A Husband's Wicked Ways (37 page)

Harry stepped forward. “Quite a haul for the ministry,” he observed conversationally. “Come, my friend, we will utilize your carriage, since riding is probably beyond both you and your assistant.” He twisted Don Antonio’s wrists behind him, ignoring the man’s shriek as the shredded muscle caused him to scream in pain.

Harry glanced back at Greville with a quizzically raised eyebrow. “I assume you and Aurelia can manage?”

“You may make such an assumption,” Greville said, drawing her against him. “One horse will be sufficient. Tie yours to the back of the carriage.”

Harry nodded and pushed his prisoner ahead of him back to the abandoned stable yard.

Greville held Aurelia tightly for a very long time as the sun began to rise. He needed the supple feel of her body, the warmth of her skin, the wonderful, familiar
scent of her. He could feel in his own body her bone-deep fatigue as her body yielded to the relief from the dreadful strain of the last hours. When at last he kissed her, it was part benediction, part gratitude, but mostly just the glorious knowledge that he held in his arms his partner, his love, the woman who completed him in every aspect of his existence.

Aurelia rested in his embrace, too tired to be anything but the recipient of his kiss. But she understood and accepted everything it meant. When he raised his head and looked into her exhausted but still steady gaze and said, “I love you, my own,” she raised a hand and traced the curve of his mouth and said, “I know, my own.”

He lifted her then onto his horse and swung up behind her. She leaned back against him, letting her head fall against his shoulder, confident that if she fell asleep, he would hold her.

“I cannot leave you,” he said, his breath whispering across her forehead. “I had thought that I could, but I cannot. You have taught me what it means to love, and what terror there is in the prospect of loss. You are all and everything to me, my love. And I will not lose you.”

She raised her hand and stroked his face. “If that’s a proper proposal, Colonel,” she murmured sleepily, “then I accept.”

He drew her tightly against him, filled with so much happiness he didn’t think he could endure it. “Another elopement seems in order,” he murmured.

Aurelia wriggled up a little on the saddle and turned her
head against his shoulder. “Have you enough resilience for one more piece of information tonight, my love?”

His dark eyes were clearly visible in the early-morning light. The black shadows deeply etched beneath them merely accentuated the sharpened expression. “After what you did tonight, sweetheart, nothing you could do or say would surprise me.”

“Well, in about seven months from now you’ll be a proud papa.” She smiled at him. She thought she knew how he would respond now, but still she had just a flicker of fear that it wouldn’t be right.

Greville drew rein, bringing his horse to a stop beside the road, ignoring the blast of a coach horn as the early-morning vehicle thundered past. “Oh, my love, I do so hope I will be good at it,” he said, his eyes misted. “I promise you, I will do everything in my power to be the best father to Franny and to our child. And I will listen to you when I make mistakes. And I
will
make mistakes.”

“We all do,” Aurelia said, wiping his incipient tears with her fingertip. “Just as long as it pleases you.”

“Oh, yes,” he murmured. “It pleases me.”

J
ANUARY
1, 1810

T
HE SONOROUS CHIMES OF
the long case clock faded away, and the small group seated around the table in the dining room of the house on Cavendish Square rose as one to embrace each other at the start of a new year.

Cornelia touched her glass to her husband’s, and he kissed the corner of her mouth. “That won’t do,” she whispered, circling an arm around his neck, kissing him full on the mouth.

“No,” he answered as softly. “No, it certainly won’t. I love you, Nell.”

“And I you.” She parted her lips for the kiss she had demanded.

Alex linked the arm that held his glass around Livia’s elbow, drawing her up tight towards him, their glasses touching.

“To the New Year, my dearest love,” he murmured, drinking from his glass as she drank from hers. He tossed his glass behind him in a gesture that Livia had by now
learned was a purely Russian flamboyant manifestation of celebration, although expensive when it involved fine crystal, not that Alex gave such considerations any thought. With a careless shrug she sent her own glass to the same fate and raised her face for his kiss, tasting the champagne on his lips.

“I love you, my prince.”

Greville held Aurelia close against him, reveling in her small-boned delicacy, the orange-water fragrance of her hair. He took her face in his hands, gazing down into the velvet depths of her eyes, and wondered if he would ever grow accustomed to the wondrous love he saw there, and to the depths of his love for her that seemed to grow by the moment, filling him with a happiness he would never have believed possible.

“Our New Year,” he murmured, kissing her eyelids. “I have no words for how much I love you, Aurelia.”

“We don’t need them,” she responded, kissing his mouth. “It’s not always necessary to state the obvious.”

He laughed softly as he kissed her. “You are adorable, my pragmatic wife.”

There was a hush in the room for a few moments, and then by unspoken mutual consent the couples drew apart and turned outwards to their friends. The women embraced, half laughing, half weeping at the sheer pleasure of friendship; their menfolk, rather more restrained, shook hands, but there was no denying the warmth of their connection.

“This has to become an annual tradition,” Livia an
nounced. “We spend Christmas and New Year in Cavendish Square together with all our children. It is, after all, the place where we all found our lives and our loves.”

“You’re such a romantic, Liv,” Cornelia said with a chuckle, hugging her.

“It may be a romantic notion,” Aurelia said, “but it’s the truth nevertheless.” She touched her bosom lightly. “But on a totally unromantic note, something is telling me that Zoe needs feeding.”

“I’m sure the Honorable William Bonham is getting that way, too,” Cornelia said. “Shall we go up to the nursery, ladies, and leave the gentlemen to their port? Romance must wait upon hungry infants.” She grinned at Harry, who inclined his head in acknowledgment.

“I know my place in the scheme of things,” he said lightly. “But I
will
be waiting for you.”

“Not too long,” Cornelia promised.

“I’ll bring Zoe down when I’ve fed her,” Aurelia said to her husband. “So you can say good night.”

Greville nodded, and his smile was so deliciously smug that Aurelia could barely conceal her amusement. Who would have thought that Colonel, Sir Greville Falconer would be such a besotted father. He could spend hours simply holding his daughter, gazing into her sleeping countenance. An enchanting rosebud of a countenance, Aurelia had to admit, but such patient, almost obsessive devotion to a basically unresponsive bundle of shawls was an aspect of her husband’s character that she would not have expected.

Franny benefited, too, though. While Greville had always been patient with the child, he had never, in the early days of their partnership, tried to get to know her properly or to involve himself in her activities. Not so now. He was as interested in the intricacies of his stepdaughter’s daily life as he was in his own. And Franny was repaying the interest with growing affection.

All in all, Aurelia thought as she followed her friends from the dining room, life was sweet.

The door closed behind the three women, and Alex lifted the port decanter and filled his companions’ glasses. They sat down again, gathered at the head of the table, and sipped in a reflective silence for a few moments.

“Remarkable, aren’t they?” Greville said, gazing into the contents of his glass.

“Quite extraordinary,” Harry agreed. “They’ve taken three, let’s face it, very difficult men with an obsessional passion for the dirty work in the underworld and turned us into devoted patresfamilias, who are somehow learning how to accommodate two priorities.”

“Simon Grant is learning how to accommodate all our priorities,” Alex said.

“Are you happy working for the ministry?” Harry asked. “You haven’t mentioned it since you approached Simon.”

Alex nodded. “I see no conflict at the moment. It depends on the czar, but there’s credible information that
he’s pulling away from the alliance with Napoléon.” He raised his glass and drank deeply.

Alex reached for the decanter and recharged their glasses. He stood up, raising his eyes briefly to the risqué fresco on the ceiling above the table, then declared, “A toast, gentlemen. I give you the ladies of Cavendish Square.”
All of them,
he added to himself.

His companions rose with him. “The ladies of Cavendish Square.”