Mistress at Midnight (15 page)

‘Charles told me once that you enjoyed riding?’

‘It was a passing phase, my lord.’

‘He said that you had a knack that few others possessed. It seems a shame to place little time into such a skill. Now Hawk here has
a whole stable full of beauties that I am certain he would be more than willing to share.’

Aurelia knew that the man was setting something up. She could see it in the careful observance that he made of her and in the shifting stance of Lord Hawkhurst, who looked as if he wanted to be anywhere but here.

‘My father was a fine horseman before he took to books with such fervour. Now, I tend to help him in the quieter pursuits. Do you read much, my lord?’

The change of subject was deliberate and she was glad when Lindsay took her up on the diversion.

‘Never. Hawk does, though. I had heard you met him in Hookham’s? Lady Allum brought it to my attention and she intimated your exchange was heated.’

Heated? Aurelia remembered the feel of his tongue on the back of her hand and was about to answer when Lord Hawkhurst suddenly took charge.

‘Could you leave us for a moment, Nat? I see George Staples languishing against a pillar beside the band. Go and talk to him?’

The smile on Lord Lindsay’s face was broad even with such rudeness, giving Aurelia
the impression he had hoped for this outcome all along. ‘Be gentle with him, Mrs St Harlow. My friend does not realise yet that a man who plays with fire is liable to be burnt, and badly.’ She watched as he bowed and departed.

‘Take no notice of St Auburn. Nat is an inveterate snoop and will not rest until he knows the full story behind everything.’ He ushered her a little further down the room, to a place where the trees lay behind them and the crush was less noticeable.

‘And what is our full story, my lord?’ Alone, Aurelia felt braver, their history built up in layers one upon the other and all beginning with the kiss at Taylor’s Gap.

‘Our story?’ He turned the words so that each one of them was carefully pronounced, his eyes grave. ‘Our story is unfinished and ill concluded, any hint of what might have been between us buried beneath duty and lies.’

She stood very still.

‘Debts of ill repute and payments for silence are things I am trying to rid myself of, Mrs St Harlow, and if the reasons for my cousin’s death are going to be pegged to any future problems then I would rather not
know of them. For years deception has been my companion, you see, and now I find I need something different altogether.’

‘You need honesty?’

The simple question was quietly asked, a pledge that she knew she would never be able to give him with her mother and her father and the faithless arrogance of her dead husband.

‘I do.’

Honesty and innocence and pure untainted goodness.

Lady Elizabeth Berkeley
.

She suddenly and clearly understood why Lord Hawkhurst had chosen the girl and all hope was lost. A chandelier above them caught the darkness of his hair and the angled planes of his cheeks.

She could not leave it quite at that. ‘One person’s truth might be another’s lies.’

‘Nay, integrity is a commodity not so easily bent.’

‘Eton taught you that even as you were absconding from your lessons?’

Laughter made the lines on the sides of his eyes wrinkle and those nearest turned round at the sound. Aurelia got the impression that he had not laughed much of late.

‘Would you dance with me again, Mrs St Harlow?’

‘Yes.’ She had heard another waltz strike up, the first chords of Strauss drifting about the room. Aurelia placed her fingers upon his offered arm and they walked on to the floor, the lights dim here and the glow of candles evoking some night-time grotto far from London. She hoped that he would not feel the rapid beat of her heart as he brought her into his arms, closer than she expected, further apart than she wanted.

No one else existed in that room as the music swirled about them and he led her into the steps, the smell of soap and brandy vying for an ascendance, his body hard beneath the superfine in his jacket.

Charles had been softer and heavier and shorter. The very thought made her shiver.

‘You are cold?’

‘No.’ Her eyes met his as she pulled back slightly.

‘Was Charles a kind husband, Aurelia?’

‘Why do you ask that?’ Tonight, in his arms, lying was difficult.

‘Cassandra mentioned that you were left alone often and that the servants had talked.’

‘I was eighteen and foolish enough to
imagine that marriage to a man I did not know well might solve all the problems in the world.’

‘And now you are twenty-six and wise?’ His voice was lowered, the husky edge of it inciting all that she remembered from the night in his town house. Hardly strangers. Not quite lovers. There was a danger in it Aurelia found exhilarating and forbidden. Pushing against him so that he might feel the curve of her breasts, she watched his expression change.

Feminine power was surprisingly easy, the potency of her own body something she had never considered before because Charles had left her so very damaged.

‘Keep doing that and I will drag you off home before you know what has happened to you and you will not have a chance to change it.’

‘Is that a warning, my lord?’ Flirtation was another game she had little practice in and she knew he must be able to feel the drum of her heartbeat. Beneath her palm the calm and ordered rhythm of his heart disturbed her. How often a man like him must have been in exactly this position before—a heartsick female flirting to gain an attention
she would never be able to win. Such a thought was sobering.

There was no pathway to make the relationship between them different and when the music stopped and the dancers stilled she was glad to move back to where her sister lingered and even more pleased when he made a bow and left her.

Stephen watched Aurelia St Harlow from the other side of the room, trying to get a powerful surge of lust under control and failing. Every part of his body filled with the fury of incomprehension.

‘She is a beauty, is she not? Charles’s widow?’ Nat stood beside him. ‘Apart from Cassie and Lilly, the most beautiful female in all of England, would be my guess. She seems alone, though. Substantial and alone. I should not wish to see her hurt further in any way. What is her accent?’

Stephen answered, because to do otherwise would have caused comment. ‘French. Her mother was French.’

‘Aye, you can see it in the bones of her arms and shoulders. Small like the Anjou princesses. Cassie says that you have looked happier lately, more alive, Hawk. She thinks
that the beautiful and mysterious Mrs St Harlow may have something to do with your altered state of affairs.’

‘Your wife has a penchant for matchmaking that has never been successful.’ He growled out the words and readjusted the coat-tails of his jacket.

‘Well, it has been years since you have courted a woman properly, Stephen, years since you had one that actually counted. Perhaps she is hoping that this time—’

‘Stop.’ He had bedded a good number of women, but none had made him even consider that any relationship might become permanent save for Elizabeth Berkeley. Her blond curls and blue eyes came to mind, the sweetness in her the thing that had drawn him to her in the first place, but for the past weeks all he had seen in her was extreme youthfulness and an astounding lack of knowledge. When had that happened? When had the fresh goodness of his ‘almost fiancée’ become a fault rather than a perfection? He ran a hand across his face and breathed out. Hard.

Ever since meeting Aurelia St Harlow. That’s when everything had changed, the
world lost for him in her mismatched eyes and Titian hair.

He would have to do something about her—he knew he would—but first he needed to see the Berkeleys and explain as best as he could the changed state of his position.

Nathaniel had been right about one thing, at least. Those who played with fire should expect to be burnt by it. He winced as the flames licked at the place he thought his heart had been long gone from.

The terrace was deserted when Aurelia managed to escape the throng a good two hours later. Lord Hawkhurst had danced with every eligible woman in the room, she thought…every beautiful, laughing uncomplicated woman, she amended. She wished he had asked her again, but he hadn’t come near her.

Her feet were sore from her new slippers and she was tired of looking down and seeing her breasts so easily on display in the heavy stiffness of emerald silk. She would not wear such a gown again, no matter what the inducement, and she hoped that not too much time would elapse before Leonora indicated that she wished to leave.

Leonora. A few outings had turned her into a woman with as much strength as Emily, her father’s youngest sister. Emily Beauchamp had been Aurelia’s chaperon in her first Season, a gentle laughing presence and a woman who garnered suitors and admirers, but had never chosen one of them. It was Emily who had introduced her to Charles and who had so favoured the match her father never had. The memory was bittersweet, for her aunt had died of some unexplained illness, here for the day of her wedding and then gone the next. Aurelia had been hauled away by a husband who was impatient to sample all the curves he had found so enticing. The delight she had initially felt at such a barrage of compliments turned into utter despair when she understood that her new groom would not tarry for anyone and that the funeral she hoped to attend was denied to her.

‘I do not wish for a wife in black,’ Charles had said at the time as he ordered his staff to pack the coach. Running from a house of death was a character trait, but Aurelia had not yet come to understand that about the man she had married, though later she would realise responsibility and familial duty were things to be avoided
at all costs
.

Charles had unlaced her gown so that it looked like one a harlot might have enjoyed wearing, his fingers running under the silk of her skirt even as they sat in the moving carriage. Aye, he enjoyed taking risks and breaking rules, the expected niceties of society angering him, a man who disliked the strict regime of the newly flourishing social moralists. Aurelia had learnt to be careful to hide any criticism for fear of yet another lecture on the mundane, safe and boring pathways she always followed.

She hid everything, she suddenly thought. Her father. Her mother. Her work. her debts. Her past. Her beating heart when Lord Stephen Hawkhurst came anywhere near her person.

The very concern made her frown and she lifted the mask away. He was as good as engaged to the most beautiful debutante of the Season, a girl lauded for her kindness and her sweet nature. Why, then, did she even imagine that she might be able to catch and hold the eye of a man with more reason than anyone to despise her?

She was twenty-six, for goodness’ sake, and eminently sensible, a woman who after The Great Mistake had never made another.
Looking up, she saw that the stars tonight lay between banks of clouds and the temperature was as warm as it ever became in an English summer. The quiet sounds of a fountain further out in the garden made her turn, as she tried to catch a glimpse of water through the darkness.

It was then that she saw him, standing not ten feet away, a cheroot in his hand, the red glow of the tip brightly arcing as he flipped it into the garden.

‘Mrs St Harlow.’
He looked less than pleased to see her.

‘Lord Hawkhurst.’

Quietly he came closer, careful not to touch, the white in his necktie standing out boldly.

‘Do you think that our salvation might lie in formality?’ His voice sounded tired and wary, the slur of his words indicating that he had drunk far more than he should have.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You and I
,
my lady. Do we skirt around each other forever or do we take a chance and see just where it is this attraction could lead us?’

‘You speak in riddles, my lord.’ She hated
the forced joviality in her voice, a tone she had so often used with Charles.

‘Do I?’ He reached out then, and caught her hand, the anger in him felt in even such a small movement. ‘The riddle of lust is not so hard to comprehend.’ Laying his finger against her wrist, he waited. ‘See, it is in your blood tonight, calling me, remembering the other times between us…’

‘No.’ Her husband had done this, too, pressuring her at the most inopportune of moments, expecting a response, but she was wiser now and older and the horror that blossomed was like a weapon. ‘You have had too much to drink, my lord, and your mind is addled.’ She threw off his touch, pleased when his hands stayed at his side.

‘Not addled, but disappointed. The culmination of a life’s work, I suppose, and too little goodness in it.’ He tipped his head. ‘Are you God-sent, Aurelia? Could you heal the demons that lurk inside me once and for all?’

A different tack. His hands shook more tonight than she had ever seen them do. The wine, perhaps, or the memories?

‘I thought you had already refused my prior suggestion of…closeness, Lord Hawkhurst?’

‘Those suggestions given without any
form of passion?’ He laughed. ‘I am not seeking to be a pawn of politics.’

‘Then what is it you are after?’

‘I only wish I knew.’

The silence lengthened, though it was not difficult or uncomfortable. Wordlessness had its own sort of communication after all, the small turn of a head, the warmth of body heat, the smell of violets and woodsmoke mixed as one.

Finally he spoke again. ‘From what I have heard, the state of your union with my cousin was not exactly holy.’

Tonight with all that he knew of her she could no longer skirt around the truth. ‘Indeed, our marriage was a mistake.’

‘So you killed him?’

In the half-light she saw a tick in the muscle of his jaw, as if he were holding it tense against an answer and the anger in her was as raw as it had been four years ago. ‘I cannot deny that I wanted to, though in the end Charles died from his own lack of morals. He brutally raped a pregnant servant and her distraught father made sure that there would be no further…indiscretions. Every woman on the estate probably breathed a little easier that afternoon. I know I did.’