thought the sister might have turned away, but Aurelia held her there before him, her force of will biting through the atmosphere in the room, a small island of challenge and defiance.
Finally she leaned forwards and whispered, ‘I gave you the exacted payment for the promise of this evening, my lord, and Leonora is not at fault here. Two dances and we will leave.’
‘I am not sure, Lia. Perhaps we should go now.’ The beginning of tears shone in the younger girl’s frightened eyes.
‘Do not cry, Leonora. It is me whom they despise. They will love you if you only let them.’ Turning back, Stephen saw that Aurelia’s hand shook before she buried it into the matt blackness of the wool in her skirt, but she did not give an inch. He had to admire such a resolute feistiness.
‘If one beards the lion in his den, one must be brave.’ Hawk related this to Miss Leonora Beauchamp and was glad when she smiled because the relief in Aurelia St Harlow’s eyes was fathomless, hollow pools of mismatched colour focused upon him.
Years of deception flooded in. An unashamed façade undermined the certainty of others. If Aurelia St Harlow could brazen it out for an hour or more here, he doubted the rumours swirling around her would be quite as damning.
Lord. The promise of a dance with the sister had placed him in a position of difficulty, too. Charles had been one of the last living Hawkhursts, and the closest in blood to him save his uncle, but he had barely known him.
He saw Elizabeth with her family watching, her lips pinched in that particular way she had of showing worry. Guileless. He saw Luc observing him, too, the frown of anger on his brow as pronounced as those of many others. But even this could not make him withdraw his promise and order them gone.
His uncle next to him solved the whole thing entirely as he reached out and took the hand of the one woman in the world he should not have.
‘I remember you, Mrs St Harlow. You are Charles’s wife.’ The use of the present tense made those within hearing press forwards. It was Hawk’s experience that no one loved a scandal played out publicly more than the ton. ‘I liked you right from the start, you see, but you got sadder. She needs to smile more, Stephen. Ask her to dance with you.’
Tragedy, farce and comedy now. The orchestra positioned only a few yards away from them looked at Hawk with expectation on hearing his uncle’s loud command and the faces of those below were a mixture of indignation and shock.
He could do nothing less than consign Miss Leonora Beauchamp into the capable and kind hands of Cassandra Lindsay and offer Aurelia St Harlow the chance of a waltz.
The dance of love, he thought as he led her to the floor, and wondered why such a notion did not seem as ridiculous as he knew it should have. He hoped his right leg would stand up to the exercise, for of late the old wound had been playing up again.
When he placed his hands about her he felt her stiffen. ‘It is my sister whom I would prefer to be where I stand, my lord, for if you adhere to the promised two dances I have just wasted half of them.’
He could not help but smile at such a comment. In response he tightened his grip and felt the full front of her generous bosom. When he looked down he saw she squinted behind thick spectacles.
‘Glasses are supposed to cure poor eyesight, Mrs St Harlow, not cause it,’ he said softly.
‘Things to hide behind have their uses, however, my lord.’ He noticed her straining away and gave her the distance because just the feel of her in his arms had begun to make his blood beat thicker. Across the room Elizabeth Berkeley and her parents followed them intently. ‘You see, at a soirée such as this one it is preferable to be virtually invisible to those who might wish me ill.’
‘They wish you ill because your husband’s death was not one that made any sense. The fact that you were the only person there when it happened made you…culpable.’
‘A court of law proved I had no hand in anything untoward, my lord. It is not my problem that the ton at large refuses to believe these documented facts.’
‘Charles was an expert horseman.’
‘Who fell at a hedge.’
‘One does not generally end up with a sharpened stake embedded through the heart after such an encounter.’
‘I am not here to argue my husband’s unfortunate and early demise with you, my lord.’
The lack of any true feeling made Hawk pause, though his anger was softened a little when he felt the rapidity of her heartbeat beneath his fingers. She was good at hiding things, he thought. A spy’s trait, that.
‘Then why exactly are you here?’
‘I have three younger sisters with little chance of an advantageous alliance unless they are out and about in society. As you can guess from my reception here tonight, we seldom receive any invitations. I am trying to remedy such a difficulty.’
‘So you stalk the peerage in the hope of finding them in compromising positions and then inveigle a card requesting your company at their next social gathering?’
She laughed unexpectedly, the sound running through his bones into the empty darkness of his heart, and the room around them fell away into the windy barrenness of Taylor’s Gap.
Was she a sorceress with her bright red hair and her different eyes? Had she bewitched his cousin in the very same manner? He wished the music might end, allowing him the ease of escape, but the orchestra was in full flight with no chance of a quick finale and to order it otherwise would only incite comment.
Aurelia St Harlow continued as if he had not insulted her at all. ‘I had no knowledge of you being at Taylor’s Gap, Lord Hawk. It was on a whim that I walked in your direction to admire the view and by a trick of coincidence found you there.’
‘Fortuitous, then?’
‘You speak of our kiss?’
He could barely believe that she would mention such a thing here in the crowded room of the ton at play and looked to see that none close had heard her question.
‘There are ears everywhere in a gathering such as this one, Mrs St Harlow, and it is prudent to protect a reputation.’
She shook her head and looked away. ‘Oh, mine is lost completely already, my lord. I doubt anything else I do could lower it further.’
Again he smiled, the freedom inherent in such a thought enlivening. ‘How old are you?’ Said before he could think, said from the very depths of interest.
‘Twenty-six. An old maid. A woman on the shelf of life and happy for it.’ Her eyes strayed to a set of females of a similar age sitting against one wall. ‘I used to pity them until I realised how very liberated they actually were.’
His fingers tightened about hers, gloved tonight in a strange hue of grey. He wished he might have felt her skin beneath, the warmth of it and the smoothness.
‘My uncle seems more than taken with you and that is saying something. He seldom has time for anyone in society.’
For the first time that evening, genuine warmth entered her eyes. ‘I always liked him, too. He showed me around the gardens at the Atherton country seat once and I helped him collect the eggs from the henhouses.’
‘Most people ridicule him.’
‘Most people loathe me so perhaps the thread in common allows us communion.’
‘I do not loathe you, Aurelia.’
She tripped as he said it and fell up against him, the red in her face climbing into beetroot, though the dance music chose that particular point to end and he shepherded her back to her sister.