A Husband's Wicked Ways

by Jane Feather

  It was no good, Aurelia thought. She couldn’t slip as easily into this role as Greville could. In fact, she thought, he was never out of it, whereas she had to remember to put it on, and sometimes, such as now, it was a damnable nuisance. She just wanted to enjoy being herself, and she wanted simply to enjoy Greville’s company. But there was no point taking umbrage at his businesslike attitude. What else could she expect of him? He’d never promised her anything else. Even in the glorious intimacies of their bed, he never pretended that their enterprise did not exist. He never lost sight for a minute of the real purpose of their short time together, even though she did. And if she allowed herself to forget it, the inevitable reminder always seemed to come as a shock.

  “Lady Falconer, how delightful,” the countess trilled as she saw them approach. “Allow me to present my husband, Lord Lessingham…my lord, Lady Falconer. I was telling you about our delightful afternoon at cards.”

  “Yes, indeed, my dear,” the earl said with a benign smile. He bowed to Aurelia. “At your service, Lady Falconer.”

  Aurelia gave him her hand as she offered a small courteous bow of her own, before turning to Greville. “May I present my husband, Sir Greville…Lady Lessingham…Lord Lessingham.”

  Aurelia stepped slightly to one side as the courtesies of the introduction were completed and, when the moment was ripe, explained to Greville, “I was telling Lady Lessingham this afternoon about your own interest in Spanish culture, sir. We had such a fascinating discussion about the paintings in the Prado. How I wish I could see Ribera’s Jacob’s Dream, and the Velázquez…Adoration of the Magi is said to be among the most magnificent of his work.”

  Aurelia turned to the countess with a longing little sigh. “Of course, Lady Lessingham has seen everything there. She’s been a frequent visitor to the royal palace.”

  “Not for a long time, alas,” her ladyship said heavily. “Not since the tyrant drove King Carlos and his family from his own country and installed that puppet on the throne in his place. So many of us were obliged to flee our homeland.” She dabbed at her eyes with a froth of lacy handkerchief.

  “Indeed, ma’am, you have all our sympathies,” Greville said in his warmest, most mellow tones. “To be an exile must be very painful.”

  “Oh, if only you knew, Sir Greville,” Doña Bernardina said with another sigh. “I weep for my country every day. Is it not so, my lord?” She appealed to her husband beside her.

  “Yes, my dear. But you do much for your compatriots, and you must take heart from that.” His tone was bracing, as if he was anxious to forestall another episode of weeping.

  The countess seemed visibly to take heart, her shoulders stiffening, the incipient tears vanished. “Yes, well, one must do what one can for those worse off than oneself, don’t you agree, Lady Falconer?”

  “Certainly,” agreed Aurelia. “I’m sure you sustain your countrymen with your own courage.”

  “Well, I like to think so,” the lady said. “It’s true then, Sir Greville, that you share your wife’s interest in Spanish culture, and our art? Lady Falconer is very well informed.”

  Greville shot a faintly amused glance at Aurelia as he said, “Don’t I know it, ma’am. My wife is a regular bluestocking.”

  “I would hardly say that,” Aurelia demurred. “Your knowledge far exceeds mine, Husband. You are so erudite, your scholarship quite puts my own fragments of knowledge to shame.”

  “You must come to my soiree on Friday,” the countess declared. “I was telling dear Lady Falconer only this afternoon how I hold these little gatherings to bring my compatriots together. We all draw so much support and comfort from each other, but we also have most stimulating discussions, and sometimes a little music, that I’m sure you would both enjoy. Do tell me I may count upon you both.”

  “It will be our pleasure, Lady Lessingham,” Greville said with a bow.

  “At eight o’clock then.” She smiled and accepted her husband’s arm into the dance.

  “Excellent,” Greville murmured. “We move apace, Aurelia.”

  “So it would seem.”

  “Well, we’ve accomplished all we needed to here. Come, let us go home.”

  “I have to say good-bye to Cornelia, and to David,” Aurelia protested. “It would be the height of ill manners just to disappear.”

  “Where are they then?” Greville peered across the room. “Oh, over there by the card-room doors.” He took her arm and moved as swiftly as possible through the throng. “Cornelia, I give you good evening,” he said as he reached Cornelia. “Bonham…you’ve abandoned the cards already?”

  Harry grimaced. “There’s no joy in playing for pennies.” He kissed Aurelia’s cheek. “You look radiant, Aurelia.”

  “Thank you,” she said with a smile. “You always did have a smooth tongue, Harry.”

  “Calumny,” he declared.

  Greville listened to the light banter, so redolent of a long and close history. Aurelia had a gift for friendship, he thought. It was difficult to acknowledge, but sometimes the closeness of his wife’s relationships made him uneasy, uncertain in some way. He couldn’t avoid the knowledge that he was not overwhelmingly enthusiastic about meeting Prince and Princess Prokov. He didn’t know anyone in whom he could confide as openly as Aurelia and her friends could. Even with Frederick, who had been the closest to a close friend he had ever had, he hadn’t shared this level of easy intimacy. Too much had been at stake.

  Sometimes, though, he approached it with Aurelia. And when he did, he was finding it harder and harder to distance himself.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “IT SEEMS WE HAVE NO CHOICE but to accept that the asp is known,” Simon said, resting his chin in his linked palms with a weary sigh. “It’s a damnable nuisance.”

  “It was inevitable one of these days,” Greville observed, pacing the office restlessly. “But it means my operation here has to change its focus. I need to neutralize Vasquez before he gets to me.”

  Simon nodded. “Use anyone you need from here as backup. What of Aurelia?”

  “She’s safe enough under my roof. If they’re interested in her as a way of getting to me, then they’ll find her wherever we try to hide her.” He didn’t add that he would never know a moment’s peace if he didn’t have her directly under his protection.

  “Quite apart from trying to explain her disappearance,” Simon said in tacit agreement. “We don’t want people asking difficult questions.”

  “Exactly.” Greville ceased his pacing. “I’ll continue as planned. Make Vasquez’s acquaintance and wait for him to set a trap…one I trust I shall be able to spring myself,” he added with a grim smile.

  Simon looked at him gravely. “We can’t afford for you to fall into the hands of the Inquisition, Greville. You know too much, and no one has the power to withstand their persuasion.”

  “Have no fear, Simon, I’ll fall on my sword first.” Greville’s tone was light, but his eyes were black holes, devoid of light or expression.

  Simon Grant merely nodded, and Greville turned to the door. “Brief me daily, Greville.”

  Greville raised a hand in acknowledgment. “Send a couple of good men to watch my house and Fourteen Adam’s Row.”

  “It will be done at once.”

  Greville nodded and left. He drove his curricle back to South Audley Street, deep in thought. The situation was no worse than many he’d encountered in the past, but he hadn’t had anyone else to worry about then. It made it hard to keep a single-minded focus on his own safety.

  He left the curricle with his groom and went into the house. Morecombe was nowhere in evidence, but Jemmy, looking smart in a new livery, appeared at a run from the back regions at the sound of the door opening. “Afternoon, sir.” He tugged at his waistcoat. “Lady Farn—I mean, Falconer, Lady Falconer is in the library. Should I bring you summat, sir?”

  Greville smiled at the lad’s eagerness. He’d taken to his new duties like the proverbial duck to water. “
Make sure the decanters are fully charged, if you please, Jemmy.” Greville handed him his hat, whip, and gloves, then strolled to the library at the rear of the house.

  The door was partially ajar and he pushed it open quietly. He stood for a moment on the threshold, unnoticed by all but Lyra, who, knowing there was no threat here, merely flicked her eyes beneath long lashes in his direction. Aurelia was sitting at the secretaire writing a letter, Lyra lay at her feet, and Franny was curled up against the dog’s haunches frowning over a writing slate as she painstakingly formed the letters of the alphabet with a stick of chalk.

  Greville felt the strangest sensation beneath his breastbone. He had no experience of family life, certainly not in his barren childhood, and had never expected to repair the omission, but something about this serene family scene in the lamplit, fire-warmed, book-lined room stirred him in a hitherto unknown fashion. Aurelia had put her stamp on the rented house. It had lost the anonymity of furnished accommodation. Personal touches were everywhere, from the jugs of early daffodils and sprays of forsythia to embroidered cushions, piles of books, her embroidery frame, and the stray possessions of Franny’s that had escaped the nursery quarters.

  Aurelia turned from the secretaire, pen in hand, and smiled. “I was wondering when you’d return.” The smile conveyed recognition of recently shared pleasure, her brown eyes glowing in the soft lamplight. Her pale hair was braided neatly in a coronet around her head and her gown of fine dark green wool had a high neck that set off her small, shapely head to perfection.

  Franny scrambled to her feet. “See what I’ve writ,” she said, coming towards him. She seemed to accept Greville as a presence in her life without undue concern. In fact she saw little enough of him and her life continued much as it had before. Aurelia intended to keep it that way. This arrangement would be over in three months, less now, of course, and the smaller the impact it had on her daughter the easier the break would be.

  Greville now examined the slate and the careful letters inscribed thereon with the required gravity. “Very neat, Franny,” he pronounced, ruffling the top of her head. He stroked Lyra, who had gracefully risen and was pushing her nose into his hand. Then he crossed to his wife, who lifted her face for his kiss.

  “Your face is cold,” she said, laughing, touching his cheek with a slim, warm hand. “Is it cold out? I haven’t set foot outside all day.”

  “It’s chilly now,” he said, turning to the sideboard. “Sherry?”

  “Mmm, thank you.”

  “Why haven’t you been out?”

  “Oh, I had rather a lot to do here.” She took the glass he handed her. “Menus for the week, bills to settle, a dressmaking session with Claire, who’s making up a new evening dress for me with that Italian, figured silk that Liv sent me.”

  She stood up as she spoke. “I don’t know where Alex gets these extraordinary luxuries from. He’s immured in this little village in the New Forest with his wife and infant son, and he still somehow manages to acquire the most unbelievably exotic stuff. He’s promised black tulips for Nell’s ball.” Aurelia laughed and sipped her sherry. “He’s an amazing man.”

  “I look forward to meeting him,” Greville said, glancing through the day’s post on the desk.

  Aurelia gave him a quick, slightly sharp look. He didn’t sound as if he meant it. “Alex can be a little overpowering,” she conceded.

  He looked up from the letter in his hand, his eyes narrowed. “But you like him.”

  “Oh, yes. It’s impossible not to, particularly when he’s so good for Liv. She adores him and he worships the ground she treads on.”

  Greville grimaced and Aurelia couldn’t help laughing. “Oh, dear, how horribly soppy that sounded.”

  “It did,” he agreed drily. “When am I to meet this paragon?”

  “Sooner than you think,” she said, wondering at the sardonic tinge to the question. It seemed most unlike Greville. “I was just writing to Liv. I had a letter from her today. Alex has to come up to town on business next week, and Liv wants to make sure that we’ll look after him.”

  Greville looked astounded. “He can’t look after himself…in that mansion on Cavendish Square?”

  “Oh, of course he can,” Aurelia said impatiently. “And I’m sure Boris will come to make sure everything is in order for him. But Liv wanted us to know so that we can ask him to dinner.” She paused, then said deliberately, “You’d be surprised at how much you have in common with Prince Prokov, Greville.”

  Greville met her steady gaze in silent comprehension. “You do seem to have moved in some interesting circles, my dear.”

  “Is Uncle Alex coming to stay, Mama?” Franny had been following the conversation between her elders with a puzzled frown.

  “Not to stay, sweetheart. He’ll stay in Cavendish Square, but he’ll come for dinner one evening.”

  “Is he bringing the baby?”

  “No, the baby has to stay with Aunt Liv, he’s too small to travel.”

  “Oh.” Franny lost interest in the subject and returned to her slate.

  Greville glanced at Aurelia and she caught his meaning. She reached for the bell rope that hung beside the fireplace. “It’s time for you to go back to the nursery for tea, Franny.”

  Franny pouted. “Not yet…it’s too early.”

  “It’s five o’clock,” Aurelia said calmly. “When you’ve had your tea and your bath, you can come to my bedchamber while I change for dinner.” It was sufficient inducement to send Franny off with Daisy without further protest.

  Greville sat down in a winged armchair by the fire, twirling the stem of his sherry glass between finger and thumb. “Russian secret service?”

  Aurelia shook her head. “I haven’t been given the exact details. Liv knows the truth but obviously didn’t feel free to tell Nell and me everything. But I believe Alex is, or has been, working against the czar. Alexander is proclaiming undying friendship to Napoléon—”

  “Or giving that impression,” Greville interrupted, stretching his booted feet to the andirons. “There are some who think he’s playing a devious game. But you’re right, I look forward to meeting Prince Prokov.”

  “And you’ll talk to him about such things?” Aurelia inquired, curious to know if her husband was contemplating dropping his rigid guard.

  Greville gave her a shrewd smile. “Not in so many words, my dear. As you should well know.”

  “I didn’t think so,” she said, sitting in a corner of a sofa, arranging her skirts around her. “Were you at the ministry this afternoon?”

  He nodded. He crooked a finger at her, and with a resigned chuckle she set down her glass, got up, and came over to him, allowing him to pull her onto his knee. He palmed her scalp, bringing her face down to his.

  She kissed him, tasting the cold freshness of his lips, the tang of sherry on his tongue, inhaling his special scent, a mélange of lemon and lavender, overlaid with the tang of horseflesh and leather and today a residue of tobacco smoke that she guessed came from the closeted offices of the ministry, if not from the taproom of a tavern or the smoky salon of one of the clubs on St. James’s Street.

  “Are we to be doing anything in particular at Lady Lessingham’s soiree?” she asked, drawing back and resting her head on his shoulder, looking up at him with a sharp intelligence that belied the sensual glow in her eyes.

  “There are Spaniards come to town,” he said lightly. “They may or may not be the ones we’re waiting for. I hope they’ll be in attendance.”

  “Ah…now I understand.” She straightened a fold in his cravat with a deft twitch of her fingers. “You assume they will make contact with their former compatriot.”

  “I believe it to be inevitable.”

  “Then we must waste no time.” She made to stand up but he seized her waist and pulled her down again.

  “There’s nothing to be done tonight, my dear.”

  “No?” She looked playfully askance. “I assumed you would wish to drill me in th
e correct techniques for smoking out Spaniards from the drawing rooms of the ton.”

  “It can wait…. Shall we go upstairs?”

  Aurelia half stood up, her hand in his, then she sighed. “I promised Franny.”

  He inclined his head in rueful acceptance. “Of course. But anticipation always makes the feast taste better.” He stood up with her. “Do we have any engagements this evening?”

  She considered the question. “Several…should we choose to attend…but none that are imperative.” She regarded him with her head on one side, reminding him yet again of an inquisitive bird.

  “Then let us spend a quiet evening at home.”

  Aurelia sighed heavily. “Must it be quiet?”

  “Shameless hussy. No one would believe you were a respectable matron.”

  “I used to be,” she said with a puzzled little smile. “At least I thought I was. Strange how little one knows oneself.”

  “Oh, I think you know yourself quite well, Aurelia.” He caught her chin, tipping it up so that he could look into her eyes.

  “Better now,” she said simply. “And I’m beginning to feel that I know Frederick now, or certainly better than I used to. I can’t believe there was a time when I thought there was nothing further I needed to know about him.”

  “He has my gratitude in more ways than one.” Greville bent and kissed her ear.

  Aurelia wondered if Frederick should have her gratitude. Would she have been better off if he’d followed the rules of his world and accepted the destiny that his lineage and position dictated? Instead of throwing convention to the four winds and embracing the extraordinary life led by Greville Falconer? She would have been safer, certainly, in the established rhythms and routine of that married life with Frederick. But happier…more content…more satisfied?

  No. Whatever lay ahead, she would always have these memories. The excitement of not knowing what each day would bring, what would be required of her, while she played the part so familiar to her, all the while knowing that she was only playing the part, that she was engaged in some other quite different, astoundingly exciting, play.