by Sophia James
The first few nights alone had been the worst. After that she had thanked the Lord for the distance between her new abode and her new husband and for the independence that naturally followed. Aye, her freedoms had been hard won and she was not about to give them up now to anyone.
‘Such problems are mine to solve, my lord.’ Aurelia could barely get the words out, so desperate was she to escape, and the headache she had had all morning began to play upon her vision. ‘The silk trade is shaping up well and in a few months I am certain I shall be—’
‘Dead and buried by the looks of the dark rings beneath your eyes.’
Glancing down, she resisted the urge to lift her fingers to her face. She had hardly slept for days, the difficulty of everything increased somehow by all the consequences of the Hawkhurst ball. Leonora and Rodney. Cassandra Lindsay and her invitation to a country-house party. The carriage ride home where she had understood for the first time in her life what it was to be attracted to a man.
Not just any man, either, but this one before her, his eyes filled with certainty.
‘What if Lady Lindsay brought your sisters out and I footed the bill?’
Aurelia could not believe what she had just heard and shock made her step back.
‘I could never accept such an offer.’
‘Why not? You were married to my cousin and as the head of the Hawkhurst family I would be most remiss to leave you floundering financially as a widow.’
‘I am hardly a relative you might be expected to nurture, my lord, and people would talk.’
‘They talk now, Aurelia.’
His eyes were softened in the grey light of a gloomy London afternoon and she thought he had never looked more beautiful.
‘I should tell you that Cassandra Lindsay broached the subject with me yesterday. She has met your sisters, apparently, and was most impressed by them.’
‘Oh.’ The wind was taken from her sails as she tried to decide exactly what to do.
Turning away, she looked out of the window, a squally rain shower pushing a stray sheet of paper down the street. Once, she would have accepted such help with barely a backward thought. Once, hopes and dreams had been written in her eyes just as they were now in Leonora’s, and the future had looked bright. She had worn colourful gowns, then, gowns to highlight the shade of her hair and the dashing Mr Charles St Harlow, newly returned from The Americas, had been entranced.
For all of a month. The anger in her grew with the shame.
‘Would Lady Elizabeth Berkeley not find such patronage odd, given you are already promised to her in marriage?’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Lady Lindsay herself. At your ball.’
A single muscle rippled in his jaw, but he did not speak.
‘I do not wish to make matters difficult for you, but if I agree to such a thing it would only be on the grounds that I would pay you back.’
‘Very well.’
‘When I sell my silk business. I would write out a vowel, of course, though I understand if you would prefer to involve a lawyer…’
‘I wouldn’t.’
Flustered at the clipped tone in his words, she held out her hand. ‘Do we shake on it, then?’
His fingers came across her own, warm and strong, the connection even here in a public library and under the strictest terms of trade still having the capacity to make her…breathless.
‘I shall keep a careful tally of all expenses, Lord Hawkhurst.’
His pupils darkened with shards of gold splintering on the edge. Predatory and watchful, yet Aurelia could not care.
He did not break his grip and she did not loosen hers, either. Rather, here in the quiet corner of a room of knowledge she wished she was standing instead on the top of Taylor’s Gap with no one around for miles and all the reason in the world to thank him properly.
He had shown her what a kiss could feel like, once, and she wanted that again. Her face flushed with the effort of holding back and for the first time she saw a hint of uncertainty cross his brow as he brought her hand upwards and placed his lips upon her skin in the smallest of caresses. His tongue against the juncture of her fingers was soft and real, saying much in the hidden quiet of honesty.
‘I don’t know what burns between us, Mrs St Harlow, but there will come a time when we shall not have the will to stop it, I can promise you that.’
There, the words were said, falling against lies and covering them with a softer edge, like snow across the jagged sharp of rocks.
Only truth. The lump in her throat made her swallow as she tried to find an answer, but what indeed could she say? If she agreed, then only ruin would follow, and if she didn’t…
She could not speak, even with everything held in a balance, and he let her hand go and took a pace backwards.
The heavy fall of feet made them turn as a woman rounded the corner a good twenty feet away and proceeded towards them and Aurelia gained the distinct impression that he had heard her coming well before the lady came into sight.
‘Lord Hawkhurst, what a delight to see you here.’ Her smile was bright until her glance passed over Aurelia’s face, and the sheen of it flattened.
‘Lady Allum.’ Hawkhurst’s detachment was back, easily in place, and Aurelia had to marvel at the way he changed so quickly from one thing to another. She feared her own expression was nowhere near as schooled. ‘Might I introduce Mrs St Harlow to you?’
Caught, the woman finally made eye contact, a furtive quick glance telling Aurelia that she believed all that had been said about her. Today the criticism hurt in a way it seldom had before.
‘Lady Berkeley said that she was hoping to have you over for dinner on Saturday, Lord Hawkhurst. It is a small and select gathering, from all that I hear. Her daughter Elizabeth was particularly looking forward to the event.’
‘I have already sent word that I cannot be present, my lady, as I shall be away from London all week.’
As the woman spoke again of another assembly she wanted Hawkhurst to attend Aurelia used the conversation to simply excuse herself And walk away, the sound of her shoes on the polished parquet flooring marking her retreat. And then she was outside, the façade of the library tall against a dark and rain-washed sky. Hailing a passing hansom cab, she tried to decide exactly what she should do about the enigmatic and menacing Lord Stephen Hawkhurst, the beat of her heart quickening as she remembered his last words to her.
I don’t know what burns between us, Mrs St Harlow…
So he felt it, too, this breathless intensity taking all that was ordinary and commonplace away and replacing it with…what? She stopped, searching for the right word, but it would not come in the way she wanted it and so her mind moved on.
He was due to marry one of the most beautiful debutantes of the Season and she was an outcast, for ever shut away from proper society. Nay, there could be nothing at all between them and to dream otherwise would only lead to the disappointment she had already experienced too much of.
Stephen stalked into White’s club in St James’s Street, barely noticing the surroundings of plush leather chairs and numerous chandeliers. All he wanted was a drink to wipe out the desire that coursed through him and the irritation of Catherine Allum’s untimely interruption.
Pure lust had made him admit that which should have been unspoken, but he wished he had kept his mouth shut even whilst imagining Aurelia’s flame-red hair lying across his loins, the heavy abundance of her breasts in his palms and his mouth.
Swearing roundly, he took a seat by the fire, draping his legs with his frock coat so that others might not see the swelling he could feel pushing against superfine.
‘A difficult day?’
He had not thought the seat opposite to be occupied, as it was turned at an angle away from the fire, but with a scrape of wood on parquet flooring Lucas Clairmont swivelled his chair, brandy being warmed by carefully cupped hands.
‘You have the look of a man who has sparred with the o
pposite sex, Hawk, and lost. My bets are the lady in question is the enigmatic Mrs St Harlow for I doubt the timid Lady Elizabeth Berkeley could raise such a high temper in anyone.’
Despite his dilemma Stephen smiled and accepted a glass of the same drop from a passing waiter, draining the contents before trusting himself enough to speak. ‘I met Mrs St Harlow unexpectedly at Hookham’s library and I offered to bring her youngest sisters out with the help of Cassandra Lindsay. They are twins.’
‘A very generous offer.’
‘And one she wanted to refuse.’
Laughter made Stephen wish that he had said nothing at all. ‘Only a good woman can get under your skin in that way, Hawk. My wife, Lillian, has the same capacity to make me wild with both fury and desire and all at the same time.’
‘I never said that was how I felt.’
‘Not in words, maybe, but there is something about your demeanour since the ball that is different… .’
‘It is provocation and exasperation, Lucas, and it all comes down to the impossible Mrs St Harlow.’
Luc finished his drink in one unbroken swallow. ‘Nay, it is the unexpected comprehension of feelings only few inspire, Hawk. If you listened to what’s left of your heart, you might just hear the music, and if you do it will probably save you.’
‘Lillian has turned you into a romantic, Luc, and your advice is completely without sense.’
But the strong liquor soured at the back of Stephen’s throat. For the first time in his life he did not know exactly what to do with a woman and it worried him. All of Luc’s talk of salvation rankled, too. Only innocence and purity might beat back the demons that consumed him and Aurelia St Harlow was no fresh-faced ingénue. His ruminations were interrupted, however, by Luc’s further rhetoric.
‘I ran into Lady Berkeley an hour or so back. Her daughter is most distressed that she may have offended you in some way at your ball. She has not heard from you since, it seems?’
‘I have been busy.’
Leaning forwards Lucas lowered his voice. ‘There is something else that I think you ought to know about your cousin’s mysterious widow, Hawk. She visits St Bartholomew’s Hospital once a month to speak with a doctor named Giles Touillon.’
‘French?’
‘Indeed.’
The world spun inwards. Lord, Shavvon had sent him to the warehouses in the Limestone Hole to find a French connection and a disenfranchised traitor. Could Aurelia St Harlow be the leak? After a lifetime of spying Stephen had ceased to believe in the benevolent nature of mere coincidence. It was always so much more than that.
‘You look…odd, Hawk. Are you well?’
‘Very.’ Stretching back in the chair, he smiled. Even before Lucas he erected barriers. The thought made him sadder than it ought to. ‘If you see Lady Berkeley in the next day or two, Luc, could you tell her I shall call upon them at the end of the week for I have been summoned away north.’
‘Problems at Atherton?’
‘Life is always demanding its pound of flesh,’ he returned, feeling in the answer that he had not quite lied.
A few hours later Hawk walked through the maze of alleyways between Katherine Street and Drury Lane, the stench of this poorer part of London rising in his nostrils. A woman’s fan brushed his face and he warned her away, the age-old code of the streetwalker’s offer lost in a smile where both gums and teeth had been eaten up by the mercury cure.
He was glad he had come in the guise of a sailor, the homespun of his clothes attracting little attention as he pulled the hat he wore further down upon his forehead.
Knocking on the door of a house on the corner of one of the small intertwining streets, he waited. Within a few seconds the bolts were slipped and he was allowed through, heavy locks refastened behind him.
‘Phillips said ye’d come.’ The man before him was small and wiry, a shock of red hair topping a freckled face.
‘He’s left the papers, then.’ Stephen’s words were tinged with the accent of the same slums.
‘I need the words first. The ones you’d know to say.’
‘Angliae notitia.’
A lamp flared and the corners of the modest room were bathed in light. A woman sat to one side on a small stool with a baby asleep on her lap.
‘Not a peep, mind, to anyone. If you talk, me wife and I, we’re as good as gone.’
‘I understand.’ Hawk brought the coins from his pocket, the profile of the Queen etched in bronze. ‘There’s more where this came from if you have anything else.’ A flash of greed told him that the red-haired man probably did. Settling back, he crossed his legs in front of him. Experience had taught him patience in any negotiation and the art of biding his time. Information gathering had its own set of intricate rules, after all, and the first of them was to feign indifference.
‘The one they call Delsarte and his cronies have been hanging around the warehouse. I ain’t seen the woman do nothing with them, though. She just goes late back to that fancy home of hers up in Mayfair when she has finished and returns in the morning. As early as sin, I should say.’
‘Have you ever seen her talking with them?’
‘No.’
Stephen’s glance went to the girl sitting to one side, but her eyes were cast downwards.
‘There is something that I heard Delsarte say…’ Stopping, he waited for a timely reminder and Hawk handed him another handful of coins. ‘He said that he was going to Paris and that there was more money in it than this business could provide him with. Then the rain came down heavy so’s that I couldn’t listen no more. The woman he was talking to was from Mother Spence’s place down Katherine Lane. A big dark-haired girl with patches, rouge and a long scar down her forearm. She might know more if ye asked her, though ye’d have to be careful as she was hanging on to him like he was a gift or something.’
‘Did you get into the warehouse to look over the files?’
‘No, not a chance to. The dog stops you when there’s no one in. A big monster of a hound that lets everyone know he’s there. I heard them mention a boat, though, last week, when I was following them home from the Black Boar. The Meridian. I checked and she’s in at St Katherine’s Dock.’
‘You’ve done well.’ Standing, Stephen placed a silver shilling on the table before him. ‘For the babe,’ he said as he collected his hat and left.
Nathaniel Lindsay was waiting for him in his library when he returned after eleven o’clock, and he had already finished a large amount of his best bottle of whisky.
‘You are still at the game, then?’ His eyes passed over the homespun as Stephen took off the woollen overcoat and hat.
‘If you come uninvited, you have to take what is here without comment, Nat.’ Finding a glass, Hawk poured himself a generous drink, pausing to enjoy the smooth taste of the golden liquid.
‘Cassie sent me.’
‘Why?’
‘She thinks you need a talking to over your choice of women.’
‘I thought your wife approved of Elizabeth Berkeley?’
Laughter echoed around the room. ‘You would devour everything about that poor chit within a year, Stephen, and curse yourself for doing so.’
‘Indeed?’
‘Women are like this whisky, my friend. Find a full-bodied and complicated brew and it will suit you for ever. It worked for both Luc and me.’
The words fell into the silent warmth of the library, soft harbingers of persuasion. ‘You are saying that the basis for a good marriage is a complicated woman?’
Nathaniel’s hands flailed in the air. ‘I am saying that I am worried about you, Stephen. All this…disguise and deception. It is making you sadder than you need to be.’ He paused for a second before carrying on. ‘Remember when your parents died and we were at school? How old were we then? You and Luc and I?’
‘Thirteen.’
‘Thirteen. And we said that we would always be family from then on. We made a promise cut into the skin at our wrists.’ Pulling up
the sleeve on his arm, he traced one finger over a thin white line. ‘I pressed too hard and ended up in the clinic and you slept on the floor beside me for a week. I think if you had not been there holding my hand in the cold of the night I wouldn’t have survived. Now it is my turn to make certain that you survive.’
With a frown Stephen looked down at his own hands, the nails filled with dirt from where he had scraped them along the earth on the driveway before his foray into the dark alleys off St Katherine’s Row. Placing his drink down, he stood, walking to the window to look out into the darkness.
‘I have already told Shavvon I am leaving.’
‘When?’
‘After this…case.’
‘Your brother would be pleased were he still here.’
‘Considering he died for the same cause that I am quitting, I highly doubt it.’ The ferocity of the words surprised Hawk.
‘Which is the sole reason that you have stayed in for so long. Daniel was killed because he didn’t listen to reason just as you are not doing now.’
‘No. He died because I didn’t protect him.’
‘You took a bullet in the thigh and spent a good portion of that summer in a coma and have limped ever since, for God’s sake. Your brother died because neither he nor you could outrun bullets fired by a crazy Frenchman with little in the way of integrity. You did your best to save him, Hawk, and you have paid the price in pain ever since. It’s time to let it go, let it all go and find the life Daniel was never able to live. It would not be a betrayal.’
Betrayal?
Life in the British Service had in effect once saved him, giving purpose and family to two young boys left without either. With their parents gone, Daniel and he had been rudderless until the steady sure hand of responsibility and duty had guided them on to a path which was significant and worthy. Such initial fealty now caused Hawk’s conscience to burn, yet beneath, another need blazed brighter.
