Closing her eyes, Aurelia took in a deep breath. Outside bells called true believers to prayer and further afield the shrill blast of a horn sounded, an outgoing vessel on the morning tide making its way to a far-off destination with a full cargo and the hopes of pleasant seas. Ordinary lives. Routine departures. Her own existence seemed beleaguered by stress and unease.
With a flourish she inked her pen and set to writing, the words coming quickly as she decided on the course of action that she would follow. She still had the ruby pin Emily had given her and there were a number of books in the library that her father might not miss. Quick cash. Her fingers crept to the pendant at her neck. She could not pawn this, for Hawkhurst’s eyes were everywhere and if he were to find it again…?
Squashing down the rising anger of her thoughts, she locked the envelope in the bottom drawer of her desk and left the warehouse.
‘Kerslake is involved. He has been seen in Delsarte’s company and they look more than chummy. They were at school together, though they were both expelled for stealing.’
Shavvon looked down at the pile of notes he had on his table and then back up to Hawk. ‘What of the woman, Mrs Aurelia St Harlow? What do we know of her?’
‘Nothing much.’ The lies came easily, falling off Stephen’s tongue into the silence of the room. ‘She has an old father who is ill and three younger sisters. The Beauchamp silk mills have been in the family for years and she is busy running them.’
Hawk had never once in all of the time he had worked for the British Service omitted a fact that was important to an investigation. Sometimes, when innocents had perished in the quest for a greater good he had hardly turned a hair, reasoning that in any conflict those close to the perpetrators were bound to be damaged and there was little he could do about it.
Yet here he was protecting a woman who had by her own admission omitted salient details to the courts of England about the murder of his cousin. He breathed out in that slow and careful way he had long since perfected, attracting no unwanted attention.
‘You know her personally, don’t you? Mrs St Harlow, I mean?’
Caution surfaced. ‘Vaguely, sir.’
‘You met her in the library at Hookham’s in Bond Street and then again at the Carringtons’ ball yesterday. It seems both times you had long conversations?’
Hawk smiled. He should have realised that he would have been under observation, as well, for trust was a hard commodity to come by in this game. ‘She was married to my cousin. It would cause more gossip to give her the cut direct.’
‘Then don’t. I need you to get closer to the source of these missives and it seems the Park Street warehouse may lead us right to them.’
Again Shavvon noted something on the book before him, a longer observation, this time, and underlined it. ‘Watch her carefully. I don’t trust her. She has come in front of the courts already and public opinion of her is unflattering.’
Something inside Hawk was breaking as fast as Shavvon was speaking. This would be the last time he would work for the British Service. When he returned he would hand in all correspondence pertaining to intelligence, all the weapons and the charts of countries long at strife with England, all the codes and the books of observances made over thirteen years of spying. It would be finished then, this part of his life, this wandering nothingness that had left him stranded in a place he no longer wished to be.
But first he must warn Aurelia St Harlow that she was being watched and that without due care and diligence she would be dragged in and questioned to within an inch of her life.
Aye, under all the allegiance he felt for the Service another loyalty budded, stronger and more real. He would have liked to have asked what exactly they had on file about her already, but knew that to do so would invite question. So he merely smiled and listened to a diatribe about the inherent dangers of French spies who, according to Shavvon, were crouched like tigers and about to pounce on the very fabric of an unsuspecting British society.
London was as busy as it usually was on a Monday morning just before the luncheon hour. The ruby pin had realised a lot more than Aurelia had thought it would, saving her the task of looking through her father’s library for a few tomes that he might not miss.
She noticed Hawkhurst before he did her, crossing the road at Hyde Park Corner. Tattersalls, she thought. The sales it ran were on a Monday, but it was also the day that gamblers received their winnings or were required to pay their debts. Would Stephen Hawkhurst be like Charles in that way, always looking for the next surefire gamble, the easy money that never came? Somehow she doubted it.
‘Mrs St Harlow. Are you alone?’ The humour she saw in his eyes was unexpected.
‘I am, my lord.’
‘Then perhaps you might walk with me for a moment. I have something I want to ask of you.’
She stiffened. Was the warehouse in Park Street still being watched? Had Hawkhurst some knowledge of her mother’s condition and the need for money? Would he enquire after the Frenchman who had come yesterday, a connection providing him with another way of imagining her disloyalty to the security of the English homelands?
‘My Uncle Alfred is celebrating his seventy-fifth birthday tomorrow evening. A quiet dinner party with only the very fewest of guests. He has asked if you might attend.’
The relief felt enormous. ‘Of course. I would love to come. Is there some little thing He might want as a present?’
‘A good bottle of wine would suit him exactly. He misplaces almost everything else he is given.’
‘It is said your uncle was hurt in the Napoleonic campaigns.’ She had heard the gossip, of course, much of society losing patience with a man who failed to observe the strict rules of etiquette.
‘He took a shot to the head in the second Peninsular campaign under Wellington. That is really the last whole memory he has.’
‘It must be difficult to live for so many years without true recall.’
A wobbly cobblestone had her losing her footing and he tucked her hand through his arm.
‘Most people’s lives are touched by some sort of adversity and in the end it makes them stronger.’
She could not let that pass. ‘Sometimes it makes them more afraid.’
‘You speak of Charles?’
Unexpectedly she smiled. ‘I suppose I do.’
‘When did you meet him?’
‘In the first weeks of my first Season. He was a fine dancer and he wore his clothes well.’
‘Ahh, so shallow, Mrs St Harlow?’
She smiled again, liking the playful tone in his voice. ‘You are the only person I have ever admitted such a dreadful nonsense to. In my defence it did not take me long to realise that the cut of a man’s coat was only a very minor consideration when choosing someone to live the rest of one’s life with.’
‘And your family? Your father? He approved?’
‘Oh, Papa was busy with my stepmother and my sisters and he said my stubbornness reminded him of Mama. It was not a compliment.’
‘So you no longer view the state of holy matrimony warmly?’
‘I do not.’
He laughed at that, loudly. ‘Most women in my company would say the very opposite.’
‘Well, you are safe with me, my lord.’
But when the sunlight caught his eyes, softening green into burnished velvet, she knew that she lied to herself, the