by Jane Feather
He strode up the staircase to the upper floor. It was quite a handsome staircase with an elegant sweep and nicely carved banisters. Two corridors ran off a square landing at the head of the stairs, lined with doors on either side. Light poured into the corridors from long windows at the end of each. Double doors off the east corridor opened into the master bedroom, looking out over the front of the house, with a good-size dressing room beyond. A connecting door led to a second suite of rooms, looking out over the small rear garden, with a modest but rather pretty boudoir adjoining. Presumably the apartments designed for the lady of the house.
He returned downstairs, cast a cursory eye over the kitchen regions, the butler’s pantry, the housekeeper’s sitting room. He had absolutely no idea what servants in a London town house expected, never having needed to give the issue any thought before, but Aurelia would know whether they were adequate and what improvements if any should be made.
“It’ll do,” he stated.
The agent looked relieved. “Will you sign the lease then, Sir Greville? It’s for just one year.”
“Yes, but with the option to renew.” Greville took the document from the agent and carried it into the drawing room. He doubted he would be in a position to renew, but the charade demanded an impression of permanent residency. He found pen and ink on a secretaire and signed the lease. He handed the paper back to the agent. “If you will give me the keys in exchange, our business is concluded, I believe.”
“Yes, Sir Greville. With pleasure, sir.” The agent handed over a heavy bunch of keys. “They’re all there, sir, all marked. Keys to the cellar and the pantries as well…of course, I imagine your butler and housekeeper will take charge of those.”
“I would imagine so,” Greville said, weighing the bunch in his palm, before extending his hand to the agent. “Good day to you, Charteris.”
“Good day, Sir Greville.” The man shook hands with unmistakable relief. “I’ll see myself out.” He hurried into the hall and Greville heard the front door close on his departure. The house settled around him as he stood in the drawing room stroking his chin.
Aurelia could help him with the hiring of staff. It would be considered perfectly appropriate once they were engaged. But in the meantime he was anxious to move in, or rather, anxious to move out of Lady Broughton’s establishment. His aunt had taken to lying in wait for him, ambushing him on his way in or out of the house with some new facet of her preparations for the rout party. Why she thought he was interested in the color of the champagne, the choice of dinner service, or whether it should be partridge or pheasant in the game pies was a mystery to him.
With a dismissive shake of his head he left the house, locking the door behind him. Whistling to himself, he strolled off in the direction of Cavendish Square. He’d told Aurelia to look for him before noon, and it was almost that now.
• • •
Aurelia was in the drawing room, watching the street from one of the long windows. She’d taken the precaution of telling Morecombe that she was not in to visitors this morning because she was expecting someone in particular and she would answer the door herself when he arrived. Morecombe’s response had been typically laconic. He’d disappeared into the back regions, and apart from the appearance of the occasional maid with beeswax and duster, Aurelia had the front of the house to herself.
She saw Greville approach the house from the garden in the center of the square. He was swinging the slender cane that she now knew concealed a deadly weapon, and the now familiar prickle of excitement ran up her spine as she watched him cross the street.
She liked the restraint of his dress, he seemed to have no interest in the vagaries of fashion, and indeed his powerful frame needed no augmentation. He had no need of fancy stitching or shoulder pads to improve his figure. His coat of charcoal gray wool sat snugly across his large shoulders, the dove gray buckskin britches clung to his powerful thighs, the corded muscles rippling with each long stride. His starched white stock was of only moderate height, but he didn’t need the exaggerated height so much in favor among young men to lengthen his neck and strengthen his chin.
Greville Falconer exuded strength and power in every inch. He paused on the pavement outside the house and looked up at the facade. His gaze moved to the windows and he saw her standing in the shadow of the curtains. He raised a hand in greeting, then came up the steps to the front door.
Aurelia hastened across the hall to the front door, pulling it wide. “You came.”
“Did you doubt that I would?” He stepped into the hall, his gray gaze sweeping her countenance, running slowly down her body, almost as if he was checking to make sure everything was still there, she thought. But the appreciative gleam in his eyes, and that sensual smiling curve to his mouth, sent a jolt of arousal through her belly.
“You’ve curled your hair again” was all he said.
For some reason the comment flustered her, and she felt herself blush like an ingenue. “Ringlets are in fashion.” She struggled to sound matter-of-fact, as if her skin wasn’t on fire and her belly churning. She turned away to the drawing room. “One can’t be seen in fashionable London with straight hair.”
“Oh, I think you could,” he declared, following her into the salon. “Your hair is delightful au naturel.” He took up his usual position by the fireplace and stood smiling at her, his eyebrows slightly raised in quizzical inquiry.
Aurelia ignored the compliment as she could think of no response that wouldn’t sound false or facetious. “May I offer you sherry…or Madeira, perhaps?” she asked, moving to the decanters on the sideboard.
“Sherry, thank you.” He watched her move across the room, enjoying the fluid grace of her walk. “So, are you ready to begin our enterprise, Aurelia?”
She turned, decanter in hand. “What, now? Today?”
“I have just this morning signed the lease on the house in South Audley Street. Do you care to see it? I would appreciate your opinion on a few matters.”
Aurelia poured sherry into two glasses. She felt as if time had speeded up somehow. For some reason she had thought there would be a few days of normality, time to settle in again before work started in earnest. But not so, it seemed. “Shouldn’t we spend a few days getting society accustomed to the idea that we seem to enjoy each other’s company?” she suggested tentatively, bringing the glasses over.
“Certainly,” he agreed, taking the glass she offered him. “Looking the house over won’t prevent that.”
“But won’t it cause raised eyebrows if we’re seen together, particularly going into an empty house?”
He shook his head at her in mock reproof. “Come now, have you forgotten all the lessons of last week so quickly? Why should anyone see us going into the house together?”
“Oh…I see what you mean.” She smiled ruefully and sipped her sherry, taking a seat in the corner of the sofa. “I’ll go in by myself, of course.”
“Having, of course, made certain no one who knows you is around to see you enter.”
“Of course. How will I get in?”
“The usual way. You’ll knock on the door and it will open for you.”
She nodded, already enjoying the sense of challenge, intellectual and physical, that she had so relished during the previous week with each new test. “Shall we go now?”
He raised his glass to his lips. “We’re not in that much of a hurry.” His eyes were laughing and she couldn’t help a chuckle in return. “Did you talk to Lady Bonham about your visit to Bristol?” Greville inquired casually.
“It came up, naturally. When I went to see Franny.”
“Yes, I imagine it would.” He waited, eyebrows quirked.
“I told her what we’d agreed. She didn’t appear to find anything strange in it.”
He nodded. “What else?”
“Nothing really. Nell’s my friend, my interests are her interests. If I happen to like someone, she’ll be prepared to like them, too, unless given a good reason not to
.” She frowned down into her glass.
“Go on,” he prompted, well aware that there was more here.
Aurelia sighed. “Well, Nell is no fool, and well aware that anyone she meets through her husband could be involved in War Ministry business. She asked me if I thought it likely.”
“And what did you say?” He was watching her closely now.
“I said it had occurred to me. She’d think it very odd if it hadn’t. I’m not generally considered a fool either.”
“With good reason.” His white smile flashed. “This is something of a hurdle, I admit. Bonham knows full well that he and I obey the same master, although he has no idea what I do. It’s company etiquette to avoid discussion of company business outside the ministry itself, so he won’t probe too obviously. But you should be prepared for some covert opposition.”
“I am prepared. Harry doesn’t know about Frederick?”
“Good God, no. Only three people know about Frederick. You, myself, and my master. And even he does not know the connection between Bonham’s wife and my late partner. It will stay that way.”
She nodded in silent acceptance. “Nell and Harry won’t stand in my way,” she said after a minute. “They might, in fact probably will, try to dissuade me from this marriage, but in the end they’ll stand behind me, if I’m resolute.”
It was her turn to look at him closely now. “Harry knows nothing to your detriment…nothing that would make him think, apart from your involvement in his own world, that you would make me an unsatisfactory and dangerous husband?”
“No more unsatisfactory and dangerous as he is himself.”
“Then I’m confident that’s a hurdle I can jump without too much difficulty.” She set down her glass and stood up energetically. “Shall we go and see the house now?”
“I’ll leave first.” He rose in more leisurely fashion, draining his glass as he did so. “When you reach number Twelve South Audley Street, what will you do?”
“Walk past it twice, then if I’m satisfied, knock on the door.”
“Good.” He glanced at his fob watch hanging from his waistcoat. “Can you be there in half an hour?”
South Audley Street was close to Grosvenor Square. If she took a hackney to the square, then walked to the house, she could make it. “Barring traffic, or anything unexpected.”
“I’ll be waiting…no need to see me out.” He strode into the hall and Aurelia ran upstairs to fetch her pelisse, hat, and gloves.
She let herself out and hailed a passing hackney. “Grosvenor Square, please.”
“Any particular address, mum?”
“No, just in the middle somewhere.”
The driver gave her an odd look but cracked his whip, and the conveyance trundled forward. Halfway around the square, he drew rein. “This do you, mum?”
“Perfectly.” Aurelia descended, paid the man, then walked off to the south side of the square. She walked up South Audley Street casually, glancing up at the houses. They were for the most part stately, double-fronted mansions, but every few houses there would be a pair of smaller, narrower, attached single-fronted houses. She guessed someone had divided a mansion into two at some point, maybe to accommodate a second branch of a family.
Number 12 was one of these houses. A narrow flight of honed steps led up to an oak front door with a glowing brass knocker and handle. The iron railings were freshly black-leaded, and the windows to the left of the door winked in the sunlight. A pretty fanlight had been installed over the door, together with a brass lantern. Two stone flowerpots, at present empty, flanked the door. The house’s adjoining twin was as well kept.
Aurelia walked past the house. Several houses down, she stopped to adjust her boot. A few people were around, mostly tradesmen as far as she could see. A nursemaid with two small children in tow hurried by towards the square. One child was playing with a top that threatened to spin into the street at any moment. The nursemaid needed to take charge of the top until they reached the square garden, but Aurelia closed her eyes and fought the urge to intervene. She couldn’t draw attention to herself under any circumstances, or at least, she amended, not unless the child was about to spin itself under the wheels of a carriage.
After a hundred yards or so she crossed the road and sauntered casually on the opposite side past the house. She saw no one she knew, even vaguely, and as casually as before, she strolled over the road and up the steps to the house, banging the knocker once, resisting the compulsion to look over her shoulder to see if anyone familiar had appeared on the street.
The door opened and she stepped swiftly inside, the door closing instantly at her back. “No one saw you?” Greville stood with one hand leaning against the door he had just closed, his gaze searching her face.
“No, I’m certain.”
“I’m certain, too, you did a good job.” He laughed softly. “But I own I thought for a minute you were going to start berating that nursemaid.”
“How could you tell?” She stared at him, astonished as always by his powers of observation.
“I’m getting to know you, my dear,” he said with a mock bow. “I could read you very clearly at that moment, and I applauded your restraint.”
Aurelia was delighted by the compliment but tried not to show how much. She looked around the hall. The house faced south and the pale sunlight shone bravely onto the oak floor through the one long window beside the door and the fanlight above it.
“Let me show you the rest of it,” Greville said, leading the way to double doors on the left of the hall.
She followed him into a reasonable-size drawing room, high ceiling, attractive moldings, a lovely Adam’s fireplace. Long windows looked onto the street and there was plenty of light. The furniture was fashionable, not particularly ornate, the draperies neutral as befitted a leased house. But with books and pictures, and a few little decorative touches, it could be made quite personal. But did Greville own such personal objects? Somehow she doubted it. He wasn’t a man who spent much time in any one place.
“What do you think?”
She turned back to him. “It will do you very well. In your place I’d move things around a little, make a few adjustments, add a few personal touches, but…yes, it seems perfect for your purposes. Not too large for a bachelor, but plenty of room for entertaining.”
He stroked his chin thoughtfully as he looked around, seeing the room with fresh eyes. “I’m not very good at making places seem like home. Could you do that for me?”
“Do you have any books, pictures, ornaments…anything like that?”
He laughed. “No, my dear girl, I do not. What would I do with such fripperies…carry them around in a knapsack as I jaunter around the world?”
“Of course not.” She shook her head. “You’ll need to buy a few bits and pieces.”
“Would you consider acquiring them for me? In the interests of our enterprise.”
“Certainly. I’d enjoy it,” she said frankly. “Tell me how much you wish to spend and I’ll happily make a nest for you. Obviously, since it’s only for three months or so, you won’t wish to be extravagant, but I’m sure I can find a few odds and ends for a relatively small sum, and we need only work on the public rooms.”
He nodded, but made no other response. “Let me show you the rest of the house.”
They toured the ground floor, and Aurelia had no objections to the dining room or the cozy library at the rear of the house. It would be a perfect house for herself and Franny, she thought, looking around the library, imagining her own books on those shelves. “How much is the lease?” she asked suddenly.
Greville looked surprised. “Twenty-five guineas a week. Quite reasonable for its size and location I thought. Why do you ask?”
She frowned at him. “This pension I am promised as payment for my services…you have not told me how much it will be.”
“Oh, I understand.” He nodded his head. “You will be wanting your own establishment of course. Unfortunately I cannot
give you an exact figure as yet. The issue is being considered by those whose job it is to consider such things. But I could make a recommendation if you care to give me an idea of what you need.”
“I’ll have to think about it.”
“Do that and let me know.” Simon Grant had agreed in principle to pay a pension to Frederick’s widow, both in recognition of Frederick’s services to his country and in payment for his widow’s forthcoming services. But practical matters tended to slide out of Simon’s overworked brain, and he would need reminding and a gentle prod to sign the necessary authorizations.
Aurelia felt a little surge of satisfaction as she went up the stairs. Twenty-five guineas a week would probably stretch her finances too far, but there was also that not inconsiderable sum in Frederick’s back pay and prize money that Greville had said would be paid to her. That might bridge the gap. The idea of paying her own way through the sweat of her own brow was eminently gratifying. No one could control that money or dictate how it was spent. She was answerable to no one, finally free of Markby’s yoke. And all she really had to do was pretend to have a romantic interest in a most attractive man. Not a particularly arduous task. Not in the least.
She almost flew up the stairs, her step powered by the swift and exultant tumble of her thoughts. She arrived on the landing a few steps ahead of Greville. “So, where does the master of the house lay his head?”
Greville paused just below the top step. Something in her voice arrested him. He looked up at her, his eyes narrowed, and slowly her expression changed, her eyes looked startled, as if by a sudden, extraordinary thought, and her mouth became different, sensual and inviting. The air around them in the silent, deserted house seemed suddenly to come alive. The very emptiness of the space around them became charged with significance. She held out a hand to him and slowly he took it, coming up the last step to stand beside her.
He drew her in front of him, his hands resting on her shoulders as he looked into her eyes, deep golden brown eyes that held his gaze, and he felt the hard certainty that ruled his every moment, informed his every action, losing shape, becoming fuzzy around the edges. Then Aurelia smiled at him, a slow smile that brought a luminous shimmer to her eyes, like sunlight on a forest pool.
