A Husband's Wicked Ways

by Jane Feather

  “So there you have it.” She shrugged and regarded him without a smile.

  He didn’t seem to see her as he stared frowning at the carpet. He had hoped his suspicions about the inhabitants of Adam’s Row had been wrong. He had hoped that their proximity to South Audley Street did not indicate that he was the object of their presence in London. He had said nothing of this suspicion to Simon, waiting for some proof one way or the other before acting on it. But it seemed he had his proof. Somehow they knew that Greville Falconer was the asp. There was no other explanation for why they would follow Aurelia. She could be of no interest except in her association with him. If they had simply been setting up an intelligence network, they would have had no interest in Greville or his wife unless Greville got in the way of their network. And there’d been no time for that.

  It explained the presence of a servant of the Inquisition, too, he thought grimly. They were after a highly sought prize who would have many secrets to divulge. Under the right pressure, the asp could be induced to break open the entire European intelligence network of England and her allies. And who better to apply that pressure than a graduate of the Inquisition’s training?

  “What is it?” Aurelia asked, alarmed by his expression. “Did I do something wrong?”

  He tore himself from his sinister train of thought and shook his head. “Not at all. You did very well. That was a neat device with the cows.”

  “Yes, I thought so, too.” She looked at him, still puzzled. “Something’s troubling you?”

  He gave a short laugh. “Only the fact that you were followed.”

  “Oh. Yes, of course.” She could have kicked herself for stupidity. “It means that someone’s watching the house…which must mean that someone suspects that you are not what you seem.”

  “That is rather the conclusion I had come to myself,” he said aridly. “But there’s nothing to be done for the moment except maintain constant vigilance. Now, tell me, have you thought any more about pursuing an acquaintance with Lady Lessingham? I mentioned it a couple of days ago.”

  “Oddly enough, that’s exactly what I’m going to be doing this afternoon. Lady Lessingham is to be at Lady Buxton’s card party this afternoon. She’s known to be a demon at the whist table.” She made a move towards the door, unable to conceal the deflation that came with anticlimax. Greville’s flat reaction had been like a dousing under the stable-yard pump.

  He spoke suddenly as she put her hand to the door-knob. “You enjoyed yourself this morning, didn’t you?”

  She turned back to the room. “Yes,” she said simply. “Probably I shouldn’t have. It probably means I’m not taking the work seriously enough.” Without waiting for a response she opened the door and left.

  Greville remained in the middle of the library staring at the closed door, absently tapping his mouth with his fingertips. He’d made a mistake, taken a false step. Aurelia was disappointed. She’d tried to hide it, but her eyes as always spoke the truth. They’d been so full of delight when she’d arrived home and had quickly lost the glow, become as cool and flat as a forest pool in the shade.

  It was not his habit to praise a job well done since he expected nothing less. If she had failed in her mission, returned home unscathed having made no attempt to elude her suspected follower, he would have had the same reaction. Satisfied that although she hadn’t completed her mission, she had at least taken no risks. But Aurelia was not like his other partners, and if he had not been preoccupied with the truth of his grim suspicions, he would have reacted differently. He would have given her what she wanted…indeed, what she deserved. She was still a tenderfoot, but she’d done all and more than he could have expected, and she needed to know that.

  He strode out of the library and up the stairs to her bedchamber. He tapped out a rhythm on the door and she invited him in immediately. She was sitting at the dresser while Hester arranged her hair, and she looked surprised as he came in. “Did you forget something?”

  “Yes,” he said, holding the door ajar at his back, a smile playing over his mouth, a gleam in his eyes. “Hester, Lady Falconer will call you when she needs you.” He stepped aside, holding the door wide.

  “Aye, sir.” Hester, her mouth full of hairpins, bobbed a curtsy. Hurriedly she put the pins back on the little silver tray on the dresser and scooted past him into the corridor. Greville closed the door firmly and turned the key.

  “So what did you forget?” Aurelia inquired, unable to conceal the prickle of sensual excitement as she read intent in his gaze.

  “It seemed I was rather niggardly in congratulating my partner on her quick thinking,” he said with a lazy smile. “I thought to remedy the omission.”

  “Oh,” she said, her heartbeat speeding, a light flush blooming on her skin as anticipation grew.

  He came up behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders, watching her face in the mirror, holding her gaze with his own. He slid his hands down over her shoulders, slipping beneath the loosened opening of her negligee. He cupped her small, firm breasts in his hands, one finger teasing each nipple until they rose to hard points. All the time he watched her face, saw the flicker of her tongue across her lips, the languid, sensual glow deepen in her eyes as her body came alive beneath his caress.

  He leaned farther, sliding his hands down over her ribs to her belly, his breath rustling through her pale hair. One hand slid farther, down to the base of her belly, a finger twisting in the curly tangle of hair to reach into the warm, moist space between her thighs.

  Aurelia took a deep, shuddering breath, but she found she couldn’t move. She remained transfixed by the dark eyes in the mirror and the increasingly intimate exploration of his busy fingers. The negligee had fallen open, exposing her blue-veined breasts, her white belly, and now, as she shifted a little on the dresser stool, the last folds parted to reveal his hand disappearing into the dark nest at the apex of her thighs and the smooth, pale planes of her thighs, clutching convulsively around the pleasure-bringing fingers.

  He smiled at her in the mirror as, deft and knowing, he brought her closer and closer to the brink. Beads of perspiration gathered on her lip, in the cleft of her breasts, in the soft hollow of her navel as her breath came swift between parted lips. Her head fell back against his chest as he leaned over her, and the pulse at the base of her throat danced to a wild beat until she felt herself soar over the cliff and into the maelstrom of delight, and the tension left her body. She slumped back against him, her eyes closed, her breathing rapid and uneven.

  Greville kissed the side of her neck, slowly withdrawing his hand. He cupped her chin, turning her face sideways so that he could kiss the corner of her mouth. Slowly her eyelids fluttered open, and her eyes, languid and slightly bemused, gazed at him.

  “It’s the middle of the day,” she said with a tiny chuckle.

  “What difference does that make to the price of apples?” he asked with an answering chuckle.

  “None at all.” Aurelia turned on the stool and stood up, her opened negligee falling away from her shoulders. She reached behind him, pressing her hands into his buttocks, feeling the muscles tighten beneath the kneading fingers. She pressed her bare loins against the hard bulge of his penis straining against the butter-soft leather of his britches.

  Slowly she slid to her knees on the carpet and swiftly unfastened his britches, slipping a hand into the opening to draw out his penis. She stroked down its length with finger and thumb, reached farther to cup his balls, squeezing lightly. It was his turn now to inhale sharply, to remain still to receive his pleasure. His hands twined in her hair as she bent to her task, her fingers scribbling gently up the length of the hard shaft she held, before she took him in her mouth. Her hands cradled his balls as her tongue flickered against the moist tip, and her lips moved up and down the shaft, her teeth grazing lightly, tantalizingly, against the rigid, pulsing flesh.

  And when he cried out at the glory of climax she held him tight, resting her cheek against his bel
ly until he gave a deep, shuddering breath and dropped to his knees beside her.

  He caught her against him and stretched out on the carpet, cradling her in the crook of his arm. He reached a hand down her bare back and lightly stroked over her bottom as she lay turned against him, one thigh flung carelessly over his leg. “I seem to be building up a debt of gratitude,” he murmured into her tousled hair. “I came to discharge one debt and now I find myself with another.”

  Aurelia laughed weakly. “Not so, sir. I merely served you with your own sauce.”

  He kissed her forehead, then sighed. “Delightful though this is, my dear…”

  “Yes,” she agreed, struggling to a sitting position. “Look at me. It’ll take me hours to make myself presentable enough for a staid card party.” She felt him hesitate, as if he was considering something, and wondered for an instant if he was going to suggest that they consign business to the devil for the rest of the day, but he didn’t.

  “Hester will soon put you to rights,” he said, standing up, then reaching down to pull her to her feet, before fastening his britches.

  He picked up her discarded negligee on the floor by the dresser stool and held it for her, then tied the girdle at her waist before examining her critically. “You do look a little tumbled,” he conceded with a grin. “But if you pull a comb through your hair, Hester probably won’t notice.”

  “She won’t say anything if she does.” Aurelia picked up her hairbrush and tugged at the tangle of once artfully arranged ringlets. “I’ll just have to plait it and wear a cap.”

  “A cap…you most certainly will not.” Greville sounded outraged. He was using her comb to tidy his own hair and dropped it onto the dresser. “You’re not some middle-aged matron.”

  “Let me remind you that I am in my thirty-first year, the mother of a five-year-old, and as far as the world is concerned on my second husband,” she stated, half-laughing, half-pleased at his indignant response.

  “That is nothing to the point. For as long as you are supposedly married to me, Madam Wife, you will not wear a matron’s cap. Understood?”

  “But I have such pretty caps,” she said with an innocent smile. “Dainty lace ones, a few with delightful starched ruffles and wide ribbons under the chin and—” She gave a shriek of feigned alarm as he descended upon her with a ferocious expression.

  She fled across the chamber, putting the bed between them, and stood laughing at him. “The starched ribbons are most becoming. They help to support one’s double chins when they wobble.” She tapped beneath her own sharply defined chin in illustration.

  “Vixen, just don’t ever let me see you in such a garment.” He blew her a kiss and went to the door. “I’ll instruct Jemmy to bring the barouche in half an hour,” he told her as he left her chamber.

  Aurelia, still chuckling, rang for Hester.

  Chapter Sixteen

  DON ANTONIO VASQUEZ, stretched at his ease before the fire, a glass of port to hand, surveyed his visitor with an expression of distaste.

  “I seem to be surrounded by fools. What do you mean, you lost her?”

  The man twisted his cap between his hands, his gaze firmly fixed upon his shuffling feet. “Your pardon, Don Antonio, but it was the cows.”

  “Cows.” Antonio stared at him. “What nonsense is this. Miguel, what’s he talking about?”

  Miguel was standing discreetly and somewhat anxiously in the shadows during this interview. His head was no longer bandaged, but his forehead was covered with a deep purple bruise, and an angry knot throbbed just above his right eye. But he was back on duty, despite the dull, continuous headache. As luck or misfortune would have it, he had employed the man who had so signally failed in his task that morning, and that failure was bound to be visited upon his wounded head at some point. He was not in Don Antonio’s best books as it was.

  Miguel cleared his throat. “Apparently they keep a herd of cows in the park, Don Antonio.”

  “What’s that to do with anything?” his master demanded, draining the contents of his glass. “Why would I be remotely interested in bovines?”

  “Of course you wouldn’t, sir. But the lady in question somehow became lost in the herd and disappeared. By the time Sanchez here had extricated himself from the fracas, there was no sign of the lady or her dog.”

  Antonio frowned, holding out his glass imperatively. Miguel rushed forward with the decanter. “Was this encounter with the bovines deliberate?” Antonio fired the question at Sanchez.

  Sanchez shuffled even more uncomfortably. “I don’t see how it could have been, my lord. It was the dog, see. It took against the beasts…dogs don’t like cows in general, in the country—”

  “For God’s sake, man, I’m not interested in the relationship between dogs and bovines,” Antonio interrupted. “What kind of a mad country is this, when they keep a herd of cows in a park in the middle of the city?”

  “Something to do with public grazing rights, sir,” Miguel explained stolidly, unsure whether the information was truly required.

  Don Antonio’s blasphemous response was answer enough. “What do we know of this woman?”

  “A widow before her marriage to the asp. Nothing of note. Her first husband was killed at Trafalgar. One child, a daughter of five or six.”

  “Why would he marry her?” Don Antonio uncurled his lean, slender frame from the chair and rose to his feet. He was dressed in black, except for a shimmering white neckcloth, from whose starched folds glowed a massive ruby. A silver dagger was clipped to his belt.

  He took a turn around the small parlor, his body as lithe and graceful as a panther’s. “The asp amuses himself with women when it suits him, but there’s never been a permanent woman in his bed before.” He tugged at his square beard, frowning into the fire. “Why? Why would he take a wife now?”

  “Perhaps because he chose to,” Miguel suggested.

  “Idiot,” his master declared. “Of course he chose to. The question is why?”

  “Perhaps we’ll discover if we watch her,” Miguel ventured.

  Antonio spun on his heel to face him. “That bumbling idiot who couldn’t follow an elephant in a desert has made that impossible,” he declared icily. “I told you to find me someone who would never be picked up.”

  “I thought I had, sir.” Miguel glared at the unhappy Sanchez. “But perhaps it was an accident with the cows. There’s no way to be certain.”

  “Which is precisely why we can’t take the risk,” his master stated. “The asp must not suspect anything. It’s vital that he assumes his real identity remains unknown. So all surveillance stops as of now. And from now on, I’ll do the job myself. There are better ways to skin a snake than surveillance.”

  Miguel bowed, clicking his heels together. “As you command, sir.”

  “Get this clumsy oaf out of my sight.”

  Miguel gestured to the unfortunate man, who backed hastily and with obvious relief from the room.

  Don Antonio stood in front of the fire, rising and falling on his toes and heels in the manner that Miguel knew denoted deep thought, the kind of thoughts that boded ill for their subject.

  “What the devil does this marriage mean for us?” Don Antonio murmured finally.

  Miguel did not make the mistake of responding.

  “If, against all the odds, our friend has somehow succumbed to the softer emotions…” Antonio’s thin lips twitched in a sardonic smile. “If he has feeling for this woman, then she’ll prove very useful. And if he’s using her in some way, then we shall also find a use for her. I look forward to making her acquaintance.”

  “Yes, Don Antonio.” Miguel bowed again. “I see what you mean.”

  At that his master gave a short, unkind laugh. “Do you, Miguel? Do you indeed? If you do, it’ll be the first time in my experience.”

  Miguel bowed his head beneath the contemptuous statement and made no attempt to defend himself. He turned to go.

  “One minute.” Antonio raised a hand.
“What’s her name?”

  “I believe it to be Aurelia, sir.”

  “And of what countenance is she? What does she have that would attract the asp?”

  Miguel considered. “In truth, sir, I don’t know,” he said finally. “I’ve only seen her briefly, but she seems nothing out of the ordinary. Pleasant enough countenance, rather small frame, no bosom to speak of…or at least that I could see. Nothing special, Don Antonio.”

  “And you don’t consider that to be of interest?” Don Antonio inquired with a deceptively pleasant smile.

  “I didn’t, but I do now.” Miguel bowed hastily. “If you’ll excuse me, sir.” And he beat a prudent retreat.

  • • •

  Aurelia stepped out of the barouche at the Buxtons’ house in Stanhope Gardens and mentally gave herself a shake. The morning’s adventure had left her feeling rather foggy for some reason. At the time she hadn’t realized how much nervous energy it had taken, but she needed all her faculties this afternoon. Countess Lessingham, as Aurelia had told Greville, was a demon at the card table and she needed to impress her.

  She ascended the steps and was welcomed by an austere butler, who escorted her to the back of the house and into a large salon that was set up with four card tables. Edith Buxton turned from a group of ladies by the fire as Lady Falconer was announced and came forward to greet her. “My dear Lady Falconer, welcome. I hope your wits are sharp for the cards.” A warm and friendly lady, Edith was well liked even by the most malicious gossips, and she beamed with pleasure at the prospect of her afternoon’s entertainment.

  Aurelia responded with her own warm smile, even as she was casting a quick eye over the assembled company. It astonished her how she had learned to see in this way, to take in a scene in one sweeping glance. The hours with Greville, poring over pictures of complex scenes or groupings, absorbing the most minute details, learning mnemonics for memorizing trays of unrelated objects, had all enabled her to feel certain that one inclusive view of a scene would give her the salient facts.