razeby.’
    ‘Certainly, Miss Sweetly. Is there a message you wish relayed?’ he enquired.
    ‘None other than what is within the letter.’ She smiled at him.
    ‘Very good, miss.’ He bowed and left.
    Alice watched him go.
    It had taken Razeby less than a week to find her. Just for a minute she wondered if Venetia had told him. But she knew in her heart her friend would never have broken her word. Razeby was a marquis, a man of power and money and contacts, all of which he had clearly used.
    But he could keep his money. She would not touch a damn penny of it.

Chapter Six
    R azeby had checked every entry in the estate account books. The task kept his mind from wandering to other thoughts he had no wish to think. Thoughts of the future. And even more thoughts of the past...with Alice.
    Lifting the pen, he made to enter the figure in the column at the bottom of the open page and found the inkwell dry. He opened the top drawer of his desk to find a fresh bottle of ink and saw, lying there, the cheque he had written to her.
    He stilled, his eyes fixed upon it. Four thousand pounds, twice what was specified in their contract, and she had sent it back as if it were some kind of insult. Some men might have construed it as a means of angling for more money, but Razeby knew in his gut that it was not. There was a finality about it, a closure rather than an opening of negotiation, and it made him uncomfortable. Had she asked for three times the sum he would have felt happier. Maybe then he would not be worrying over her.
    The memory came again of the expensive dresses still hanging in the wardrobe at Hart Street, all the jewellery still in its casket, the diamond bracelet abandoned upon the bed. And the same