Mistress at Midnight(9)

Aurelia sat in the downstairs salon near the hallway on a chair that was  hard and straight, waiting for Leonora to come home. It was later than  Lady Lindsay had promised it would be and she felt an exhaustion rise up  that made her bone-weary. The clock at the other end of the room  pointed to the hour of one, and she knew John, their servant, was  waiting and then he, too, could find his repose.                       
       
           



       

He had left the lights burning this evening at her request, which was an  expensive luxury, and they both watched the shadows at the window,  listening for a noise. Finally it came.

'They are here, ma'am.'

Nodding, she watched as he took a lamp and went out to greet the  carriage. The laughter and the voices were joyful, Leonora's  particularly so, as she bid her companions goodnight.

A few moments later her sister was back inside and the large front door was closed against the darkness.

'I have never in all my life had such a wonderful night,' she trilled,  turning on the floor as though she was still dancing with an imaginary  Rodney. 'Mr Northrup will come and call on us tomorrow, I am certain of  it. Oh, Lia, you are the most caring sister in the whole world to have  procured such an invitation for me.'

Her overt enthusiasm only had the effect of making Aurelia feel older  and more tired and she was glad when Leonora bade them good evening and  went to find the twins in their beds. To regale the whole episode to  them, she supposed, and hoped that they would not wake Papa in their  excitement.

John doused the flame of the lamp, his brow lined in worry.

'The young gentleman was adamant about shepherding Miss Leonora in until  I told him that your father had been ill with the influenza, Miss  Aurelia, but he seemed most anxious to visit.'

'Then let us hope he does not stay long.'

'I sometimes think, ma'am, that it is my family who has made everything  impossible for you and that it would have been better had we just  disappeared-'

She didn't let him finish. 'The court came to the conclusion that no one  was to blame save Charles for his own death, John. It is my opinion  that they were right.'

'Without your help they may have come to another decision altogether.'  His face held the agony she had become accustomed to seeing there-an old  man with the weight of secrets and sadness upon his shoulders. She  recognised his anguish as the same emotion that crouched inside of her,  waiting to pounce, biding its time.

'And any other decision would have been an erroneous one, given all the facts.'

The older servant bowed his head and nodded before going to check that  the doors were fastened. He had aged considerably in the years since  Charles had been dead, but then so had she, his influence still  lingering long after his demise.

Of a sudden she felt light-headed and dizzy. She had not eaten anything  at the Hawkhurst ball and had been too busy helping finish the last  stitches in Leonora's gown to take succour at lunchtime, and here was a  stranger who would be back knocking at the door of Braeburn House in  only a matter of hours.

Had she made a huge mistake by petitioning Lord Hawkhurst for the  invitations? She shook her head. No, there was nothing else she could  have done and with careful management the whole thing could still work  to their advantage for Leonora had been more than taken with Rodney  Northrup.

It could have been a lot worse. Cassandra Lindsay's brother seemed a  kind man and the influenza that John had mentioned was also inspired. No  one would expect Papa to appear downstairs for a good week or two at  least.

Looking around, she was pleased they had kept a hold of some of the  better furniture, though there were places where more expensive  artefacts had once languished. The missing pieces were her inheritance,  mostly; she had been careful not to strip the house of those things  Leonora, Harriet and Prudence held dear.

They were finally gone, the last of the guests on their way home at  almost five in the morning. Hawkhurst imagined the first flush of dawn  on the eastern horizon as he climbed the stairs to his bedroom on the  first floor.

He had met his agent and exchanged the papers, easily and secretly. He  had watched Delsarte and his group, too, for there were rumours of an  involvement in clandestine activities that the British Service wanted  some measure of. Aurelia's contretemps with Delsarte came to mind, his  mission of watching the lord and his minions suddenly at risk. The  personal and the professional were beginning to impinge on each other  and he knew he would need to be more careful. Ten years of stellar  service to his country were not to be taken away on a … whim. Hawk frowned  at the word as he lay down, kicking off his shoes and watching the play  of light and shadow outside through his undrawn curtains.

'Aurelia St Harlow.' He whispered the name into the darkness, listening  to the sound of it return to him like some forbidden music.

Elizabeth Berkeley was softer and more familiar, yet it was not to the  blond ringlets and pale eyes that his mind wandered as he remembered his  cousin's widow writhing against him in the dusk.                       
       
           



       

He wanted to kiss Aurelia and feel again what he had once, the sharp and  unexpected delight of lust surprising him, for it had been many a year  since he had known the sort of quickness that she inspired. The anger at  such a demented fantasy had him sitting upright.

She was a woman who was said to have killed his cousin and got away with  it, the whispered gossip of society following her every step. She would  be forever ostracized and dismissed. He breathed out with a heavy force  of air, for years of being a rolling stone had worn him away, homeless  and searching, the shadows now thick harbingers of all he had become. He  needed the security of a warm and easy home. He needed goodness and  humanity and mercy to heal his demons, crouched now closer than ever.  Taylor's Gap had been a warning of his precarious state of mind and he  knew he had to be more careful for with only a little push he might lose  the touchstones altogether.

He opened a drawer on a small cabinet beside his bed and took out a box.  A golden timepiece lay inside. His brother's. Stopped at the moment of  his death. The claws of grief had him standing and he made his way to  the seat by the window to watch the heavens, a distant glimmer of light  claiming the darkness to the east as dawn finally broke.

Alone. For so long now. The burden of it all made worse by his need for  an heir. He swore as the hallowed legends of the Hawkhurst family  wrapped around his chest so tightly he found it hard to move. The scent  of violets felt close and his leg ached in the early morning cold.





Chapter Five


'No, Papa, you have to eat your breakfast.'

Aurelia had had three hours' sleep last night and she swallowed down  irritation as her father refused to open his mouth, her eyes straying to  the clock on the mantel. Eight o'clock already. She hoped Mr Rodney  Northrup would not come calling until well into the afternoon, although  she could already hear Leonora preparing herself for his visit.

'I want to read, Lia. I want to sit and read.' His hand came out and she  smiled when warm fingers curled into her own. It had been two years  since the father they had known had been largely swallowed up by a  stranger that they did not, but sometimes like now there were the old  glimpses of him.

'Eat the egg, Papa, and then I will take you into the library.'

When he finally allowed her to feed him she breathed a sigh of relief.  'Leonora has a beau coming to see her this afternoon. His name is Mr  Rodney Northrup and he is a friend of Lord Hawkhurst.' Aurelia always  told him the news of the house each morning just in case he might take  something in.

Prudence joined her after a few moments, her youngest sister's face alight with anticipation, her hair a golden froth of curls.

'Leonora says Rodney Northrup is the most handsome boy she has ever met,  Lia. She says that he danced with her all night and sat close beside  her in the carriage on the way home. She also mentioned that you had had  a waltz with the menacing Lord Hawkhurst. Could you not have refused  him?'

'Hawkhurst?' Her father spluttered the name. 'Charles knew Hawkhurst?'

'Indeed, Papa, he did.'

Prudence's eyes widened. 'Did Papa just understand us, Lia?'

Aurelia waited to see if her father would say more, but silence seemed  to have claimed him again as he sat and fiddled with a spoon and a fork.

'There are glimmers of comprehension still, Pru, although we have to  expect that they will become fewer and further between, but enough of  all this for now. Tell me, what is Leonora wearing today?' The topic  distracted her sister completely and as she talked excitedly about a  silk gown trimmed with lace, Aurelia wandered her own pathway of  thoughts.