A Husband's Wicked Ways (22 page)

Once among the trees, she stopped and listened, remembering Greville’s words: “Do nothing in haste. You may think you don’t have time to pause, to listen and look, but you do.”

So she paused, listened, and looked—and heard nothing but the trill of a songbird welcoming spring, and the rustle of a squirrel in the grass beneath the trees. It was the matter of a moment to slip the document into the hole in the beech, artfully concealed by a square of moss, and in no more than three minutes, she and Lyra were strolling towards the gate that led to Piccadilly.

She was certain now that she had lost her pursuer. There was no sign of the man in the greatcoat behind her, and she felt no sixth sense. Lyra was walking beside her, showing none of her own instinctive awareness of danger. Aurelia skipped a little, then laughed self-consciously at such a childish display of delight.

Greville was waiting for her when she came home. He came out of the library as he heard her in the hall, and one look told him all he needed to know. Aurelia was glowing with satisfaction, her brown eyes alight, her cheeks pink, her slight frame radiating energy.

“You had a pleasant walk, my dear?” he inquired with a smile.

Aurelia, aware of Jemmy’s presence, responded with a demure “Yes, indeed, it’s a beautiful morning. Green Park was delightful.” She bent to release Lyra’s lead as she spoke.

Greville gestured to the library behind him. “Will you join me?”

“Of course.” She drew off her gloves, following him into the library, Lyra at her heels. She closed the door and stood smiling at Greville, triumph exultant in her gaze. “I’m sure I was followed.”

His expression darkened. “Tell me.”

She gave him a full account, trying to make an unembellished narrative of the sequence of events, but she couldn’t conceal her delight in her successful ruse. When she had finished, she regarded him expectantly.

Greville stood with his back to the fire, hands clasped lightly behind him. “You did well. But tell me again exactly what happened when you reached the gate to Green Park.”

Aurelia frowned. “You don’t believe me? You think I might have missed something?”

“Not necessarily. But you’re excited, understandably,
and I want you to tell me again, step by step, now that your triumph is not quite so fresh.”

Aurelia bit her lip, trying to conceal her annoyance at what felt like an admonition. An unjust one. “Very well.” She reached up to unpin her hat and laid it carefully on a drum table by the door, together with her gloves and muff. She unbuttoned her pelisse, letting it hang open as she walked slowly to the window seat and sat down, folding her hands in her lap.

“A plain unvarnished tale, then.” And she told it again. And as she did so she realized that Greville was right. It wasn’t that she’d missed anything out the first time, but that she
could
have done when she was glorying in self-congratulation and in the expectation of Greville’s admiration. She ought to have known, she thought wryly, that expressing admiration in these matters was not Greville Falconer’s way. Greville Falconer, the colonel running a covert operation in London, was a very different man from Greville Falconer the lover.

“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 belly 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.