Lindsay was impressed by Leonora. She imagines her youngest brother to be in love.’
‘Are you warning me, my lord?’
Hawkhurst felt a glimmer of respect for a woman who picked up so very quickly on the things said beneath other words. ‘The marriage of your sister into a family of great note is something you have your heart set on. Nathaniel, however, would not thank me if there were secrets in the Beauchamp household that would cause even the slightest consternation to his wife. Or to his name.’
‘There are not.’
Her scent filled the room, the particular aroma of violets and freshness.
‘Yet I am trying to understand why a lady of means might wish to spend her days in a dusty warehouse sorting silks.’
Colouring, she looked away, guilt marking the movement.
His cousin’s widow had French blood, giving her the will to help a country that was her mother’s. She had told him her mother’s nationality when he had first met her. The money in the business of secrets could also be substantial. Charles’s estate had been sizeable as had her father’s family’s, but perhaps there was more at stake than riches. English society had in effect thrown her out on her head at the unexplained death of her husband and revenge was sweet in anyone’s language.
Ice formed in his veins.
‘It is most unusual for a woman of society to be involved in such endeavours.’
‘Oh, one gets tired of tapestry and crossstitch, my lord, and as I always liked design I thought to try my hand at something more challenging.’
‘You did not think to do this in a more conducive setting.’ He looked pointedly at the dog.
‘I am quite safe, Lord Hawkhurst, despite all you might think.’
‘Do you work here alone?’
‘No. There are two of us. My partner in the business, Mr Kerslake, has just left.’ A blush darkened her cheeks.
‘Kerslake is the man I spoke to earlier, I presume?’ She nodded at his question and remained silent as he remembered the fellow. Ambitious. Good looking.
Damn. Perhaps there was more than a working relationship between them, ensconced as they were in a room far from the watchful eyes of others.
Her hair was uncovered today and the red in it was astonishing. He wanted to cross the space between them and hold the colour to the light, a flame of scarlet much the same shade as the silk trailing from her fingers. Here in the docklands, she was as far from the woman he had kissed as she could be, independence and the uncompromising strategies of business guarding any softer words.
She wanted him gone, too. He could see this from the way she tapped her foot against the floor, like a musician might measure the time in a song until it was finished.
‘I would prefer it, my lord, if you could keep the knowledge of my small concern here to yourself.’ She breathed out a deep sigh to punctuate her dilemma, her brow heavily creased and her shoulder drooping.
‘And why should I do that, Mrs St Harlow?’
‘Society finds unconventional women…perturbing. And it has been my experience that what they don’t understand they generally also do not like.’ The tone of her voice mimicked that of Elizabeth’s friends, breathless and wavering. He laughed, the sound filling the room around them and the vulnerable and dejected air of a second ago disappeared into plain anger as her eyes flinted.
Hawkhurst swore under his breath. A self-effacing timid demeanour did not suit Aurelia St Harlow at all, this Boadicea of the Victorian drawing rooms who fought for an advantageous alliance for her younger sister despite a reputation that would have kept others as far from any public communion as they could go.
‘I like you better when you do not simper, Mrs St Harlow.’
A half smile crept up on to full rounded lips. One small curl had escaped the confines of her tightly bound hair and fell across her throat on to the generous curve of her bosom. He drew his eyes back to her face, feeling like he had as a green boy, caught in the act of ogling. But she was not yet finished with plying her sister’s case. This time there was no tone of supplication evident at all.
‘Lady Lindsay is more than willing to consider the match and any intervention from you could only harm a relationship which both my sister and Mr Northrup wish to pursue.’
‘The dubious woes of star-crossed lovers are hardly my concern!’ He hated the cynicism he could hear so plainly, but he was a man who did not like the unexplained, and so far everything about Mrs St Harlow confused him.
She worked in a warehouse and lived in one of the most expensive town houses in Mayfair, a residence well furnished and appointed according to Cassie Lindsay; yet her hands were marked with the vestiges of a labour that had nothing at all to do with her confessed design work on light silk.
‘I saw you the other day in the park with your father. The greys were very fine.’
‘The enjoyment of good horseflesh is one of Papa’s passions.’
She took a breath and held it, her fingers laced together in a tight white line. At breaking point, he deduced, the pulse of a vein in her throat denoting tension.
‘Indeed, he looked most amused by the conversation. Almost too amused, were I to place a point upon it.’
‘I do not know what you mean, my lord.’
‘Are the Beauchamp properties entailed?’
The very blood simply went from her face, one moment flushed and the next pale.
‘Did Cousin James send you here?’
He laughed at that. ‘Nothing so prosaic, I am afraid, though I am guessing that this man is the one your father’s title and lands will pass to when he dies or if he is no longer capable of performing his expected duties.’
To that she made no response.
‘Charles was a wealthy man and a generous one by all accounts. Surely, as his wife, you did very well on his death?’
Again she remained quiet.
‘I can hear it from you, Aurelia, or I can instruct my lawyers to look into my cousin’s accounts. I would prefer it if you told me.’
After a few seconds she began to speak, softly at first, but then gaining in volume. ‘My husband’s estate was mortgaged up to the hilt. I have been trying to pay back the creditors I personally took food and services from ever since he died.’
Suddenly he understood. ‘With the money gained from silk?’ Lord, why had he not guessed? She had worn the same serviceable dress nearly every time he had met her and the gifts of jewellery from Charles which Nat had spoken of were never anywhere in sight. Today, even the pendant he had seen about her neck every other time he had met her was gone. Unwillingly, he supposed. Her fingers had crept to her throat on several occasions during the conversation, dropping to her sides when they discovered the loss. Had she pawned the piece for quick cash?
