Mistress at Midnight(20)

She was his to take and take, the red whorls of need drawn upon her skin  where he had lingered too long, the blood beneath the surface rising  heatedly at the pull of his desire. Marked and branded, the porcelain  white of her lost into his mounting urgency.

His eyes drank in a beauty beyond comprehension. He felt her hand at his  nape keeping him to the task, her breath ragged now and hoarse, passion  filling all the cracks of doubt.

'My God.' His voice was shallow, rough, the sound of one who had faltered from some well-worn path and wandered into Heaven.

'My God,' he repeated as he drew back and she made no move at all to  hide her wares, but stood there stock-still with her mismatched eyes and  her silence.

He could not take her like this, not without all that she should have  been accorded and everything she deserved given to her. Her pulse leapt  in her throat, her glance dazed and glassy, the stamp of craving drawn  in tight rosebud nipples and in the beating want between them.

'Cover yourself.'

She did not move.

'Cover yourself, damn it, Aurelia, before I lose my reason entirely and  you understand exactly what it is that you offer so very lightly.'

He picked up her coat and draped it around her, the dark wool  contrasting boldly with the colour of her hair. Like the sirens of Li  Galli with their riotous curls ensnaring any man straying upon them as  they danced in the deep blue sea of despair.

He had had enough, the pain of his arousal beating hard and unappeased  and more than a small share of lust coursing through him. Unsated. The  emptiness in him surfaced fully and he could not help his anger.

'Your coat should conceal any damage to your gown and my man will see you home.'

He was relieved when she finally seemed to rouse from her stupor, a dash  of anger comforting him. He watched as she turned and fastened the coat  across the loosened day dress, tucking her hair into an untidy plait  with shaking hands.

Wilson came when he rang, his face devoid of expression as he shepherded  her away, her footsteps in the hallway receding into silence.

Gone. Hawk's right hand fisted and the ache in his thigh was more  painful than it had been in years. Limping to the fire, he held his  palms out to the warmth and hated the way they trembled against the  backdrop of flame.

She sat in the carriage, her back ramrod stiff. His smell was upon her  and the depths of shame at her behaviour brought her breath to a  standstill. What had she done? Her breasts throbbed under the scratchy  wool of her coat, each one remembering the feel of his mouth against her  fullness, taking that which she had never before offered to anyone.  Closing her eyes, she leant her head back against the cushioned velour  feeling … changed. Altered. No longer bound by a frigidity that had  defined her.                       
       
           



       

Her tongue ran across her lips, as if she were asking him back in the  darkness, wanting his need to strengthen her. There was nothing left of  the girl who had gone to plead the case of her sisters. Now she was only  woman.

When a tear traced its way down her cheek she did not wipe it away, but  let it fall on to the skin of her hand and be gathered into the fabric  below. Her breathing she tempered with a steady rhythm. Two or three  more minutes and she would be home and no one must ever know about the  events of her lost evening.

She had played her cards and folded. She doubted Lord Stephen Hawkhurst would ever want to see her or speak with her again.

Stephen listened as his carriage pulled away from the house, his four greys running well. Luc's words came back in the silence.

Only a good woman can get under your skin. Well, Aurelia St Harlow was  neither good nor loyal, her knowledge of Charles's murderer countering  all she had told the courts of England and confessed to tonight by some  misguided sense of perceived advantage.

Everything they said of her was true. The lies. Her part in her  husband's demise. Even the rumour that had circulated about her unusual  tastes might have been genuine, given her easy offer of sexual  gratification and her attendance at the opium parties of his cousin.

And yet he was still not running to the War Office with the facts at  hand and turning her into Shavvon as the traitor he suspected her to be.

Why not? Because underneath everything Aurelia implied he saw the  shadows of what was not being said and he had always been adept at  understanding nuances. There was something wrong with her confessions,  some fact missing that might otherwise explain her actions exactly and  he needed to find out just what they were.

For the first time in a long while he capped the bottle he drank from  and sat at his desk to write. Lists always worked for him, lists to  connect the dots from one to the other and come up with an explanation  instead of a mystery.

She was loyal to her family and she was brave. She was hardworking and  tenacious. She had been married to his cousin for three long years, yet  nobody could remember her in Charles's company because she had never  come down to London.

She loved her sisters and she protected her father, and the mother she  had spoken of who resided in France was still alive. Could she be as  loyal to her? She protected everybody in her family and sheltered them  under her wing of refuge, never mind that the task was an onerous and  never-ending one. Her money was low and her costs were high and the  silks she designed were not yet making ends meet.

A pattern was beginning to form and it was not that of a self-serving  mercenary with little regard for the welfare of others. As more  questions formed he jotted them down and, oblivious to the time passing,  worked well into the early hours of the morning as he tried to  determine the motivation of a woman who was beginning to inhabit his  very soul.





Chapter Ten


'But it suits you, Lia, and there is no earthly reason that after eight  years away from society you cannot at least show off a few of your  charms.'

Leonora's voice crowded in upon doubts as Aurelia looked at herself in  the full-length mirror to one end of her sister's room. The emerald gown  seemed to glow under the sunlight slanting in from the windows, making  her hair look redder and her skin more pale. 'I do not know. It is  awfully tight here and very low there.' She pulled at the heavy silk,  trying to make the décolletage rise up further over the swell of her  breasts.

'It seems low only because you insist on wearing that ghastly high-necked black dress which is a hundred years out of date.'

Her sister's exaggeration made her smile, though a more sobering thought  overtook the humour. Perhaps it was time to be the person she should  have become before it was too late. For a whole two weeks she had  worried as to what might be the outcome of her foolish attempt to bribe  Lord Hawkhurst for his continued silence. Every day she had watched for  members of the constabulary to come and take her away. Like a sword  about to descend. Like walking on eggshells. When exactly would he  testify against her and ruin what little reputation she still retained?  Lord, perhaps this might be her last chance to wear a gown such as this  one.

Shaking her head, she resolved to listen to her sister. The dress had  been fashioned by a most respectable seamstress on the advice of Leonora  and, with the proper accessories, would hardly be considered 'racy'.

'It's not as if we never receive cards any more, Lia, and Rodney was  most insistent that you come with us tonight. Besides, a masked soirée  is a perfect opportunity for you to have some fun for you hardly ever go  out save to the warehouse and the park with Papa on a Monday. If you  tarry too much longer, your chance of anything different will be gone,  don't you see, and I want you to be happy.'                       
       
           



       

Aurelia smiled and when her sister leaned over and kissed her on the  cheek she took another quick look at herself. The mask would largely  hide her face and if she left before midnight she would have a good  chance of remaining anonymous. Hawkhurst would be there-she had heard  from Rodney Northrup himself-and it had been that fact that had  propelled her headlong into considering putting in an appearance.

She wanted to see Lord Hawkhurst, even from afar. She wanted to be in a  room where he was, breathing the same air and seeing the same things  that he did because since their contretemps at his town house she had  not heard anything at all from him.

The very thought of it made her worry. Should she not cut her losses and  simply disappear altogether? A feat more easily accomplished without  three sisters all requiring the help of society to find husbands, a very  sick father to care for and a business that needed her at the helm for a  few months longer.

'Elizabeth Berkeley was in tears last night at the Sorensons'. Lydia  Sorenson whipped her away before anyone could enquire what was wrong,  but it seems Lord Stephen Hawkhurst might be a part of the problem.'