A Husband's Wicked Ways Read online

  She entered the cool, damp garden through the little wrought-iron gate. The daffodils were in full bloom and the forsythia was beginning to bud. The grass was a rich green after the winter rains, and the air had a wonderful moist, earthy scent. There was a sense of freshness, of new beginnings, and her step quickened with a renewed surge of that earlier energy.

  The garden appeared deserted, not even a gardener tending to the shrubs. The children who usually played in the verdant square were presumably at their lessons, but it was unusual not to see a nursemaid giving a baby an airing. Aurelia strolled down the gravel pathway between privet hedges interspersed with macrocarpa. She took off a glove with her teeth, then broke off a macrocarpa twig and rubbed it between her fingers. The lemony fragrance of the cyprus oil took her back to her childhood and the tall hedges that surrounded the house where she’d grown up.

  And the olfactory memory brought Frederick clear as day into her mind’s eye. He had proposed to her one hot day in the shade of a macrocarpa hedge while she’d been doing just what she was now doing, rubbing the oil into her fingers and inhaling deeply of the scent. Everything about that day had seemed right. His proposal was far from unexpected. It was no secret to anyone that the families of Frederick Farnham and Aurelia Merchant had promoted the connection since their children were small. Their children had obliged them by falling in love. Aurelia couldn’t now remember exactly when she’d realized that her feelings for her childhood friend had deepened into something much stronger than friendship and the shared experiences of growing up. But when Frederick proposed, she had felt such happiness, such a sense of fulfillment, of the absolute rightness of the future that lay ahead for her. Now, as she inhaled the lemony fragrance on her fingers, she wondered if Frederick had felt the same on that bright sunny afternoon. Perhaps his feelings had not run as deep or as strong as hers and she had not allowed herself to see it.

  With a tiny sigh she tossed the twig aside and replaced her glove as she walked on down the path. As she emerged onto the grassy space in the center of the garden, a strange feeling hit her. The fine hairs on her nape lifted and her scalp crawled. She stopped and looked around. There was no sign of anyone. But she had company, she knew it. Her skin knew it. Or maybe it was simply the random goose prickles of someone walking over her grave. Her thoughts had been occupied, after all, with the dead.

  She paused for a second on the path, hearing the reassuring rumble of traffic just a few yards away on the other side of the iron railings. There was nothing to fear in the middle of London on a bright morning. But the silence in the garden seemed unnatural. Even the birds were quiet. She jumped at a rustle behind her and twisted to look over her shoulder. A squirrel was digging in the rich soil beneath an oak tree. Nothing else.

  Tentatively she called out, “Who’s there?”

  There was no answer. She began to walk quickly towards the street, and its pedestrians and carriages. Her back felt exposed, as if it had a target printed on it. This irrational fear was surely explained by the events of the last day. Frederick had somehow risen from the dead, then been buried again, and it was no wonder her nerves were on edge.

  Her fingers were clumsy as she fumbled with the latch on the gate, but at last she was outside the dim, green shadows of the garden and in the bright and busy street. She drew another deep, steadying breath, settled her shoulders, smoothed down her skirt with a little comforting pat, and started walking towards Holles Street. But someone was following her. She stopped, looked behind her. Plenty of people were around, all apparently going about their business. No one she recognized.

  She swallowed convulsively. She was being ridiculous. What possible reason could someone have for following her, and what possible harm could anyone do her in the middle of the busy street?

  A hackney carriage stood against the curb a few feet ahead of her, and instinctively she increased her pace towards it. A passenger was just getting out on the pavement side. With a murmured apology, Aurelia climbed up into the carriage as he stepped to the ground, then without thinking slid across the bench and out of the opposite door into the thronged street, narrowly avoiding a passing curricle. The jarvey stared at her sudden appearance, opened his mouth to shout something, but she was already dodging traffic as she made for the far side of the street back towards Cavendish Square. She had no idea where she was going now, only that she needed to get rid of this fearful intuitive sense of being stalked.

  She found herself breathless on Henrietta Place and stopped, listening, looking around. Again, nothing sinister was to be seen, and slowly her panic faded as her heartbeat returned to something approaching its normal rhythm. What on earth had possessed her? For the life of her, Aurelia couldn’t imagine what lunatic impulse had driven her in the last few minutes. Now she was going to be late and she was facing the opposite direction from her destination.

  She shook her head vigorously in an attempt to clear away the cobwebby residues of her fear and set off quickly in the right direction. Once again on Holles Street, she was walking briskly towards Hanover Square when someone stepped up beside her and a familiar voice said, “I must congratulate you, ma’am. You nearly lost me. That’s a professional trick, dodging though a carriage like that. Where did you learn it?”

  Aurelia stopped dead and stared at Greville Falconer, who was smiling at her with a cool serenity that made nonsense of her panic. “You?”

  “Yes, me,” he agreed with his unwavering smile. “I’m sorry if I startled you, but I suddenly had the irresistible urge to see if you remembered the games you used to play as a child.”

  “Games?” she repeated, aware that she sounded like a parrot. “What games? You scared me half to death. How dare you do such a thing?”

  He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, and his smile became even more disarming. “Forgive me. But Frederick told me of a particular game you used to play, a kind of hide-and-seek, I can’t remember what…”

  “Hunt the hare,” Aurelia said slowly, still staring at him. “One of us set off across the countryside and had to be in a certain place by a certain time, while the others hunted us.” She remembered the excitement and the trepidation of being the prey on those long-ago days. Sometimes it had felt almost real, that desperate need to evade, to hide, to trick. That was exactly what she had felt in the last few minutes.

  “Yes, that’s right. Frederick told me about it. He said it had laid some groundwork for the kind of tricks he needed in the trade that became his.” Greville put a hand lightly on her arm. “It was unforgivable of me to frighten you. Please believe that I truly didn’t intend to.”

  Aurelia looked blankly at him. She could think of nothing to say. But she didn’t brush his hand aside.

  Greville said swiftly into the silence, “To tell the truth, I didn’t really think you would even be aware that you were being watched. Many people wouldn’t have felt an instant’s unease. Most people are oblivious of their surroundings much of the time. And if you hadn’t known you were being watched, you wouldn’t have been frightened.”

  “A somewhat disingenuous excuse, don’t you think, sir?” Aurelia demanded with heavy irony. She had found her tongue and her composure, and lightly and dismissively, as if it were a fallen leaf, she brushed his hand from her sleeve.

  He let his hand fall away and bowed. “I won’t intrude upon you further, ma’am.”

  “For which I am grateful.” With a twitch of her flounced gown, she turned from him and continued on her way.

  Greville watched her until she reached her destination. She had a right to her anger, he reflected somewhat ruefully. He certainly hadn’t been playing fair. But he had learned something useful. Aurelia had the necessary instincts. Instincts that could be honed. But did she have the inclination? Or the willingness to consider incentives that might overcome a lack of inclination?

  • • •

  Aurelia spent the next two hours wrestling with her anger, which was directed as much at Frederick as at Colon
el Falconer. What right had Frederick had to discuss something as intimate as those childhood games with anyone, let alone the man he worked for in such dubious circumstances. By sharing such an intimacy it seemed to her that he had given tacit permission to the colonel to use that information. But what was he using it for? Some cat-and-mouse game, just for the sake of it? That seemed ludicrous. Unless the man was deranged, and that, she decided, was a distinct possibility.

  She forced her mind back to the conversation at the luncheon table. “How many new beds did you say the infirmary building will provide, Cecily?”

  “Sir John Soane says eighty,” Cecily responded. “Little enough, barely a drop in the ocean these days, with the number of casualties coming back from the war.”

  “Oh, they’re all over the streets,” Letitia declared with a fastidious shudder. “Begging for a penny, or a crust. One can’t walk along Piccadilly anymore without being accosted. It’s a disgrace. They look so dreadful, with no legs, or arms, and those filthy bandages. They should be put somewhere out of sight. Who needs to be reminded of those horrors?”

  “Then I’m sure you’ll make a very generous contribution to the infirmary, Letitia,” Cornelia said with a silky smile. “It will take some of them out of your view.”

  “Yes, indeed. I shall put you down for five hundred guineas, Letitia,” Cecily declared briskly. “If you’re lucky, such a sum might clear one side of Piccadilly of such offensive sights.”

  Letitia blinked a little as she sipped her wine. Sometimes it seemed to her that she was being excluded from a joke. “I shall have to ask Oglethorpe,” she said, a mite plaintively. “Such a sum would rob me of most of a quarter’s allowance.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find a way to persuade Lord Oglethorpe to assist such a worthy cause,” Aurelia said, smiling. “Everyone knows you have him wrapped around your little finger, Letitia.”

  Letitia bridled, looked smug, and murmured, “Well, that’s as may be, but I do have a trick or two up my sleeve when it comes to persuasion.”

  “I fear I can manage little,” Countess Lessingham said with an apologetic smile. “You must forgive me, ladies, but so much of my own resources go to help my own countrymen in London. So many of them flee the tyrant with only the clothes they stand up in. I do what I can for them. But I could manage perhaps twenty guineas for the infirmary.”

  “That would be most generous, Countess,” Cecily said. “We know how deeply you are involved in relieving the plight of your countrymen in exile.”

  “I will do what I can for anyone suffering from Napoléon’s tyranny,” the lady announced, her Spanish accent becoming more pronounced under the strength of her emotion. “Poor King Carlos and his family, forced into exile. It’s such a dreadful time.” Her voice quavered a little, and she dabbed at her eyes with a dainty scrap of embroidered lace.

  The luncheon broke up soon after. “Will you come back to Mount Street, Ellie?” Cornelia asked as they gathered wraps and gloves. “You could collect Franny.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Aurelia said somewhat absently. “That would be convenient, Nell. D’you have your carriage?”

  “Mmm. The barouche. Of course, if you have something you need to do at home, I could drop you off in Cavendish Square and Daisy can come and fetch Franny later.”

  “No, I have nothing in particular to do this afternoon,” Aurelia said with perfect truth. She had no desire to be alone with her thoughts, although it would be a strain to watch her tongue with Cornelia. They were not accustomed to having secrets from each other. But the more practice she had with this secret, the easier it would become.

  They bade farewell to their hostess and walked down the steps to the barouche, which awaited at the curb. “Cecily certainly has a talent for organization,” Cornelia observed, climbing up into the carriage with a nod to the footman who held the door.

  “She’s one of the few women I know who can keep the discussion on track,” Aurelia agreed, grateful for this innocuous conversation. “Even Letitia can’t budge her when Cecily’s bee is buzzing in her bonnet.”

  Cornelia laughed and arranged the lap robe over both of them. “I was quite drawn to Countess Lessingham. Did you like her?”

  “She certainly has a passion for her émigré countrymen,” Aurelia said, tucking her hands beneath the robe. “And one can only respect that. This wretched war is causing so much suffering across the Continent. So many lives lost, so many wounded…so many families left destitute, homeless.” She looked helplessly at her friend. “Sometimes I wonder if we’re doing enough, Nell.”

  “We gave two husbands to the war,” Cornelia said quietly. “I know that could be considered a small sacrifice when one looks at what others have lost or have now to endure, but it’s not insignificant, Ellie. Neither of us tried to persuade our husbands to stay safe at home. We knew the risks, but we embraced them, as did Stephen and Frederick.”

  Aurelia could only murmur assent. However Frederick had died, he had died for his country. Her eyes darted left and right as the carriage bowled through the streets. She half expected to see Greville Falconer lurking, although if he was lurking, she doubted he would make himself visible.

  “Something troubling you, love?”

  “No, whyever should there be?” Aurelia said with a laugh that she hoped sounded convincing.

  Cornelia shrugged. “You seemed rather distrait at luncheon, and you seem on edge now.”

  “I’m a little tired.”

  “Ah.” Cornelia nodded, unconvinced, but she would not probe in the absence of any encouragement. She changed the subject. “I must show you the color scheme I’ve decided on for the ball.”

  “Black and silver, you said.”

  “Yes, but with little hints of white and crimson. The flowers will be white lilies, and stripped honesty, for the silver. And then…” Cornelia looked expectantly at Aurelia. “Can you guess?”

  Aurelia shook her head, amused despite her preoccupation.

  “Black tulips.”

  “Where on earth…?”

  “Alex,” Cornelia stated. “I mentioned my idea in a letter to Liv last week, and Alex came up with the notion of black tulips.”

  “Lord,” Aurelia murmured. “Is there no limit to the miracles our Prince Prokov can perform?”

  “Apparently not. He knows a tulip grower in Amsterdam who can let me have ten dozen. I know it’s not many, but just imagine the effect, Ellie.”

  “Oh, I am,” Aurelia breathed. “And what about the hints of scarlet?”

  “Tulips again. They’ll be at their best in May.” Cornelia beamed with satisfaction. “It will be perfect, and Liv is adamant that she will be strong enough by the end of May to be there.”

  “Will you carry the color scheme onto the supper table?” Aurelia was fascinated, and more than happy to explore this unexceptionable subject.

  “Harry thinks black-and-white food might be a little off-putting,” Cornelia said. “He suggested tripe and onions for the white stuff, raw beef for the red, and black pudding for the black.”

  Aurelia burst into laughter. “Trust Harry to bring matters down to earth.”

  “Oh, I’ll think of something,” her friend said cheerfully. “But we have to liaise on our gowns.” She regarded her friend with an assessing eye. “Silver and gold, I think for you, Ellie. So perfect with your hair.”

  “Oh, I’ve a hankering for a hint of scarlet,” Aurelia retorted with a chuckle.

  The carriage turned onto Mount Street and her laugh died in her throat. Harry Bonham was coming towards them. Sir Greville Falconer was at his side.

  Aurelia began to feel stifled, trapped in a web spun by this man who’d marched uninvited into her life with what seemed the sole purpose of destroying all the equilibrium she had.

  As the men approached, Harry raised a hand in greeting. “Good afternoon, Aurelia.” He reached the carriage and stood one hand on the door, his eyes only on his wife. “Wife of mine,” he murmured.


  “Husband,” she returned, her voice as low as his as she gave him her hand to alight. Aurelia was accustomed to the sensual charge between these two, but she couldn’t help noticing with some satisfaction a slight surprised narrowing of the colonel’s eyes, and she hoped he was discomfited. It would certainly be the first time in their brief acquaintance.

  She stepped out of the carriage as Harry held up his free hand. “Forgive the intrusion, Harry,” she said lightly. “I come merely to fetch Franny.”

  “You could never intrude,” he said, and she knew it was not mere politeness speaking. “Allow me to introduce Colonel, Sir Greville Falconer.” He gestured to his companion.

  “Falconer…Lady Farnham…and my wife, Viscountess Bonham.”

  Aurelia met the dark gray eyes with a steadiness that surprised her. She extended her hand. “I’m delighted to make your acquaintance, Colonel.”

  He took her hand, raised it to his lips in a courtly gesture that surprised her as much as her own composure. “Lady Farnham, I’m honored.” He gave her his smile again, and his gaze seemed to linger a moment longer than necessary on her countenance, before he turned to greet Cornelia.

  “Colonel, are you new to town?” Cornelia asked.

  “Colonel Falconer has just returned from Corunna,” Harry said. “He’s been out of England for some years now.”

  Cornelia understood immediately that the colonel was in some way involved in the business that kept her husband so occupied in the dark corridors of the War Ministry, business best not examined too closely. So she nodded and said, “I trust you’ll take tea, Colonel. How long are you in town?”

  “I hope to stay for several months, ma’am,” he replied, following her up to the front door. “I’m looking for suitable lodgings.”

  “Oh, I’m sure Harry’s agent could help you there,” she said. “Don’t you think, Harry?”