Mistress at Midnight(27)

'Absolutely, Mrs St Harlow, for yours has eclipsed our offerings  entirely. I am Lillian Clairmont, and my husband is the one trying at  this moment to wrestle the ring from Alfred's hand. Lucas's taste in  material goods is more than questionable, you see.' She coloured as she  realised her criticism. 'But I do not mean to imply that I think your  present is … tasteless … ' She stopped and shook her head and her hair under  the light showed up myriad hues. 'I am expecting our third child very  soon and the good manners that used to be the hallmark of my character  seem to have all but deserted me.'

As the others laughed, Hawkhurst then made a proper introduction.  'Lillian and Lucas Clairmont are down in London only for a few nights.  They have a property in the north and children waiting at home for  them.'

'Lucas is the Luc of the dancing lessons at Eton?' Aurelia had suddenly placed him.

'Indeed.' When Clairmont walked to stand beside his wife, Aurelia saw how he wove their fingers together.

'We met at Stephen's ball, Mrs St Harlow. I thought your entrance was  one of the grander ones I have seen so far in London, though my first  introduction to court may have even eclipsed your own.'

'He arrived brawling with my cousin, blood on his lip and a sneer in his  eyes,' Lillian explained with a smile. 'Americans like to … turn up with  aplomb, you see.'

'I shall take such information to heart then, Mr Clairmont,' Aurelia returned, 'if I should ever find myself in your homeland.'

'Hawk could bring you. We are due to go back on a holiday next May and I would deem it a pleasure to show you Virginia.'

Surprised by the wash of yearning that was inspired by such an  invitation, Aurelia glanced at Stephen Hawkhurst. What would months in  each other's company on a boat out of London feel like? Such freedom  would be impossible, unless … She shook away the qualifier as all her  responsibilities came crashing back in.

This was what her life could have been like had she married wisely.  Family, good friends, a man who even in a roomful of others had her  heart beating faster, the small flutter at the back of her throat making  her swallow.

She wanted Hawkhurst to take her hand and hold it as Lucas Clairmont  held his wife's, safety and strength imbued in the very action.

Nathaniel Lindsay broke into her thoughts as he hailed a serving man near and offered up thin glasses of white wine to them all.

'Let's toast to birthdays and friendship,' he said, looking over at  Aurelia directly. 'And to marriage,' he added, this time observing  Hawkhurst.                       
       
           



       

Hawkhurst knew what they were trying to do, each one of them, with their  hopeful invitations and their clumsy innuendos. After all, he had spent  the weeks since his ball fending off questions about Aurelia St Harlow,  both Nat and Luc offering advice about his long-term future.

Tonight Aurelia fitted in like a lost glove. She was not cowed by their  teasing-no, far from it, her natural intelligence rising to the jibes  with a lively humour and one he had not seen in her before. She  fascinated him. She worried him.

This morning a Frenchman had been apprehended outside her warehouse by  one of Shavvon's men after he had picked up a package she had given him.  Money and silk and a letter to her mother that alluded to more of the  same coming the following week.

God. He pushed his hair back and watched her from the old leather  wingchair. A deliberate distance. A difficult reminder of all that he  had tried to withdraw from.

Deceit. On mismatched eyes and a face that looked as though it belonged to an angel.

He had argued with Shavvon that the contents of the package were nothing  like those found in the heavier silk cargo. As a result he had been  charged with the task of being Mrs St Harlow's personal minder-a grim  and startling assignment given all that he was thinking.

He had hoped his ball could have been the beginning of a new and more  innocent life after the fright he had given himself at Taylor's Gap. And  instead, here he was pining for a woman who had more secrets in her  eyes than any other he had ever known.

But she fitted here, laughing between Lilly and Cassie and allowing his  uncle to hold her hand for an inordinate amount of time after she had  given him the present of a ring: a colourful glass ring with the  engraving of a dragon through the amber and another on the metal in the  band.

Alfred loved her. His friends loved her. He noticed how she thanked each  servant every time they offered her something to eat or drink.

Even the damn cat, who more usually scurried away at any slight noise,  had sidled up against her on the sofa, purring as her fingers ran  through his coat.

The laughter closed in about him, removing such introspection and drawing him out.

'We met at Taylor's Gap,' Aurelia was saying.

'What were you doing down that way, Hawk?' Nat asked the question, a frown on his brow.

Thinking about ending it all, he might have said, but he stayed silent, waiting for her reply.

'He was watching the view-' the edges of her mouth lifted up '-and I was  inveigling Lord Hawkhurst into giving my family invitations to his  ball.'

'How did you inveigle?' Nat asked this, a wry smile on his face and when Aurelia blushed, Hawkhurst stepped in.

'I was down that way to look over Cloverton's matching greys. The ones you had told me of, Nat.'

'And did they measure up?'

He was pleased with the change of topic. 'They are being delivered next  week to Hawthorn Castle. You can come down and see what you think.'

Dinner was a beautiful meal, the French chef presenting two main courses  of seafood and chicken along with vegetables, savouries, creamy sauces  and a selection of cakes.

Aurelia had been placed next to Lillian and Lucas Clairmont and as far  away from Lord Hawkhurst as the table might allow, though looking up  once or twice, she found his gaze upon her.

Lillian spoke of her children and of a manor house that they were trying to modernise.

'Hope embroidered the neckline of my dress,' she said, holding her chest  forwards so that it might be viewed properly. 'She is twelve and our  oldest.'

'You must have been awfully young, then, when you had her.' Aurelia  could not help the comment for Lillian Clairmont barely looked any older  than she was.

'Oh, Hope and Charity came to us in a more roundabout fashion. They were  always meant to be ours, but it took them a while to find us.'

'Sometimes that happens to people. Take Nat, for example. I found him  again in the most unlikely of places.' Cassandra laughed as she spoke.

'Where?' Aurelia began to smile.

'In the bedroom of a run-down boarding house in London. Spying on me.'

'Protecting you, more like.' Nathaniel Lindsay, across the other side of  the table, was adamant in his understanding of the situation.

'By insisting that I remove my clothes?'

At Cassie's interjection everyone began to laugh.

It felt so good to be accepted by a company of people who did not judge  and who all had their strange quirks and peculiarities. Hawkhurst,  however, seemed to remain outside the hilarity, an observer rather than a  participant.

Aurelia wanted to sit beside him and take his hand and make him smile as  a way of thanking him for asking her tonight. With delicious food in  her stomach, a warm cat snuggling across her feet and a group of  interesting and genuine people around her, she could not remember ever  feeling quite as relaxed.                       
       
           



       

Much later, after the best evening of her life, she stood with Stephen  Hawkhurst and listened to the departing carriages of his friends. Alfred  had sought his repose a good few hours earlier and so they were left  alone, a dozen candles on a sideboard and not a servant in sight.

Hawkhurst's hand came forwards. 'Stay the night, Aurelia. With me.'

No artifice or pretence. No chance to misunderstand just exactly what he  was asking. Just them in a shaded corner of his house, the midnight  closing in and the promise of all that had begun at Taylor's Gap sharp  upon the air.

She had dreamt of this, imagined such words in her bedroom late at  night, the emptiness inside her calling to be assuaged. But now … now that  he had said all that she hoped for, what could it mean?

'If others knew?' She shook her head.

'They won't.'

'Just us, then?' Barely spoken, soft with desire. 'A secret?' The words  were out, falling into permission. Her sisters never waited up for her  and, if she returned before daylight, only John would know of her  absence and he was more than loyal.

At eighteen she had never had a chance, but at twenty-six she did and  every fibre of her being wanted to know what it would be like to feel  the things that poetry and prose wrote of, the ache that lovers died  for, the completeness that overrode armies and philosophers and kings.

If she started this in the way she meant to go on, would there be hope  for them beyond the call of duty, diplomacy and expedience? She had made  so many mistakes that she was frozen with the fear of making another  one and yet … for the first time in her life she knew those things society  decreed wrong would be so very right for her.