A Husband's Wicked Ways

by Jane Feather

  “Precisely.” Grant rang a handbell on the table beside him and it was promptly answered by a young ensign. “Take these to Lord Bonham, Beringer.”

  The ensign clicked his heels as he bowed and took the parchment. “Right away, sir.” He disappeared at a near run.

  Simon grimaced. “Harry won’t thank me for more work, the poor devil’s not left the building for three days. Fortunately, his wife appears to be an understanding woman.” He looked sharply at the colonel. “So, are you prepared for a stint at home, Greville?”

  “If that’s where you need me.”

  “We suspect the Spanish are trying to establish a foothold in the heart of our intelligence community. And you know how we can’t allow that,” Simon added with a faintly derisive smile. “Bonaparte now rules Spain, the king’s in exile, and the Spanish intelligence networks report directly to Fouche in Paris…at least that’s where he was when last we had tabs on him.” His smile grew harder. “The man’s as slippery as he’s ruthless.”

  Greville nodded his agreement with a grim smile of his own. “So, do we know what approach the Spaniards are going to make?”

  Simon nodded. “We think they’re coming in through the upper echelons of society…you know the kind of thing, an exiled grandee, a poverty-stricken nobleman persecuted by the French.”

  “And they’re actually in the pay of the French?”

  Simon nodded. “We’re fairly certain of it. Our information thus far has been spotty, few facts but hints, odd pieces of correspondence we intercepted. Nothing definite, but we’d like you to retire the asp for the moment and work under your own identity. We need you to set yourself up in London for a while, mingle with the upper ten thousand, frequent the clubs of St. James’s, attend court when you can…”

  “I’m not sure I’m equipped for the dancing role,” Greville said with a twist of his lips. “I have no time for society nonsense, Simon, you know that. I’m more at home in the back alleys and taverns in the company of guerrilla fighters and men with poison-tipped daggers.”

  Simon laughed. “I know…I know, my friend. But you can also play this part…you were bred to it, after all. And you certainly look the part. But, make no mistake, this is no sinecure. The Spanish are as devious and dangerous as any. All their agents could give lessons to the Inquisition. You’ll need all your skills, Greville, to stay one step ahead of them, and I don’t have to tell you what will happen if they suspect you.”

  Greville contented himself with a raised eyebrow that spoke volumes.

  Simon continued, “If you don’t have sufficient social contacts in town, then we’ll get Harry Bonham to take you around. He has a foot in every social puddle, although I think the frippery nonsense makes him as impatient as it makes you. But he also has entrées into the political and diplomatic scene. Let him introduce you to the influential folk. The rest will be up to you.”

  Greville inclined his head in acceptance. “If that’s what you want me to do, then, of course, I will do it.”

  “Good.” Simon Grant moved around the table to shake hands once more. “Where are you staying?”

  “My esteemed aunt Agatha on Brook Street. I always stay there when I’m passing through town, but if I’m to take up residence in London for an extended period, then I shall have to make other arrangements.”

  “Let me know when you’re settled then, and I’ll have a word with Bonham.” Simon clasped Greville’s hand tightly. “It’s good to have you back…we lose too many these days.”

  “Yes,” the other man agreed without expansion, returning the firm handshake. He picked up his hat, gloves, and cane and turned to the door. He paused, his hand on the latch. “The department owed Farnham a fair sum of back pay, did they not?”

  “That is so,” Simon agreed, regarding Greville quizzically. “And there’s a widow, I believe. We’d pay it out gladly to her if there was a way of making sure she didn’t know where it came from.”

  Greville made a vague gesture that could have meant anything. “I’ll look into it.” He offered a half salute and left the office.

  On the now dark street, he hailed a passing hackney and directed it to Brook Street. His aunt Agatha, Lady Broughton, was his late mother’s widowed sister. She was a lady of considerable means and very fond of her own way, but otherwise a kindly soul and always delighted to see her nephew, although always somewhat disconcerted at his lack of social activities on his rare visits to town. She would be delighted to host her nephew for an extended period during the delights of the season, he knew, but a bachelor needed his own establishment.

  He entered the hall with a nod of thanks to the butler, who had opened the door, and went straight up to his own bedchamber, an imposing if somewhat old-fashioned apartment. A fire blazed in the grate, the lamps had been lit, and Greville could appreciate comforts that rarely came his way when he was working. He walked to the window and drew aside the curtain. The gas lamps had been lit on the street, and a private carriage bowled past, its owner presumably on his or her way to an evening of social gaiety, if not outright dissipation.

  It was not his world, any more than it had been Frederick Farnham’s. But Frederick’s wife had given every indication of fitting neatly into it. Not wife, he reminded himself. Widow.

  He frowned into the fizzing yellow light of the lamp below his window. Frederick had talked often of Aurelia…Ellie, he’d called her. One evening in particular…when they’d both been drinking deep of a flagon of hard cider in a barn in Brittany, listening to the sounds of pursuit, the baying dogs, the shouts of the enemy, finally fading into the night.

  You know, Greville, I don’t think Ellie really knows who she is, or what she’s capable of. She has strengths she doesn’t know she has because she’s never had to use them.

  Greville let the curtain drop again over the window. There had been more in that vein, the younger man’s voice redolent with the knowledge that the chances of seeing his wife again were almost too remote to contemplate. They’d grown up together in the same small country village, their neighboring families closely entwined in the way of County families, who made up the aristocracy of the countryside. They had married as a matter of course, fulfilling the expectations of both their families. But Frederick Farnham had recognized something in his wife that no one else had seen. He had followed his country’s call, knowing full well that he would probably never live a normal life again, knowing that he would never have the opportunity to tap those hidden depths in his wife. He hadn’t said it in so many words, but it had been implied in every word he spoke that concerned her.

  How would he have felt if in his absence another man did that?

  It was a startling thought, and Greville knew that it had grown from the recesses of his mind where, without his conscious intent, plans and strategies for his new assignment were breeding. He needed a cover, a front for his present task.

  If Aurelia did indeed have the hidden and unacknowledged depths her husband had believed in, then perhaps she would be willing to help him, if he presented it correctly…if he offered the right incentives. Of course, she had given the impression that afternoon of disliking him intensely, but that was hardly surprising. He’d just told her she’d been living a lie for more than three years, and the man she’d married was not at all the man she’d thought him. Killing the messenger was the natural response. But first impressions could be amended. And there were, as he’d just reflected, always incentives.

  Greville knew that he was no courtier. He had none of the smooth skills of flattery and flirtation. Oh, he could dissemble and act any part he deemed necessary in the interests of his work and survival, but those skills had no place in this particular situation. Honesty…a direct appeal to her inner nature, hidden to herself as well as to others. An appeal reinforced by her husband’s example, and the example of other aristocratic women who variously put their diplomatic and social skills, their houses even, at the service of their country. It was by no means an outlandish sugges
tion. And it might work.

  • • •

  Aurelia sat by the fire in her bedchamber, the open letter lying on her lap. Her eyes gazed unseeing into the flickering flames in the hearth. The house was quiet around her, Morecombe and his wife and sister-in-law retired to their own apartments, the rest of the household gone to their beds. Franny was asleep in the night nursery, Daisy in her own little chamber next door, the adjoining door left ajar in case the child awoke in the night.

  Aurelia picked up the letter again. She had read it three times already, and while she began to think she knew it almost by heart, she still couldn’t make sense of it. Oh, the words were easy enough to understand, but not the man who had written them. That Frederick Farnham was not the man whom she had married, the man whose child she had borne. She remembered how overjoyed he’d been at Franny’s birth, how he’d paced the corridor outside the chamber while his wife had labored throughout that eternal night. She saw again how he’d held his baby, his eyes wet with tears as he’d gazed down at the bundle in his arms with such awe and wonder. Surely that man could not have given it all up, cast his wife and child aside, without a second thought.

  My dearest Ellie,

  If you’re reading this, it will mean that I am dead. I wrote this letter many months ago, ever since it became clear to me that my chances of survival are remote, to say the least. It’s hard for me to explain how I come to be doing what I’m doing. Even harder to say how sorry I am for the hurt I know I have caused you. Believe me, love, I ache with the knowledge of your pain, but I can do nothing to lessen it. I know you will be angry, too, and in that I can find some comfort. Your anger is easier to bear than your hurt. Please try to understand. Try to understand the patriotic imperatives that drive a man to fight for his country. Bonaparte must be stopped before he colonizes the entire Continent. And rest assured he won’t be satisfied with that. He has already set his sights on India and the trade routes, and it seems now that only England can stand firm against him amidst the shifting alliances. As long as he cannot invade our island, we can fight him and defeat him.

  Soon after I left with Stephen to join Admiral Nelson’s fleet off the coast of France, I met Colonel, Sir Greville Falconer. He joined our frigate just off Gibraltar. That meeting changed my life. Greville has become my closest friend and colleague. He is, to put it plainly, a master spy and he recruited me. I can only say that I was looking for something, I knew not what, until he offered it to me. I wanted to get away from the stifling hierarchy, the rigidity of the navy. I wanted to fight battles with my wits. I wanted to dig in the dirt, defeat the enemy in his own trenches, not look for glory. My dearest love, I don’t know how else to explain why I was so drawn to the work Greville offered me. I was drawn to him, certainly, and if you meet him, you will understand why. I hope that he will survive whatever event has caused my death, the event that means you are now reading this letter. I know that if he has, he will seek you out, as he promised me he would. He is the only one I trust to carry my secret to you. A secret, my love, that you must keep for me. You can tell no one of this letter, of this knowledge that you now have. Greville Falconer’s true identity is known only to a handful of people, and if it became common knowledge, it would sign his death warrant, and that of others. I cannot stress this enough, my love. Too many lives are at stake, lives of friends, colleagues, both past and present, if the truth of Greville’s identity and my activities in the last three years becomes known. He will tell you so himself. Trust him, Ellie. Trust him with your life. He will protect you as I can no longer do. I’ve met many women in the last years who’ve fought side by side with their men, who’ve given their lives in the battle against Bonaparte, who’ve used their wits as ably as any man. Indeed, my life has been saved on more than one occasion by the quick thinking and daring courage of such women, women who have all put their trust in Greville Falconer, and not regretted it.

  In closing, my dear, I cannot sufficiently express my sorrow for the deception I have perforce practiced upon you. I can pray only that you will one day understand the imperatives that drove me to act as I have done. And I ask that you speak kindly of me to Franny. My heart aches at the knowledge that I will not see her grow to womanhood. But I made my choice and live with its consequences. I hope that you will marry again if that is what you wish for, and find fulfillment in your life, as I have found in mine. I give my life freely in my country’s service, although not gladly. There is still so much work to be done. But I must leave the work to others. To you, Ellie, I send my undying love. Think well of me when you are able.

  FF.

  Aurelia watched her tears drop to the paper, smudging the ink. For a moment, there was satisfaction in the thought that her tears could obliterate the words, make them vanish as thoroughly as her husband had vanished from her life. Frederick had shed no tears for her. He had done what he chose to do, accepted the consequences for himself, but totally without consideration for anyone else affected by his choice. And then abruptly she snatched the letter aside, laying it in safety on the small, round table at her side.

  She stood up and paced around the softly lit chamber, holding her elbows, her tears flowing unrestrained, but they were tears of anger now. Patriotism was all very well, particularly in wartime. She had accepted Frederick’s death in battle. But this…this was too hard to accept. What would have happened if he hadn’t died? Would he have calmly come back to her at the end of the war? Shown up on her doorstep, all smiles, the prodigal husband returned, ready to take up his roles as husband and father…until he became bored…“stifled” was the word he’d used…and decided to go off adventuring again?

  How could she possibly accept such a thing? What if she had followed Cornelia’s example and married again? What part would Frederick have played then in her life?

  Oh, it was too absurd, too utterly insulting to think she had been duped in that dastardly fashion.

  What power could that man Greville Falconer have held over Frederick that he could compel him to behave in such a fashion…so alien to his character, to the open, honest, honorable man she had known him to be? There had to be a reason for Frederick’s going so meekly to the slaughter. Had this Falconer blackmailed him with some shameful truth? Bribed him with something…no, no, that was unthinkable.

  She leaned a hand on the mantelpiece and stared down into the fire as if the answer would somehow become manifest in the dancing flames. And slowly she came to accept that Frederick had given the explanation, incredible though it was. Greville Falconer had sowed his seed in fertile ground. Presumably he had been trained to recognize such ground, and in Frederick he’d seen the potential. He had seen what no one else had seen…what Aurelia still couldn’t glean from her knowledge and memories of the man who had been her husband. And presumably this Greville Falconer had persuasive talents that she herself had not discerned in their brief meeting that afternoon.

  His face seemed to form itself in the blue-tinged, orange-red glow of the fire. She was transfixed again by the straight gaze from the dark gray eyes beneath thick, black eyebrows. Nothing ordinary about his countenance. Not easily forgotten. And then there was the sheer force of his personality. It was as powerful as his physical presence. She would not admit that he had intimidated her on her own ground, but she had certainly found herself following his script. Had Frederick felt the same thing when the colonel had recruited him?

  Well, she would not seek Greville Falconer out in a hurry. Presumably his business with her was completed with the safe delivery of whatever he had taken away with him.

  But then Aurelia remembered his last words. She had told him she never wished to see him again, and he had replied, I hope, ma’am, that you will change your mind.

  Just what did that mean? He’d told her he would return in the morning. She could not be obliged, compelled, to meet anyone she didn’t wish to. She could deny him entrance. It was her house…for the duration, at least. Her house, her castle, and she could pull up the drawbr
idge.

  But if she were to do that, she would be denying herself all possibility of understanding Frederick…of what had caused him to make this extraordinary sacrifice.

  Carefully Aurelia folded her husband’s letter and locked it away in her jewel casket. She was convinced it contained secrets she had not yet discovered. She snuffed the candles on the mantelpiece and climbed into bed, propping herself up against the lace-edged pillows at her back. Leaning sideways she blew out the bedside candle and lay back watching the firelight flicker on the ceiling. She felt lonelier than she had ever felt…lonelier even than when she had first been informed of her husband’s death at the Battle of Trafalgar. That had been a shared grief. She and Cornelia had faced and accepted that together. If she honored Frederick’s request, she could not share any of this with her dearest friend. There was no one now with whom she could share this double grief: the renewed loss of her husband, but also the loss of her belief in him, and in the life they’d led together.

  Chapter Three

  AT SIX O’CLOCK THE following morning Greville was riding alone in the park. Apart from a few gardeners moving in desultory fashion among the shrubs, it was deserted, and he gave his rented hack free rein along the tan, the wide strip of sandy soil that ran parallel to the paved carriageway around the circuit.

  He’d spent the previous evening reviving his lapsed memberships of the clubs of St. James’s. It hadn’t proved particularly difficult to remind the voting members of White’s and Watier’s that he was back in town and to let it be known that he intended to be around for the foreseeable future. He’d been elected to the clubs as a youngster fresh down from Oxford with a cornetcy in the Guards in the wings. No one questioned his frequent absences from town life during the war years. The cornet had become a colonel, and as such he was as welcome at the social well now as he had been in his youth. It had been a long and expensive evening however. While he could play a fair hand at whist, he had never been interested in gambling, and his inexperience showed. He’d lost heavily last night, but having shown his face at the tables, he would in the future be able to avoid serious gambling without drawing too much attention.