A Husband's Wicked Ways

by Jane Feather

  “Right y’are then, mum.” Hester passed her a thick towel that was hanging over a rail to warm in front of the fire. “Your dressing gown is on the chest.” She indicated the garment at the foot of the bed.

  “Thank you. Run along now.” Hester left and Aurelia slowly stood up in a shower of water.

  The adjoining door to Greville’s chamber opened and her husband stood on the threshold. “Venus arising from the waves,” he observed, crossing the room swiftly. “Allow me.” He twitched the towel from her grasp and began to dry her vigorously, an appreciative little smile on his lips.

  Ordinarily this would have been the prelude to a little love play, but to her surprise and chagrin Aurelia felt no such urge. “I’m sorry, Greville, but I don’t seem to be in the mood,” she said with a sigh, taking the towel from him and wrapping herself tightly before stepping out of the tub.

  He stepped away, regarding her thoughtfully. “I’ve no intention of forcing myself on you, Aurelia.”

  “Of course you haven’t.” She took a smaller towel from the rail and wrapped it turbanlike around her wet head. “But for some reason I’m tired and dull and out of sorts this evening, and lovemaking is the last thing I feel like.”

  He frowned. “That’s your prerogative, of course. Is there any particular reason?”

  She shrugged. “Not that I can think of.”

  His frown deepened. “My dear, I don’t think you’re telling the truth. It has something to do with our less than satisfactory discussion earlier on. Am I right?”

  “Maybe.” She turned to pick up her dressing gown. She dropped the towel and shrugged hastily into her robe.

  Aurelia tied the girdle of her robe around her waist with a final decisive tug and pulled the towel from her head. “Couldn’t we just leave it, Greville?” She sat down and picked up her hairbrush.

  “I don’t think so.” He took the brush from her. “Let me do this at least. I promise it’s no prelude to anything else, but I do love to brush your hair.”

  She made no demur and he began to pull the brush through the pale cascade of still damp hair. The sensation was pleasant and soothing, and she allowed her eyes to close, her head to fall forward as the sweeping strokes caressed her scalp.

  “So,” he resumed after a minute of this tranquil silence, “what was it about my responses this afternoon that upset you so much?”

  She opened her eyes and looked at him in the mirror. “I was only asking a perfectly ordinary question about your childhood. And you reacted as if I’d pried into the deepest personal secrets. Most people have no difficulty talking about their past lives, or at least something as innocuous as childhood. We live together, Greville. I know it’s only for a short time, and I’m certainly not asking for any emotional declarations, I know that would be outside the parameters of this contract that we have.”

  If she had known what such a lack would mean, truly mean, in this strange partnership, would she have entered it as willingly?

  She shied away from a question that she sensed could only bring painful answers and continued firmly, “Be that as it may, we do like each other, and in my book that means that I’m interested in what made you the person I like. Do you really have no interest at all in what made me, me?”

  The smooth, rhythmic strokes of the hairbrush continued as Greville gazed down at the silken flow of hair beneath his hand. It was drying quickly in the warm room, and among the pale blond locks he caught little glimmers of a deeper gold, and once or twice in the flicker of lamplight even a hint of auburn.

  “Such beautiful hair,” he murmured almost unconsciously.

  Aurelia raised her eyebrows in a gesture of theatrical frustration. “I’m flattered by the compliment, Greville, but it’s hardly an adequate contribution to a discussion that, may I remind you, was at your initiative.”

  He nodded. “So it was…so it was. Well, my dear girl, I am very interested in what made you into the woman I like, and respect. It’s vitally important to me to understand you in order to work with you. I need to know as far as it’s possible how you will act and react in certain situations.”

  “And that’s all?” She stared at him, her incredulous eyes meeting his in the mirror.

  For a moment he couldn’t move, transfixed by her velvet gaze. Of course it wasn’t all. But he couldn’t admit that. Not without jeopardizing the detachment that had kept him safe all these years and made him such a superb operator. A detachment that would keep Aurelia and her daughter safe.

  “Is that all, Greville?” she repeated, reading the smoky whirls of confusion in the usually clear gray eyes.

  He thought of Don Antonio watching Franny at play, that close-eyed, predatory stare. The Spaniard had been wondering how best to use a nugget of information, a potential weakness. Greville knew that he dared not allow such potential weaknesses in his life. He had seen what happened to men when they fell victim to the blandishments of affection. “It has to be,” he said finally.

  Aurelia stood up, whirling to face him, grasping his upper arms in a hard grip. “No, Greville, it does not.”

  “Yes, Aurelia, it does.” He took her hands from his arms and placed them firmly at her side. “That doesn’t mean that I don’t wish it could be otherwise. But you must accept that I know best how to do my job, and it’s a job that does not permit any of the softer emotions. It’s the job I have chosen, just as Frederick chose it.”

  “And you’re trying to tell me that Frederick had put aside all warm and loving thoughts about us…about Franny and me?” she demanded, standing very still, her gaze locked upon his as if she would see behind those impenetrable gray eyes.

  “He had no choice,” Greville said simply.

  “So you’re saying that if he had not died, if he could have come home safely at some point, he would not have done so, because he had renounced all personal ties. He was no longer a husband or a father?”

  She shook her head and took an agitated step towards the fire. “I don’t believe it. Frederick could never have believed such a thing…never have forgotten his life, his friends and family, like that. He didn’t enter a monastery.” She turned to face Greville again, her hands cupping her elbows, her shimmering hair flowing over her shoulders, her brown eyes pools of angry distress.

  “He might as well have done,” Greville said quietly. “He knew that he had to be dead to you, to everyone in his past, if he was to be a successful agent. He made a decision that would make it impossible for him ever to resume his old life. Frederick Farnham died at Trafalgar. It was not Frederick Farnham who died in the streets of Corunna, Aurelia.”

  “And as far as your family are concerned, you are dead, too?”

  His smile was ironic. “I was as good as dead to my family from the moment of my birth. I nearly killed my mother, for which my father never forgave me. Or at least he never forgave me for the consequences of that birth. My mother retreated into a world of her own and apparently forgot my existence…or ignored it. The effect was the same. And she forgot or ignored my father’s existence in precisely the same manner.”

  He drummed his knuckles on the dresser. “There, Aurelia, you asked for it, and now you have it in all the words it takes…my entire youthful history.”

  Aurelia could think of nothing to say. He was angry, presumably because she had forced him to reveal the pain he had managed to bury so deep all these years. Or was he simply angry with himself because he had broken his own rules, weakened and succumbed to her, yielded to her need to break through his defensive shell?

  “I’m sorry,” she said simply, coming towards him. She put her arms around him in a fierce hug. “I’m sorry that you had such a miserable childhood, but I’m not sorry that you told me.”

  She let her hands fall when she felt no response from the rigid figure and stepped back. “I won’t press you any further, it clearly makes you uncomfortable. Don’t let me keep you any longer.”

  He seemed to hesitate. Then he ran a hand through his close
-cropped hair in a gesture of frustration and said, “Are you coming down for dinner?”

  “No, I told Hester to bring me a tray in my sitting room.” She turned back to the dresser and picked up her brush, scooping her hair into a knot on the nape of her neck.

  “I thought you were going to the Paganini recital.”

  “I don’t feel well tonight.”

  “Oh.” He turned halfway to the door, adding almost as an afterthought, “I had thought to accompany you.”

  He sounded so diffident, she thought. Extraordinarily so for such a man. As if he were completely at a loss, a feeling and experience with which he was totally unfamiliar.

  “You could go alone and make my excuses,” she suggested, fastening a netted snood around the knot of hair. “Cornelia will be there.”

  “No…no…I think I’ll settle for a quiet evening, too.” He paused with his hand on the door, glancing over his shoulder at her as she sat on the dresser stool. “Shall I look in before I go to bed?”

  “By all means,” she said easily. “I intend to seek my bed early, though, so I may not be awake.”

  “I’ll take my chance then,” he returned drily, and left her.

  Aurelia sat for a moment longer wondering what had just happened. They had touched some sore spots, approached some emotional boundaries whatever Greville might say about avoiding them at all costs. She couldn’t at the moment decide whether that had been an achievement or not.

  • • •

  “I’m assuming I don’t need to wear formal evening dress for this event, Aurelia.” Greville came into Aurelia’s bedchamber on the Friday evening of the Lessingham soiree, brushing at the silk sleeve of a dark gray coat.

  “Not Almack’s formal, certainly,” she said, turning to look at him while still holding out her arm for Hester, who was intent on fastening the row of tiny buttons at the cuffs of the long, full sleeves of her gown. “That will do nicely. You look very much à la mode.” Indeed, the formfitting, dark gray silk coat and skintight, knitted, dove-gray pantaloons couldn’t be faulted, unless, of course, one would rather one’s husband did not display the masculine muscularity of his figure quite so blatantly in public.

  “May I return the compliment,” he responded with an appreciative smile.

  Aurelia knew that the old gold damask gown, fastened at the waist with a tasseled cord, the décolletage accentuated by a simple collar of deep gold amber circling her throat, more than flattered her coloring. Hester had spent hours with the curling iron perfecting the cluster of pale blond ringlets framing her face, and she thought without an excess of vanity that she was looking her best.

  Not an accurate reflection of her inner self, however. Since their unhappily fruitless discussion of the previous afternoon, Greville had behaved as if they had never come anywhere near such difficult emotional territory, and Aurelia found it impossible to do anything but follow his lead. But what had not been said yawned like a wasteland between them, or so she felt.

  “Don’t forget your fan.” He picked up the delicate Japanese painted fan and unfurled its ivory sticks.

  “I’m not about to.” The fan was to be their medium of communication, most particularly if a Don Antonio Vasquez was one of the guests. Her role tonight was simply to engage the man in conversation, flirt with him, draw him out as far as possible, act as bait in fact, and Greville would make his own move when he judged the time right. She had a series of gestures with the fan that would impart basic information if she decided he needed it.

  He nodded. “Shall we go then?” He took her evening cloak from Hester and draped it carefully about her shoulders, then as he reached his hands around to fasten it at the throat, he bent and brushed the nape of her neck in a warm whisper of a kiss.

  His mouth as always sent a shiver of anticipation down her spine and a warm jolt to her belly. She stepped away from him quickly, slipping the fan into her beaded reticule. “Ready,” she stated with a bright smile.

  Greville’s eyebrows flickered as he offered her his arm, but he said nothing.

  In the carriage Aurelia sat back in a corner, idly playing with the drawstring of the reticule that she wore around her wrist. Greville sat opposite, watching her through half-closed eyes. Sulfur yellow light flickered across the windowpanes as they passed beneath the gas streetlights. The unpleasant light cast a sickly yellow glow across the interior of the coach.

  “Are you apprehensive?” he asked finally.

  “Not particularly.” She looked up, surprised. “Should I be?”

  “No. You’ve had enough training for this to be as easy as playing Lottery Tickets with Franny.”

  “It’s a simple enough card game, I grant you,” she said with a faint smile. “Unlikely to offer any complicated play.”

  “Well, tonight should be the same. But you seem a little distrait and I would not have you distracted. If there’s anything that’s troubling you, you should tell me now.”

  Dear God, Aurelia thought. Don’t you ever think of anything but the game in hand? You can’t begin to imagine that I might be distracted by anything other than this evening’s ploy.

  “Don’t worry, there’s nothing troubling me,” she said. “Why should there be? All I have to do is engage a man in conversation, something I’ve been doing quite skillfully ever since I put my hair up.”

  “We are talking about a particular man, and a particular point to the conversation.”

  Aurelia shrugged. “It doesn’t make any difference, Greville. One conversation is conducted essentially very like another.”

  “True enough. And I will never be out of your sight.” He leaned back against the squabs, folding his arms. “Show me again what gesture will tell me that you want me to come over and join you.”

  Without expression, Aurelia took her fan from the reticule and flicked it open. She moved it to the height of her right shoulder and waved it with a twist of her wrist towards her face. “Good enough, spymaster?”

  And suddenly she felt her spirit lighten. She loved this game for itself. She loved the sense of competency she felt, the knowledge that she was outwitting a roomful of people who thought she was one person, when she was quite another. And as a bonus tonight, none of her close friends would be there, so the deception had no strings attached.

  Greville caught the flash of light in her eye, the sudden twitch of her lips, and felt himself relax. Whatever the unresolved issues between them, Aurelia would not let them get in the way of her role play.

  “More than good enough.” He reached across the narrow gap and took her hand. “I know you will be superb, my dear. You are made for this work.”

  He had said it before, but the repetition never failed to excite her, to fill her with a sense of power. For tonight, nothing existed but their partnership and the game they would play.

  The carriage drew up in front of the Earl of Lessingham’s mansion on Berkeley Square. A footman from the house ran up to open the carriage door before Jemmy could jump down from his seat on the box beside the coachman.

  “Good evening, Sir Greville, Lady Falconer.” The footman held open the door and offered a hand to Aurelia.

  She stepped down to the street, puzzled that the man should have recognized the carriage, a fairly modest conveyance, bearing no livery on the panels.

  Greville descended without assistance. “My thanks,” he said with a nod at the servant. “You’re an observant fellow.”

  “I was told to watch for you, sir,” the man said, pocketing the coin Greville slipped into his hand. “Most of the guests at her ladyship’s Friday soirees come on foot, or by ’ackney carriage.”

  Greville merely smiled in vague acknowledgment and gave Aurelia his arm as they followed the man into the lighted hall.

  “Why on foot?” Aurelia whispered.

  “Exiles…too poor to afford private carriages,” Greville murmured. “Or unwilling to admit that they can…which would in itself be rather interesting. Find out, if you can, Don Antonio’s
means of transportation.”

  Aurelia smiled a little, but nothing showed on her face as she ascended the staircase to greet her hostess waiting at the head. Doña Bernardina, her voluptuous curves accentuated by a gown of rose gauze over crimson satin, confined tightly beneath full breasts, flung open her hands as if she were an opera singer about to launch into an aria. Aurelia caught her breath, afraid that with the extravagant gesture the rich swell of the lady’s bosom would spill forth like two overfed and excitable puppies. They stayed in their basket however.

  “Lady Falconer, how good of you to come.” Doña Bernardina’s black mantilla was fastened to her décolletage with a ruby broach, massive diamond drops hung from her earlobes, and three strands of perfect pearls were wound around her neck.

  She turned her radiant smile on Greville. “And Sir Greville. I bid you welcome.”

  Greville bowed low over the plump white hand, beringed fingers ending in long scarlet nails. “Lady Lessingham,” he murmured.

  The countess led the way through a set of double doors into a large apartment furnished with an opulence as conspicuous as her own. Swagged curtains, a multiplicity of silk cushions on deep velvet armchairs and gilded sofas, rich Persian carpets in a riot of colors, all contrasted with the massive, gold-framed oil paintings of generally somber-looking gentlemen, presumably the earl’s ancestors, against dark and rocky backgrounds that adorned the silk-hung walls.

  Two or three groups of people were scattered around the salon. A woman was seated at a pianoforte in the far corner of the room, the music providing a soft counterpoint to the buzz of conversation.

  Greville took in the room’s occupants. Don Antonio Vasquez was not among them. He turned with a smile to his wife. “Permit me, my dear.” Solicitously he adjusted the tawny-toned paisley shawl over Aurelia’s shoulders.

  She understood at once that their specific quarry was not present, and she relaxed a little, accepting a glass of champagne from a footman’s tray and responding to her hostess’s introductions to their fellow guests.