Society's Beauties: Mistress at Midnight / Scars of Betrayal

‘Yes. With the lifting of import duties it is often cheaper to bring the hand-loomed silks in as an adjunct to what we can weave.’

‘So you have contact with the traders in Paris?’

She hesitated before nodding. ‘I do. Is there some problem with that, my lord?’

‘No problem at all. Curiosity is just one of my many faults.’

‘Somehow I doubt that. Palmerston has the thought that all citizens with some link to France must be traitors.’

‘You make it a point to understand politics?’

‘I try to. The tariffs for the silk trade here are hefty, yet France enjoys little government intervention. Without a good knowledge of the changing pattern of the new bills and laws, my margins would suffer.’

Despite himself he laughed. ‘My cousin could barely string a thought together about anything other than himself or fashion. How did he ever end up with a woman like you?’

A flash of panic crossed her face. ‘I realise it is a difficult thing to understand, but I am trying to build a life again, my lord, trying to fashion a better existence for my family.’

‘Why did you meet with Delsarte today, Aurelia?’

Anger whipped up fire in her eyes. ‘You have had me followed?’

‘England’s safety comes with good intelligence.’

‘Your man has poor skills, then. I spotted him both at the hospital and in the street.’

‘Perhaps he wished to be seen.’

‘Because you would warn me…?’ Her question wavered into silence. The material in her ugly gown caught the lamplight and one of the ties at her throat was loosened so that the bodice hung away from her skin.

Dipping into his pocket, he brought forth the pendant he had located in a pawnshop two days ago. The look of surprise on her face had him reaching for her gloveless hand. Her skin felt hot and smooth as he placed the bauble within her palm and closed her fingers around it.

‘It looked like a family heirloom. I thought perhaps you had lost it?’

A shake of her head brought him the truth. ‘I sold it to pay the Davies stables for the rent of their carriage on a Monday. It was my grandmother’s.’

Her teeth worried her bottom lip and for just a moment Hawk thought she might begin to cry. But Aurelia St Harlow was thankfully made of sterner stuff.

‘You think me a traitor and yet you paid for the restoration of my pendant?’

‘I am old enough to realise the world does not deal in only black and white and that grey is a colour subject to much interpretation. I would like to hear how it is you know Delsarte?’

‘He was a friend of my husband’s. He came religiously to the parties at Medlands. He is also an opium addict.’

Shocking. He could see it in her face, the crawl of truth and the caution of betrayal.

‘Were you at these parties?’

‘Once. The first night. Before I understood exactly…’

She did not go on, the silence about them pulsing with intent.

Finally she spoke again. ‘It is my opinion that you came to the warehouse in Park Street because you believe there is some illicit business being carried on from those premises. I do not know who sent you there, but it may be prudent on my behalf to suggest we make a deal, my lord. If you could find it in yourself to acknowledge that there is no nefarious activity in my small silk business, I could offer in payment the promise of a letter that would bring to light the truth of your cousin’s death.’

‘God, Aurelia.’

There was something in what she said that did not make any sense, though he couldn’t at this moment fathom quite what it was. Her pulse was hammering in her throat, but she did not give an inch, her gaze full upon him. ‘As Charles’s cousin I do think you have the right to know the circumstances of his demise and the grey you spoke of a moment ago can be evident even in murder.’ Her voice shook and he saw her swallow, her tongue wetting dry lips. Desperately trying to regain given ground, he suspected, and failing.

An ache he had never felt before wound into his chest and shock left him rigid. Was she admitting to both treason and murder? An unexpected tenderness welled within him, enveloping the will to move away.

How did she do this to him so very easily, make him want to protect her and keep her safe? From everyone, even given such damning revelations?

She had as many problems as he did and that was saying something. The very thought made him sad, the isolation of her at complete odds with the words that she uttered. There was no rationality in it, of course, no earthly reason that the attraction between them should shimmer and scorch above Queen and country and justice. But it did, and so brightly that desperation crawled up his arm in shock.

He wanted her. She could feel the need between them. He wanted her exactly as she wanted him, like an anchor, like a touchstone, like the only person in the whole world who might understand that in tragedy there was sometimes also a glimmer of hope.

For the first time in her life she wondered what might happen were she to put herself first and simply enjoy, but with so many people to protect and so little time to do it she needed to make him understand exactly what she was saying.

‘I need immunity from any prosecution, my lord, and you intimated at Hookham’s library that you were attracted to me. Perhaps in that we might both find a solution.’

He stepped back, anger on his brow. She noticed how he pulled his jacket from the hanger by the door and shrugged into it, the long tails reaching almost to his shins. He did not want her? He had not been expecting any such admission?

An error! She had made a huge error for the green-gold in his eyes was changed into dangerous amber, any civility still evident simmering under darkness.

‘Surely we are adult enough to realise that the world is often not exactly as it might seem, my lord, and that there are times when the expedience of opportunity might serve us both. I am not an inexperienced green girl, you understand, and you are a man, no doubt, who has enjoyed the company of women.’ It was all she could dredge up in the awkward silence, though when he motioned for her to stop she saw that she had lost him.

‘The act of loving between a woman and a man is badly done when it is linked so precisely to dishonour, Mrs St Harlow.’ His hand shook more than it usually did and he jammed it into his pocket away from notice.

‘These might be fine words, Lord Hawkhurst, when one has the choice of exploring different options.’ Fury crept into her reply.

‘And you think that you do not?’

‘I know it.’

‘So it is only your body that lies between survival or ruin?’

‘Indeed, my sisters might say thus were they to know of your tender.’

Unexpectedly he laughed, the sound echoing about the dark spaces of the room. ‘Your sisters? Your father? It is for them that you do this? Who is it that looks out for you, then, when you have need for some succour?’ Now all humour was gone completely.

The question had her turning away because in just those few words he had understood what she had tried so hard to hide.

No one.

She had always been alone. Fighting, trying, hobbling into each successive day with the weight of the world on her shoulders and no hope at all of being rid of any of it. Until his promise of help had thrown her with its bright and buoyant hope; a golden troth that had changed everything and now seemed gone.

She hated how expectation made a mockery of morality and when Stephen Hawkhurst held her to the spot with a quick grab of her hand she did her best to shrug him off, short nails digging into the flesh of his wrist. She did not try to be careful or gentle. All she wanted was the cold anger of force, dragging between them, punctuating the impotence and weakness that was her life so far, never in control.

And now another humiliation, more complete than ever before because even with such a simple touch she knew that she had never wanted anyone as much as she wanted Stephen Hawkhurst. Her right hand slapped hard against his arm as she tried to get away.