Mistress at Midnight (24 page)

‘They know where you are and unless we leave immediately I will have no hope to stop them from transporting you south to face charges. Atherton is the only option of protection left.’

‘Atherton?’ She could not understand what he meant in her moment of panic.

‘My title and my house. It takes a lot more work to hang a member of the peerage’s wife.’

Pragmatic and utilitarian. Her mouth felt dry at the notion of such a loveless union—history repeating itself.

Worse and worse. The words drove into her heart like the spar she had seen embedded in the chest of Charles.

Love me, Hawk
, she longed to whisper.
Love me in the same way that I love you and even should I die tomorrow it would all be worth it
.

But she could see nothing in his eyes save the need to be gone as he took her by the arm and led her towards the house, his pace hurried. Lucas Clairmont met them at the front door, and after a quick conversation with Stephen he sent a servant to find a thick winter coat that she recognised as one of his wife’s.

It was over, and all she could do was to follow Stephen out to the Abbey stables and allow him to help her into a carriage readied with a basket of food on one seat and two heavy blankets on the other.

Chapter Sixteen

A
urelia remembered back to the only other time she had come to Atherton with Charles just after she had been married. With its ornate turrets reaching upwards from a three-storey façade it was a sight to see. Cream stone glinted in the late afternoon sun, giving the impression of a castle of light. A manicured park fell down to a pond, many bridges crossing the wandering waterways, a vista of beauty that stretched far out into the middle distance.

The thick crenellated walls of Atherton must have been a fortress once and it was not hard to imagine the Hawkhurst ancestors ranging across the parapets and warding off the sieges of some troublesome enemy.

Like they still might be now. Hawkhurst had been mindful all the way across the countryside, checking, waiting in the smaller tracks whilst scanning the road for those who might be following them.

‘Is it safe?’

She asked the question because she did not wish to be the serpent bringing trouble into Eden.

‘Very.’ No hesitation in his answer as he looked at the billowing flags of the ancient Hawkhurst seat, the charge of the black hawk standing out before a golden chevron and etched into a field of the lightest blue.

Generations of Hawkhursts had fought beneath these banners, dying for causes so much more noble than her own. She wondered what Hawkhurst might be feeling, as he had made little effort in conversation, and in his eyes she noticed a thread of an irritation that was dispiriting.

Did he wonder as to why he had brought her here? Was he wishing to be back in London with the beautiful Lady Elizabeth Berkeley, her goodness and pure innocence such that he should never have to chase across half of England with a group of thugs on his tail as he was with her?

The arrival of servants at the front door brought her attention back to the moment, maid after maid and man after man lining up along the pebbled circular driveway. When the steps of the conveyance were pulled down they both descended. Stephen did not touch her again.

‘Simpson.’ Hawk brought out his hand to the man who stepped forward and held the others warmly. ‘This is Mrs St Harlow, my wife-to-be.’

Shock held Aurelia immobile as a shimmer of recognition passed wordlessly down the long line of servants. The St Harlow name would hardly be salubrious and Charles’s early demise must have been a topic of conversation for months in the downstairs chambers of the castle. Besides, the idea of marriage mooted privately between themselves was very different from a direct proclamation to all who might listen.

Her shoulder ached as did her cheek and this charade was the very last thing she felt like being a part of. Still, with the long reach of the law, she knew that to insist otherwise and in front of so many people would be unwise.

Finally they were in the house and in a
room to one side of the wide and lavishly furnished front hall. As the door closed against the last departing maid there was a moment’s silence and Aurelia wished that instead of looking so fierce Hawkhurst would simply walk forwards to take her in his arms to kiss her.

It might fix everything, a kiss: her worry, her fear, her aching uncertainty of walking into yet another mistaken marriage.

‘The vicar from the Atherton chapel will wed us first thing in the morning.’

‘Without banns?’

‘That will be taken care of.’ His voice was flat and weary.

‘If there is any other way that I might find protection, then I think we should consider—’ He stopped her.

‘There is not, Aurelia.’

Looking down at the cream dress Lillian had bequeathed her, Aurelia saw how the hours of being on the road had rumpled the silk. Hawk looked no better, his jacket dirty and his trousers and boots dusty.

‘I am sure that our union will be viewed very badly by all who hear of it.’ She tried to keep the shaking from her voice.

‘Then let us hope we can keep it secret for
a while longer. I have worked for the British Service for over a decade and the least that they could accord me from this fiasco is the right of a few weeks of silence.’

A fiasco
. She wondered if he might hear the sound of her heart breaking into a hundred little pieces even as she mulled over her options.

‘Annulments are not viewed favourably and are complex and difficult to procure. I could not afford the money needed for one.’

‘Enough, Aurelia.’ His hand came down across his thigh hard and dust spun into the late evening air, the motes swirling in the last slant of sun.

He said her name in a way that made her look up, the implied protection surprising, and suddenly she was breathless. Could he mean to help her because he wanted her, needed her, in the same way that she needed him? Hope blossomed with a fervour that she tried her hardest to hide.

Mismatched eyes held the sort of wariness he so often saw in her. She did not wish to marry him, that much was certain, but even in the face of such strident opposition he could not be kind. He would drag her to
the altar voiceless if he needed to and the vicar had been in his employ long enough to understand the implications of ruin for a woman.

He would prevail because he was the Lord of Atherton and because the tithes he paid to the church were generous and frequent. He would insist on the ceremony because without it Aurelia St Harlow would be lost to the vagaries of law.

‘The family chapel is just through here.’

Aurelia took in a breath. She had slept right through the night and felt more able to cope with everything this morning. On waking she had found the dress borrowed from Lillian hanging before the wardrobe, carefully cleaned and pressed. She left the sling on the chair.

As Hawkhurst opened a set of double doors behind him, Aurelia saw the polished brown wood of pews with their velvet inlays and prayer books neatly stacked in front. The ceiling was vaulted and the windows were drawn in lead and coloured glass, the Christ child on Mary’s knee, His head garlanded in flowers.

Standing at the top of the aisle was an old
clergyman, whitened eyebrows and hair attesting to an age well reached.

‘I will begin when you are ready, my lord.’ He rearranged a few papers on the pulpit before him.

Hawkhurst did not even look at her as he bade her forwards and Aurelia felt as though she had stepped into a travesty she could not stop, the parts of a marriage laid out in a cold-blooded fashion and only for the reason of pretence.

‘I do not think…’

The minister stopped momentarily to observe her, his piercing eyes daring her to speak further. ‘You are a child of God and as such you deserve the sanctity of a union which is the most joyous of all His celebrations.’

Joyous? She remembered her last wedding with a shudder. Field flowers now waved their heads in a vase on a table and a number of the servants of Atherton had filed in behind her to sit quietly.

Witnesses.

The contrast to her marriage to Charles with all its pomp and circumstance could not have been greater.

Already an organ had begun to play, soft
music filling the chapel, the only thing that was beautiful. The lump in her throat thickened at the purity of the notes.

He wished his uncle could have been here, standing beside him, or Lucas or Nathaniel, but there was nobody save the rows of servants, hair tidied and hands washed. His mouth was dry and the blisters on both palms from long days of riding stung with the salt of sweat.

His marriage day—his first and his last. He wanted to lean over and take Aurelia’s hand in his own and hold it tight in an effort to tell her that all was not lost and that although she felt the farce of it keenly, to him it was…perfect.

The very word made him smile. Perfect implied a consent that was without compromise. Perfect implied compliance and sanction and a God-given need of the union they were about to enter into. Perfect presupposed a sense of history behind them that had reached up to this moment. The frown on his bride-to-be’s face etched a heavy line into her forehead, negating any such acquiescence.

‘We are here today to join this man and
this woman in holy matrimony.’ Johnathon Cattrell’s voice was low and even, the pledge of for ever well formed. When Stephen glanced down he saw that every knuckle on Aurelia’s hands was stretched white.

His parents had been married here and his grandparents and all the other Hawkhursts before him. He felt the rightness of it settle in his bones.

Protection was only a tiny part of why he was standing here. He knew that with a blinding honesty. When the minister asked for a ring he drew the Atherton signet from his own hand. The circle of gold was far too big, but it was all he had. Aurelia could not offer any token, but Johnathon Cattrell ignored such an omission in the face of everything else that was strange.

Then it was finished. Man and wife. For ever.

He took her hand and she did not pull away. The smiling, clapping servants followed them out.

The wedding breakfast was sumptuous, the top table in the room flanked by at least ten others, the same wild flowers she had seen in the chapel in vases on each one.

Every manner of meat sat on large plates
carved into succulent-looking pieces, plus vegetables, fruits, sauces, shellfish, savouries and a selection of iced cakes.

Large jugs of wine and smaller ones of orange water were scattered between the food. The glasses were all crystal and the plates a fine white china.

When Hawkhurst stood as they were all seated a hush came over the room.

‘Welcome to Atherton, Lady Hawkhurst. I hope you might come to love this place as much as I do and that all the years of our life here will be happy ones.’ Raising his glass, he offered a toast. ‘To Lady Aurelia, the most beautiful bride any man could want.’

Her name echoed across the room, and in the eyes of those around her she saw a genuine and warm welcome. Sipping at the wine, she felt herself relax.
The most beautiful bride any man could want
. Not tarnished, second-hand and a traitor? Not a woman he had had to marry under duress because of politics?

She had not seen Stephen in a setting like this before, surrounded by his workers and staff. Here, he did not seem so much the lord, but a part of a great estate that required much co-operation and respect. She wondered how
many other men of London society could have made the transition so easily.

She also thought of the time after the feast, the time when they would be alone. A rush of heat fanned through her body, fierce and possessive, and when she felt his arm against Her own she did not move away, but stayed still, enjoying the tiny contact.

Her husband. Her lover. For ever. She took one sip of wine and then another.

Aurelia was leaning against him and he liked the feel of her beside him. Today there was something different about her, some quieter acceptance that was seen in her eyes and in her laughter. Mrs Simpson was regaling her with various accounts of family life when he had been a child and his wife was listening with intent.

A new beginning for Atherton. Another chance at normal.

‘Did you have brothers and sisters yourself when you were growing up, my lady?’ He could hear the interest in his housekeeper’s voice.

‘Not really. My half-sisters are much younger than I am, you see, and my mother had left.’

‘Then you’ll be needing a large family here to take away the loneliness.’

The laughter accompanying this remark brought a blush to Aurelia’s cheeks and Stephen stepped in. Perhaps now was a good time for them to withdraw. Already the tables were becoming rowdier, the treat of a holiday and good food having their effect.

The room was Hawkhurst’s. She could tell it was from the books and the writing desk and a wardrobe with clothes that looked exactly his size.

‘I have not stayed here much over the last years so the room is full of things from the past.’

She crossed to a globe on the table, the brass holder it sat in carved with the figure of a dragon.

‘Like this?’

Aurelia spun the countries around, the colours of oceans, lands and rivers melding into one.

He laughed. ‘I always found travel fascinating. If you look closer, you will see the marks on all the lands I wished to visit.’

‘And have you?’

‘Most of them.’

‘And what about the pocket watch?’

‘It was my brother’s. I never wound it again after he died.’

‘“Time moves on in good ways and in bad.” Mama used to say that to me.’ She looked at him then, his neckcloth loosened and the gold in his eyes velvet. ‘I wish I had not been married before. I wish this was my very first time and that…and that…we had met back then, when I was younger. You would have liked me more.’

He laughed again.

In the mirror opposite she caught sight of herself, her colour heightened and her eyes glittering. She looked so similar to the girls Charles had brought to Medlands in the first year of their marriage, his wild and unbridled parties demanding the sort of feminine willingness that was palpable in the expressions of those attending.