by Jane Feather
“I see.” Greville wasn’t quite sure that he did, but he was more interested in the ease with which she was treating him. It was almost as if she’d decided that he was a fixture who had to be accommodated. Either that, or she was preparing a nasty surprise for him.
Hester’s reappearance with a laden platter interrupted his speculation, and he addressed himself to breakfast with a keen and appreciative appetite. Aurelia sipped her coffee and watched him eat. Despite her surface calm she was on tenterhooks. He had business with her. He hadn’t declared it in so many words, but there was no other explanation for this interest in her. He had come for the document that Frederick had sent to her, and he had told her the truth about her husband’s death. Both pieces of business had been accomplished. So why was he still here, popping up unexpectedly, behaving as if they were in some way already connected to a shared purpose?
Greville looked up from his plate and met her gaze. He took a deep draft of ale, then said, “That was an interesting piece of information you gave me yesterday.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Oh? What was that?”
“That Frederick’s sister is married to Viscount Bonham. I didn’t know that.”
Aurelia leaned an elbow on the table and propped her chin in her hand. “Frederick told you nothing about himself?”
“It’s not sensible in my business to share personal information with one’s colleagues. Such information leaves one vulnerable.” Greville’s expression was calm but Aurelia thought she could detect a hint of bleakness in his eyes.
She frowned. “How? What do you mean?”
He forked a mushroom and ate it slowly as if considering his answer. “The work we do can only take place under a cloak of the utmost secrecy, as I’m sure you understand. One must keep one’s own counsel at all times. It’s an activity no one can afford to acknowledge, and certainly those who are engaged in it are very careful not to broadcast that fact.”
“That doesn’t appear to apply to you, Colonel.”
A glint shone again in the gray eyes as he looked sharply at her. “Frederick did tell me a little about you, Aurelia, but he didn’t tell me what a bee-sting tongue you have.”
“I don’t suppose he knew it.” Her eyes never left his. It was as if they were engaged in swordplay, and every thrust and every feint was a matter of life or death. “I had no need to use it when I was with Frederick.”
Greville inclined his head in acknowledgment. “I suspect he guessed, nevertheless.”
“How so?”
“He told me there was a great deal more to you than appeared on the surface.”
Aurelia smiled, not a particularly nice smile. “Hidden depths, you mean? How original.”
Greville was beginning to feel a little scalded. “As I was saying, I didn’t know anything about Frederick’s sister except that he had one, and I certainly was unaware that you and she were such good friends.”
“And does that in some way affect your…” She gestured randomly as she tried to find the correct words. “Your intentions, I suppose? Whatever it is that’s behind this persecution.”
He whistled softly. “Persecution. That’s a mite strong, is it not?”
“I hardly think so. You spring yourself upon me with devastating information, then you follow me, scare me witless, pursue me into my friends’ drawing room, and then turn up in my own breakfast parlor at an ungodly hour of the morning.” She shrugged. “Can you think of a better description of your behavior, Colonel?”
“I wish you would call me by my name. Since we are engaged in this rather intimate conversation, formality seems a little de trop.”
“I find it keeps a necessary distance, Colonel,” she retorted. “I believe I heard you to say that developing personal relationships in your business is unwise.”
“Touché, ma’am.” He acknowledged wryly as he returned his attention to his plate, carefully slicing a piece of ham.
Aurelia allowed the silence to develop. To her astonishment she realized she was enjoying herself. She thought she had for the moment gained the upper hand, just as she thought she had the previous day in the Bonhams’ drawing room. Not that that moment of ascendancy had lasted too long, she reminded herself. She sipped her coffee, leaning back a little in her chair, and cast a casual eye over the Gazette that lay beside her plate.
Greville watched her covertly with amusement and satisfaction. Frederick’s widow was a lady of parts. He knew that she had relished that cut and thrust and had to acknowledge that he had, too. He had one simple purpose, to recruit her to his cause, but he was under no illusions about the difficulty of doing so.
He laid down his knife and fork, wiped his mouth on his napkin, and took another draft of ale.
“I trust you enjoyed your breakfast, sir,” Aurelia said, looking up from the paper.
“It was delicious, thank you, ma’am. I hope you’ll convey my thanks to the lady in the kitchen…Ada, I believe you said.”
She nodded. “I’ll ring for Morecombe to show you out.”
He grinned appreciatively at the speed of her response. “Not yet, ma’am. I have yet to declare my intentions, as you put it.” He crumpled his napkin beside his plate. “I have much to say to you…much that I am hoping you will wish to hear.”
So the time for games was over. Aurelia wasn’t sure whether she had been trying to prevent the moment of revelation with her defensive tactics, or whether she’d been playing them simply to prove that she was not a dupe to be easily manipulated.
“Very well. What have you to say?”
“Frederick was a brave and dedicated man.” Greville’s manner had changed. His tone was stripped of all nuance, even his posture seemed more upright, his gaze more deliberately direct, as if with a fierce need to convince her. “He was the best partner I have had…and I’ve had many.”
“I daresay they don’t survive very long.” Aurelia heard the sardonic note but was unable to control it.
“No,” he agreed flatly. “We fight a well-trained, well-provisioned, and highly motivated enemy. Bonaparte has but one aim, complete dominion over the known world. You understand that?”
“My husband gave his life in that fight.”
“Yes, and he did not die in vain.”
A glaze of tears filmed Aurelia’s eyes, and she turned her head away from the direct gray gaze across the table. “I wonder what difference it would have made to the war if he’d chosen not to give his life. He would have known his daughter and she him, and I would be sitting opposite my husband at the breakfast table instead of…” Her words stuck in her throat and she waved a hand impatiently as if to dismiss the incipient tears and the emotions that had brought them.
She got up from the table and walked to the window, holding the looped-back curtain with one hand as she looked out at the small square of walled garden, the trees still leafless.
“It’s not possible to quantify one man’s sacrifice,” Greville said quietly. “I can only tell you again that Frederick did not die in vain. He completed his mission by getting the document out of Portugal and into the right hands at the War Ministry. It was an achievement of resounding importance. The service can ill afford to lose such men.”
“And what do you want of me?”
He chose his words carefully. “You have access to certain situations…certain people in particular…an access that can be very useful to me.”
She whirled back to him, hand still on the curtain. “I beg your pardon?”
“My present mission in London requires me to circulate in the social circles that you inhabit so naturally.” His voice was unwavering, his gaze as steady as ever. “It would help me greatly in my work if you would facilitate my access into those circles.”
“What mission?” She was holding the curtain so tightly that her fingers had gone numb.
“I will tell you, but I must ask you for your solemn undertaking that you will not mention a word of what’s said in this room to anyone.”
She looked at him. “I’ve already agreed to keep all talk of our dealings to myself.”
“True enough. But trust is something one cannot take for granted in my business. And so I ask you again to honor your husband’s memory. And his wishes. He would want you to hear me out…and he would trust you to keep my confidence.”
She turned back to the window, seeing nothing of the garden beyond the glass, seeing only Frederick’s words clearly on the page of his letter. To betray the colonel’s trust would be the same as betraying Frederick’s. And to dismiss the colonel without hearing him out would be to ignore her dead husband’s last request. “Go on.”
“We suspect that the Spaniards are establishing an espionage network in London. The information that we have is that they will infiltrate the upper echelons of society. Obviously, we, in turn, intend to infiltrate their network.”
He found it disconcerting to talk to her back. Her back was rigid, her shoulders set, but her posture gave him none of the feedback that her face and eyes would have afforded. But he could not command her to turn around. And neither at this delicate stage could he take those slender shoulders as he wanted to do and turn her to face him.
“What has this to do with me?”
“It’s been many years since I lived in London and played any part in society. I’m out of practice and I’m sure many customs have changed since I was last here. Now I need to establish myself as a man-about-town, if you like. I need to set up a household, a base of operations. I need someone well-placed in society to help me move naturally and easily in the right circles and to make sure I don’t inadvertently break any unspoken rules. I need someone who knows how to talk to the right people, to ask the right questions, to listen to the right conversations, all the while providing me with an unexceptionable social front for my own activities.”
Slowly Aurelia turned to face him, her hand still clutching the fabric of the curtain, almost as if were a lifeline to the reality she understood. “And you think I would be willing to do that?”
“I’m suggesting a business proposition.” He rose from the table. He crossed to the fireplace and leaned one arm along the mantel, one foot propped on the fender. His tone was now brisk and businesslike. “The government paid Frederick well for his activities, but, of course, he was in no position to claim his earnings while he was abroad. That back pay should be paid to you. And there is also some prize money from the capture of two French ships while he was still serving in the navy. It’s a not inconsiderable sum, but the government is willing to offer you rather more than that if you would be willing to work for them for a very limited period of time. It would be paid into a private account at Hoare’s Bank at regular intervals.” He watched her expression carefully.
Aurelia tried to make sense of this. There seemed to be too many strands to untangle. “You’ll have to be more specific about what I would do,” she said finally, releasing her tight grip on the curtain. She folded her arms across her breasts, absently caressing her elbows, a deep frown creasing her brow.
“Very well. We would start by seeming to develop an understanding, a certain romantic interest in each other, which would make it natural for us to be in each other’s company. I would escort you to various social engagements that I might otherwise not be invited to, and you would introduce me to certain people that I might not otherwise meet.”
“That doesn’t sound particularly arduous,” Aurelia said slowly. “Hardly sufficient to earn a lifetime’s pension.”
“You would also be acting as my eyes and ears in certain situations. I would tell you what information I was after and you would endeavor to acquire it.”
“So, in plain terms, spying.”
“No more than many women have done, and many still do.” The fire spurted and a glowing coal fell onto the hearth. Swiftly he stamped it out before continuing. “There are women engaged in this gentle form of espionage in all the courts of Europe, my dear. Women tend to be better placed than men to hear some kind of whispers, the kind that can be vital to the success of a mission.”
And women who worked on the front lines, too, she reflected, thinking again of Frederick’s letter. He’d said his life had been saved by such women on many occasions. And only yesterday she and Cornelia had wondered if they were doing enough to help the war effort. If, by helping the colonel in this simple enough fashion, she helped save even one life, shouldn’t she agree to it? It would not disrupt her way of life particularly, except for the need to keep it secret. But as she already had to carry the truth of Frederick’s death to her grave, this would merely be a part of the same secret. If Harry had asked her for her help, she would have agreed without a second thought. But Harry was a very different prospect from Greville Falconer.
“A romantic interest?” she queried, looking directly across at him. “And where would that lead?”
“Maybe to an engagement in a few weeks,” he said, returning her steady gaze. “It would smooth the path, give us an unexceptionable reason to spend time together.”
“And how would this end? How long is this charade to continue?”
“Once I have identified the Spanish network, I would hope to have our own infiltration in place within a few weeks…by the end of the season, if at all possible.”
“Around three months, then,” Aurelia said, absently chewing her bottom lip.
“It may take longer, but I would hope it doesn’t.”
“And then what? What happens to this fictitious engagement of ours?”
“Once this mission is complete, I’ll be sent abroad again.” He shrugged a little. “I will make sure to give you a good reason for calling off the engagement. If we time it well, the announcement of its end can be made when most people are out of town. By the time society returns after the summer, it’ll be almost forgotten. I will have left town, and you will have Frederick’s pension to augment your present funds.”
Aurelia turned back to the window. She didn’t want those uncomfortably piercing eyes on her face as she thought over his proposition. Even a small addition to her funds would enable her to manage a modest household of her own in town…with the right economies, of course, but she was already expert at making those. And if her friends wondered how she was managing to fund an independent lifestyle, she could always hint vaguely that Markby had been persuaded to disgorge more from the trust…either that or some distant relative could leave her with a small windfall. It could be done.
Once again she thought that if Harry had asked her, she would have agreed instantly. But Harry didn’t send prickles up her spine or cause that strange pulsing energy that seemed to have no rhyme or reason. There was danger in the colonel’s company, she knew it instinctively, but she couldn’t identify what form it took. Certainly the work he was asking her to do had little enough of danger about it. Or, at least, not the way he was presenting it. For the sake of her country, she should do this. But something held her back.
Finally she turned round to face him again. She steepled her fingers at her mouth, frowning at him. “I need time to think this over.”
A flash of disappointment crossed his eyes, then he stepped away from the fireplace. “Of course. But I would ask that you do not think overlong. Time is of the essence, and there are advance preparations we have to make.” He picked up his hat and whip from a chair by the door and bowed. “I bid you good morning, Aurelia.”
“Good morning.” The door closed behind him and she listened for the sound of the front door signaling his departure. Then she left the breakfast parlor and went upstairs to her chamber, where she sat on the window seat and reread Frederick’s letter…over and over.
Chapter Six
AURELIA SPEND THE REMAINDER of the morning in a haze of reflection. What exactly would be involved in a romantic interest between her and the colonel? Could she play such a role convincingly enough to fool her friends, sharp-eyed Nell in particular? There would have to be an appearance of developing intimacy, of growing affection. She wasn
’t even sure if she could remember now what that had felt like with Frederick. They had known each other since either could remember, and she couldn’t identify a particular moment when the affection of close friendship had deepened into love. She couldn’t for the life of her decide what she felt about Greville…or so she must get used to calling him if she was to do this thing. Her attitude to him was so mixed up with her hurt and anger at Frederick, but surely it wasn’t entirely just to blame Greville? Frederick had had a mind of his own. He was no man’s puppet. If she was to see her way clearly, she must find a way to separate the colonel from her dead husband.
When Morecombe opened the parlor door, she was so startled she dropped her embroidery needle. “What is it, Morecombe?”
“That Lady Langton and some other folk is ’ere to see you.”
“Oh…well, show them into the drawing room, please.”
“Done that,” the elderly retainer declared. “Don’t know what else t’do wi’ ’em.”
“Thank you. And ask Hester to bring tea, please.” Aurelia retrieved her needle and secured it in the embroidery frame before going to greet her visitors.
“Cecily, how delightful to see you.” Aurelia managed a warm smile as she entered the drawing room, hand extended. She bowed and smiled to the three other women. “Ladies, please, take a seat.”
“Well, we’re on another begging mission, my dear,” Cecily said with an apologetic smile, drawing Aurelia down beside her on the gilt-edged sofa. “Although strictly speaking we’re begging from Livia. You must be our intermediary.”
“Yes, indeed, Lady Farnham,” Margery Allenton declared, settling her ample frame into an armchair. “The foundling hospital in Battersea.”
“Margery had the wonderful idea of a flower show,” Cecily said. “Do you think dear Livia and Prince Prokov would allow us to use their conservatory. It’s such a delightful hothouse, and filled with so many interesting specimens. We will ask donations to the hospital from all those who attend.” She patted Aurelia’s hand in her enthusiasm. “What do you think?”
