punishing him by showing him just what he has lost?’ Venetia asked.
‘Maybe a bit of both. I’m not afraid to face him, Venetia.’
‘You are not afraid of much, Alice Flannigan.’ Venetia’s eyes 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 stared deeply into hers, affecting a smoulder that at best appeared contrived, and at worst as if he had contracted an ocular complaint.
‘How interesting, Mr Frew.’ She smiled.
Razeby would have laughed at the response. Frew just looked slightly aggrieved.
She refrained from teasing him further and resigned herself to a very dull evening in his company. ‘So what was that poem you recited in the Green Room the other night?’
‘I wrote it just for you, Miss Sweetly.’ Frew began to recite the flowery words again, but Wordsworth had nothing to worry about. After two verses she knew that if Frew made one more reference to long thrusting swords and softly dewed maidens she would not be able to keep a straight face.
Halfway through the dance his hand took hers and their steps led them to exchange places. It was the point she had been waiting for. She glanced again towards Razeby, whispering his name in her mind as if to call him.
Razeby’s eyes moved to meet hers, as if answering her call. She watched his gaze drop to her dress and sweep over it before coming back up to her face. She held his gaze, gave him a small teasing smile. Nice? it asked.
Very nice, indeed! His eyes answered with an unmistakable interest.
She gave him a naughty arch of her eyebrows, knowing full well what it would do to him, before she turned back to Frew.
She leaned her mouth closer towards Frew’s ear, let him hold her that little bit closer than respectability decreed. ‘Tell me that last line again, Mr Frew. You do have such a way with words.’
Frew positively puffed out his chest, and, looking like a man that thought his luck was in, he obliged.
By the next time she could glance in Razeby’s direction she saw he was watching Frew with a distinctive glower.
She drew Razeby an admonishing look.
He put on his innocent face.
She gave that smile that told him she was not fooled for a minute by his protested innocence.
He grinned an admission.
The dance took them away from one another. She did not see him again, only Frew. And she could not help feeling a little deflated at that. But not as disappointed as Frew at only being allowed a chaste kiss of her hand when he delivered her home.
When she lay in bed that night it was not Frew she was thinking of or his terrible poetry, but Razeby.
No one could accuse her of avoiding him. Not after Dryden’s. Not after White’s. And not after tonight. She smiled because it felt like her plan was coming together. And she smiled
