Mistress to the Marquis. Margaret McPhee

elsewhere. Cutting her, as the rules of polite society dictated. As if she were some stranger. As if she were not the woman he had loved every night of the past six months.

      But he could see her in his peripheral vision, that blur of yellow and cream and blonde, slight beside the tall loom of Hawick’s darkness. And he could hear the rustle of the silk of her skirts, hear the distinctive lilt of her softly spoken words, smell the faint scent of her perfume.

      His heart beat faster.

      He could sense her, feel her, the awareness as sharp as if his eyes were studying her every detail.

      He measured every step that brought them ever closer on this path, knowing that they must pass one another, that it was far too late for retreat. Neither of them could turn away from this.

      He knew that Alice’s attention was all fixed on Hawick. As if she had not even noticed Razeby. As if she were cutting him every bit as much as he were cutting her. And he should be glad of it. Truly he should. But it was not gladness that he felt as the little group strolled towards him and his party through the sunshine.

      Every step brought her nearer.

      Five feet… She was so close now that he could hear the soft breathiness of her laughter at Hawick’s joke.

      Four feet… Everything sharpened. Everything focused. The hushed ripple of grass blades in the breeze. The sweep of her eyelashes, soft as a butterfly’s wing.

      Three feet… The sound of his breath. Alice.

      Two feet. The beat of his heart… and of hers. Alice.

      One foot… Razeby turned his gaze to Alice. And in that very last moment, that second in which all of time seemed to slow and stop, she raised her eyes to meet his.

      The jolt hit his stomach and rippled right through his body. It was as if they were the only two people in the park. As if all of the past six months flashed between them in stark vivid clarity. As if the dark blue depths of her eyes swallowed him up and submersed the whole of him in this moment and this woman and all that was beating through him.

      Their gazes locked and held. And he could not look away, not if all of the future depended on it, which in a way it did.

      And then the moment was past.

      She was past.

      Walking on with Hawick and the others. Walking away from him.

      His steps never faltered. He kept on walking. As if nothing had just happened.

      No one else noticed. Everything else went on just the same. Miss Pritchard’s fingers still lay upon his arm. Mrs Pritchard was still selling the family pedigree behind him, her younger daughter chipping in smart little comments here and there.

      But Razeby was not the 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.