A Husband's Wicked Ways (11 page)

“Never stops when ’e gets the mood on ’im, bless ’im. So where’s ’ome, m’dear?” Her neighbor wriggled comfortably into her seat and seemed settled for a cozy chat.

Greville had climbed in last and accepted perforce one of the middle seats. He leaned back, arms folded, and immediately closed his eyes. To Aurelia’s astonishment he seemed to be sound asleep before the carriage had clattered and rattled through the archway onto the street.

He stayed asleep, unmoving, breathing silently and rhythmically while the coach left the town streets.

“Eh, I can’t stand the racket. Can you, dearie?” Aurelia’s neighbor inquired comfortably as the noise of the streets faded and they began the climb to Hampstead Heath. “Give me the peace o’ the countryside, eh?”

“Aye,” Aurelia agreed, both weary and wary. “All that racket gives me the headache.”

“Me too, dearie.” The woman patted Aurelia’s knee. “So what took ye t’ the city, then?”

“My sister.” Aurelia produced the required story, and as she did so, she became aware that Greville was wide-awake, although his eyes remained closed. Yet she would have sworn he’d been sound asleep until she’d begun to spin her narrative. Presumably he could hear in his sleep. He could probably see behind closed eyelids, too, she reflected somewhat sardonically. She wouldn’t put anything past him.

The long day wore on. They crossed Hampstead Heath with much anxious mutterings about highwaymen, the parakeet kept up an endless succession of whistles, Greville kept his eyes closed, and sometimes Aurelia was certain he was sound asleep, and at others he would be wide-awake…if the movement of the coach changed, if the speed altered. She began to play a game. Every once in a while she would say something that went a little adrift from the script, just a small comment that no one would really notice, but every time, Greville awoke. She could see it in the slight stiffening of his shoulders, a tiny flutter of his eyelids, even though his breathing didn’t change.

Fascinating…but also enviable, because he was most definitely sleeping the rest of the time, even if he was sleeping like a cat with a secondary sense to alert him to danger. And Aurelia could not imagine sleeping in the miserable discomfort of this crowded, jouncing vehicle, with a whistling parakeet, and a fellow passenger eating pickled onions, and her neighbor who
produced a smoked-eel pie that she generously offered to share.

Faintly Aurelia refused the generosity and closed her own eyes. Sleep was not forthcoming, but eventually the coach drove through a village and turned into a coaching yard. It was midafternoon. Ostlers raced forward to change the horses.

“This is Barnet…this is Barnet…,” the coachman intoned. “’Alf an ’our, ladies an’ gennelmen. Get yer victuals ’ere. Next stop Watford.”

Greville uncurled himself and staggered as stiffly as his fellow passengers out of the coach. Except that Aurelia, as she accepted his hand to the cobbles, could see that he was not in the least bit cramped and was enviably rested. She resisted the urge to wince as her own cramped muscles objected.

“What now?” The spirit of adventure was lacking in her voice.

“The worst is over.”

“You relieve my mind.”

“Come.” He picked up her cloakbag, took her arm, and led her towards the inn.

The establishment was as crowded as the one in Cheapside had been, and their fellow passengers surged into the taproom calling for ale and food. “Are we staying here?” Aurelia asked, trying not to show how the prospect dismayed her.

“No,” Greville replied, relieving her mind. “Just long
enough for me to find a pony and trap somewhere. Sit down here.” He propelled her towards a spindly chair in a dark corner of the taproom and set the cloakbag down on the floor. “I’ll order some refreshment.”

“I’d rather stand,” Aurelia said. “I’ve been sitting cramped for an eternity, I need to stretch my legs.”

“As you wish.” He turned and plunged into the gabbling throng. He held himself more upright now, Aurelia noticed. Presumably he felt fairly safe from recognition in an ordinary coaching inn so far from town.

She rolled her shoulders to get the cricks out and paced the floor for a few minutes until Greville came back with two overflowing tankards. “Porter,” he declared, setting them down on the table by the chair. “Do you a world of good.”

Aurelia surveyed the dark brown contents of the tankard with disfavor. She associated the drink with laborers and farmhands, which was, of course, entirely appropriate to her present guise. She lifted the tankard and took a cautious sip. It was bitter and tasted of burned malt.

“It’s an acquired taste,” Greville said, watching her with amusement as he drank his own with evident enthusiasm.

“I’m not sure I wish to acquire it.” She set the tankard down. “Besides, I have other, more pressing needs.” She turned and went reluctantly in search of what would inevitably be another noxious privy.

When she returned through the stable yard, Greville,
holding her cloakbag, was talking to an ostler. He raised a beckoning hand when he saw her and turned away from the stable hand as she came over to him. “The landlord has a gig for hire, so if you’re ready, we’ll be on our way.”

“More than ready. How far must we go?”

“Five miles…an hour, perhaps.” He looked over to where the ostler was emerging from one of the outbuildings, leading an emaciated nag. “On second thoughts, maybe two, if he’s intending to put that beast between the traces.”

It seemed that he was. In ten minutes Aurelia was ensconced on the seat of the landlord’s gig, Greville beside her, holding the nag’s reins. He clicked his tongue and the horse moved forward, pulling the light, two-wheeled carriage onto the post road.

A stage coach was bowling down the road towards the inn, and Greville yanked the gig to the side of the road just in time as the heavy vehicle clattered past, the postilion blowing his horn.

“The sooner we get off the highway the better,” Greville muttered. “I’m fairly certain we turn left at the crossroads up ahead.”

“How do you know where we’re going? I thought you’d been out of England for years.”

“So I have. But I still know the countryside.”

“And you know people around here?” Aurelia pressed.

“That would seem the obvious conclusion.”

“Yes, it would,” she agreed with a snap. “But since you claimed to have been in the country only a few days
when you descended on my doorstep, after an absence of quite a few years, I wonder how you’ve managed to arrange for this country sojourn…or whatever you wish to call it.”

He glanced sideways at her with an amused smile. “You’re fatigued,” he said as if soothing a fractious child. “It’s hardly surprising after such a day.”

“No, it’s not,” she returned, exasperated. Annoyance took the edge off both fatigue and unease, she discovered. “But my question is not unwarranted.”

“True enough. It’s been four days since I last saw you, and much can be accomplished in four days, as I’m sure you understand.”

She left it at that and drew the horse blanket, which true to its name smelled strongly of horse, up over her knees, trying to make herself comfortable on the narrow bench perched over the iron wheels.

“We’re going to a farm in a little village called Monken Hadley,” he told her, turning the nag to the left at the crossroads.

“And what are we going to be doing there?”

“I’m going to teach you some of the basic skills of my trade. Communication in particular.”

“Why couldn’t we do that in London?”

“Because we will have to spend a lot of time together, and I rather imagine that would draw unwelcome attention in town…a widow living alone in the constant company of a bachelor colonel?” He raised an inter
rogative eyebrow, and she had to concede the point.

“Are there people living on this farm?”

“Certainly…very
discreet
people,” he said cheerfully. “They were tenant farmers on my father’s estates until they came into a small windfall and were able to buy their own farm.”

Aurelia said nothing to this, interesting though she found it. Surely someone who’d known him as a child would have some enlightening insights to offer if gently prodded. She was quite good at gaining people’s confidence and there was a great deal she’d like to know about Colonel, Sir Greville Falconer.

They went the rest of the way without further conversation. Greville seemed content whistling softly between his teeth as he guided the nag down the narrow country lanes. Aurelia huddled into the horse blanket and watched the countryside go by. She didn’t know the county of Essex at all and was struck by how flat it seemed after the hills and forest of her native Hampshire. She was used to the salt tang of the sea as well when in the countryside, but here there was only the loamy smell of the turned fields on either side of the lane. Flocks of starlings chattered, rooks circled cawing in the treetops preparing to nest as afternoon yielded to the early dusk.

They drove through several tiny hamlets where lamplight began to show in cottage windows. A herd of cows being driven for the evening milking blocked the narrow lane at one point, and Greville drew back on the reins
and brought the nag to a halt. He seemed untroubled by the delay, which surprised Aurelia. She would have expected this man of action to be impatient about moving on to the next stage of his plan.

“Hungry?” The question, breaking their strangely companionable silence, startled her.

She considered the matter. “As it happens, I’m ravenous. We haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.”

“No. But if you look under the seat, there should be a basket. I asked the innkeeper to provide something in case we were delayed on the road.”

A man of action who thought ahead. Aurelia reached under the bench and drew forth a small hamper. She put it on her lap and opened it. “Pork pies,” she pronounced with satisfaction. “And apples.”

“Will it do, d’you think?” He glanced at her with that same smile, and again she felt a little frisson of excitement that could have nothing at all to do with sitting on the bench of a gig at a standstill in a country lane behind a sea of ambling cows.

For answer, she handed him one of the pies and took a hearty bite of the other. “Yes,” she pronounced. “It will do very well indeed.”

“It’ll hold off starvation until we get to Hadley. Mary will have supper ready and waiting, but I expect you’ll want to wash off the dust first.”

“Are you always this considerate of your partner’s needs?” she inquired through another mouthful of pie.

He shrugged. “When I can be…although it’s not
always necessary.” That flashing smile again. “I don’t often have female partners.”

“So this consideration is because of my sex?”

“Why not?”

“Why not indeed. I’m not too proud to appreciate it.”

“Good.”

Aurelia lapsed into silence, eating her pie and apple, letting her body flow with the rhythm of the gig on the uneven lane, falling into a kind of trance that was not quite sleep, but refreshing nevertheless.

“Here we are at last.” Greville gestured with his whip to a cluster of lights up ahead. “Journey’s end.”

Or rather, journey’s beginning,
Aurelia reflected. She had no idea what the next few days would hold, but for the moment her uncertainty held no fear. Something about Greville Falconer gave her confidence, a sense of security, and a sense of rightness in what she had agreed to do.

As Greville drew rein in a small yard behind a thatched-roof farmhouse, a young boy bounded out of the house, a path of light from the open door streaming ahead of him.

“I’ll take yer ’orse, sir,” he cried eagerly, running up to seize the harness.

“Thank you, lad.” Greville tossed the reins onto the nag’s back and jumped down. He reached up a hand to help Aurelia alight.

She stepped down rather stiffly onto the cobbled yard, murmuring, “I am so weary of traveling.” Pre
sumably a real spy would never complain about such a mundane hardship, but she didn’t really care at present. She was cold, stiff, and hungry despite the pork pie.

“Ah, there you are, Sir Greville…madam, you must be perished with the cold. Come you in now by the fire.” A stout woman in a flowered apron hurried out of the open door and across the yard. She bobbed a curtsy and blushed fiery red when Greville took her hand and kissed her weather-roughened cheek.

“No need for ceremony, Mary,” he said warmly. “Aurelia, this is Mistress Mary Masham, who has known me almost from the cradle…. Mary, this is Lady Farnham.”

Aurelia came forward, hand outstretched. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mistress Masham. I own it’s been a long and tedious day.”

“Aye, I can believe it, ma’am. Come in now and we’ll soon have you comfortable again.” Mistress Masham bustled ahead of them into a large, stone-flagged kitchen dominated by a long deal table and a massive range from whence came the most enticing aromas.

A man, as stout as Mistress Masham, sat at the deal table, a tankard in front of him. He was whittling a piece of wood, his large, rather stubby hands wielding a small knife with incongruous delicacy. He looked up as the newcomers came into the kitchen and nodded a silent greeting before returning his attention to his task.

“That’s my man, Bert,” Mistress Masham declared. “He don’t say much, but he’s a good man.”

Bert made no response to this encomium, and Aurelia wasn’t sure how to respond herself. She glanced at Greville, who said simply, “Evening, Bert.”

“Evenin’, sir.” Bert didn’t look up from his whittling.

And that seemed to be that. Aurelia wondered absently what the woman must think of her visitors’ strange garb, but Mary didn’t appear to have noticed anything out of the ordinary. She was ladling the fragrant contents of a saucepan into a pewter bowl.

“There now, a goodly drop o’ posset will do ye the power of good.”

Aurelia cast off the old cloak with a sigh of relief and took the warm porringer that the woman handed her.

“Thank you, Mistress Masham.” Gratefully Aurelia buried her nose in the steamy fragrance of the warm spiced wine.

“Eh,
Mary
’s good enough for me,” the woman said comfortably. “There’s not many folks around ’ere that calls me anythin’ else…. Now, Master Greville, will ye take the posset, or would you rather a pot of Bert’s strong ale?”