Mistress at Midnight. Sophia James

She says for me to tell you that were she not quite so pregnant she would be down herself to oversee your choice of a wife.’

      Luc’s words relaxed the tension markedly as both laughed, and when the clock at the end of the room boomed out the hour of eight they stood.

      ‘Let the night begin,’ Lucas said as Stephen finished what was left of his brandy and his man knocked on the door to tell them the first of the evening’s guests would be arriving imminently.

      Elizabeth Berkeley and her parents came in the second wave of company. Lady Berkeley looked like an older version of her offspring and for a moment Stephen could see just exactly how her daughter would age: the small lines around her mouth, the droop of skin above her eyes, the social ease with which she sailed into any occasion.

      His glance went to Elizabeth dressed in lemon silk and lace. ‘It is so lovely to be here, my lord,’ she said in a lilting whisper, placing one hand on his arm. Her nails were long and polished to a sheen.

      A sudden flash of other fingers with nails bitten almost to the quick worried him, for he still wore their trails down his neck, hidden carefully under the folds of collar and tie.

      Shaking away memory, he settled back into the moment as the Berkeleys moved on in the line of greeting and the next visitors came forth to be welcomed.

      She was suddenly there beside him, the very last of the evening’s guests, her hair wound up in an unflattering fashion, the black bombazine gown she wore unembellished and prim.

      ‘Mrs Aurelia St Harlow and her sister Miss Leonora Beauchamp.’

      A wave of hush covered the room at the name, all eyes turning to the staircase. Aurelia was Charles St Harlow’s widow? God, but she was brave.

       ‘How on earth could she even think to come out in society, still?’

       ‘It was she who killed him, of course.’

       ‘Has the strumpet no shame at all?’

      Threads of conversation reached Hawk even as she gave him her hand.

      ‘I thank you for the kind invitation, my lord,’ she said, her glance nowhere near meeting his own, ‘and would like to introduce to you my sister Miss Leonora Beauchamp.’

      The chit was charming, young and well mannered, but Hawk smiled only cursorily before turning back to the other.

      ‘St Harlow was my cousin.’

      For the first time, she looked at him directly, her eyes red rimmed from lack of sleep or from poorly placed cosmetics, he could not tell. She wore glasses that were so thick they distorted the shape of her face.

      ‘We are almost family, then.’ The smile accompanying the statement was hard.

      He 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?’