Mistress at Midnight

by Sophia James

  ‘Is that a threat?’ Caesar pulled against his lead at her tone, straining to get to the newcomer.

  ‘Take it as you will, Aurelia, but a woman of dubious loyalty is likely to do badly when turned over to authorities for questioning. Besides, Hawkhurst has been watching and waiting for you to make a mistake.’

  Mentioning the same poor sum he had stated before, Delsarte withdrew, Henry Kerslake disappearing with him and the door shutting behind them to an awful silence.

  Sitting down, she took in a breath. Her cheek ached as did her breast. But all she could think of were Delsarte’s words.

  Hawkhurst has been watching and waiting for you to make a mistake.

  The numbers in front of her swam through the tears—small harbingers of a pride that was gone now, drowned in the fear of aloneness.

  His skin against hers. The rise of his buttocks as her hands moved across them. The indents on his ribs where bullet holes had punctured and the curling scar upon his thigh. Hawk in the midnight. Magnificent and menacing.

  She glanced at the time. Two-thirty in the afternoon. Still hours before she might go to him and be safe. She hated the way she began to shake as her fingers felt the bruised and throbbing skin on her cheek. Dangerous. Isolated. For the first time in a long while Aurelia began to cry.

  Someone had hit her. He knew it from the first moment she walked into the hall of his town house, the stain of darkness on her cheek beneath a thick layer of make-up she never wore.

  Pulling her into the light, Hawk tipped her chin with his finger so that he might see the damage better. Fury beat at his temples like a drum.

  ‘Who did this to you, Aurelia?’

  Her eyes fell away from his. ‘Freddy Delsarte.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He came to the warehouse today and warned me to stay away from you. He said you were watching me and waiting for a…mistake.’ Large tears made a pathway across heavily applied powder.

  ‘I will kill him for this. I swear that I will.’

  She caught his hand and held it to her breast. ‘Is what he said true, Stephen? Are you watching me?’ Now she looked directly at him.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because of Charles?’

  ‘You are being monitored because there have been intelligence codes sent through your silk cargo to France and because known dissenters have been seen in your vicinity.’

  ‘I know nothing of messages in the cargo.’ She tried to keep the thoughts of the letters she delivered to Dr Touillon as far as possible from her mind.

  ‘Then I am glad to hear it.’

  ‘My mother is ill and she has sent men to collect some money from me…for a nurse.’

  ‘And Delsarte knows this?’

  Politics balanced on the fine edge of intimacy. His question unsteadied her and she knew exactly why Stephen Hawkhurst had been sent to Europe on the government’s business. Purpose and resolution defined him, a man of smoke and mirrors, and clever beyond any other she had met.

  ‘Mama lives in Paris and Delsarte intimated that she may be harmed if I do not co-operate.’

  ‘Co-operate? How?’

  ‘Sell my business to him cheaply just as it is beginning to realise profit.’

  ‘And why would you do that? What hold has Frederick Delsarte over you to even consider doing such a thing?’

  Aurelia hesitated. The cracks between them would widen with the truth, but there was little that she could do to change that. ‘In order to make a living my mother turned to the life of a courtesan and as she got older the clients were less willing to pay quite as much. Sylvienne chose a name that was not her own, but I had visited her and…’ She couldn’t go on. It was her fault that any of this had happened, after all, and to add injury to insult Freddy Delsarte had become one of her mother’s lovers, too. He had told her so at the Hawkhurst ball, implying that he wished to know of her daughter’s charms, as well. The very thought of it made her sick.

  Webs wove their way around families and the unprotected were left wide open to all sorts of slander. The anger in her surfaced with the shame.

  ‘She is dying of syphilis. I could see it in her face then and now I know it in her words.’

  She had never told another soul any of this, but the confession poured out of her, the relief of sharing her darkest fear all encompassing. How often had she kept things bottled up inside and brewing with worry?

  It was his strength and his certainty that had brought out such a revelation, a man whose opinions she valued and whose advice she might follow. Years of dealing with each and every problem by herself made her voice shake.

  ‘Shavvon thinks it is you who is implicated in the intelligence sent to France. If we could catch Delsarte and Kerslake instead, you would be freed of it.’

  The horror of his revelations had her sitting and Hawkhurst crossed the room, returning with a large glass of brandy.

  ‘Here, drink this. It will help.’

  She did as he suggested, the liquor burning at the back of her throat.

  Tonight he wore all black, the clothes emphasising the darkness of his hair and the gold in his eyes. The British Service held her name and the address of her family, her sisters and papa. The images of gallows and dark prisons rose in her mind, the rotting flesh of dissidents and murderers in small dank spaces of despair.

  She hated the way she was shaking, all the dreams she had fostered disappearing in the comprehension of a reality that held no mind for hope or love. Yet when his arms came around her, drawing her up into his warmth, the cold of the night lessened and business and politics was pushed to one side—just them against the world, the lies and the truths, the good and the bad. Here, for this little time there was a void in judgement, his breath mingling with hers, his fingers tracing patterns on the thin silk of her gown.

  ‘Shhhh, sweetheart, it will be fine, I promise.’

  Another troth. Another way that she had made things difficult for him. Did he ever tire of such neediness and how was she to manage if he did?

  Her eyes flew open. She could not depend on him like this, not surrender all of her fierceness in a moment of exhaustion. Stephen Hawkhurst had never intimated that their relationship could become permanent, nor did he seek a more public display of affection. She came to him in the dark and she left before the dawn, secrecy clouding all contact.

  Tonight, with her cheek aching, Aurelia just wanted to be home. She did not have the defences in place that she had once found simple. No, the barriers she had built for years were shifting as passion refused to be tethered any longer, tumbling through sense and responsibility, tearing away duty and replacing it all with a pure and tantalising desire.

  Tears pooled at the back of her eyes and the dull throb on her cheek made everything a hundred times worse, though when he leant down and kissed the edges of the hurt she could not help but smile, feather-light kisses of quiet ease and a great deal of concern.

  ‘If Delsarte touches you again, I will kill him.’

  ‘And spend the rest of your life in prison?’

  He laughed at that, but the heat that had begun to grow took away any thought of further conversation and when he brought her down to the woollen rug laid before a glowing fire she could see in his eyes twin reflections of flame.

  Stephen watched from his window as the cabriolet drove down the road, taking Aurelia away from him, and he fisted his hands against his thigh, wishing that he might have been travelling home with her, seeing her safe.

  Caring for her.

  He could barely remember what that felt like any more and had not known for a long time, though the deadened anger that had held him immobile since the death of his brother wound its way into his throat, quickened, and he swallowed back thickness.

  Aurelia. Even her name was beautiful.

  If you did not love, you never lost. If you held people at a distance and took only what was needed, you could survive.

  Flashes of their nights together held him still, his hea
d tilted towards something he had missed.

  Love. It was not always words that said it.

  Love came in the smiles between them and in the soft honesty at midnight; he Could no longer be blind and deaf to all the things Aurelia was saying when she did not speak. Could he love her back in the way she needed? Could he risk a try?

  He was glad his hands shook when he looked down because it showed he still had a damn heart inside him. And he knew he would not sleep.

  ‘There is someone here to see you, my lord.’ Wilson deposited a card on the bedside table and stood back as Hawk looked at the time on the clock in the corner. Half past ten. He had caught some sleep after all and whatever it was Shavvon wanted it must be important.

  ‘Send him in.’

  Alexander Shavvon looked harried and tired and he was barely in the room before he spoke. ‘Freddy Delsarte, Henry Kerslake and Mrs St Harlow have gone north. They left an hour ago.’

  The whole world slowed around Hawk, a gut-wrenching jerk making his world spin.

  ‘She went willingly?’

  ‘Her servant was found with a lump the size of Africa on his head and he said she did not.’

  Shock held Stephen still.

  ‘They have taken the Great North Road and my guess is they are headed to a manor house Delsarte inherited a year or so ago after winning a game of cards against the Earl of Kendrick. I want to see what Delsarte wants with Mrs St Harlow and what he does. When you know where they are, call in the local constabulary and have Delsarte and Kerslake thrown into gaol and then search the place. Take whomever you want with you.’

  Hawk shook his head. ‘I’ll go alone, sir. It will be easier to remain hidden.’

  ‘Very well. A carriage will be readied. I have already sent people to go into the warehouse to see just what might be discovered there. The family of Mrs St Harlow will need to be told of our concerns, though we will put that off for as long as possible as I do not wish for society to be gossiping about the downfall of suspects we have not yet apprehended.’

  Hawk dressed and gathered his coat and hat after Shavvon left and called for his own horse to be brought around. If Delsarte or Kerslake had laid even a finger on Aurelia…

  ‘Focus,’ he whispered, ‘and help her.’

  The building dread clutching at him made his body ache.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Aurelia’s cheek throbbed, the fear inside her making it pound even harder. Delsarte and Kerslake had been waiting for her at the warehouse when she had arrived with John at Park Street this morning and had insisted she accompany them in this carriage. When John had resisted Delsarte had called in other accomplices and they had dragged him away. Aurelia prayed that he had not been hurt too badly.

  She had no idea where they were headed, but both men looked angry enough to hurt her if she were to put one foot wrong, and behind them in another coach were the three men she had seen at Park Street.

  She prayed that her family would not be worried out of their wits by her most uncharacteristic disappearance when she failed to arrive home. Her heart sank at the thought of it.

  Straightening her back, she looked ahead, her bottom teeth grinding against her top ones. Would Hawkhurst know what had happened? Would he come after her or would he imagine her involvement to be voluntary and wash his hands of her altogether?

  An inn ahead had Delsarte giving the driver orders after an hour of travelling. ‘Here,’ he shouted, the conveyance slowing to a halt as it pulled into an establishment that had seen better days. When it stopped he turned to Aurelia. ‘I hope an hour in our company has persuaded you to be reasonable?’

  Waiting till she nodded, he opened the door and stepped out, making a great fuss of taking her hand and helping her down from the conveyance.

  Inside was worse than out, the innkeeper unkempt and leering. Aurelia was glad of the thick coat she wore as his hand reached out towards her.

  ‘A beauty, this one, is she not, lads? With red hair that might burn a man soulless.’ A slurred waft of strong liquor accompanied the insult.

  When Delsarte gestured to a table on its own by the window, Aurelia slid into the back pew, her two travelling companions effectively blocking her exit. The others accompanying them sidled across to the bar and ordered a drink.

  ‘What does Hawkhurst know of our operation?’ Delsarte asked that question as he lit a cheroot, the smoke of the small thin cigarette dancing between them.

  ‘Nothing. It is me he imagines the traitor because of my mother’s nationality.’

  ‘Wrong answer.’ Delsarte’s voice was low and dangerous. ‘He has had us both followed.’

  ‘Then ask him yourself. He is hardly going to discuss his motives with me.’

  ‘You are his lover, Mrs St Harlow, and a woman of much persuasion. I think you could find out exactly what it is you wish to know.’

  Aurelia made herself laugh. ‘My husband thought me lacking in all ways, sir. Why would his cousin, Lord Hawkhurst, think any differently?’

  ‘You sell yourself short, my dear, and you always have. Sign the business over to me for the sum mentioned yesterday and I will send you home in the carriage to your family. It all comes down to money in the end, you see, a concept your husband would have entirely understood.’

  He waited as the innkeeper deposited two glasses of beer before them and left. ‘If I had been called into the witness stand, John Samson would have been sent to gaol for the murder of Charles St Harlow and you, Aurelia St Harlow, for the way you allowed him to get away with it. I was there, you see, watching it all from the house. How easily I could have ruined you.’

  The sharp slice of shock had Aurelia’s blood pounding—however, she could not afford to just leave his attack there.

  ‘But you didn’t speak because you knew Charles was uncontrollable and dangerous and it was a relief that he had finally gone. You didn’t speak because the orgies at Medlands would have implicated you and society under the tutelage of Victoria would not have countenanced such depravation. You didn’t speak because there were things that had happened at the Yuletide parties at Medlands that would ruin the reputation of any gentleman, yours included.’

  ‘Shut up.’ The veins on each side of his temple stood out in a knotted redness and she went quiet. As Delsarte took a good swallow of his drink, the day of Charles’s death came back full blown into Aurelia’s memory. The blood, the screams, the realisation and the final silence.

  She had prayed for years that she might be free of her husband and as Charles had taken his last laboured breath the relief she had felt was indescribable. Murder with strings of temperance and justice attached and a lucky fall for all but Charles. Still the shame of it all made her weary.

  ‘And now with Hawkhurst’s untimely questions we have a further problem which is a dangerous thing for us all, Mrs St Harlow. We need cold hard cash to disappear and we are hoping that might come from the sale of your silk business.’

  She shook her head. ‘There are legal documents to be witnessed and deeds of title to be signed. Such a thing cannot be done on an instant.’ She was clutching at straws, she knew, but anything to slow them down and give her time to think would be helpful.

  Kerslake brought out a folder from his bag and unfurled all the papers she had just spoken of. ‘I have everything we need for the transaction right here, including the right person to buy it.’

  And then she understood. They would keep her with them until she signed away her company. Their profit. Their price.

  ‘Do you have a “right person”?’

  Delsarte laughed. ‘Always the clever one, Mrs St Harlow. Of course we do. A sign of the pen, a tidy profit and a place on the first ship to leave London on the outgoing tide. The simpler the plan, the greater the likelihood of success. Pity we could not have held on to it for longer with the rosy state of your rising sales.’

  Everything she had ever worked for gone in the slash of a pen. Her sisters’ futures. Her father’s comfort. Sylvie
nne’s nurse. She would be thrown upon the debtor’s block with the rest of her family, helpless to fight it. Years of endeavour and finally all for nothing. The knife she saw in Delsarte’s fist beneath the table had her picking up the pen. While there was life there was hope. Stephen Hawkhurst had at least taught her that.

  The inn came into view after about forty minutes of fast riding. Hawkhurst had checked every stopping place between London and here on the road north and had found no sign of those he sought. The carriage in the stables to one side of the rickety eating house was newly in, the horses being rubbed down by a lad who looked no older than ten.

  He flipped the boy a coin. ‘Who arrived in this?’

  ‘Two men, sir, and a woman. They are eating inside.’

  Another coin followed the first. ‘Feed and water my horse and find me another ride.’

  ‘There’s only Geordie left, sir.’ He pointed to a rundown hack waiting in one end of the barn.

  ‘Then he will have to do. I will be back for my own ride in a few days. Keep him safe.’ This time he made sure to offer gold and as the lad bit into it his eyes widened.

  ‘I’ll guard your horseflesh with me life, guv. I promise you that.’

  Outside, Hawkhurst edged across the yard to look into a door where a number of men were gathered. His eyes searched the room for Delsarte and Aurelia and he saw them almost instantly, an innkeeper leaning over her to look at a document unfurled across the table.

  Swearing, he slipped into the shadow of a window that was open, thin and dirty torn lace moving in the rising breeze.

  Three others who appeared to be of the same ilk were lined up at the bar. Five opponents. There had been many a time he had battled against more.

  Aurelia’s back was ramrod straight, the bruise on her cheek today deeper. She had been boxed in against the wall; he saw that immediately and he could only thank God he had found her.

  As if she had some premonition that he was somewhere near, her glance swept the room and when he allowed her to find him her mismatched eyes opened wider, both blue and brown not quite believing what they were seeing. He saw her face crumple into fear as he stepped out into the chamber.