Chapter One

       London, England—April 1811

      ‘Razeby, you surprise me! I wasn’t expecting you until later.’ Much, much later. Miss Alice Sweetly’s fingers were flustered as she shoved the sheet of paper she had been writing upon into the drawer and rammed it shut, but her sudden anxiety had nothing to do with not being ready for her protector. Within seconds she was on her feet and hurrying towards the Marquis of Razeby to distract his interest from the desk. ‘You’ve caught me unawares.’

      ‘Forgive me, Alice. I did not mean to startle you when you were so absorbed.’ Razeby said in his rich, aristocratic voice.

      ‘Hardly absorbed. I was just writing a letter to a friend.’ In her nervousness her natural soft Irish lilt grew stronger than ever and she felt her face burn with traitorous colour at the lie.

      ‘Lucky friend.’ Razeby smiled with his usual good nature.

      She tensed in case he meant to quiz her on the fictitious letter and friend. But, true to form, Razeby trusted her and did no such thing. He did not even glance over at the little bureau.

      ‘Finish your letter. I will fetch myself a brandy while I wait.’

      ‘I’ll do no such thing.’ Embarrassment rippled through her, making her face grow hotter just at the thought of sitting back down at the desk with him watching. With a glance down at her shabby moth-nibbled woollen shawl and the morning dress beneath it, with its old-fashioned style, the pretty muslin faded and worn, she changed the subject. ‘Look at the state of me! I’m only wearing this old thing to keep my fine clothes good.’ It was a habit she found hard to break, having grown up with nothing. ‘And I’ve a lovely silk ready to wear tonight. I best get up the stairs and change into something decent.’ She made to pass him.

      But Razeby swept an arm around her waist, stilling her panic and pulling her against him. ‘Relax, Alice. You look beautiful just as you are. As ever.’ His eyes, deep brown and true, met hers as he stroked an escaped strand of hair away from her cheek. ‘And have I not told you, it is not the clothes that are important, but the woman beneath?’

      ‘Flatterer,’ she accused, but she smiled and his tall, masculine body in such proximity sent waves of attraction and excitement crashing through her.

      ‘It is the truth as well you know it.’ Razeby could charm the birds down from the trees. He was still smiling as he pulled her closer. ‘But if you have a wish for a new wardrobe, then you shall have one.’

      ‘I’ve no wish for a new wardrobe. I’ve enough dresses up those stairs to clothe half the women in London!’

      ‘I like buying you things—it makes you happy.’ He gathered her right hand in his left. ‘And I want you to be happy, Alice.’

      Alice tried to curl her fingers to hide the black inkstains that marred her fingers, but Razeby did not let her. He slid his thumb to rub against the marks on her skin.

      ‘Mmm…’ His eyes lingered over the inkstains before moving teasingly to hers. ‘I do believe a new pen is a requirement.’

      ‘No.’ She laughed, but her face flamed anew at the mention of writing and of the precious silver pen that was so dear to her. ‘I don’t want another pen. I like the one I’ve got just fine.’

      ‘I am very glad of that,’ Razeby murmured huskily and pressed her inkstained fingers to the warmth of his lips.

      ‘You know I’m happy. Very happy…’ She paused before adding softly, ‘And not because of the things you buy for me.’ It was the truth.

      He smiled a strange, almost poignant, smile, stroked his fingers against her cheek and stared into her eyes.

      And it did not matter that she had been his mistress for six months, sleeping with him nearly every one of those nights. When he looked at her with that look in his eyes she felt that same flare of desire that had sparked between them the very first moment they met in the Green Room of the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden. Indeed, familiarity had not diminished the passion, or all that had grown alongside, between them, only sharpened and heated it. Her stomach turned cartwheels, her skin tingled all over and her thighs seemed to burn. He glanced away, over towards the window, a pensive, sombre expression upon his face. ‘Alice…’

      But whatever he meant to say was lost as she gently took hold of his face, turned it to hers and kissed away the worry that she saw there.

      Razeby retaliated in kind, his mouth passionate and warm and irresistible as the night he had first kissed her in the moonlight outside the theatre stage door.

      Breaking the kiss, she watched him as she smiled, a mischievous smile this time, and let her hand stroke lightly over the hard bulge in his breeches. He swallowed and she felt the shiver that rippled through his body, felt the way it strained to meet her and heard the slight catch of the breath in his throat.

      He caught her hand in his own and moved it away from temptation, his eyes darkening to that familiar smoulder that made the fire of desire twist and curl and dance all the more, low in her belly. ‘Alice, you are a wicked woman,’ he breathed in a velvet voice that tickled against her ear and sent a shiver tingling across her skin.

      ‘Very wicked, indeed, Razeby.’ Her top teeth caught at her bottom lip. ‘So wicked that you might need to put me across your knee and spank me.’

      ‘I would be remiss in my duty to you if I did not do so.’ She could hear the low stroke of desire beneath his words.

      ‘And the one thing about you, Razeby, is that you’re never remiss in your duty.’ Again she thought she saw the shift of a shadow in his eyes so she teased her skirts higher to flash him a glimpse of a stockinged ankle, wanting to make him forget whatever was troubling him. And it worked.

      ‘Be careful, Miss Alice Sweetly,’ he cautioned.

      ‘I prefer to be reckless, James Brundell, Marquis of Razeby. But isn’t that the truth of why you like me?’ She arched an eyebrow and playfully unfastened the buttons at the top of her bodice, allowing the dress to gape and reveal the bulge of her breasts over the transparent linen of her shift.

      Razeby’s eyes darkened. His focus narrowed and sharpened upon her. He swallowed, then wetted his lips. ‘Alice, you are a temptation I cannot resist.’

      ‘I hope so.’ She laughed, and one by one she plucked the pins from her hair, until the neatly coiled length of fair hair loosened and tumbled long and wanton over her shoulders.

      Razeby discarded the neatly fitted dark tailcoat on the sofa behind him. His fingers moved to the buttons of his pale waistcoat, unfastening it and shrugging it off. Around his neck his white cravat was still neatly tied in a fashionable knot. She reached and tugged an end of it, pulling it free and draping it over the back of the sofa. Through the fine white lawn of his shirt she could see a hint of his flesh and the dark peppering of hair that covered it. Her eyes swept lower to the tight buckskin of his breeches that did little to disguise the extent of his arousal or the long muscular thighs beneath. And lower still to the glossy black riding boots that were coated with dust from his having ridden from his own town house in Leicester Square to the one he kept for her here in Hart Street.

      She knew the body beneath those clothes, intimately, every inch of honey-coloured skin, every hard taut muscle. She knew the sweep of his tight buttocks and the breadth of his chest, the feel of his skin beneath her fingertips and the way his heart beat fast and hard after he had loved her. She knew the scent of him, the feel of him, the taste of him and the way he made her heart blossom with such warm tenderness. It just made her want him all the more.

      She turned round and, sticking