by Jane Feather
She went to the sideboard and poured two glasses of sherry. She handed him one, then sipped her own, still standing in the middle of the room. “We could pretend to elope, I suppose,” she said. “As you say, it won’t come as a complete surprise since people are used to the idea of our marriage, eventually. I could say I didn’t want any ceremony. I didn’t want to be reminded of my first wedding, perhaps…”
She looked into the amber liquid in her glass, wondering if she could persuade Cornelia and Livia that she’d succumbed to the wildly romantic notion of an elopement out of impatient passion. She’d certainly gone out of her way to imply that she found Greville thrillingly attractive, that she’d fallen in love with him almost at first sight, and the emerald ring had only proclaimed with public emphasis the idea of a passionate attachment between them. She could probably pull it off. It wouldn’t be that difficult to be convincing, she recognized wryly.
She became aware of Greville’s silent scrutiny and looked up to meet his steady gaze. “When?” she asked simply.
“Can you and Franny be ready to move to South Audley Street in two days?”
“As soon as that?”
“Sooner if it were possible.”
Chapter Fifteen
IN THE PARLOR OF A SUITE of rooms at 14 Adam’s Row, Don Antonio Vasquez stared at the battered figure standing in front of him. A bandage was wound around his head and his swarthy complexion had a yellowish tinge to it.
“You were robbed?” Don Antonio said in disbelief. “By a mere street felon? How could that happen?”
Miguel winced. The light in the room hurt his eyes, and a full marine band seem to be clashing cymbals and banging drums behind them. He swayed a little, nausea swamping him, and with a murmur of apology sank into a chair. “It was no mere street felon, Don Antonio,” he croaked. “The man fought like a soldier. He knew all the tricks.”
His master gave a snort of derision. “Have you seen how many soldiers are on the streets of this godforsaken city? Deserters, pressed men on leave, wounded on furlough. The lucky ones are on half pay, the rest destitute, fleeing the authorities. Of course they know a trick or two when it comes to robbery. They’re desperate and they learned the tricks of survival in His Majesty’s armed forces. You were robbed by one of them, make no mistake. You must have been half-asleep to let such a one get the better of you.”
Miguel put his head in his hands. Don Antonio was mistaken, he knew it in his bones. His opponent had been a trained fighter, not just a disaffected, desperate soldier on the lookout for easy prey. But he couldn’t summon the energy to argue with Don Antonio, who was looking at him with a snarl of derision on his well-bred mouth.
“I need to rest, Don Antonio,” he muttered, fighting the nausea that threatened to overwhelm him. “I am concussed.”
“Well, you’re certainly no good to me in your present state,” Don Antonio declared with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Get to your bed.”
Miguel staggered to his feet and stumbled to the door, his hand over his mouth.
• • •
“Is she in bed?” Greville looked up from his book as Aurelia entered the drawing room of the house in South Audley Street three days later.
“Yes, and almost asleep,” Aurelia said, settling into a chair opposite him. “Franny’s not a creature of habit.” Her smile was fond. “It can be a nuisance on occasion, but sometimes, like now, it can be very useful. A new house, new nursery, new furniture…she’s happy as a clam.”
“And you?” He set down his book.
“Relieved, now that everything’s all right with Cornelia and I’ve written to Livia. It was surprisingly easy actually. Cornelia just accepted the fact with a murmur of annoyance that she hadn’t been a witness, and that was it.”
“I’m glad. I wouldn’t like you to fall out with your friends over this.”
“It would take more than this for a real rupture. But I’m glad it’s over nevertheless.”
Greville crooked a finger at her, his eyes narrowed. She rose, iron filings to his magnet, and went to him, allowing him to pull her down into his lap. He slipped a hand around to caress her breasts, lightly flicking at the nipples beneath the fine cambric of her gown. They rose instantly to his touch, and he chuckled, nuzzling the nape of her neck. “So wonderfully responsive. I could spend all day touching you.”
She leaned back against him, thinking that she could probably spend all day being touched by him in a world of sensual fantasy. She could feel him growing hard beneath her and mischievously shifted her hips a little, grinning at his groan of mingled pleasure and protest. Then she jumped up.
“Dinner, sir, will be served in half an hour.”
“Oh, God,” he moaned. “Look what you’ve done to me. I won’t be able to move for ten minutes.”
Aurelia laughed. “A glass of claret will cool your ardor.” She poured him a glass and brought it over to him. “You will not wish to miss dinner, I promise you. Our Mavis has prepared scalloped oysters, followed by roast duck with apple sauce, and Ada’s prepared a Rhenish cream and a gooseberry fool.”
Greville sipped his wine, eyes half-closed. “I still don’t know how it happened that in the space of twenty-four hours, in addition to young Jemmy, Daisy, and Hester, we have acquired two formidable identical twins in charge in the kitchen and a doddering gentleman failing to answer our door.”
“They decided it for themselves. When Liv and Alex return to Cavendish Square, it’s inevitable that the old friction will arise again between Morecombe and the twins and Alex’s rather stuffy household staff. But Morecombe and the twins don’t want to leave their apartment there; it’s their home, they’ve lived there for decades, but they do want to work. They won’t take payment from anyone because they have Aunt Sophia’s pension and their own apartment in Cavendish Square. They just like to do what suits them. And when I told them I was married and moving here, they didn’t bat an eyelid, simply decided it would suit them to follow me. So, they’ll come here in the morning and leave in the evening. Jemmy will answer the door at Morecombe’s bidding.”
She poured herself a glass of sherry and sat down again. “The arrangement will suit everyone very well, and I know Liv will be relieved that she doesn’t have to negotiate anymore between Boris and Alphonse, the chef, and the old guard.”
“Well, I have no objections.” Greville raised his glass in a toast. Then a glimmer of humor appeared in his gray eyes. “I have a wedding present for you.” He left the drawing room, a spring in his step.
Aurelia leaned her head against the chair back and closed her eyes, wondering what on earth he was going to give her. Something presumably that would facilitate the part she had to play.
She heard the door open again and kept her eyes tight shut, a smile dancing over her lips. She felt his approach across the room, felt his presence in front of her. “Should I open my eyes?”
“It might help,” he said drily.
She opened her eyes. At first she saw only Greville, but then her gaze moved to the door and she gasped. It was the most beautiful animal she had ever seen. Huge, like a small pony, powerful shoulders a perfect match for Greville’s, she thought with a long exhalation. “He…she…?”
“She,” he said, clicking his fingers at the animal, which padded gracefully towards them and sat down at Greville’s feet. “She’s called Lyra, after the constellation. And she will be with you everywhere you go, and most particularly when I cannot.”
So she hadn’t been far wrong after all, Aurelia reflected, reaching a hand to touch the dog’s magnificent head. But even a useful present could be as beautiful as it was welcome. “Lyra,” she greeted softly. The dog lifted her head beneath her caressing hand, and the great brown eyes met hers. “Oh, you beauty. What is she, Greville?”
“An Irish wolfhound,” he said, radiating his pleasure in her reaction to his gift. “Cornelia told me that you loved dogs…real dogs, she specified.”
Aurelia laughed. “Oh,
Liv’s silly pink dogs…of course.”
He looked puzzled. “I don’t understand.”
“You will when you meet them.” She moved her hand beneath the wolfhound’s chin. “She’s beautiful, Greville, and I thank you.”
He pulled the hound’s ears. “She’s beautiful, but she’s also been trained to protect. I can’t be at your side always, and I’m not very confident that you’ll use a pistol if you have to. Lyra is gentle as a lamb most of the time, but there are words she understands. When you and she know how to work with those words together, then you’ll be as safe as I can make you when I’m not beside you.”
Aurelia felt a familiar shiver cross her scalp. The chill of reality crept into the warm, lamplit drawing room. “You haven’t told me exactly where this danger is coming from.”
“I don’t know exactly. And quite probably it will not touch you at all. But I’m not prepared to take any chances.”
“No,” she agreed, caressing the wolfhound’s neck in long strokes. She looked up at Greville. “I understand the risks.”
He drew her to her feet, holding her hips, his expression grave. “And do you trust me to protect you, Aurelia?”
“Oh, yes,” she said softly. “In as far as you are able.”
He kissed the corner of her mouth. “I am able,” he promised. “I will not put you in the way of danger, understand that, Aurelia.”
She kissed him, relaxing into his embrace. It was impossible to imagine the kind of danger that had killed Frederick, here in this house in this quiet London street, among the well-regulated households, the social conventions and rigid rules of Mayfair society. And that was where her contribution to her country’s cause would lie.
“Dinner is served, Lady Far—Lady Falconer,” Jemmy announced from the doorway, averting his eyes from the embracing couple.
They moved apart. “Thank you, Jemmy.” Aurelia took Greville’s arm and they went as sedate as any married couple into the dining room.
• • •
Midmorning a few days later, Aurelia left the house on South Audley Street, Lyra padding at her side. On this beautiful April morning, the sun had some warmth and the air a spring freshness.
Aurelia was dressed for walking in an olive green pelisse over a gown of tawny gold silk with a deep flounced hem, and a pair of rich brown leather half boots. She wore a close-fitting brown velvet hat with an ostrich plume curling over the brim, and her hands, one of which held Lyra’s lead, were buried in a sable muff.
She walked briskly, aware of her own pleasure in a costume that was fresh from the dressmaker rather than in the latest manifestation of a series of refurbishments. No one looking at this fashionably dressed lady walking her dog towards Green Park would guess that beneath the smiling, assured surface her heart was beating fast and every sense was stretched. Tucked into the muff was a sealed paper that Greville had given her with the instruction that she was to deliver it to a certain point in Green Park. It was her first courier job, and excitement warred with the apprehension that she might somehow fail to complete the mission.
The man polishing the iron railings of a house opposite watched her go. When she turned the corner of the street into Audley Square, he shoved his polishing cloth into a deep pocket of his greatcoat and set off, whistling carelessly to himself. She had left the square when he got there, but he could just make her out along Charles Street. He quickened his step, anxious to keep his quarry in sight without coming too close to her. The asp’s newly acquired wife was a matter of considerable interest in 14 Adam’s Row.
Aurelia wasn’t certain when she first felt the prickle on the nape of her neck. It was before she reached the gate into Green Park. She paused, bending to adjust the lace of her boot while Lyra sat patiently beside her. Aurelia glanced behind her as she busied herself with her boot, but could see nothing and no one out of the ordinary. But of course, as Greville had told her many times, she wouldn’t see anything suspicious. If she was being followed, her pursuer would be too experienced to give himself away.
However, she knew a trick or two of her own. She straightened, turned completely full circle, and raised a hand in enthusiastic greeting to someone behind her. She waved more vigorously, standing on tiptoe, as if trying to attract the attention of someone who hadn’t seen her yet. And a man turned around and looked behind him. A man in an ordinary, rather scruffy greatcoat, with a muffler around his neck, and a cap with a brim pulled low over his forehead. A man indistinguishable from many others on the street, strolling past the park railings. But no one else paid any attention to her vigorous gesticulations.
Why should they if they had no interest in her?
“Well, well, Lyra,” she murmured. “We have company it seems.” She bent as if to adjust the dog’s collar and whispered, “On guard.” The dog’s ears pricked for a second, then the hound stood and pressed herself against Aurelia’s legs.
They walked into the park and Aurelia made no attempt to look behind her. She knew she was being followed, there was no need to confirm it. She took one of the winding promenades that led to the reservoir in a corner of the park and walked in leisurely fashion around the lake. It was bounded by shrubberies, and off to one side lay a small copse dominated by a copper beech in its center.
The copper beech was Aurelia’s destination, or, most particularly, a small hole in the trunk that made a perfect poste restante for unorthodox mail. However, she ignored the copse and continued on her way around the lake towards the Ranger’s Lodge. Lyra kept close to her legs and every now and again emitted a low-throated growl, which told Aurelia that the hound had now picked up the follower on their tracks. Presumably he was closer now, but she made no attempt to check.
Her mind was working fast now. She could abort the mission, and no one, least of all Greville, would blame her. Caution was always the first watchword. But the idea of being balked of success on this her first time out made her furious, as disappointed as she’d been in the country when she had been so certain she’d evaded Greville, only to find him waiting for her at the stile.
She would find a way to elude her present follower. As she rounded the lodge at the end of the lake, she came upon the broad swath of grass where grazed a herd of cows tended by a group of milkmaids, who would, for a small sum, provide a cup of milk fresh from the cow to a thirsty pedestrian.
Aurelia smiled suddenly, a mischievous gleam in her eye. She strolled casually onto the grass and into the middle of the herd of cows, Lyra at her side. She whispered softly to the wolfhound, and instantly Lyra put back her head and howled, a long, mournful howl that lifted scalps, sent shivers down backs, and threw the herd into a milling, lowing panic.
The milkmaids and the cowman rushed into the herd to try to calm them. Lyra continued to howl, and the cows blundered about, lowing and bumping into each other. Aurelia took a firm grip of Lyra’s lead and darted through the warm and heaving flanks and out the other side of the herd, which effectively blocked both a view of her and any possibility of pursuit. A crowd had gathered to watch the spectacle, and she had a clear path to double back to the copse.
Once among the trees, she stopped and listened, remembering Greville’s words: “Do nothing in haste. You may think you don’t have time to pause, to listen and look, but you do.”
So she paused, listened, and looked—and heard nothing but the trill of a songbird welcoming spring, and the rustle of a squirrel in the grass beneath the trees. It was the matter of a moment to slip the document into the hole in the beech, artfully concealed by a square of moss, and in no more than three minutes, she and Lyra were strolling towards the gate that led to Piccadilly.
She was certain now that she had lost her pursuer. There was no sign of the man in the greatcoat behind her, and she felt no sixth sense. Lyra was walking beside her, showing none of her own instinctive awareness of danger. Aurelia skipped a little, then laughed self-consciously at such a childish display of delight.
Greville was waiting for her when
she came home. He came out of the library as he heard her in the hall, and one look told him all he needed to know. Aurelia was glowing with satisfaction, her brown eyes alight, her cheeks pink, her slight frame radiating energy.
“You had a pleasant walk, my dear?” he inquired with a smile.
Aurelia, aware of Jemmy’s presence, responded with a demure “Yes, indeed, it’s a beautiful morning. Green Park was delightful.” She bent to release Lyra’s lead as she spoke.
Greville gestured to the library behind him. “Will you join me?”
“Of course.” She drew off her gloves, following him into the library, Lyra at her heels. She closed the door and stood smiling at Greville, triumph exultant in her gaze. “I’m sure I was followed.”
His expression darkened. “Tell me.”
She gave him a full account, trying to make an unembellished narrative of the sequence of events, but she couldn’t conceal her delight in her successful ruse. When she had finished, she regarded him expectantly.
Greville stood with his back to the fire, hands clasped lightly behind him. “You did well. But tell me again exactly what happened when you reached the gate to Green Park.”
Aurelia frowned. “You don’t believe me? You think I might have missed something?”
“Not necessarily. But you’re excited, understandably, and I want you to tell me again, step by step, now that your triumph is not quite so fresh.”
Aurelia bit her lip, trying to conceal her annoyance at what felt like an admonition. An unjust one. “Very well.” She reached up to unpin her hat and laid it carefully on a drum table by the door, together with her gloves and muff. She unbuttoned her pelisse, letting it hang open as she walked slowly to the window seat and sat down, folding her hands in her lap.
“A plain unvarnished tale, then.” And she told it again. And as she did so she realized that Greville was right. It wasn’t that she’d missed anything out the first time, but that she could have done when she was glorying in self-congratulation and in the expectation of Greville’s admiration. She ought to have known, she thought wryly, that expressing admiration in these matters was not Greville Falconer’s way. Greville Falconer, the colonel running a covert operation in London, was a very different man from Greville Falconer the lover.