A Husband's Wicked Ways

by Jane Feather

  “Heaven help me,” Greville murmured. “This is madness, and I am helpless against it.” He lowered his mouth to hers, crushing her against him as he devoured her mouth, ran his hands down her back, pressing her to him, his hands hard on her hips, fingers digging into the soft, yielding curves. She murmured against his mouth, caught his bottom lip between her teeth, pressed her loins into his. He moved her backwards, his mouth still cleaving to hers, along the corridor to the double doors to his bedchamber. He reached around her waist and flicked up the latch, propelling her into the room.

  Only then did he step back from her, but his eyes remained locked with hers as he loosened his stock, throwing it from him as he shrugged out of his coat and waistcoat, sending them in the same direction. In shirt and britches he caught her up by the waist. He held her above him and she laughed down at him in sheer exultation, her eyes deep and sensuous as the richest brown velvet.

  He carried her to the bed and dropped her into the middle of the deep feather mattress, then lifted her feet one by one onto his thigh so that he could unbutton her boots. He tossed them unceremoniously to the ground and slid his hands up the silken length of her stockinged legs, molding her knees into his palms, fingertips dancing in the soft hollows behind her knees.

  Aurelia unbuttoned her pelisse, her fingers clumsy in their haste. Urgent need filled the hushed silence of the empty house, her loins were hot, the deep furrow in her body moist with anticipation. She struggled to free her arms from the pelisse, and Greville half lifted her, pulling the confining garment away from her. Her gown was a simple jonquil crepe affair that clung to her bosom and hips. She tugged at it, yanking it up to her waist, her legs curling around his hips as her fingers struggled with the buttons of his britches.

  He reared back for a moment, looking down at her flushed face, her glowing eyes, her parted lips. Then with a swift motion he yanked loose the ties of the lawn drawers she wore beneath the thin crepe, pushed a hand beneath her to lift her so that he could pull the garment clear over her hips. She lifted her hips high on the bed, her legs still curled around his waist, pulling him into the hot cleft of her body.

  But with a wicked smile he held back, just inserting the tip of his penis within her, holding himself there, moving slowly, stimulating the exquisitely sensitive opening of her body before finally sheathing himself within her. She sighed as she took him deep inside her, and he lay still, feeling himself enclosed in the silken warmth, content for the instant to feel just that.

  Aurelia moved her hand down his back, stroking the hard-muscled curve of his backside, pressing her hand against him as he began to move within her, setting up a slow rhythm that increased in pace as their passion grew. The silence of the house around them added to her excitement, they were alone, utterly private, no one knew where she was, no one, not even her dearest friends, could guess at what she was doing.

  She arched her back, rising to meet his thrusts, tightening around him, her hands pressing into his buttocks, and he gave her what she wanted, his head thrown back, the strong column of his throat bared, his hips plunging, his penis so deep within her it touched her womb, and she cried out, a triumphant, exultant scream of delight as the world spun off its axis, and she clung to him as to a lifeline as his own cry joined with hers.

  • • •

  Afterwards, as Aurelia came back to herself, she realized that they were lying entwined in a tangle of clothes. Her drawers were around her ankles, her gown and petticoat caught up at her waist.

  Greville hitched himself onto both elbows above her and shook his head in a dazed wonder. “I can’t remember when I last made love in my boots.” His britches were around his knees, his shirt half-unbuttoned.

  Aurelia only smiled weakly. There were no words to describe how she felt. Sated with delight, astounded at the suddenness of that excess of pleasure, stunned at the realization of how much she had missed the simple act of love since Frederick had sailed away.

  Greville slid backwards until his boots touched the floor again and he could stand upright. “What a gloriously immodest sight you are.” He chuckled, bending over her to kiss her, one hand resting over the damp mound of her pubes, twisting a dark curl around his forefinger. “Put yourself together, before I ravish you again.”

  “I’m willing to be ravished,” she murmured, making no attempt to cover herself.

  “Clearly, you don’t know much about the harsh anatomical realities of the male.” Greville hauled up his britches. He did up the buttons before bending over to take her hands and pull her to her feet.

  He held her with one hand, pushing up her chin with his other. He said nothing, but something in his eyes penetrated her daze, sending a little chill into the warm aftermath of loving. Then he released her and the moment passed.

  Aurelia bent to pull up her drawers. She adjusted the light folds of her dress over her hips and sat down to put on her boots. What had been behind that strange, almost forbidding look? Should she bring it up? But she realized she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to analyze what had happened between them, not at this moment.

  “Will you move in here soon?” It was such an ordinary question after the intense communication of the last half hour, but it was all she could think of. The world was back, and there were questions and situations that had to be discussed.

  “As soon as possible,” Greville said. “But I’ll need to hire a staff.”

  “You’ll need a housekeeper, and cook. And a butler, valet…batman…don’t army officers have batmen?”

  “Regular army officers, yes.” Greville bent to the low dresser mirror to retie his stock. “But by no stretch of the imagination do I fall into that category.”

  “No, I suppose not.” She nudged him away from the mirror so that she could see to her sadly tumbled hair.

  “I’m quite accustomed to taking care of my own needs,” he said, stepping back to pick up his waistcoat.

  “You can cook?”

  “Probably better than you.” He pushed his arms into his coat.

  Aurelia gave a rueful laugh. “That would not be difficult. I don’t know the first thing about cooking.”

  “Frederick learned.”

  “I assume because he needed to. I don’t see how, in this play of ours, that I should ever need to.”

  “No,” Greville agreed. “Shall we continue the tour of the house? You need to know the layout, since we’ll be using it as a base for operations.” He walked over to a door in the far wall and flung it wide. “This bedchamber belongs to the lady of the house.”

  Aurelia came up beside him and glanced around the room. It was similar in size to his own, unexceptionably if unimaginatively furnished. “Pleasant enough.” She walked through the room and opened the door to the boudoir. This would suit her admirably, she thought longingly. If she could afford a house like this, she and Franny would want for nothing.

  “You’re thinking how much you would like this for your own,” Greville said, catching her chin on a fingertip and turning her face towards him.

  “Is it that obvious?” Her smile was faintly rueful.

  “I’m aware that finances are much on your mind.” He traced her mouth with his thumb. “And where you and your daughter are to live. It’s not difficult to read your mind in such an instance.”

  “No, I suppose not. But I’ve always had my own sitting room, my own private room, and I think I would find it hard to live in a house without it.” She gave a slight self-deprecating shrug.

  “I would have thought a bedchamber and a drawing room sufficient,” he said, sounding genuinely puzzled. “Why would one person need so much space? I’ve lived for many years with nothing to call my own but the clothes on my back, and what I can carry on my back. I count a solid roof over my head a luxury.”

  “Well, you are a rather unusual individual,” Aurelia responded with more than a hint of irony. “I’m sure your mother had her own sitting room.” Even as she said it, Aurelia realized it was the first time
she had touched upon his personal history. And Greville didn’t know that she had had some tantalizing inkling from Mistress Masham.

  “Oh, yes,” he said, his voice suddenly cold and distant. “She had an entire wing of the house to herself. She was not one for company.”

  Well, that fitted with what little Mary had let fall. But it still told Aurelia nothing of any significance. However, it meant a lot more than the surface words implied, Aurelia was convinced. He looked utterly forbidding, his tone icy, his eyes like gray stones, and she could no more bring herself to question his statement than she could swim the English Channel.

  “It’s time we left.” Greville moved past her and strode down the corridor to the staircase. Aurelia followed more slowly. It was difficult at this moment to remember the passion they had shared such a short time ago.

  In the hall, he went to open the front door, but stopped before doing so. He held out his hands to her and she walked forward, placing her own in his. He clasped her hands tightly and drew her towards him.

  “I find you irresistible, Aurelia,” he said softly. “Somehow you’ve slipped beneath my guard, and it makes me a little uneasy. If that causes me to behave curtly, or to distance myself, then I ask your forgiveness and your understanding. I would not make you unhappy for the world. And I don’t want your anger or annoyance, I want your warmth and your passion, and that lovely smile. We will work well together, and all the better for what happened this afternoon. I believe that. Will you forgive me?”

  “There’s nothing to forgive.” And there wasn’t. If he didn’t want to talk about his childhood, that was his business.

  He studied her expression for a moment, then nodded as if satisfied. “We’ll walk in the park at five o’clock,” he told her, slipping back easily into the role of senior partner in the enterprise. He opened the door and stepped behind it so he was invisible to the outside world. “Meet me just inside the Stanhope Gate. It’s time we started to be noticed together.”

  “I’ll be there.” She stepped through the door, pulling it shut behind her. She glanced up and down the street, saw no one she knew, and quickly went on her way. Her mind was in turmoil. The glories of the afternoon were one thing, one wonderful thing, but they had brought her closer to the man himself. Was that what he had been afraid of? What had produced that sudden coldness? He was afraid that physical closeness would engender a need on her part for emotional closeness? If so, he’d been right. He’d warned her that he never discussed personal matters, that there was no place for private emotions in the world of the spy. But he had to have them even if he didn’t discuss them. It wasn’t human to have no emotional relationships, no personal history.

  Had his lonely childhood scarred him in some way? Had there been something that made emotional withdrawal natural for him?

  Had something in his early life groomed him for the isolated, dangerous world of the spy?

  Chapter Twelve

  THE FISHING KETCH DOCKED at Dover in the late afternoon. A heavy shower dampened the quayside, and the two gentlemen who stepped from the deck of the ketch carried umbrellas. The quayside itself reeked of fish and tar, the stench accentuated by the rain. From the wide-open door of a tavern came raucous laughter and the odor of spilled beer, sawdust, and tobacco.

  The taller of the two men examined his surroundings through a quizzing glass with an air of fastidious disapproval. He was richly dressed, his chin supported on a highly starched, elaborately folded neckcloth, his dark coat and waistcoat of the softest wool, legs encased in skintight pantaloons, feet in glimmering top boots. His tall, lean, athletic build spoke of a man of action. He sported a neat spade beard, a high-crowned beaver hat, and carried a silver-knobbed cane.

  His shorter companion was stocky, clean-shaven, with a rather round face, and dressed in the dull black coat and britches of a factotum. They both looked around, clearly expecting some kind of welcoming committee.

  A sailor came down the gangway with two portmanteaus that he dumped unceremoniously at their feet. “There y’are, gents.” He held out a callused, grimy hand.

  The tall gentleman, with a flare of his nostrils, gestured imperiously to his companion, and the other hastily felt in his pocket and took out a copper coin. He dropped it into the waiting palm. The sailor looked at the coin, spat derisively onto the cobbles very close to one shining boot, and returned to the ketch.

  “So, it would seem we are not expected, Miguel.” The voice was clipped, impatient, the man’s expression conveying the hauteur of one not accustomed to being kept waiting.

  “He’ll be here, Don Antonio,” the other man reassured, looking around. “Carlos has never failed yet.”

  “So, we should stand here in the rain?” A sculpted eyebrow lifted as Don Antonio turned his well-bred countenance to his companion.

  “Would you prefer to enter the tavern?” The suggestion was tentatively made.

  Don Antonio gave him an incredulous stare, then began to pace the cobbled quay, picking his way through the puddles. “At least we can make absolutely certain our arrival does not go unnoticed. Whoever’s watching for a stranger’s arrival will make good note of two sodden gentlemen who clearly have nothing to hide, hanging around miserably on the quayside in the rain.” He gave a scornful laugh.

  “Ah, here he is,” Miguel declared, as a coach pulled up at the edge of the quay. The door opened and a man jumped down, hurrying across the cobbles towards them.

  “Forgive me for not being here to greet you on your arrival, Don Antonio, Senor Alvada. But one of the horses threw a shoe on the road from London.” The man bowed low, the rain pattering onto his bare head. “If you would care to take shelter in the coach, I’ll bring your luggage.” He was a small man and struggled with the two portmanteaus.

  Neither of the gentlemen offered him any assistance, however, both hurrying across the quay and into the dry confines of the coach.

  “Miserable country and its miserable weather,” Don Antonio observed, settling into a corner of the vehicle. He rubbed at the window with his gloved hand. “This damp gets into a man’s bones.”

  “Yes, indeed,” responded Miguel, taking the opposite corner. “Carlos should have a snug parlor reserved for us, though. We’ll have a good dinner, a good bottle, and a comfortable night’s sleep before we continue to London.”

  “A good dinner?” Don Antonio scoffed. “In this benighted country? The English don’t know the first thing about food. They cook like peasants.”

  Miguel said nothing, merely hunched his shoulders into his coat. Don Antonio Vasquez had a vehement loathing of the English and all things English, and Miguel had no intention of exacerbating that loathing with any words of excuse or defense. Only a fool would risk annoying Don Antonio, a man without remorse, without conscience, and he was very, very good, a master of his profession with no equal in Miguel’s eyes. Don Antonio chose his associates with the greatest care. On each enterprise he would pick someone who had a particular skill or penchant for a certain type of action. Miguel, trained by the Inquisition, had no illusions as to why he had been selected for this mission. He considered it an honor of the highest order.

  “I took the liberty of booking bedchambers and a private parlor at the Green Man, on the road to London, Don Antonio.” Carlos, rain-sodden, clambered into the coach. Don Antonio withdrew farther into his corner with a grimace of distaste at the puddle forming beneath the other man’s boots.

  “The kitchen has a good reputation,” Carlos offered hopefully. “And quite a decent cellar, I’m told.”

  “That remains to be seen,” said the gentleman. “Let’s just get there, shall we, before we all drown?”

  Carlos rapped on the roof to signal the driver, and the carriage lumbered forward. “The asp has leased a house on South Audley Street, Don Antonio. I have found very pleasant lodgings for you on Adam’s Row, very close by.” Carlos spoke fast, as if afraid he would be cut off at any moment. “I will act as your majordomo, of course, and have t
aken the liberty of hiring a chef who comes highly recommended. Senor Alvada”—Carlos nodded politely to Miguel—“will be acting as your secretary.”

  “Do we have an entrée at court?” Don Antonio asked.

  “Doña Bernardina y Alcala is now the Countess of Lessingham. But she remains loyal to her Spanish blood. She will ensure you have all the entrées necessary, Don Antonio.”

  “Good.” He nodded, his mouth twisting in a sardonic smile. “Her loyalty to poor King Carlos in exile will be put to good use, although not perhaps to the use she imagines.” He smiled a little. “I do enjoy a double-headed mission,” he said almost to himself. “Such an economical use of effort and resources. We shall set up our network and flush out the asp at the same time.”

  He swiped his glove against the window again. “I have waited a long time for that, gentlemen. Now, how soon before we get to this paragon of an inn?”

  “Half an hour, Don Antonio.” Carlos exchanged a glance with Miguel, who shrugged with fatalistic patience.

  • • •

  “How well do you know that colonel, Sir Greville Falconer, Harry?”

  Harry knew his wife too well to assume she was making idle conversation. He put down his pen and looked across the desk at her as she crossed the carpet in the library. “We’re slightly acquainted, why do you ask?”

  “Aurelia met up with him in Bristol.” Cornelia perched on the arm of a chair, smoothing down her blue silk skirt. “They spent some together.”

  “Ah. I see.” Harry toyed with the feather tip of his quill pen, frowning slightly. “And you think Aurelia might be interested in Falconer?”

  “Maybe.” Cornelia lifted her shoulders in a graceful movement. “Is there any reason beyond the obvious why she shouldn’t spend time with him?”