Mistress at Midnight(23)

       
           



       

'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.