‘Lord Hawkhurst and myself. They would not trust others and would fall through the cracks of anonymity should you try to do it another way.’
‘Go on, I am listening.’
‘After this one mission we will be free, Hawkhurst and I. My mama shall be relocated to a part of France she feels safe in and the matter of Kerslake’s confidence shall be closed.’
‘You have married a python, Hawk, and she suits you exactly.’
When Shavvon held out his hand, indicating a bargain, Stephen allowed the first glimmers of humour to surface.
Aurelia was a woman of the world and she had fought all and sundry for the rights and needs of her family, just as she was now fighting for him. The warmth of loyalty spread out from his heart into the extremes of his body and, for the first time since he could remember, he finally felt he belonged.
‘We are staying at the Red Boar in the village and will await you there. We could make for London early tomorrow.’
‘Very well.’
As the coach moved down the driveway Aurelia’s hand came down upon his arm.
‘Did you mean what you said to him, about loving me?’ Her eyes were full of hope.
‘I love you, sweetheart, and always have done since the very first kiss on Taylor’s Gap.’
Her hand came up to her mouth, the dimples in each cheek deep.
‘I thought you might say it back to me,’ he teased when he saw she was speechless.
‘I love you, Stephen, more than life itself.’
‘Then let us hope that the task you have set us to do is an easy one and we can be back in London before the week’s end.’
‘And then it will be finished, this rottenness?’
He lifted her in his arms, sun above them and the vista of Atherton all around. ‘Completely,’ he whispered as his mouth came down hard.
They arrived back in England twelve days later having apprehended the riff-raff of Delsarte’s minions and dispatched them into the hands of the British Service. They had also taken Sylvienne to a village outside Paris, to be installed in a beautiful old farmhouse Hawk had procured.
Her mother had been full of praise for her new husband and kept whispering that this was exactly the sort of man she would have picked had she been young again. This reconfirmed for Aurelia that Sylvienne had always been an adventurer and the marriage to her academic and timid father had been doomed from the beginning. Their parting was not their daughter’s fault after all, and even that small understanding released a guilt that Aurelia had been cursed with.
Braeburn House was quiet as they came up the front steps and she hoped that her father’s health had not failed and that the house had run smoothly in the weeks she had been gone. She had written before they had left for Paris, explaining everything, and Hawk had employed a man at the warehouse to deal with business there.
Leonora saw her first and her eyes rounded in delight.
‘Lia. Lia. We knew you were coming because Mr Shavvon had come to tell us, but so early…’ She threw herself at Aurelia, tears of joy running down her cheeks, but pulling back a little as she saw Stephen beside her.
‘Lord Hawkhurst. Welcome to our family.’ The words were shyly said and, looking up at her tall and beautiful husband, Aurelia could well see why. There was not one single part of him that looked ordinary.
‘Rodney will be here soon and Mr Beauchamp.’
‘Mr James Beauchamp? Why?’
‘He is not at all as we thought him, Lia, and he has formed an attachment to Prudence which she heartily returns.’
Such news was so surprising Aurelia could hardly ask the next question. ‘How did you come upon him?’
‘Rodney brought him around.’
‘And Papa? How did he take to all this?’
‘He smiles at James as if he knows him. In a way he does, too, because from the drawings of Papa as a young man there is a family likeness.’
The shouts of Harriet and Prudence stopped speech as the twins rushed in. ‘We have been watching for you, Lia, from the bedroom.’ They curtsied to Lord Hawkhurst before gathering Aurelia to them and Harriet began to speak. ‘The warehouse has been run by Mr Steele since you have been gone and he comes in with news of the day each evening.’
‘A good choice, then? I should have known you would be able to find a stellar employee.’ Aurelia turned to her husband with a smile on her face.
‘He hired a nurse for Papa, too, Lia. A real nurse who has been using ways to get Papa to walk more and eat by himself. A doctor comes, too, each day, from the hospital.’
Later that night Aurelia and Stephen lay together in the Hawkhurst town house, rain against the windows.
‘Before you came into my life, everything was difficult.’ Aurelia’s finger ran across his chest drawing circles as she spoke. ‘I thought that I should never know this…this…’
‘Bliss?’ he supplied and smiled as she looked up at him. Tonight under the candles her eyes glowed with a quiet happiness and her hair lay across him, the silk binding their bodies together. ‘Perhaps there is some God-given rule that allows those who have gone through hell to find heaven afterwards?’
‘Your uncle Alfred certainly thinks so.’
‘I have never seen him as happy as I did at dinner tonight.’
‘When we return to Atherton it would be lovely if he could come with us. He does not enjoy the city and…he seems lonely here.’
Hawkhurst swallowed, a sudden thickness obstructing his throat.
‘I cannot imagine what would have happened to me if I hadn’t found you, Aurelia. You are the only person who has ever truly understood me.’
He rolled across her, enjoying the curves of her body, lifting her hand up to kiss the small ring on her third finger that he had procured for her in Paris.
‘This is for ever, my darling, and I promise I will always love you.’
‘For ever,’ she returned and then her lips came up against his own, sealing the bargain.
Sophia James
The long-kept secret
Cassandra Northrup had believed Nathaniel dead…until now. Once, she had loved him, given herself to him in the hidden depths of the snow-covered Pyrenees. But then she had betrayed him….
Relief at the sight of Nathaniel turns to darkest shame as Cassie sees the hate in his eyes. Years have passed and their physical scars have faded, but the pain runs deeper than ever. Yet passion can be born out of betrayal—and as desire crackles between them once more, will Cassie reveal the secret she’s long kept hidden?
London—June 1851
It was Nathanael Colbert walking down the wide staircase of the de Clare ballroom.
Cassandra Northrup knew it was him.
Knew it from the bottom of