Читать книгу Society's Beauties: Mistress at Midnight / Scars of Betrayal - Sophia James - Страница 15

Aurelia met Stephen Hawkhurst in the library in Bond Street on Tuesday morning, almost falling over him as she rounded one aisle. His height and strength in the smallness of Hookham’s seemed out of place here, a warrior amidst the formality of Society’s quieter pursuits.

She wished she had worn her light blue dress, as even to her own uncritical eye the black bombazine did her skin little favour. Pushing such ridiculous vanity aside, she waited, for after their conversation at Park Street there could be little he wanted to say to her ever again.

‘I hope your father’s influenza is abating, Mrs St Harlow.’

So that was how he would play it. She felt her cheeks flush red. ‘Indeed it is, my lord.’ Her hands clutched a book of flowers drawn as lithographs on to thin tissue and further afield she noticed a couple of women looking their way.

Nay, his way, she amended, their expressions having the same sort of interest she had perceived on most of the female guests at his ball.

When he beckoned her to follow him towards the end of the room she went uncertainly, pleased that the onlookers were blocked from her view by a tall shelf.

‘I have been giving the…situation with your father some thought.’

Shaking her head, she turned to leave, but he caught her arm and held it, the grip of his fingers allowing her to go nowhere.

‘Could you speak with your cousin and gain his approval in ensuring your family’s living situation is more stable? Surely if such a thing were to leave you destitute the man might consider such an action.’

‘Or he might throw us out tomorrow.’

‘He seems reasonable enough.’

‘You have checked up on him?’ Horror and anger made her voice rise a good few octaves.

‘Mr James Beauchamp has a name for being a fair and equitable man.’

‘No.’

‘He is also a friend of Rodney Northrup’s.’

‘One can be a respected man or a beloved friend and still have a penchant for that which has never been enjoyed.’

‘From where I stand there seems more than enough to share and I am certain your family would be relieved to see you at home a little more often.’

‘No.’ The single word was louder this time as she broke off contact between them, danger sprouting from such intransigence. Did Lord Stephen Hawkhurst really expect just to waltz into her life and change it as if it were a knitting pattern, easy and simple? She knew what would happen next. Of course she did. If Mr James Beauchamp came to the house in the guise of a distant cousin inclined to help, everything would change.

They would all have to be grateful to him and the whims of an unmarried twenty-seven-year-old man might include the wish for a wife. Then Leonora or Prudence or Harriet would be sacrificed for the greater good of the family, and each of them would go without a whimper to protect her. She knew this as truly as she knew the night followed the day because all year the whispers she heard when the others thought she was not listening had been about their worries for her.

Aurelia works too hard. If only we could find a way to help her.

Well, the silks were beginning to pay and the new completed designs were beautiful and different. Another few months and everything would be possible. the only tripping block stood before her in Hookham’s lending library in the large form of the implacable Lord Stephen Hawkhurst and he did not look pleased.

‘How many other sisters do you have?’

‘Two. Prudence and Harriet are twins.’

‘Do they look like you?’

‘No. They are much prettier, for they favour Leonora and—’

A ripe swear word broke off her sentence.

‘Charles was a man who appreciated beauty in women. Surely he let you know of the qualities in yourself that he admired?’

‘Oh, indeed he did.’ She took away the sting in the words by sheer dint of will. He admired women who would do things in the bedroom that even prostitutes in the East End of London might have blushed at and he had simply abandoned her on his estate in the far north when she had refused to take part in any of it. Even the servants he had left her with had been instructed to be of as little help as possible until she came around to understanding what the words ‘I promise to obey’ meant in their hastily completed marriage.

The first few nights alone had been the worst. After that she had thanked the Lord for the distance between her new abode and her new husband and for the independence that naturally followed. Aye, her freedoms had been hard won and she was not about to give them up now to anyone.

‘Such problems are mine to solve, my lord.’ Aurelia could barely get the words out, so desperate was she to escape, and the headache she had had all morning began to play upon her vision. ‘The silk trade is shaping up well and in a few months I am certain I shall be—’

‘Dead and buried by the looks of the dark rings beneath your eyes.’

Glancing down, she resisted the urge to lift her fingers to her face. She had hardly slept for days, the difficulty of everything increased somehow by all the consequences of the Hawkhurst ball. Leonora and Rodney. Cassandra Lindsay and her invitation to a country-house party. The carriage ride home where she had understood for the first time in her life what it was to be attracted to a man.

Not just any man, either, but this one before her, his eyes filled with certainty.

‘What if Lady Lindsay brought your sisters out and I footed the bill?’

Aurelia could not believe what she had just heard and shock made her step back.

‘I could never accept such an offer.’

‘Why not? You were married to my cousin and as the head of the Hawkhurst family I would be most remiss to leave you floundering financially as a widow.’

‘I am hardly a relative you might be expected to nurture, my lord, and people would talk.’

‘They talk now, Aurelia.’

His eyes were softened in the grey light of a gloomy London afternoon and she thought he had never looked more beautiful.

‘I should tell you that Cassandra Lindsay broached the subject with me yesterday. She has met your sisters, apparently, and was most impressed by them.’

‘Oh.’ The wind was taken from her sails as she tried to decide exactly what to do.

Turning away, she looked out of the window, a squally rain shower pushing a stray sheet of paper down the street. Once, she would have accepted such help with barely a backward thought. Once, hopes and dreams had been written in her eyes just as they were now in Leonora’s, and the future had looked bright. She had worn colourful gowns, then, gowns to highlight the shade of her hair and the dashing Mr Charles St Harlow, newly returned from The Americas, had been entranced.

For all of a month. The anger in her grew with the shame.

‘Would Lady Elizabeth Berkeley not find such patronage odd, given you are already promised to her in marriage?’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Lady Lindsay herself. At your ball.’

A single muscle rippled in his jaw, but he did not speak.

‘I do not wish to make matters difficult for you, but if I agree to such a thing it would only be on the grounds that I would pay you back.’

‘Very well.’

‘When I sell my silk business. I would write out a vowel, of course, though I understand if you would prefer to involve a lawyer…’

‘I wouldn’t.’

Flustered at the clipped tone in his words, she held out her hand. ‘Do we shake on it, then?’

His fingers came across her own, warm and strong, the connection even here in a public library and under the strictest terms of trade still having the capacity to make her…breathless.

‘I shall keep a careful tally of all expenses, Lord Hawkhurst.’

His pupils darkened with shards of gold splintering on the edge. Predatory and watchful, yet Aurelia could not care.

He did not break his grip and she did not loosen hers, either. Rather, here in the quiet corner of a room of knowledge she wished she was standing instead on the top of Taylor’s Gap with no one around for miles and all the reason in the world to thank him properly.

He had shown her what a kiss could feel like, once, and she wanted that again. Her face flushed with the effort of holding back and for the first time she saw a hint of uncertainty cross his brow as he brought her hand upwards and placed his lips upon her skin in the smallest of caresses. His tongue against the juncture of her fingers was soft and real, saying much in the hidden quiet of honesty.

‘I don’t know what burns between us, Mrs St Harlow, but there will come a time when we shall not have the will to stop it, I can promise you that.’

There, the words were said, falling against lies and covering them with a softer edge, like snow across the jagged sharp of rocks.

Only truth. The lump in her throat made her swallow as she tried to find an answer, but what indeed could she say? If she agreed, then only ruin would follow, and if she didn’t…

She could not speak, even with everything held in a balance, and he let her hand go and took a pace backwards.

The heavy fall of feet made them turn as a woman rounded the corner a good twenty feet away and proceeded towards them and Aurelia gained the distinct impression that he had heard her coming well before the lady came into sight.

‘Lord Hawkhurst, what a delight to see you here.’ Her smile was bright until her glance passed over Aurelia’s face, and the sheen of it flattened.

‘Lady Allum.’ Hawkhurst’s detachment was back, easily in place, and Aurelia had to marvel at the way he changed so quickly from one thing to another. She feared her own expression was nowhere near as schooled. ‘Might I introduce Mrs St Harlow to you?’

Caught, the woman finally made eye contact, a furtive quick glance telling Aurelia that she believed all that had been said about her. Today the criticism hurt in a way it seldom had before.

‘Lady Berkeley said that she was hoping to have you over for dinner on Saturday, Lord Hawkhurst. It is a small and select gathering, from all that I hear. Her daughter Elizabeth was particularly looking forward to the event.’

‘I have already sent word that I cannot be present, my lady, as I shall be away from London all week.’

As the woman spoke again of another assembly she wanted Hawkhurst to attend Aurelia used the conversation to simply excuse herself And walk away, the sound of her shoes on the polished parquet flooring marking her retreat. And then she was outside, the façade of the library tall against a dark and rain-washed sky. Hailing a passing hansom cab, she tried to decide exactly what she should do about the enigmatic and menacing Lord Stephen Hawkhurst, the beat of her heart quickening as she remembered his last words to her.

I don’t know what burns between us, Mrs St Harlow…

So he felt it, too, this breathless intensity taking all that was ordinary and commonplace away and replacing it with…what? She stopped, searching for the right word, but it would not come in the way she wanted it and so her mind moved on.

He was due to marry one of the most beautiful debutantes of the Season and she was an outcast, for ever shut away from proper society. Nay, there could be nothing at all between them and to dream otherwise would only lead to the disappointment she had already experienced too much of.

Stephen stalked into White’s club in St James’s Street, barely noticing the surroundings of plush leather chairs and numerous chandeliers. All he wanted was a drink to wipe out the desire that coursed through him and the irritation of Catherine Allum’s untimely interruption.

Pure lust had made him admit that which should have been unspoken, but he wished he had kept his mouth shut even whilst imagining Aurelia’s flame-red hair lying across his loins, the heavy abundance of her breasts in his palms and his mouth.

Swearing roundly, he took a seat by the fire, draping his legs with his frock coat so that others might not see the swelling he could feel pushing against superfine.

‘A difficult day?’

He had not thought the seat opposite to be occupied, as it was turned at an angle away from the fire, but with a scrape of wood on parquet flooring Lucas Clairmont swivelled his chair, brandy being warmed by carefully cupped hands.

‘You have the look of a man who has sparred with the opposite sex, Hawk, and lost. My bets are the lady in question is the enigmatic Mrs St Harlow for I doubt the timid Lady Elizabeth Berkeley could raise such a high temper in anyone.’

Despite his dilemma Stephen smiled and accepted a glass of the same drop from a passing waiter, draining the contents before trusting himself enough to speak. ‘I met Mrs St Harlow unexpectedly at Hookham’s library and I offered to bring her youngest sisters out with the help of Cassandra Lindsay. They are twins.’

‘A very generous offer.’

‘And one she wanted to refuse.’

Laughter made Stephen wish that he had said nothing at all. ‘Only a good woman can get under your skin in that way, Hawk. My wife, Lillian, has the same capacity to make me wild with both fury and desire and all at the same time.’

‘I never said that was how I felt.’

‘Not in words, maybe, but there is something about your demeanour since the ball that is different… .’

‘It is provocation and exasperation, Lucas, and it all comes down to the impossible Mrs St Harlow.’

Luc finished his drink in one unbroken swallow. ‘Nay, it is the unexpected comprehension of feelings only few inspire, Hawk. If you listened to what’s left of your heart, you might just hear the music, and if you do it will probably save you.’

‘Lillian has turned you into a romantic, Luc, and your advice is completely without sense.’

But the strong liquor soured at the back of Stephen’s throat. For the first time in his life he did not know exactly what to do with a woman and it worried him. All of Luc’s talk of salvation rankled, too. Only innocence and purity might beat back the demons that consumed him and Aurelia St Harlow was no fresh-faced ingénue. His ruminations were interrupted, however, by Luc’s further rhetoric.

‘I ran into Lady Berkeley an hour or so back. Her daughter is most distressed that she may have offended you in some way at your ball. She has not heard from you since, it seems?’

‘I have been busy.’

Leaning forwards Lucas lowered his voice. ‘There is something else that I think you ought to know about your cousin’s mysterious widow, Hawk. She visits St Bartholomew’s Hospital once a month to speak with a doctor named Giles Touillon.’

‘French?’

‘Indeed.’

The world spun inwards. Lord, Shavvon had sent him to the warehouses in the Limestone Hole to find a French connection and a disenfranchised traitor. Could Aurelia St Harlow be the leak? After a lifetime of spying Stephen had ceased to believe in the benevolent nature of mere coincidence. It was always so much more than that.

‘You look…odd, Hawk. Are you well?’

‘Very.’ Stretching back in the chair, he smiled. Even before Lucas he erected barriers. The thought made him sadder than it ought to. ‘If you see Lady Berkeley in the next day or two, Luc, could you tell her I shall call upon them at the end of the week for I have been summoned away north.’

‘Problems at Atherton?’

‘Life is always demanding its pound of flesh,’ he returned, feeling in the answer that he had not quite lied.

A few hours later Hawk walked through the maze of alleyways between Katherine Street and Drury Lane, the stench of this poorer part of London rising in his nostrils. A woman’s fan brushed his face and he warned her away, the age-old code of the streetwalker’s offer lost in a smile where both gums and teeth had been eaten up by the mercury cure.

He was glad he had come in the guise of a sailor, the homespun of his clothes attracting little attention as he pulled the hat he wore further down upon his forehead.

Knocking on the door of a house on the corner of one of the small intertwining streets, he waited. Within a few seconds the bolts were slipped and he was allowed through, heavy locks refastened behind him.

‘Phillips said ye’d come.’ The man before him was small and wiry, a shock of red hair topping a freckled face.

‘He’s left the papers, then.’ Stephen’s words were tinged with the accent of the same slums.

‘I need the words first. The ones you’d know to say.’

‘Angliae notitia.’

A lamp flared and the corners of the modest room were bathed in light. A woman sat to one side on a small stool with a baby asleep on her lap.

‘Not a peep, mind, to anyone. If you talk, me wife and I, we’re as good as gone.’

‘I understand.’ Hawk brought the coins from his pocket, the profile of the Queen etched in bronze. ‘There’s more where this came from if you have anything else.’ A flash of greed told him that the red-haired man probably did. Settling back, he crossed his legs in front of him. Experience had taught him patience in any negotiation and the art of biding his time. Information gathering had its own set of intricate rules, after all, and the first of them was to feign indifference.

‘The one they call Delsarte and his cronies have been hanging around the warehouse. I ain’t seen the woman do nothing with them, though. She just goes late back to that fancy home of hers up in Mayfair when she has finished and returns in the morning. As early as sin, I should say.’

‘Have you ever seen her talking with them?’

‘No.’

Stephen’s glance went to the girl sitting to one side, but her eyes were cast downwards.

‘There is something that I heard Delsarte say…’ Stopping, he waited for a timely reminder and Hawk handed him another handful of coins. ‘He said that he was going to Paris and that there was more money in it than this business could provide him with. Then the rain came down heavy so’s that I couldn’t listen no more. The woman he was talking to was from Mother Spence’s place down Katherine Lane. A big dark-haired girl with patches, rouge and a long scar down her forearm. She might know more if ye asked her, though ye’d have to be careful as she was hanging on to him like he was a gift or something.’

‘Did you get into the warehouse to look over the files?’

‘No, not a chance to. The dog stops you when there’s no one in. A big monster of a hound that lets everyone know he’s there. I heard them mention a boat, though, last week, when I was following them home from the Black Boar. The Meridian. I checked and she’s in at St Katherine’s Dock.’

‘You’ve done well.’ Standing, Stephen placed a silver shilling on the table before him. ‘For the babe,’ he said as he collected his hat and left.

Nathaniel Lindsay was waiting for him in his library when he returned after eleven o’clock, and he had already finished a large amount of his best bottle of whisky.

‘You are still at the game, then?’ His eyes passed over the homespun as Stephen took off the woollen overcoat and hat.

‘If you come uninvited, you have to take what is here without comment, Nat.’ Finding a glass, Hawk poured himself a generous drink, pausing to enjoy the smooth taste of the golden liquid.

‘Cassie sent me.’

‘Why?’

‘She thinks you need a talking to over your choice of women.’

‘I thought your wife approved of Elizabeth Berkeley?’

Laughter echoed around the room. ‘You would devour everything about that poor chit within a year, Stephen, and curse yourself for doing so.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Women are like this whisky, my friend. Find a full-bodied and complicated brew and it will suit you for ever. It worked for both Luc and me.’

The words fell into the silent warmth of the library, soft harbingers of persuasion. ‘You are saying that the basis for a good marriage is a complicated woman?’

Nathaniel’s hands flailed in the air. ‘I am saying that I am worried about you, Stephen. All this…disguise and deception. It is making you sadder than you need to be.’ He paused for a second before carrying on. ‘Remember when your parents died and we were at school? How old were we then? You and Luc and I?’

‘Thirteen.’

‘Thirteen. And we said that we would always be family from then on. We made a promise cut into the skin at our wrists.’ Pulling up the sleeve on his arm, he traced one finger over a thin white line. ‘I pressed too hard and ended up in the clinic and you slept on the floor beside me for a week. I think if you had not been there holding my hand in the cold of the night I wouldn’t have survived. Now it is my turn to make certain that you survive.’

With a frown Stephen looked down at his own hands, the nails filled with dirt from where he had scraped them along the earth on the driveway before his foray into the dark alleys off St Katherine’s Row. Placing his drink down, he stood, walking to the window to look out into the darkness.

‘I have already told Shavvon I am leaving.’

‘When?’

‘After this…case.’

‘Your brother would be pleased were he still here.’

‘Considering he died for the same cause that I am quitting, I highly doubt it.’ The ferocity of the words surprised Hawk.

‘Which is the sole reason that you have stayed in for so long. Daniel was killed because he didn’t listen to reason just as you are not doing now.’

‘No. He died because I didn’t protect him.’

‘You took a bullet in the thigh and spent a good portion of that summer in a coma and have limped ever since, for God’s sake. Your brother died because neither he nor you could outrun bullets fired by a crazy Frenchman with little in the way of integrity. You did your best to save him, Hawk, and you have paid the price in pain ever since. It’s time to let it go, let it all go and find the life Daniel was never able to live. It would not be a betrayal.’

Betrayal?

Life in the British Service had in effect once saved him, giving purpose and family to two young boys left without either. With their parents gone, Daniel and he had been rudderless until the steady sure hand of responsibility and duty had guided them on to a path which was significant and worthy. Such initial fealty now caused Hawk’s conscience to burn, yet beneath, another need blazed brighter.

Aye, betrayal came in many forms.

That thought made Stephen look up. If he didn’t change, he would die. Soon. Like his brother, disappearing into the hazy and shadowed world of espionage.

Today in the company of Aurelia St Harlow he had been honest, a chance taken without thought of recompense or reprisals. He had told her exactly what he thought lay between them and he had seen the answering flicker in her eyes—an unconstrained candour budding like green leaves from a bare and frozen branch in the first days of spring. New life. New hope in the peace of truth.

Outside, a shooting star fell from the heavens and for the first time since Stephen was a child he took a moment to wish upon it.

When he called upon Nat and Cassie two days later Aurelia St Harlow and her sister Leonora Beauchamp were ensconced in the small blue downstairs salon with Cassandra and her oldest sister, Maureen. Lady Delamont, the St Auburns’ London neighbour, was also in attendance, a surprising fact given that Aurelia’s reputation was hardly salubrious.

‘Stephen.’ Cassie crossed the room and drew him in before he could escape. ‘Nathaniel said you might drop by and he instructed me to keep you here until he returned. Something about “a full and bodied brew”, he said, though goodness only knows what that might mean. You know Lady Delamont, of course, and you remember Mrs St Harlow and her sister Leonora Beauchamp from your ball the other evening. Maureen is up for a week to stay with me, too.’

‘Good afternoon, ladies.’

Leonora smiled at him and moved over, giving Stephen no choice but to find a seat in the middle of the sisters. Aurelia did not look at him.

‘I’m glad you have returned early from your journey north, Hawk,’ Cassie said, with the vestige of a question.

Lady Delamont laughed and joined in the conversation. ‘Lady Berkeley will be pleased, Hawk. The youngest Berkeley daughter is hoping to snare a husband before too long, I hear, and your name is amongst the mooted candidates for a dinner she has planned. A nice gal, Elizabeth, with good manners and a pleasing conversation. She will make someone a loyal and malleable wife.’

Somehow the words did not sound like praise and, chancing a quick look at Aurelia, Stephen saw how her hands had tightened on the velvet reticule in her lap.

‘Oh, Hawk’s name is on all the lists, Deborah.’ Cassandra swatted away the gossip easily and began to speak instead of the gowns she had particularly noticed at his ball. In the ensuing chatter Stephen was able to turn and speak privately to Aurelia for the first time. Today her hair had been tightly plaited so that the redness looked darker. A small pin embellished with a ceramic flower sat above her ear.

‘For a woman on society’s blacklist, you seem to be garnering a good number of invitations.’

Deliberation laced a small anger. ‘As soon as my sisters are paired off I am certain I shan’t get another one, my lord.’

‘If you throw off the black shroud you might be surprised, Mrs St Harlow. The swatch of scarlet I saw you holding the other day, for example, would suit you admirably.’

The look on her face was dubious. ‘Red against red, my lord?’

‘Too tempting?’ Stephen enjoyed the glint of confusion in her unusual eyes and, stretching out, he allowed his thigh to touch hers. She moved back as though she had been burned, leaving as much space between them as was possible, her left side plastered tightly against the armrest.

Her reaction was ridiculous. She knew that it was, but it was as though her body almost sizzled when he touched her. Please God that he might not have perceived her response, that he might not have noticed.

‘Your father is looking well, Mrs St Harlow.’ Lady Delamont leant across and spoke loudly. ‘I always thought it a great pity when your mother left him. Sylvienne was very like you to look at, my dear, with her red hair and that quiet air of caution. I hear she lives in Paris now?’

‘She does.’

‘Surrounded by luxury and various beaus, no doubt? She had every eligible suitor in London after her in the Season, an original with a brain to match. Do give her my regards next time you see her.’

‘I shall indeed, my lady.’

Aurelia’s smile felt as artificial as her words. the last time she had visited Mama, Sylvienne had clung to her like a child needing comfort, the high price of her numerous lovers scrawled in heavy payment across her face. Abandoned by society. When she had asked after Papa the undercurrents of regret could be clearly heard in her question.

Perhaps she and her mother were more alike than she thought. Her mama had chosen to leave the right man and she had chosen to stay with the wrong one.

Unlucky in love.

The tiny phrase clung in her mind and Aurelia took in breath. She could not afford to let her guard down and Stephen Hawkhurst wasn’t a man to be played with. He was dangerous and powerful and menacing. Even here, sitting still amongst a group of women she was aware of a thrumming authority, a man who had fought in wars and lived.

Aye, survival had a certain note of guilt that isolated one and made mockery of small concerns. It also brought a sadness that was palpable and haunting, the vestige of dark things that were never spoken of again.

Leonora’s laughter dragged her from her thoughts.

‘I should love to come, Lady Delamont, and I am certain my sister would, too.’ Aurelia’s heart sank. ‘A masked ball, Lia. What could be more exciting?’

‘The more, the merrier, Mrs St Harlow,’ the old lady continued, ‘and I have a roomful of masks collected over the years. If you should like to choose one with your sister I would be very pleased, for my late husband was a man who had a bent towards the absurd.’

‘I have already chosen Nat’s mask, Hawk.’

Aurelia heard the humour in Cassandra Lindsay’s voice even as Hawk shifted in his seat. He did not look like a man who would enjoy a masked ball at all.

‘Your husband used to favour these sorts of occasions, Mrs St Harlow.’ Cassandra’s sister spoke for the first time, her smile so sweet Aurelia knew she could not have meant insult.

‘Indeed, it seems that Charles enjoyed anything that was underpinned with joviality.’ At least Hawkhurst did not make the words sound like a compliment, which gave Aurelia a certain satisfaction.

Joviality. Her world spun for a moment as she was thrust back into her past, clinging to the hope that the man she had married might disappear into the air like a wisp of smoke.

Foolish, foolish choice.

The wedding band on her finger seemed to tighten of its own accord, like a noose, an uncompromising punishment that would always be with her.

She wished she was home, in her bedroom and away from the prying eyes of others, the talk of masked balls and happy times so very far away from all that she had known.

And endured.

‘I hope none of your other sisters have caught your father’s illness?’ Cassandra Lindsay commented and Aurelia shook her head. To say more under the circumstances would be more than deceitful given Hawk’s knowledge of the whole conundrum. Even Leonora looked a little abashed and there was an awkward silence that was filled as Lady Delamont sought advice about a certain plant for her garden which she had been unable to find.

The conversation gave Aurelia a little time to regather her wits and squash down a rising panic. The tension emanating from Lord Hawkhurst next to her was almost palpable and she was pleased when Cassandra’s husband appeared at the door.

Hawkhurst stood immediately, giving Aurelia the impression that his desire to be gone was almost as great as her own, and when he gave his farewells he did not look in her direction once.

With Stephen Hawkhurst departed, however, that particular sense of excitement disappeared with him and, looking at the clock in the corner of the room, Aurelia wondered just how many minutes would need to pass before she could leave, as well.