Society's Beauties. Sophia James

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СКАЧАТЬ did not have long to wait before they came, Aurelia in her black bombazine with a matching hat and her father tucked in beside her in the open landau. She chatted and laughed, the driver on the front box dressed in the livery of the stables complex in Davies Mews and the horses a well-matched pair of greys.

      The senior Beauchamp must be a gifted conversationalist, Stephen thought, as he caught her laughter on the wind, for he had never seen Aurelia St Harlow look so animated. He hated the way his body responded to the sound and bit down in irritation.

      Below this thought, however, another one less generous tumbled, born from his years of observing people closely, he supposed, and from a lifetime of finding the wrong in things.

      He could not see her father’s lips moving in the spaces when his daughter did not speak and though he craned forward to watch more closely as they returned around the path for a second time, he was beginning to get the feeling that the gaiety of this carriage ride was a sham.

      For whom? His eyes took in various lords and ladies gracing the park, the busiest time of the day, and although other conveyances slowed down to speak to those who might hail them, the Beauchamp carriage maintained a steady speed and a one-sided conversation for three whole passes around.

      Then it simply left, gliding through the gates with all the grace of a completed outing, the horses perfectly in time and undoubtedly barely stretched.

      Would Aurelia St Harlow never stop surprising him and why would she be bent on such a show?

      Rodney Northrup chose that moment to saunter over towards him. The lad looked happier than he had looked for a long while and Hawk guessed his joyous admiration of Miss Leonora Beauchamp to have some hand in such newly found cheerfulness.

      ‘Lord Hawkhurst. I have not seen you here before at this hour of the day. You have just missed Mrs St Harlow and her father. They left not more than a brace of minutes ago.’

      Stephen decided to play along. ‘I had heard they frequented the park on a Monday. I expect you were here to catch sight of the sister…Leonora, is it not?’

      ‘Oh, Miss Leonora never accompanies them. It is always just Mrs St Harlow and her father.’

      ‘I see,’ Stephen returned. And he did.

      With only the two of them in the carriage no one would stop to talk. Curious acquaintances would be a danger to any hidden secret and as Aurelia so religiously rebuffed anyone who might offer more than a glance, she and her father stayed safe from closer attention. Was Braeburn House entailed? No one had seen Richard Beauchamp in any company save that of his daughter in years. Could Aurelia St Harlow have kept any intimation of her father being ill a secret to protect the inheritance of her three unmarried sisters? Such a shield was exactly the sort of thing he knew she might have held on to, safeguarding any change detrimental to her siblings’ chance of a good marriage. Braeburn House was a prosperous address and the affluent and moneyed of the ton would easily be impressed.

      He wished then that he might have stepped forwards and seen what it was she would have done. Part of him imagined the driver to be instructed by her to merely run down anyone who had the effrontery to approach them. Hawkhurst swallowed back chagrin and listened to Rodney.

      ‘Cassie said that You should be receiving an invitation to her party and that you were to make sure you come. You have missed many of her soirées, she said, and she wants you to be at this one.’

      Normally he had no interest in such gatherings and avoided them like the plague, but she had mentioned the same celebration to Mrs St Harlow at his ball and by her account the invitation had been accepted.

      He shrugged and looked away, watching as other carriages pulled up and down the concourse and wishing he might see the only one that had caught his attention return.

      Aurelia had seen Hawkhurst standing against a gate on the path on the far side of the park. She knew it was he by his stance and the breadth of his shoulders and by an awareness that disturbed every part of her no matter what distance lay between them.

      Nerves had made her more animated than she usually was as his eyes had followed the coach, once, twice, three times around the track. He had spoken to no one as he had observed them, but his indolence belied a quieter interest. She made certain that she had turned her head away from him each time they had come closer, not wanting to see his eyes shadowed with questions.

      Rodney Northrup had approached him right at the end of her time there, his happy uncomplicated demeanour such a direct contrast to Stephen Hawkhurst’s complexity.

      Papa had spoken only occasionally, a man who would loathe such a spectacle of deception were he to know of it. She was only pleased he did not close his eyes and sleep as he did now for much of the time at home—his way, she supposed, of dealing with a world he no longer had any comprehension of. Or howl at something that frightened him.

      The muscles in her cheeks ached from fixing a smile with such an unrelenting pressure and she bit down upon worry. Every week she hoped that they would not be waylaid by some well-meaning soul, some acquaintance with enough curiosity to uncover all that she sought to hide.

      The walk home from the stables in Davies Mews was becoming a more harried pathway each time they traversed it. She could not be sure that her father could manage any of it for much longer, his gait more laboured and slower every Monday afternoon.

      Tears pricked the back of her eyes and she willed them away, useless emotional baggage that she had dispensed with years ago. She was the only one who might see this family through to a secure future and with the growing profits she was garnering from the silks it would only be a matter of months before safety would be gained.

      Hawkhurst carried a cane today and he had leant upon it with more than a gentle force. Had he been wounded recently or was this an older injury? A great part of her wished that she might have been able to stop and speak with him and pretend that just for a moment she was a high-born lady of consequence who would have made him a perfect wife.

      Such an illusion was shattered completely when they gained the stables and the master of the books strode forwards to tell them that as the cost of an afternoon rental had just been increased he could no longer keep a carriage free if the payment was not given monthly.

      So many pounds, Aurelia thought, adding the sum in her head. She still had the diamond pendant, though, and the pawnbrokers had offered her a sum that would see the charade through to at least October. By then she was certain the new lucrative contracts she had garnered would be trickling through.

      ‘This way, Papa,’ she encouraged her father as he turned in the wrong direction.

      Uncoupling her pendant, she held it tightly in her hand, liking the feel of the warm and familiar shape of the piece against her skin. Her grandmother had given the necklace to her on her deathbed—it was a treasured family heirloom.

      There was a pawnshop in the city that favoured the older style of jewellery. She would visit it tomorrow.

       Chapter Six

      Alexander Shavvon was unhappy as he paced up and down the small room.

      ‘France needs to be contained and yet all information suggests otherwise, for already Louis Napoleon has expanded into IndoChina. If Lord Palmerston СКАЧАТЬ