MISTRESS TO THE MARQUIS by Margaret McPhee

held hers. ‘I heard you beat him at Dryden’s.’
    ‘I beat them all,’ Alice said carefully.
    ‘At vingt-et-un, ’ pointed out Venetia. ‘Razeby’s game.’
    ‘So?’ Alice gave a shrug, but she knew Venetia understood something of the game’s significance between them.
    ‘You are playing dangerously with him.’
    ‘We always played dangerously, me and Razeby.’
    ‘Such games do not always turn out the way we think.’ Venetia’s warning, though veiled, was unmistakable.
    ‘Maybe not, but sometimes for the sake of our pride we have to play them,’ Alice said and met Venetia’s gaze. ‘I’m getting on with my life, Venetia. I’ll not let Razeby get in the way of that. And if, along the way, he’s made to feel just a tiny bit of regret, is that such a very bad thing?’
    ‘As long as you know what you are doing, Alice.’
    ‘I do, trust me. I’ll flirt with him just the same as the others. But it doesn’t mean anything. Honest.’ She gave a grin. ‘Well, maybe I’ll flirt with the others just that bit more to annoy him!’ She pressed a swift kiss to Venetia’s cheek.
    ‘Alice Flannigan, you are an incorrigible woman.’
    Alice laughed. ‘I’ll say it now because I can’t say it once we’re at the ball. Enjoy the evening. Dance with Linwood until your head’s dizzy. It really is for a good cause. Had there been a similar charity in Dublin years ago, it would have saved my mam a lot of trouble. Being homeless with thirteen mouths to feed isn’t much fun.’
    ‘I hope you enjoy yourself, too, Alice.’
    ‘Oh, I’ll be doing that, all right. You needn’t worry on that account.’
    ‘Will you be all right with Frew?’
    ‘I know how to deal with Frew. He’ll be getting a few dances and not a thing more.’
    The two of them laughed, knowing that Alice could more than handle herself.
    * * *
    The ballroom was crowded. Alice caught sight of Venetia and Linwood standing talking with Linwood’s parents, Lord and Lady Misbourne, and Venetia saw her, but they could not give any acknowledgement, or even appear to notice one another. Ton and demi-monde. Two different worlds indeed, even if they were standing only a few yards apart in the same room.
    Alice was wearing a new dress from Madame Boisseron. It had cost a small fortune, much more than Alice would ever normally have paid for a dress, but she had bought it, and a few others, with the winnings from her card game. The skirt was plain ivory silk, the bodice was gold silk, suggestively cut and fitted, but without even a hint of cleavage on display. The dressmaker had said that it would make every man that looked at it unable to take his eyes from her, which, judging from Frew’s reaction, seemed to have been an accurate prediction.
    It had small gold sleeves that were really just two bands of silk framing her fully exposed, naked shoulders. She wore not so much as a ribbon or a necklace, neither a bracelet nor a ring, and yet Madame Boisseron had been right to say the dress was designed to be worn this way, without a single item of adornment. Alice had known it the moment she looked at herself in the peering glass. And she knew it now from the way every gentleman in the room was looking at her. And the way Venetia raised her eyebrows and sent her a secret smile.
    Razeby was dancing with some respectable young lady across the dance floor. Alice told herself it did not matter. Every man in Razeby’s position had to do the same, eventually. It was just as he had said—he had a duty to marry and provide an heir. She ignored the stab of jealousy and moved her mind to more pleasant thoughts.
    She glanced across at Frew, and the fact that he so clearly thought himself so handsome and a gift to all of womankind made her want to chuckle; he set not a single firework alight in Alice’s arsenal.
    ‘You are looking especially beautiful tonight, Miss Sweetly,’ he said.
    ‘You’re too kind, Mr Frew.’
    ‘My given name is Edward.’ His eyes