A Husband's Wicked Ways Read Online Free PDF

dissemble and act any part he deemed necessary in the interests of his work and survival, but those skills had no place in this particular situation. Honesty…a direct appeal to her inner nature, hidden to herself as well as to others. An appeal reinforced by her husband’s example, and the example of other aristocratic women who variously put their diplomatic and social skills, their houses even, at the service of their country. It was by no means an outlandish suggestion. And it might work.
     

    Aurelia sat by the fire in her bedchamber, the open letter lying on her lap. Her eyes gazed unseeing into the flickering flames in the hearth. The house was quiet around her, Morecombe and his wife and sister-in-law retired to their own apartments, the rest of the household gone to their beds. Franny was asleep in the night nursery, Daisy in her own little chamber next door, the adjoining door left ajar in case the child awoke in the night.
    Aurelia picked up the letter again. She had read it three times already, and while she began to think she knew it almost by heart, she still couldn’t make senseof it. Oh, the words were easy enough to understand, but not the man who had written them. That Frederick Farnham was not the man whom she had married, the man whose child she had borne. She remembered how overjoyed he’d been at Franny’s birth, how he’d paced the corridor outside the chamber while his wife had labored throughout that eternal night. She saw again how he’d held his baby, his eyes wet with tears as he’d gazed down at the bundle in his arms with such awe and wonder. Surely that man could not have given it all up, cast his wife and child aside, without a second thought.
    My dearest Ellie,

    If you’re reading this, it will mean that I am dead. I wrote this letter many months ago, ever since it became clear to me that my chances of survival are remote, to say the least. It’s hard for me to explain how I come to be doing what I’m doing. Even harder to say how sorry I am for the hurt I know I have caused you. Believe me, love, I ache with the knowledge of your pain, but I can do nothing to lessen it. I know you will be angry, too, and in that I can find some comfort. Your anger is easier to bear than your hurt. Please try to understand. Try to understand the patriotic imperatives that drive a man to fight for his country. Bonaparte must be stopped before he colonizes the entire Continent. And rest assured he won’t be satisfied with that. He has already set his sights on India and the traderoutes, and it seems now that only England can stand firm against him amidst the shifting alliances. As long as he cannot invade our island, we can fight him and defeat him.
    Soon after I left with Stephen to join Admiral Nelson’s fleet off the coast of France, I met Colonel, Sir Greville Falconer. He joined our frigate just off Gibraltar. That meeting changed my life. Greville has become my closest friend and colleague. He is, to put it plainly, a master spy and he recruited me. I can only say that I was looking for something, I knew not what, until he offered it to me. I wanted to get away from the stifling hierarchy, the rigidity of the navy. I wanted to fight battles with my wits. I wanted to dig in the dirt, defeat the enemy in his own trenches, not look for glory. My dearest love, I don’t know how else to explain why I was so drawn to the work Greville offered me. I was drawn to him, certainly, and if you meet him, you will understand why. I hope that he will survive whatever event has caused my death, the event that means you are now reading this letter. I know that if he has, he will seek you out, as he promised me he would. He is the only one I trust to carry my secret to you. A secret, my love, that you must keep for me. You can tell no one of this letter, of this knowledge that you now have. Greville Falconer’s true identity is known only to a handful of people, and if it became common knowledge, it would