A Husband's Wicked Ways

by Jane Feather

  “I did not believe you given to extravagant compliments, sir,” she said, attempting to smile through the sudden mist of tears, to make her voice light even though her throat was thick with emotion.

  “Oh, believe me, my dear, I am not. Shall we show the world the evidence of our engagement?”

  “Yes…yes, of course. This is the perfect occasion, isn’t it?” She blinked the incipient tears away and swallowed the emotion. Of course he had chosen this evening to give her this because of the greater impact the ring would have in this gathering. But even as she allowed him to escort her to the supper room, she knew that however pragmatic the occasion, there was nothing pragmatic about the gift.

  Cornelia saw it first when they sat down at the supper table, and her eyes widened. “What a magnificent stone,” she breathed, reaching for Aurelia’s hand. She looked across at Greville, who was smiling slightly. “You have an eye, sir.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” He bowed his head in acknowledgment.

  Harry picked up Aurelia’s hand with all the casual informality of old friends and examined the ring. He whistled softly. “Congratulations, Colonel.”

  “How about me?” Aurelia asked, laughing.

  For answer Harry leaned sideways and kissed her cheek. “That goes without saying, my dear. I wish you every happiness.”

  “What’s going on here?” David Foster came over to the table, eyes gleaming with curiosity. “Are you talking secrets?”

  “Not in the least,” Aurelia said, holding up her hand for his inspection. “Quite the opposite in fact.”

  David nodded his approval in Greville’s direction and kissed Aurelia. “So when’s the happy day?”

  “We haven’t discussed it,” Aurelia said with a vague gesture. “I’m enjoying this moment far too much to look ahead.”

  “As you should, love,” Cornelia said. “David, go and bring Nick, and on your way do us a big favor and try to head off Letitia before she smells gossip and sails on over here. She’ll only say something malicious and envious. You know what she’s like.”

  “All too well. At your command, ladies.” David bowed and strode away through the crowd.

  Aurelia sat back on the little gilt chair and sipped her champagne. For a moment she wondered how she would be feeling if this were a genuine engagement. Then she dismissed the thought, it only spoiled this moment, which was too good to spoil.

  “Lady Farnham.” Lady Broughton loomed before them, her quizzing glass up. “What’s this I hear about a ring? Have you declared yourself, Nephew?”

  Greville rose to his feet with the rest of the gentlemen at the table. “I have, indeed, ma’am. Lady Farnham has graciously agreed to be my wife.”

  “Well…well…I knew it was in the wind, and I’m heartily glad of it,” the lady said, taking the chair beside Aurelia that Harry held for her. The delicate piece of furniture seemed to quiver beneath the layers of satin and the weight of diamonds.

  “Let me see, my dear.” The lady examined the emerald through her glass and nodded. “I approve the setting, Greville. A pretty design. Your dear mother’s was too heavy for the stone.” She released Aurelia’s hand. “There are one or two other family pieces that belonged to my late sister. I have had them in my charge since her death. You shall have them on your wedding day, Lady Farnham.”

  Aurelia smiled, too stunned to think of appropriate words. Greville had given her his mother’s ring. She smiled her way through the congratulations that continued for the rest of the evening, but at one o’clock she was more than ready to go home when Cornelia announced that she was dead on her feet.

  “I’ll be with you directly,” Aurelia said, rising from her chair. She had arrived with the Bonhams, it seemed natural that she would leave with them.

  “I’m taking you home myself,” Greville said swiftly, coming over to her, carrying her fur wrap. “I have a carriage waiting.” He draped the wrap over her shoulders.

  “Then we’ll bid you good night, Ellie.” Cornelia kissed her. “Come shopping with me tomorrow. Let’s look at some materials for our gowns for my ball. I’m determined we should complement each other.”

  “Tomorrow afternoon,” Aurelia promised. Cornelia went off on her husband’s arm.

  “Come.” Greville took Aurelia’s arm in a light clasp and escorted her down to the hall. A town carriage stood at the curb and he opened the door for her.

  “I didn’t realize you kept a carriage,” Aurelia said, settling into the corner, drawing her wrap closely around her.

  “It’s a hired conveyance,” he said easily, sitting beside her. “I could have borrowed my aunt’s, but that would not have worked with my plans for the remainder of the night.”

  “Oh?” She peered at him in the dim light from the single oil lamp swinging from the roof. “And how’s that?”

  “Can’t you guess?” He drew her into his embrace, tilting her chin for his kiss. “I’ve a mind to celebrate our engagement.”

  Aurelia let her head fall back against his shoulder, savoring the warmth of his mouth, the pliant lips, hard and then soft against hers. Her lips parted for the light probe of his tongue, and her eyes closed as the carriage rocked and she lost herself in the scent of his skin, the feel of his face against hers, the taste and feel of his mouth as her tongue went on its own voyage of exploration.

  Then the carriage halted, and reluctantly she struggled up against him. “So soon?” The disappointment was clear in her voice.

  “Not exactly,” he said with a low laugh. “We shall say good night. I shall see you to your door. You will go inside and unlock the side door. I shall tell the coachman I wish to take the night air and will walk the rest of the way to my house. I shall take a turn around the square, making sure there are no watchers, then let myself in through the side door. You will be waiting for me in bed.” His dark eyes glittered with sensual amusement. “Your bedchamber is the second on the left, to the right of the upstairs landing. Am I right?”

  She nodded, for a moment speechless, then said, “How do you know about the side door? How do you know which one in that mansion is my bedchamber?”

  “All these houses have side doors, and a discreetly casual question to young Jemmy gave me the answer to your second question.”

  She shook her head. “Stupid of me to ask.”

  “Just a little. Now, let us begin, or it will be dawn before we’ve had any time together, and…and I have to tell you, dear girl, I am consumed with hunger for you.” His voice was a low throb, and his gaze seemed to swallow her whole as he held her face for a second between his hands. Then he released her, opened the carriage door, and sprang to the ground. “Come.”

  Greville held out his hand and she stepped down beside him. Her body was now on fire with anticipation, all traces of fatigue vanished. Punctiliously he kissed her hand at the door and saw her inside, waiting until the door closed and he heard the lock turn. Then he went to dismiss the carriage.

  • • •

  The feel of him gave her so much pleasure, Aurelia thought an hour later, as she drifted out of a trance-like doze, her body languid and fulfilled. Greville had come to her, throwing off his clothes even as he crossed the room to the bed. He had made love to her with an urgency and a passion that had caught her up in a tidal wave and left her beached and breathless, unable to move.

  Greville had his arms around her and she turned sideways, digging her chin into the angle of his shoulder and neck, licking the salt sweat on his neck. He was so big and powerful, so full of weightiness, of the solidity of power. It made her feel small, yet somehow empowered by connection. She could feel the muscularity of his shoulders, the rippling muscles of his back as he moved his thigh to cross it over hers. He rolled her onto her back and leaned above her, his lower body pressing hers into the mattress.

  “So, ma’am,” he murmured, his eyes holding hers. “How would you like to be pleasured now?”

  “However it pleases you,” she returned, shifting languidly
beneath him.

  For answer, he slid his hands beneath her buttocks, lifting her on the shelf of his palms as he slid very slowly into the warm, moist furrow of her body. He moved with tantalizing slowness, pausing, drawing himself back to the brink of her body so that she caught her breath in an agony of anticipation, then slowly sheathing himself within her again. It seemed he could continue like this forever.

  This was only the fourth time they had made love, but Aurelia was learning that Greville Falconer had extraordinary staying power when it came to the pleasures of the bedchamber. He could bring her again and again to ecstasy and save himself for one final throbbing release when he sensed that she had strength for but one more orgasmic explosion.

  Now he moved his hands to the backs of her thighs and lifted her legs onto his shoulders. He sat back, holding her ankles as he drove deep inside her, deep to her core, a deeper intrusion than she would have believed possible.

  She held his gaze as he hung above her, moving swiftly now, his eyes sparks of gray light. She arched higher, trying to take him even farther within herself, tightening her inner muscles around him, suddenly determined that she would control this finale. He would reach his climax at her dictation. And when he threw back his head with a muffled cry, she tightened herself around him once more, and the hard length of him pulsed and throbbed within her. Then, as always, he pulled himself out of her body the instant before his orgasm engulfed him and lay heavily on her, his seed pumping against her thigh.

  Aurelia ran her hand down his sweat-dampened back, feeling warmth and tenderness as well as triumph that she had at last succeeded in breaking her lover’s iron self-control.

  Greville finally raised his head from her breast and rolled sideways onto the mattress. “Wicked woman” was all he said before his eyes closed and he seemed to sleep.

  Aurelia was never sure when he was truly asleep or when he was merely drifting in semi-awareness. She turned her head on the pillow to look at him. He seemed unconscious. But then his arm moved and his hand came to rest on her belly and his eyes flickered open. “Wicked woman,” he murmured again.

  Aurelia smiled to herself and closed her own eyes under a wash of lethargy. The sky was graying beyond the window, but it would be half an hour before dawn began to break.

  The half hour was over too soon. Greville sat up, flung aside the covers, and got to his feet. He stretched once, then was instantly awake. He turned to the bed and leaned over her, running a caressing hand over her turned flank.

  “Good morning,” he murmured, kissing her ear.

  “Morning,” she mumbled into the pillow.

  “You have to get up, I’m afraid, and lock the side door after me,” he whispered.

  Aurelia groaned but struggled up, blinking. “I would have thought you’d have a way of doing that for yourself, master spy,” she grumbled, reaching for her peignoir as she swung her legs over the side of the bed.

  He only chuckled, dressing swiftly. “Hurry now. Were cutting it fine as it is.”

  Aurelia flitted ahead of him down the corridor, pausing to listen for sounds. The household still seemed to be asleep, but not for much longer. At the head of the stairs, she stopped, looked around, then ran on silent bare feet to the hall. Greville followed, making no sound. The side door was in the corridor that ran behind the stairs to the door to the kitchen regions.

  Greville slipped through and vanished into the gray light of dawn, one hand raised in farewell. Aurelia locked the door. She heard sounds coming from the kitchen now and sped to the stairs. It wouldn’t matter if someone came upon her wandering the house, she had every right to do so, but she had absorbed enough of Greville Falconer’s maxims to want to make a clean escape to her bedchamber.

  She closed her chamber door behind her with an exultant little chuckle. She climbed into bed, snuggling into the nest she had already made, and lay wide-eyed and wide-awake, savoring her memories of the night.

  Chapter Fourteen

  SIMON LOOKED UP AS Greville came into his dingy office in the War Ministry. “Good morning, Greville.” He half rose from his chair, extending his hand across the desk. “You’ve been busy I hear.”

  “Matters move apace.” Greville shook the offered hand. “I have established my household on South Audley Street, and with the engagement made public, Lady Farnham will act as my eyes and ears, cultivate the acquaintance of those who are of interest to us, and report back to me. Our spending an unusual amount of time together now we are betrothed will cause no raised eyebrows.” He perched casually on the arm of a rickety wooden chair across from the desk.

  Simon regarded him narrowly. “Forgive the bluntness, Greville, but Lady Farnham has had no previous experience of our particular business. You are confident that she will be able to—”

  “Perfectly confident,” Greville interrupted him brusquely. “Aurelia is quite capable of holding up her end. Her tasks will be quite simple and she understands them to perfection.”

  Simon nodded. “Of course…of course. You will, of course, have made sure of everything.” But a frown still lingered in his eyes.

  Greville regarded him with a slightly rueful smile. “As we agreed, this engagement will provide exemplary cover. Better than any other device.”

  “Indeed…indeed.” Simon pulled at his chin. “I own to a slight misgiving, though. It seems so…so convenient, if you will, that Frederick’s widow should present herself to you as the perfect partner.”

  Greville shrugged. “As you know, Simon, in our business one takes one’s partners where one finds them. I would not have recruited Aurelia had I thought for one minute that she was unsuitable. She has responded well to her training and since her work will be confined to doing what she’s been doing most of her adult life, entertaining, social mingling…” He shrugged again. “I see no possible reason for concern.”

  Simon looked down at his cluttered desk. He trusted Greville Falconer absolutely; he would happily put his own life in the colonel’s hands, but he couldn’t shake off a vague unease. Undoubtedly the betrothal would provide the perfect stage for Greville’s work in London, but it was difficult, even for an agent as experienced as Falconer, to involve a person with whom he had emotional ties. Not that Falconer was giving the impression of having such ties with his fiancée, indeed he’d implied that Aurelia was as detached about their relationship as he was himself. That she had her own reasons for agreeing to serve her country in this way.

  “I’ve discussed the matter of the pension for Lady Farnham with my masters,” Simon said, following his last thought. “They are all agreed that her services and those of her late husband should be rewarded financially, but with a single lump sum rather than a pension. A sum of two thousand guineas has been approved. I hope Lady Farnham will find that satisfactory.”

  It might not put a house like that in South Audley Street in her price range, Greville thought, but carefully invested and combined with the funds she had at present, it would certainly support a more modest independence. “I’m sure Lady Farnham will be pleased,” he said. “There is still the matter of her husband’s back pay and prize money.”

  “Yes, that will be paid at once in whatever form she chooses. A bank draft…or ready cash…Now to business.” The subject thus dealt with, Simon opened a drawer in the desk and drew out a sheet of paper. “It seems possible that the games are about to begin.” He slid the paper across the desk to Greville. “Two Spanish gentlemen were observed landing at Dover. Very open they were about it, too, as I understand. They spent a good ten minutes pacing the quayside, showing themselves off to any interested observers.”

  Greville nodded. “Making certain their arrival was noticed then.” Every major seaport in the British Isles was watched day and night by the agency. Any foreign visitor would know that it would be almost impossible for someone to land without attracting attention, unless at a secluded beach in the middle of nowhere.

  “Indeed,” Simon agreed. “So they’re either legitimate
émigrés or anxious to be thought so, which fits with our earlier intelligence that they’re intending to infiltrate society at its highest levels. Anyway, they’ll bear watching, and perhaps cultivating. They arrived in London last night and took up residence on Adam’s Row.”

  “Convenient,” Greville murmured, scanning the information on the paper he held. “Number fourteen. I should be able to contrive an accidental meeting when I take my morning’s constitutional.” He laid the sheet back on the desk. “Don Antonio Vasquez? Do we know anything of him?”

  Simon shook his head. “Not at present. The name is unknown to us, but it could be an alias. I’ve sent instructions to our man in Madrid to do some digging, and with luck we might get something in a week or so. In the meantime, I suggest we approach with caution. As we’ve just said, he could be perfectly innocent, following his deposed king into exile. Simply an aristocratic fugitive from Bonaparte’s Spanish dependency. There are plenty of them all over the Continent as Napoléon puts his own relatives on the thrones of Europe.”

  “I’ll make his acquaintance,” Greville stated, getting to his feet. “Presumably this Senor Miguel Alvada is a henchman of some sort.”

  “Presumably.” Simon, too, got to his feet, leaning his hands flat on the desk. “You might start with Countess Lessingham. She’s the center of the Spanish exiles in London…offers support, introductions, help with lodgings, that kind of thing. Her house is always a first port of call for any new émigré. If she doesn’t know Don Antonio now, she soon will.”

  Greville nodded. “She was Bernardina y Alcala, if I remember right.”

  “Exactly so. She married Lessingham five years ago, but is well-known for her patriotic efforts on behalf of her countrymen.”

  “I’ll follow it up…make my own assessment.” Greville shook his companion’s hand in farewell and left the ministry. As her first mission, he would ask Aurelia to pursue an acquaintance with the countess.

  His curricle was waiting for him in the ministry’s courtyard, a groom attending the handsome pair of bays, who shifted restlessly on the cobbles as Greville approached. He took the reins from the groom and took his seat on the box. “Let go their heads.”