Mistress at Midnight (16 page)

‘You told the court this?’

‘No. I told them only what it was I had seen.’

‘Which was…?’

‘I said that my husband had jumped across a poorly constructed barrier whilst exercising his favourite horse and had fallen badly.’

The music inside the ballroom reached them here, soft and lilting against the harsh truth, her candid honesty allowing the sort of relief she could barely believe was possible and even when he remained silent she did not wish to take it back.

‘The consideration of any family name is important, do you not think, my lord? I felt that generations of Hawkhursts suffering for the poor judgement of one weak-willed relative was unfair and so I chose to offer another explanation.’

When his eyes darkened she turned to watch the night, hating the way her heart beat so very quickly.

Aurelia St Harlow had allowed herself to be ostracized for years for a crime she had not committed and all in the guise of protection? She was a saint rather than a sinner and if his cousin had materialised out of
the darkness then and there he would have killed him himself for everything he had put her through: a court case public and damning and the whispers of her involvement in Charles’s demise following her every move.

He remembered the way she had come through the crowd at his ball as the
ton
had given her the cut direct, her chin held high and a smile set on her face. Like a player just before the curtain rises, a certain brittle confidence in her eyes allowing only the glimpse of fright.

‘A difficult secret.’
Her small nod in response made him swear.

‘And a fiction that has held you a prisoner for years?’

This time she looked at him directly. ‘There is no way to refute all that has been said of me and I would countenance no suggestions otherwise. It is not redemption I am searching for, my lord.’ Her fingers rose to her neck and he saw that the small diamond pendant he had recovered was back in place. ‘Once my sisters are settled into society and I have sold my business I can retire with my father into the very depths of the countryside and I shall never look back.’

The distress in her eyes made his heart
ache. She was like a small and single rose trying to survive through a crack in concrete.

‘A sombre ending for a woman who has sacrificed herself for the good of others. If it were me, I should continue on with the colourful gowns and confuse everybody. What more could they say of you, after all?’

Her left hand pulled at the gaping silk of her bodice, trying to close it. ‘Once I might not have cared, but now…’

He laughed. ‘You are the most fearsome female of my acquaintance, Aurelia. Do not let anyone tell you differently.’

Her smile brought deep dimples to her cheeks. ‘I will take that as a compliment, my lord.’

‘My cousin never deserved you. He was a man who even as a boy was not easy. He lost his parents just after I lost mine and maybe because of it was damaged. In the end I gave up on trying to know him.’

‘Which is why I never saw you at Medlands.’

He shook his head. ‘There were other reasons, too.’

‘You were in Europe?’

‘For a long time.’ He smiled.

He wished he could have said more. He wondered at his cousin’s rumoured predilection for racy women and fast parties. What had Aurelia seen in a man so untrustworthy and selfish and why had she married him in the first place? So many questions to ask and to answer, hers and his, the worlds they inhabited underpinned by unrevealed confidences.

She had saved him at Taylor’s Gap with her chatter and a kiss that had simply scorched away any desire to end it all. He might have jumped if she had not been there, pushing through a flimsy barrier to a welcomed oblivion. But instead…

He reached forwards to take a vibrant red curl with his finger, the silk of it falling across his palm. ‘Then I must thank you for tending to the Hawkhurst family name as Charles so obviously did not.’

When she nodded he simply left because he did not wish to tell her more and because every part of him wanted to. Gathering his wits about him, he stepped into the light of the ballroom and made his way through the crowded salons to the front portico.

Aurelia closed her eyes and tried to find her composure. She had told him exactly
what she said she wouldn’t and yet relief was the only emotion she could truly identify. Her fingers strayed to her pendant, liking the familiar feel of it.

She had been amazed that he had even remembered the piece, let alone tracked it down and repossessed it. For her.

At the sound of a door opening she took in breath. Had he returned?

‘I saw Stephen leave,’ Cassandra Lindsay said, ‘and he did not look happy. My guess is that you do not, either.’ Aurelia saw a question in the other woman’s eyes as she turned.

‘Nathaniel and I have known Hawk for ever. He is a fine friend and a good man, though for the past six months he has been… . melancholic and pensive.’ She stopped and placed her palms across the stone on the top of the terrace wall. Like an anchor. Or a prayer.

Aurelia waited. Sometimes people needed to find their thoughts without interruption.

‘We wondered if it was his search for a wife that was making him maudlin. Elizabeth Berkeley is a lovely girl, but she is hardly…strong.’

The word surprised Aurelia. ‘Perhaps strength is not what he needs. Perhaps simple,
honest and uncomplicated would chase away the demons?’

Cassandra laughed. ‘That is what he thinks he needs, but I have had this conversation with my husband many times over and we have come to the conclusion that he needs a woman who can bring him to life again…one who could save him from himself, one who might be able to endure the barriers that he will undoubtedly erect.’

The cliff on Taylor’s Gap came to Aurelia’s mind. Perhaps he would have pushed further had she not been there?

‘Espionage is not an occupation that would leave one much joy, I suspect.’

‘You know what he does?’ Surprise tempered Cassandra Lindsay’s words.

‘I have heard rumours.’

Lady Lindsay nodded. ‘His brother was killed in France on a mission and Hawk thinks it was his fault that it happened—a personal revenge, if you like, and one that has eaten at his soul. He has seen things that it would be better for a man not to have and without family around him save for Alfred…’ She stopped and laid her hand upon Aurelia’s. ‘Loneliness and responsibility make poor bedfellows. I think you might
know that every bit as well as he does, as by all accounts you have had your own battles in life.’ She took in a deep breath. ‘When I first met Nathaniel I had been a prisoner in France for near on ten months. It was not an easy detention and there were things that happened…things I thought would make Nathaniel seek another more wholesome woman if he knew the truth of it all. I tried to turn him away. I was damaged and I felt I would damage anyone else around me if I let them get close. I ran away on my wedding night to give him the chance of release, but he came after me. He saved me.’ She looked Aurelia straight in the eye before she continued. ‘If Hawk and you could save each other, any risk might be worth it.’

Then she was gone, sailing back through the door with the grace she’d had coming through it, the honesty and candour left behind her allowing hope. Cassandra Lindsay had not been untouched or unblemished and yet she had risen above adversity and found her place in the world beside a man who would protect her.

Could she do the same?

Her arms curled momentarily around her body and she took in a deep breath before replacing
her mask and following Lady Lindsay back into the ballroom.

The anger he was consumed with was nothing like the regrets he now harboured as he thought back to the scene of a few hours ago. Lord, Aurelia had been crucified for the boorish behaviour of her husband and because of it not a word of his cousin’s deviousness had ever been uttered.

Unlike her, he cared for little and loved even less. Alfred was in his seventies and might not last for too much longer and when he was gone…there would be nothing of family or blood left. The last Hawkhurst. The final member of a cursed line blotted out by circumstance and sickness and betrayal.

And now even the hope of a faultless, blameless innocent fiancée was lost because he recognised finally what he should have always known. He would ruin Elizabeth Berkeley as surely as she would ruin him, like an apple with one small black spot of rottenness, growing, spreading, consuming flesh that was uncontaminated and pure.

He remembered Aurelia St Harlow’s expression on the terrace as she had looked at him, a sort of hope in her eyes. He had
wanted to carry her off then and there and bring her home to strip away the emerald gown, claiming all that he could not, spilling his seed into the centre of her womanhood and hoping for…what? A child? An heir? An ending to all the solitude? Even knowing it was wrong, he could not stop the coursing hunger and his cock rose rigid.

His. She would be his. There was no longer any question of it for nothing would stop him. Not duty. Not King. Not country. Not even treason.

‘God help us.’ He whispered the words into the darkness and closed his eyes against utter need.

Chapter Eleven

T
he man stepped out in front of her as she fumbled with the keys on the heavy lock on the Park Street doorway.

‘You are Mrs St Harlow?’ The question was in French.

When she nodded he simply handed her over a letter.

‘She said I was to come back for your answer after you had had a day to look at it. She said you would give me a reply.’

With that he left. Looking around to see if anyone else was about and hoping the rapid beat of her heart might begin to slow, Aurelia let herself in, the unmarked white envelope clutched in her fingers.

She? Could he mean her mother?

Caesar stirred from sleep, stretching and yawning as she untied him and took him outside. Briefly. She wanted to open the note before Kerslake arrived and as an added precaution she snapped the lock behind her when she re-entered the office.

A necklace she recognised as one of her mother’s lay wrapped inside a letter. She instantly knew Sylvienne’s hand.

Lia

I am ill. Sell this necklace, for I have the need of a maid to help me through this ague. My friend will bring the money back to me and can be trusted.

Grasping the table for balance, Aurelia sat, her fingers straying to the chipped and worn beads of the cut-glass bauble. As cheap and worthless as the life her mother now lived.

She had met Sylvienne again four years ago in Paris on a visit, the untarnished beauty she had once been renowned for slipping into something less attractive, the liberal lifestyle so appealing when she had left England now futile and wretched.

Aurelia, just out of a marriage that smacked of the same sort of despair she saw
her mother consumed by, had been desperate to help. Women survived in the only way they knew how and with the roles reversed between them, she felt the need to parent Sylvienne. Even then she had been uneasy with the sort of people her mama had been reduced to dealing with, the crammed and squalid conditions of her rented apartment a far cry from her life in London. No wonder she had become ill. But how ill?

She could not just go to Paris on a whim and leave Papa, not with the silk business on the verge of a good profit and Leonora needing to be chaperoned in the company of Rodney Northrup. Perhaps her mother could be brought to London for some rest and respite? A new worry surfaced. Sylvienne had said again and again she would never live in England, the dreary boredom of it sapping her soul.

Closing her eyes, Aurelia took in a deep breath. Outside bells called true believers to prayer and further afield the shrill blast of a horn sounded, an outgoing vessel on the morning tide making its way to a far-off destination with a full cargo and the hopes of pleasant seas. Ordinary lives. Routine departures.
Her own existence seemed beleaguered by stress and unease.

With a flourish she inked her pen and set to writing, the words coming quickly as she decided on the course of action that she would follow. She still had the ruby pin Emily had given her and there were a number of books in the library that her father might not miss. Quick cash. Her fingers crept to the pendant at her neck. She could not pawn this, for Hawkhurst’s eyes were everywhere and if he were to find it again…?

Squashing down the rising anger of her thoughts, she locked the envelope in the bottom drawer of her desk and left the warehouse.

‘Kerslake is involved. He has been seen in Delsarte’s company and they look more than chummy. They were at school together, though they were both expelled for stealing.’

Shavvon looked down at the pile of notes he had on his table and then back up to Hawk. ‘What of the woman, Mrs Aurelia St Harlow? What do we know of her?’

‘Nothing much.’ The lies came easily, falling off Stephen’s tongue into the silence of the room. ‘She has an old father who is ill
and three younger sisters. The Beauchamp silk mills have been in the family for years and she is busy running them.’

Hawk had never once in all of the time he had worked for the British Service omitted a fact that was important to an investigation. Sometimes, when innocents had perished in the quest for a greater good he had hardly turned a hair, reasoning that in any conflict those close to the perpetrators were bound to be damaged and there was little he could do about it.

Yet here he was protecting a woman who had by her own admission omitted salient details to the courts of England about the murder of his cousin. He breathed out in that slow and careful way he had long since perfected, attracting no unwanted attention.

‘You know her personally, don’t you? Mrs St Harlow, I mean?’

Caution surfaced. ‘Vaguely, sir.’

‘You met her in the library at Hookham’s in Bond Street and then again at the Carringtons’ ball yesterday. It seems both times you had long conversations?’

Hawk smiled. He should have realised that he would have been under observation, as well, for trust was a hard commodity to
come by in this game. ‘She was married to my cousin. It would cause more gossip to give her the cut direct.’