by Jane Feather
“What’s worrying you?”
She became aware of Greville’s troubled gaze and shook her head. “Nothing…nothing at all. Just that my life has turned upside down in such a short time, and every now and again I’m reminded of it.”
“Regrets?” His tone was expressionless, his countenance giving nothing away.
Aurelia considered the one-word question. She couldn’t imagine dissembling with Greville, couldn’t imagine that he wouldn’t see through any smoke screen she could throw up. And she didn’t want to lie to him. “I don’t think so,” she said finally. “But I do know that I won’t let you down, Greville.”
He nodded. “No, I know you won’t.” He laid a hand on her shoulder. “I will do everything in my power to keep you from harm, but you must remember the one cardinal rule…?” He raised his eyebrows.
“Trust no one,” she said, her nostrils flaring slightly. “I remember, Greville.”
“Don’t ever forget it.”
“I won’t.” She tried to disguise the bitter edge to the assertion, but it was hard. “I must go to Franny.” She offered him a small, hopeful smile and left the room.
Greville gazed at the closed door, his expression hard to read. He understood how difficult it must be for someone like Aurelia, unaccustomed to mistrust, to accept that in her dealings with others she had to work from a foundation of mistrust. But he could not keep her safe if she let her guard slip for an instant. He was not in the habit of considering the personal, emotional effects of his world on those he recruited to play their part in it. If they agreed, they accepted the consequences. It was how he had always operated. But it was different with Aurelia.
And he could not afford to acknowledge the reason. He drained his sherry glass and went up to his bedchamber.
• • •
When Greville strolled into his chief’s dusty office in the War Ministry early the following morning, Simon Grant looked up from the map spread over his massive desk, a pair of compasses in hand.
“Ah, Greville, just the man I wanted to see.”
“What’s the significance of the map?” Greville came behind the desk without invitation and leaned over the map at his chief’s side. “Ah, I see. The Tagus. You’ve marked the location of the guerrilla groups.”
“Aye, and Wellesley has their coordinates, thanks to you and Farnham. He landed at Lisbon on the twenty-sixth.” Simon glanced at the calendar on the wall. “It’s May fourth now, but I think we can expect a dispatch in the next two weeks.”
“Pigeons?”
“Aye. Most of the posts are still operative across France. And we have two in the Channel Islands.”
Greville nodded. The pigeon couriers were among the most important participants in this war. Their handlers more often than not were as much at risk as a soldier in the front line. “Any new information on our friend Don Antonio?”
Simon grinned tiredly. “There, at least, an unqualified success.” He went to an armoire across the room and opened a drawer, extracting a sheet of paper. “Our man in Madrid did us proud and a pigeon landed at Dover yesterday evening. Much earlier than I dared hope. Guess who our friend is?”
Greville frowned in thought. “He has to be in the top echelons of their network for a mission this visible and important. And I have the strangest feeling that I’ve seen him somewhere before. But I can’t for the life of me track down the memory.”
Simon nodded rather grimly. “Well, you’re right. You have certainly encountered him before. Do you recall that little fracas just before Junot occupied Lisbon last year? You were trying to get the Portuguese regent out of Portugal on his way to Brazil…”
“And nearly lost him,” Greville said slowly. “Nearly lost him to an assassin’s blade.” He stared inward at the memory. He had caught only a fleeting glimpse of the assassin as the man had fled over the stone wall of the harbor, with Greville and his men on his heels. “El Demonio. No wonder I thought I’d seen him before.”
“Just so.” Simon nodded. “Antonio Vasquez and El Demonio are one and the same.”
Greville nodded. “Well, well. A worthy opponent, indeed.”
Simon regarded him closely across the desk. “Do you have a plan?”
Greville smiled, and it was not a nice smile. “Only to make sure I get to him before he gets to me.”
“I know I’ve said this before, Greville, but we can’t afford for you to fall into their hands.”
“I don’t believe I could afford it either,” Greville said with a lightness that did not deceive his companion. He held out his hand for the paper that Simon still held. “May I take that?”
“Of course…of course, dear fellow. It concerns you more nearly than anyone else.”
Greville glanced at the document and shook his head. “Do me a favor, Simon, and have two men on duty at my house. Whenever the child leaves with her nursemaid, make sure they’re discreetly escorted by someone well able to protect them.”
Simon nodded gravely. “Of course. And what of her mother?”
“I’ll take responsibility for Aurelia’s safety, but I can’t take the risk of needing to be in two places at once.”
“Understood.”
• • •
Greville let himself into his house the following afternoon and stepped into the midst of a maelstrom. A small figure resembling nothing so much as a whirling dervish was dancing and shrieking in the middle of the usually tranquil hall, surrounded by a group of flapping, exclaiming individuals, all talking at once as they seemed to be trying to lay hands on the spinning creature.
Lyra bounded to his side and stood pressed against his legs as if for protection as the racket reached a crescendo.
“Quiet,” Greville commanded in a voice that barely seemed to rise above its usual pitch. Nevertheless the whirling body came to a stop and the fluttering group ceased flapping. Into the now eerie silence the small figure gave a pathetic hiccup.
“What on earth is this circus?” Greville demanded.
“Make ’erself ill, she will, one of these days, you mark my words,” one of the twins, Greville thought it was Ada, muttered. “Poor little mite to take on so about nothing at all…’tain’t natural, as I’ve said before.”
Greville examined the assembled company with raised eyebrows. His entire household, with the exception of Morecombe, appeared to be gathered there. “Forgive my asking, but do none of you have any work to do this afternoon?” he inquired, striding across to where Franny stood, still hiccuping, her face blotched and tearstained. The hall emptied rapidly of all but Daisy, who stood wringing her hands nervously.
“What on earth was all that about, Franny?” he asked, going down on one knee beside the child.
Franny sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “I want to take Lyra to the square garden…Mama promised I could this afternoon…but they won’t let me. Daisy’s scared of Lyra.” Her voice rose alarmingly on this accusation.
Daisy said, “Beggin’ your pardon, Sir Greville, but my lady didn’t say nothing to me about taking that dog in the garden.”
“Franny, that’s enough,” Greville said as the little girl’s tears began to flow anew and her mouth opened on an incipient yell of protest. “Daisy knows that the only people who are allowed to take Lyra out are myself or your mother.”
“Mama’s not here,” Franny protested. “An’ she promised. She promised and you should never break a promise, she said so.”
“Well, I’m sure she has good reason,” Greville said. “But having a fit of hysterics is not an appropriate response.”
Franny regarded him with wide-open eyes, curiosity now uppermost. “What’s that? Hyst…hyster…?”
“Hysterics. What you were doing just then, screaming and flinging yourself all over the place. It won’t do, my child.”
“She don’t do it so often now, sir,” Daisy ventured.
“Thank the Lord for small mercies.” Greville got to his feet, brushing down the knees of h
is britches. “Where is Lady Falconer, do you know?”
“She went out after lunch, sir…didn’t say where, leastways not to me.”
Greville nodded and looked down at Franny, who sniffed vigorously but seemed considerably subdued. He took out a handkerchief and wiped her nose. “If you’ll wait quietly for ten minutes, Franny, I’ll take you and Lyra to the garden myself.”
Franny hiccuped and nodded, and when he strode into the library, she trotted at his heels and sat on a low ottoman while he sorted through the post that had been delivered that afternoon.
It was rather distracting, he found, to have the child’s huge eyes fixed upon him, watching his every movement as if in suspended animation until he should say the magic words. Lyra was sitting beside Franny, watching Greville with a similar air of expectation, and after a couple of minutes he gave up.
“Very well, let’s go.”
Franny instantly leaped to her feet and raced ahead of him into the hall, rather as if he’d turned the key to start a run-down clock, he thought, amused. He had no real experience of children and very little really to do with Franny. Aurelia didn’t seem to expect any involvement from him, and nursery matters ran smoothly without impinging on his activities at all. At least, they had until this afternoon.
He fastened Lyra’s lead and took Franny’s hand firmly as they left the house. Aurelia hadn’t said where she was going, but she would not be on foot or horseback since she’d left Lyra behind. It was unlike her, however, to fail to keep a promise to her daughter.
He glanced casually up and down the street as they walked to Grosvenor Square. A man sweeping leaves out of the gutter scratched his nose as Greville and the child walked by. Greville nodded briefly, acknowledging the man sent from the ministry to keep an eye on the house. Greville could pick up no sense of another, more sinister, observer. He remained on his guard, however, and Lyra, beautifully behaved as always, walked sedately beside him, only her raised head and pricked ears indicating that she was on the alert.
“The gate’s here.” Franny tugged at his hand as they crossed the street to the large railed garden in the middle of the square. Franny pulled her hand free of his and jumped onto the bottom rung of the gate to pull down the latch. “It’s much bigger ’n the one we used to play in…in the old house,” she informed him, swinging on the gate as it opened.
“Cavendish Square isn’t quite so large,” he agreed, waiting patiently until she’d decided she’d swung enough and jumped down. He closed the gate behind them, released Lyra, and followed child and dog as they raced down the path towards the grassy center of the garden. Franny was leaping and singing with sheer exuberance, the violent storm of half an hour past completely forgotten.
It surprised him that a woman as tranquil and even-tempered as Aurelia should have such a tempestuous child. Frederick, too, had given no indication of a volatile temperament. He had taken things as they came, handled situations as they arose with a calm practicality. What would he have made of his little daughter for whom life was either bathed in tropical sunshine or battered by winter gales?
He stopped at the grass and stood watching as Franny and Lyra chased and tumbled, the massive hound playing as happily as a puppy, and yet always with a degree of delicacy, careful not to knock the child over.
The first warning of a watcher took its usual form. A quick surge of energy in his chest, followed by a deep calm. He smiled fondly as he watched the child and dog at play, then casually glanced around, before bending to pick up a stick and throwing it for Lyra, who leaped after it. He moved towards Franny, his eyes everywhere, noting the man standing on the gravel path just to the side of the lawn.
A tall, well-dressed, bearded gentleman. Black eyes deep-set in a lean, hawkish, angular countenance. After a moment he walked off.
Greville gave a shrill one-note whistle, and Lyra instantly bounded back, dropping down on guard beside Franny.
“Is it time to go? I don’t want to go yet,” Franny complained as Greville came up with her.
“It’ll be dark soon,” he said, in no mood now to indulge the child. He snapped Lyra’s lead onto her collar. “Come along.” He held out a hand imperatively to Franny, who took it reluctantly, but without further protest.
Franny chattered cheerfully as they crossed the street and made their way home.
Greville had discovered early on that in the absence of a response Franny would continue chattering away, peppering him with questions to which it seemed she had no real interest in answers, leaving him free with his own thoughts.
Vasquez had not been watching Franny by coincidence.
Chapter Eighteen
AURELIA HAD JUST RETURNED home when Greville came into the house with Franny and Lyra. “Oh, there you are. Daisy said you’d gone to the garden.” Aurelia looked surprised, giving Greville a quizzical smile as she bent to kiss her daughter.
“You said you’d take me to the garden with Lyra,” Franny accused.
Aurelia frowned. “Not today, love. I said I’d take you tomorrow.”
“Well, I wish you’d made it a bit clearer,” Greville commented, unfastening the dog’s lead. “It might have saved quite a scene.”
Aurelia looked up, puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“We’ll discuss it later,” Greville said, turning aside to the salon.
“Let’s go upstairs to Daisy.” Aurelia took Franny by the hand. “And you can tell me what you’ve been up to.”
Aurelia came downstairs half an hour later having heard the full story from Daisy. She found Greville in the salon, sipping madeira and reading the Gazette. “I’m sorry you were embroiled in one of Franny’s tantrums,” she said, pouring herself a glass of sherry. “She’s growing out of them, I think, but every now and again it happens.”
“I own I was at something of a loss,” he said, laying aside the paper.
“Not according to Daisy. To listen to her, one would think you were a hero who had triumphed over insuperable odds.” Aurelia sat down in the corner of the sofa. “It was good of you to take Franny and Lyra after that scene. Have you had experience with children?”
“None at all, as it happens.”
Aurelia inclined her head in surprise. “Then it must come naturally.” She paused and, when he made no response, said, “You were an only child, of course.”
“Yes,” he agreed without expansion.
She persevered. “I sometimes worry about Franny being an only child. Do you think you would have liked siblings?”
He shrugged. “I’ve no idea, Aurelia. I didn’t have them and I don’t believe I ever gave the matter much thought.”
“Of course Franny has Stevie and Susannah.” Aurelia sipped her sherry. “I don’t know how it will be when Stevie goes away to school. She’ll miss him dreadfully.”
Greville picked up his paper again as if the subject was of no interest to him at all. He always responded to any conversation about family ties in this way, a detached if polite air of boredom. For once, Aurelia found that she wasn’t prepared to leave it at that.
“Tell me about your mother,” she demanded. “You say very little about her.”
“There’s very little to say,” he replied shortly, without looking up from the Gazette.
Aurelia, however, was convinced he wasn’t reading. “Was she ill?”
“So they said.” His eyes remained fixed on the news-print.
“They? Your father, you mean.”
He put the paper down with an impatience that crumpled the sheets. His face was closed, his eyes cold as he spoke with clear deliberation. “From the age of around two I probably saw my mother five or six times. She inhabited a wing of the house with her own staff and had absolutely no interest in me, and as far as I could gather, even less in my father. He was never at home and I vaguely remember being told of his death, but very much in passing. Does that satisfy your curiosity, Aurelia?”
She flushed. “I was not being inquisitive, Greville. We live toge
ther, we were talking about children, it was natural enough to ask you about your childhood. I’m sorry it was such a miserable and lonely one. Perhaps that explains—” She stopped and bit her lip.
“Explains what?” he asked, his voice very soft.
She sighed. “Oh, your detachment, your lack of emotional passion, I suppose. It’s not normal, Greville, for a human being to be able to detach himself so completely from all human ties. I understand that it makes you good at your job. If you’ve never felt the need to trust in anyone, to believe in anyone and have them believe in you, then of course it’s easy enough to exist in an emotionless vacuum. I just find it difficult.”
He regarded her closely. “Are you saying you find it too difficult?” he asked quietly.
She looked at him in mingled exasperation, frustration, and dismay. “You haven’t heard what I’ve been saying, Greville. I’m not talking about being unable to partner you in this London charade, I’m talking about who I am, about trying to understand who you are. It matters to me who you are, and why you are as you are.”
She stood up abruptly. “It’s ridiculous to have this conversation. You don’t see the point of it at all. I have to change for dinner.” She swept from the room, closing the door quietly behind her.
• • •
Aurelia lay in a copper tub before the fire in her bedchamber while Hester poured lemon-scented water over her freshly washed hair. She was feeling so dull and out of sorts that she could summon no enthusiasm even at the prospect of a music party at which Paganini was to be the guest violinist. She would be missed, of course, and her absence at such an event would bring Cornelia knocking at her door in the morning, but she’d find some excuse.
“I’ll take dinner on a tray in my sitting room, Hester,” she said, wringing out the long strands of pale hair between her hands. “Just pass me a towel and then go for your own supper. I can manage myself now.”
“If you’re sure, mum…sure you’re not goin’ out tonight?”
“I’ve never been surer, Hester. I have a slight headache and I’m going to have an early night.”
