Mistress at Midnight(38)

'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.

Thank goodness she was not back there, moving like a ghost around the  few rooms left to her use, always frightened and never certain.

This relationship could not be like before, with Charles. She could not  endure another loveless and distant marriage in which both parties had  dealt with each other in hatred and mistrust. This one had to be  different, better, real.

Shaking her head, she chastised herself for such fantasy. It was duty  and obligation that had brought each of them to this pass. Fluffy  oversized cushions on the bed behind beckoned and a carafe of wine and  two glasses sat on a cabinet nearby.

There would be expectations placed on the head of the title, and one of  them resulting from a marriage even as hasty and ill-conceived as this  one would be children. Heirs to trace the name of Hawkhurst down through  the centuries and link them to the ancestors who had already been.  Antiquity lived in a castle like Atherton and no one person's needs were  bigger than the narrative of history. Especially not hers.

With Charles she had withdrawn from any intimacy as soon as she realised  what sort of man he was. But here … here a different truth lingered.

'You sell yourself too short, my lady. A wife with a blameless slate  would not suit me at all. Oh, granted, once I thought so, but now … '

The compliment made her cheeks redden and she knew the blush of it was  showing on her face. She hoped he might step forwards and show her  exactly what it meant to be his wife. The dampness between her legs  throbbed, the lust of want so familiar she felt dizzy from it.

She wanted him, wanted him in the same way they had wanted each other in  London, breathless and burning, wrapped in each other's arms until the  morning. As Hawk poured two glasses of the red wine, she tried to take  stock of everything.

'To us,' he said, handing her a goblet, careful not to touch her as he  moved back and drank. His eyes did not stray from her own.

Drink took the edge from panic and she needed it to. her nipples  hardened in a movement that sent small clenches of need to her core as  he touched her arm.

'Does it hurt?'

Shaking her head, she smiled. 'Mrs Simpson found a bandage this morning and she dressed it. The ointment took away any pain.'

He placed her left hand in his. 'I will find you a ring that fits as soon as I can. My mother had many and … '

His words petered out as she placed her lips on his fingers, one by one.

'I love you, Stephen.'

There was nothing else to say to a man who had never given up on her, even when he thought her a traitor.

He shook his head at her proclamation and tried to move back, but she  would not let him. 'Ahhh, sweetheart, you don't know who I am inside,'  he said, his free hand above his heart as if shielding some dark thing  that he did not wish her to see. 'And if you did … '

'Then I would love you more.' She could not allow his distance to break  honesty into pieces. He could not love her back in the way that she  wanted, he could not say the words that she could barely hold back each  and every time she was with him.

I love you.

I love you with every breath and every heartbeat.

'It is the imperfections that make people interesting, Stephen, those things that are hidden from everybody else.'

'I have killed people, Aurelia, many people.'

'In the name of a country trying to keep its citizens safe. England should thank you for it.'

'If only it were so simple.' Yearning lay in his voice.

'Sometimes it is, my love,' she returned. 'Sometimes to forget for a  moment is simple.' Her fingers began to unbutton his jacket and she was  pleased as he allowed her to slip it off. His neckcloth, waistcoat and  shirt followed. He breathed in quickly as he traced the line of bandage  across her left arm and helped her out of Lillian's gown.

'If you had not survived it … ' His thumb crossed her left breast, drawing  a name. His name. Hawk. She read it in the quiet touch of skin.