by Jane Feather
“Hurry up then.”
Aurelia shot him a look of irritation and brushed past him. Ten minutes later she was sitting in the gig and they were on the way back to the inn at Barnet.
“You have the story clear?” he asked as he turned the horse into the lane.
“Yes. We met by chance in Bristol, where you were on family business, and I was taking care of my aunt. We’d already been introduced in London, so it was natural enough for us to spend some time together,” she recited. “And, of course, in those circumstances it will be perfectly understandable for you to call upon me in Cavendish Square as soon as we both return to London.”
Greville nodded but said nothing. They journeyed the rest of the way in silence. At the coaching inn, Greville handed back the gig to the innkeeper and went to make arrangements for a post chaise to take Aurelia back to London.
It was a much more comfortable conveyance than the stage and, with several changes of team, would accomplish the journey in a fraction of the time. Aurelia set one foot on the footstep preparatory to climbing into the vehicle, then turned back to Greville, who stood holding the door for her.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Look for me before noon.” He took her hand and kissed it, his fingers tightening for an instant before he released it.
“I will.” She climbed into the carriage and he closed the door. Greville gave the coachman the order to start. The man cracked his whip and the chaise lurched forward out of the innyard.
Aurelia sat back in the swaying gloom of the chaise, absently caressing her hand where she could still feel the impress of his fingers as they had closed over it.
• • •
They reached Cavendish Square at six that evening. Aurelia climbed down rather stiffly, glad that she’d resisted the urge to tell the coachman to take her first to Mount Street. She could barely wait to see Franny, but a half hour of preparation before she faced Cornelia was necessary. The last five days had changed her, and she had to find a way to hide those changes from her friend’s perceptive eyes.
She also had to introduce Greville Falconer into the conversation naturally, while at the same time conveying the impression that their encounter in Bristol had somehow become more than a mere chance meeting.
In fact, she thought as she put her key in the lock of the front door, her covert life of deception was about to begin. She just wished it would begin with someone other than her best friend. But if she could fool Cornelia, she could fool anyone.
She pushed open the door and stepped into the deserted hall. Only one lamp was lit, in a sconce by the staircase, and the house was as quiet as the grave. “Morecombe,” she called, dropping her cloakbag on the parquet floor. “Morecombe…anyone there?”
A door at the rear of the hall opened, sending a welcome shaft of light across the floor. “Eh…what’s goin’ on then? Oh, ’tis you, is it. Back wi’out a word o’ warnin’.” Morecombe shuffled in his carpet slippers into the dim light. He wiped his hands on his baize apron and peered at Aurelia. “Couldn’t manage to send notice then?”
“No,” Aurelia agreed with a conciliatory smile. “I couldn’t. I’m sorry if my return discommodes you, Morecombe, but would you send Jemmy to light the lamps in the parlor and my bedchamber, and a few more in here and on the stairs wouldn’t come amiss. And I’d like Hester to bring hot water up to my chamber as soon as possible.”
“Oh, aye,” Morecombe muttered. “We’re ’avin’ a bite o’ supper right now.” He turned back to the kitchen. “I’ll send Jemmy.”
Aurelia shook her head. Nothing else had changed even if she had. She went into the parlor and stood shivering in the doorway. No one had lit a fire in here while she’d been away. Reasonable, of course, but if the prince and princess had temporarily been absent, their majordomo would have kept the fires and lamps lit throughout the house in readiness for their return at whatever hour of the day or night. But Boris, of course, was with his master and mistress in the New Forest.
“I’ve a scuttle of ’ot coals ’ere, m’lady.” Jemmy came running across the hall carrying a brass coal scuttle. “I’ll ’ave a fire lit in a trice, ma’am.” He hurried to the cold grate and worked swiftly. Within a few minutes a blaze was beginning to take hold. He lit a taper and put it to the candles on the mantelpiece before drawing the curtains. “Nice to ’ave you back, ma’am. Hester’s gone upstairs to your bedchamber.”
“Excellent, thank you, Jemmy. You go back to your supper.” Aurelia went to the sideboard to pour herself a glass of sherry, which she took upstairs with her.
Hester had drawn the curtains in her bedchamber and was fiddling with the fire. She looked up as Aurelia entered. “Oh, ma’am, we wasn’t expectin’ you.”
“No, how should you have been?” Aurelia said with a smile. “I didn’t send word, after all.” She discarded her pelisse, noticing how grubby it seemed after five days of fairly solid wear in rather more rigorous circumstances than usual. She unpinned her hat and grimaced at her reflection in the dresser mirror. Her hair had no curl at all.
There wasn’t time for Hester to curl it before Aurelia went to Mount Street, if she was to get there before Franny was put to bed. She glanced at the clock. It was gone six thirty already. Reluctantly, she realized that Franny would have to wait until the morning. Cornelia and Harry could be getting ready to go out, or preparing to receive guests. Aurelia looked a fright and she had no time to repair the damage. She wasn’t prepared, physically or mentally, to jump back into the world. A quiet evening, a good night’s sleep, and she would be knocking on the Mount Street door in time to have breakfast with her daughter.
Discretion, always the better part of valor, she reflected, asking Hester to bring up a bath for her. “I’ll take a light supper in the parlor when I’ve bathed. Could you ask Miss Ada to poach an egg for me, or something that’s not too much trouble for her.”
“Aye, ma’am.” Hester hurried away, and Aurelia sipped her sherry as she undressed.
• • •
She woke early the next morning and rang for Hester. Within half an hour she was walking briskly through the early-morning chill to Mount Street. As she reached the steps, the front door opened and a wiry man emerged, wrapped in a greatcoat, cap pulled low over his eyes.
“Why, Lady Farnham, what brings you here so early?” He took off his cap politely.
“I’ve been out of town, Lester. I got back last night.” Cornelia always referred to Lester as Harry’s right-hand man, his aide-de-camp. Certainly, Harry did little in the shadowy side of his life without Lester at his side.
“Oh, aye, come to see the little miss then, I’ll be bound. Right glad she’ll be to see you, too, ma’am.” Lester stepped back, holding the door for her.
“I can’t wait to see her.” Aurelia smiled. “You’re out and about early, too.”
“Oh, aye,” he agreed placidly, replacing his cap. “Good day to you, Lady Farnham.” He loped off down the steps and seemed to vanish into the street as if he’d been swallowed up.
Aurelia shook her head with a smile. Lester always played his cards close to his chest. She thought only Harry ever really knew what he was up to. And since whatever it was would be Harry’s business, that was probably only as it should be.
“Good morning, Lady Farnham, I didn’t hear the knocker, my apologies.” Hector, the butler, hurried across the hall, buttoning his waistcoat. “I wasn’t expecting such an early visitor.”
“I’m shockingly early, I know, but I only returned to town last night and I’m very anxious to see Franny.”
“Breakfast was sent to the nursery ten minutes ago, m’lady. If you’d like to go on up, I’ll send coffee for you.” Hector coughed discreetly. “I don’t believe Lord and Lady Bonham are about yet.”
“No, of course not,” Aurelia said swiftly. “I wouldn’t dream of disturbing them. I’ll just run up to the nursery.”
She suited action to words, knowing that Hector would somehow find
a discreet way of informing his mistress that Lady Farnham was in the house.
Franny was overjoyed to see her mother, snuggling into Aurelia’s lap, prattling nonstop. Aurelia let the stream wash over her as she enjoyed the remembered feel of her daughter’s small body. What would Franny make of Greville? She would by the nature of this enterprise see him much in her mother’s company and, being Franny, would inevitably ask questions that might be hard to answer.
And what of Greville? she wondered. He had seemed perfectly comfortable with Franny on the occasion that he’d met her, but Aurelia had no sense of what he thought about children in general. He’d made it perfectly clear that he had no personal ties, no emotional commitments outside his work. She had learned that his childhood had been lonely. Mistress Masham had made it clear she disapproved of his mother. Did he have siblings? Aurelia guessed not. But it was impossible to be sure of anything. He erected such a wall around himself that even thinking of asking personal questions seemed impossible.
Well, there was no need for him to become close to Franny. This was a three-month mission. The child would forget all about him once he’d departed for whence he came.
Aurelia looked up from her wondering contemplation of the soft and vulnerable back of her daughter’s neck as the door opened. “Ellie, you’re home.” Cornelia came into the nursery in a swirl of damask dressing gown, her honey-colored hair still tousled from sleep. She bent to kiss Aurelia.
“I didn’t want them to wake you,” Aurelia protested, returning the hug. “But I couldn’t wait until a more civilized hour to see Franny.”
“No, of course you couldn’t.” Cornelia kissed her own children, pausing to wipe a smear of jam from Susannah’s mouth. She poured herself coffee and sat down by the fire next to Aurelia. “So, how’s your aunt?”
“Much better. She decided soon after I arrived that her heart palpitations had probably been a touch of indigestion and proceeded to consume prodigious amounts of turtle soup liberally laced with Madeira. Which quite put her to rights again.” The aunt in question was far from fictitious, and Cornelia knew enough about her eccentricities to find this catalog of falsehoods perfectly believable.
“So it was a wasted journey,” Cornelia said, stretching her slippered feet comfortably to the fire.
“Maybe…maybe not,” Aurelia said with what she hoped was a mysterious smile.
“Oh?” Cornelia looked at her sharply, her eyes inquisitive. “And just what does that mean?”
“What does it mean, Mama…what does it mean?” Franny chimed in, her voice repeating the mantra in ever-rising cadence.
“It only means, darling, that I was able to comfort Great-Aunt Baxter, even if she wasn’t really unwell,” Aurelia said, shooting Cornelia a warning look designed to increase her friend’s curiosity.
Cornelia sipped her coffee and changed the subject. “I really needed you this week, Ellie. The Duchess of Gracechurch insisted on our attendance at a ghastly dinner party, and then Harry backed out at the last minute…urgent summons to the ministry, of course…. I didn’t see him for days. So I had to go to his great-aunt’s alone. If you’d been in town, I could have dragooned you into accompanying me.”
The conversation continued in this vein for half an hour, then Miss Alison, the children’s governess, murmured about beginning the day’s lessons, and Aurelia stood up, setting Franny on her feet. Adroitly Aurelia cut off the rising protestations with a preemptive bid. “Be good for Miss Alison, love, and I’ll come and fetch you myself this afternoon. And we’ll have supper together in front of the fire tonight.”
“In your parlor…not in the nursery,” Franny bargained.
“In Aunt Liv’s parlor,” Aurelia corrected, bending to kiss Franny.
Soon, once these three months were over, she would have her own parlor. It was a most satisfying prospect even if the route she had to take to achieve it was circuitous to say the least.
“Let’s take breakfast in my sitting room,” Cornelia said as they left the nursery. “Harry’s gone riding with David and Nick. They were up half the night playing hazard at White’s, and they’ve gone to clear their heads.”
Aurelia was glad that Harry was not around. She wasn’t sure how confident she would feel about bringing up Greville Falconer and their chance encounter in Bristol, or her surprising reactions to such an encounter, in front of a man who knew at least something about Greville’s work. Harry would, of course, assume that Aurelia knew nothing of the colonel’s involvement with the shadow world of the ministry, and she suspected he would try quite hard to dissuade her, either personally or through his wife, that such a connection was most unwise for such an innocent and unwary friend.
She would deal with the situation when it arose, but the longer she could put off facing Harry Bonham, the better prepared she would be.
Cornelia wasted no time once they were ensconced at a round table in her sitting room in front of the fire. “Maybe…maybe not?” she inquired with raised eyebrows.
Aurelia smile was rather secretive as she poured coffee for them both. “When I was not attending at Aunt Baxter’s bedside with cups of gruel, I was walking those ghastly pugs of hers.”
“So?” Cornelia said impatiently when Aurelia, instead of continuing, began to butter a piece of toast.
“So, I happened to meet someone…someone I had met only briefly before.” Carefully Aurelia sliced her toast into quarters. Her eyes gleamed as she cast a quick conspiratorial glance at her friend across the table. She popped a quarter into her mouth and watched Cornelia with the same mischievous gleam. “Can you guess, Nell?”
Cornelia abandoned her own toast and sipped her coffee, frowning in thought. She was perfectly happy to play Aurelia’s game. Then her gaze widened. “Not that colonel…the one who’d known Frederick? The one who seemed rather…how shall I put it? Rather interested in you?”
Aurelia nodded and reached for the marmalade. “The very same.”
“What was his name…oh, I know.” Cornelia snapped her fingers. “Something to do with hawks…Falconer. Colonel Falconer…crooked mouth, but attractive, a rather striking presence…graying temples…tall, big man…good eyes, very dark gray…astonishing eyelashes. Am I right?”
Aurelia laughed. “Yes, quite right. Colonel, Sir Greville Falconer, to give him his full title. I bumped into him in Bristol while I was walking the aunt’s pugs.”
“Oh…” Cornelia nodded significantly. “I thought you said he was arrogant when you met him here.”
Aurelia shrugged, astonished at how easy this was. “I thought he was. But in Bristol he was a port in a storm. I was so bored, so tired of reading periodicals to Aunt Baxter, so utterly wearied of walking those wretched dogs for my daily exercise, I would have welcomed the devil incarnate.
“Anyway, he came to call once or twice, and then we went to a concert together. Somehow he was always in the park when I arrived with the dogs…” She smiled what she hoped was a mysterious if self-deprecating smile. “I don’t suppose I’ll see him in London, after all we were companions in the Bristol desert, but here, I’m sure he has many friends and many pursuits more exciting than walking pugs.”
“As do you,” Cornelia pointed out shrewdly. “Will you mind if you don’t see him again?”
Now for it. “Yes.” Aurelia dropped her eyes to the napkin in her lap. “Yes, Nell, I will.” She looked up with a rueful shake of her head. “What am I to make of that?”
“Only that we have to ensure that you do meet him again,” Cornelia said, her eyes alight with purpose. “This is excellent, Ellie. We will make Colonel, Sir Greville Falconer our project. I’ll enlist Harry, since he knows him…” Her voice trailed away.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Aurelia said steadily.
“If it’s that he’s quite possibly engaged in Harry’s line of work, yes.”
Aurelia nodded. “Yes, I’ve already thought of that. I can’t really ask him, though.”
“No,”
Cornelia agreed drily. “It’s not something they care to talk about.” She frowned at Aurelia. “Would it matter to you?”
“It doesn’t seem to matter to you and Liv.”
“It’s not easy, though.”
Aurelia’s smile had a touch of irony to it. “I think I can manage what you both manage.”
“Of course,” Cornelia said hastily. “I didn’t mean you couldn’t…merely…” She shrugged helplessly. “Merely that it’s hard not knowing where they are, or what danger they might be facing. Most of all, it’s so hard knowing there are huge areas of their lives from which we’re essentially excluded. However much love and commitment there is, nothing changes that one essential fact.”
And you think I don’t know that? Aurelia half laughed. If anything, she knew it better than either Nell or Liv. She hadn’t known about her husband’s activities until after his death. And he would happily have left her in ignorance her entire life if he could have done so. But she had one advantage over her friends. She knew from the outset what she was getting into with Greville Falconer.
Chapter Eleven
“AS YOU CAN SEE, SIR GREVILLE, everything is in the first style of elegance…all newly refurbished,” the agent said somewhat anxiously. His client had given nothing away in the final tour of the house on South Audley Street. Not so much as a quirk of an eyebrow or a twitch of his mouth. “And I think you’ll find the lease very reasonable.”
“Yes,” said the colonel without expansion. He walked from the drawing room into the dining room. The mahogany table would seat twelve comfortably. He could see no reason why he would wish to entertain more than twelve at his dinner table. The dining room in Cavendish Square would seat more than twenty, and the cavernous room in his aunt’s mausoleum of a house would better that by at least ten. But the more intimate the gathering, the more information could be gleaned.
