Mistress at Midnight(37)

'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


Aurelia 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.