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

saw Mrs St Harlow threading her way back into the room from the corner of his eye. She looked neither left nor right, though even from this distance he could see women and men turning away from her in a deliberate cut. Her chin rose and if he had not known of her unease in the social setting he might have thought that she did not care a jot for the good opinion of others. He was glad she had the glasses to shelter behind.

      ‘Do you not think so, my lord?’

      The pale beauty of Elizabeth’s puzzled gaze fell upon him.

      ‘I do.’ He had no idea at all as to what he had just agreed but his attention was caught by a group of men Aurelia was about to walk past on one side of the room.

      Lord Frederick Delsarte caught her arm, tightly, and held it. Stephen could see the others folding in about her, blocking off any means of escape. The smile she wore was imbued with solid anger, though even from this distance he could detect a certain panic.

      ‘Would you excuse me for a moment, Miss Berkeley?’

      He did not wait for any reply, but strode across to the colonnade shielding the group from the notice of others and walked straight into the contretemps.

      ‘There you are, Mrs St Harlow,’ he said, placing Aurelia’s hand across the material of his sleeve as he pulled her into his side. ‘Lady Lindsay is most anxious to find you. Something about meeting an old school friend, I think she said.’

      Unfortunately Delsarte had had too much to drink and was in no mood to observe the social niceties. ‘We have not finished here,’ he slurred with difficulty, ‘and your cousin’s widow and I have much to talk about.’

      ‘I sincerely doubt that, Delsarte.’ Hawk hurst’s free hand slipped to the top of the younger man’s arm and pressed, the yowl of pain heartening.

      ‘It’s Hawkhurst, for God’s sake, Freddy,’ a taller man next to Delsarte whispered in the tone Stephen had become accustomed to people using around him.

      ‘I would greatly prefer it if you were not to venture anywhere near Mrs St Harlow again, do you understand?’

      Caution finally shone through bloodshot eyes. ‘I didn’t realise you knew her so well, Lord Hawkhurst.’

      ‘Ahhh, but now you do.’ Hawk let go his hold and stepped back, shepherding Aurelia before him as they moved out from behind the pillars.

      Fury raced through him as he saw the paleness of her skin welting already into bruises where the bombazine had ridden above her wrist in the struggle. He also saw she swallowed often as though trying to keep back the tears, but he could not be kind. ‘Why the hell would you go off alone and unprotected when you know the communal feeling in the room is so against you? Surely you understand the dangers inherent in social animosity?’

      She took a breath. ‘Hatred is generally less demonstrative,’ she returned, and had the temerity to smile.

      Hawkhurst looked as if he wanted to kill her, here in the ballroom twenty yards from the woman it was said he would marry, and the ache in her arm from where Freddy Delsarte had grabbed her was beginning to throb.

      If Hawk had not intervened, she wondered what might have happened. Could they have dragged her from the room kicking and screaming and not a soul willing to lift a hand in aid?

      Save for him.

      She should not have come. It was too dangerous and too uncertain and Charles’s more carnal predilections were shown within the leer of the younger man’s eyes. She knew Hawk had seen this, too, for his grip upon her had tightened imperceptibly.

      ‘You incite great emotion in those about you, Mrs St Harlow, even in the dress of a dowager.’

      ‘Men see what they wish to see, my lord. It is a fault that is universal.’

      ‘I cannot remember you much in the company of my cousin. It seemed you were never in London at all.’

      Breathe, Aurelia instructed herself when she realised she had simply stopped doing so, the beat of her heart racing through the thickness of black wool.

      ‘There was always much to do at Medlands. Gardening was one of my particular favourites and Charles enjoyed the colours.’ She tried to imbue the sort of gladness that she imagined a lady of leisure might feel for such a hobby, her mind scrambling around for the names of common plants just in case he took the conversation further.

      ‘Then you must have been saddened to see the house sold on his death?’

      Worry turned. As Charles’s only cousin he did not know? She could scarcely believe that he would not, although the fact that Lord Hawkhurst was rumoured to have barely been in England for many years made it seem more than possible. Perhaps no one save her lawyers knew of the financial collapse that her husband had left her in, a hundred chits from the merchants of Medlands village presented and little money to honour them. She had been so careful to pay them back, after all.

      Medlands sheltered another family now and Aurelia had not been sorry to pack up the few belongings that were her own and leave the place for ever.

      ‘I have many memories left to remind me, Lord Hawkhurst.’ Shame. Anger. Disappointment. Murder.

      He watched her carefully, the shadows in his eyes pulled back into puzzlement. With him at her side she felt completely safe, the stares of those around her muted in his company. She wished he would ask her to dance again as the music of a waltz was struck but, of course, he did not as they came into the little group she had left a good fifty minutes earlier. The young and beautiful Elizabeth Berkeley was again quick to take his arm. Aurelia thought she would have liked to have done the same, simply laid her fingers across such security and held on.

      She remembered Freddy Delsarte at the parties at Medlands come Christmas, where the girls from London were brought up to satisfy the wants of married men who had long become bored of their wives.

      As Charles had with her.

      Closing her eyes, a dizziness that had become more frequent of late made her world spin.

      ‘Are you quite well, Mrs St Harlow? You suddenly seem very pale.’ Cassandra Lindsay’s tone was worried.

      ‘Just tiredness, I think,’ Aurelia returned, looking at Leonora and Cassandra’s brother on the dance floor enjoying each other’s company.

      ‘I could bring your sister back, if you would like, and Stephen could organise a carriage to take you home immediately. We will not be late ourselves and I promise you I would chaperon her as if she were my own daughter.’

      The offer was tempting with Charles’s friends watching her from one corner and the rest of the ton scowling from the others.

      ‘If it would not be too much trouble…?’

      Cassandra Lindsay’s smile was bright as she bid Aurelia goodnight. Then she drew Elizabeth Berkeley away from her grip on Lord Hawkhurst’s person with talk of the colour and cut of the gowns that were her very favourite in the room tonight.

      Aurelia gained the distinct impression that in doing so the woman was helping her.

       Chapter Four

      ‘I most certainly did not expect you to accompany me home, Lord Hawkhurst.’

      He smiled, his teeth white in the dark of the carriage and his thighs less than an inch from her own. ‘But I wanted to, Mrs St Harlow, because it will give us the chance to talk about how it is you know Lord Frederick Delsarte and his lackeys.’

      ‘They were acquaintances of my husband.’

      ‘But not of yours?’ No humour lingered now, his voice cold, cut glass.

      She shook her head. ‘My disapproval of their antics was more than obvious, I should imagine.’