Read Online A Husband's Wicked Ways by Jane Feather - Free Book Online

child. So how had he been able in good conscience to sacrifice not just himself but his wife, leaving her to a life of widowhood, at first a pretense and now a reality?
    She was not happy in her widowhood. In motherhood, yes, but there was a barrenness to her present existence. Maybe she was selfish to complain, maybe she should be satisfied with motherhood, but Aurelia found it difficult to accept that that was all there was to her life from now on. In her heart of hearts she knew that she envied her friends who had found love. A second chancefor Nell. She would welcome her own second chance, there was no point pretending otherwise.
    Once again she was flooded by that strange pulse of energy, the feeling that was a combination of excitement and fear. She had no idea what prompted it, but she could feel her cheeks flush, a slight mist of perspiration on her brow, and her heart was fluttering as frantically as a wild bird in a cage. Was it the appeal of a double life, the thrill of excitement, as well as the obligations of patriotism, that had sent Frederick on the path he had taken?
    The dainty ormolu clock on her mantel chimed the hour, and Aurelia realized that she’d been sitting motionless for more than half an hour. Her moment of near panic had vanished as quickly as it had come. She looked down at the letter on her lap. She would never know for certain what had driven Frederick. He had told her all he could or would, and now he was gone.
    She folded the letter again and replaced it in her jewel casket, then flung open the armoire in search of a gown suitable for a luncheon where the conversation would be less frivolous than usual. Cecily Langton’s husband was a bishop, a somewhat worldly bishop let it be said, but he encouraged his wife to espouse good causes, and she threw herself into the business with a happy heart. She was renowned for her refusal to take no for an answer when she was dragooning her society friends into parting with their money, time, and energy. Cornelia, Livia, and Aurelia had always enjoyed Cecily’s deft manipulations of the reluctant givers, a category in which they could not themselves be counted.
    Aurelia picked out a gown of dove gray silk with a brown velvet pelisse trimmed with gray fur. Suitably sober, she decided, but undeniably elegant. The costume had been through various transformations, and she was fairly certain only her closest friends would recognize it in its present manifestation. The pelisse was now belted beneath the bosom with a brown silk cord instead of the tasseled gray that had previously adorned it. The fur trimming replaced a dark gray taffeta, and the gray silk gown now had darker gray flounces and little puff sleeves instead of the elbow length of before.
    She rang the bell for Hester, who had added lady’s maid to her general laundress and seamstress duties, and took off the simple cambric gown she’d worn to Mount Street.
    “Good morning, m’lady.” Hester, slightly breathless from running up the stairs from the basement, appeared in the doorway. “Should I press the gown, ma’am?”
    “I don’t think it needs it, Hester. But I’d like you to help with my hair. You’re a wonder with that curling iron.”
    “Oh, thank you, ma’am. I does me best.” Hester flushed with pleasure at the compliment. She helped Aurelia into the gown, then took the curling iron to the fire to warm it while Aurelia unpinned her hair, letting the corn-silk locks tumble free. Ringlets required a lot of attention to maintain, and her coiffure now was beginning to lose its curl.
    She had very straight hair and unfortunately curly hair was the fashion, so she must submit several times a day to the hot iron in Hester’s skillful hands. She’d always envied Livia her mass of dusky curls that could effortlessly be teased into any number of styles.
    The smell of singeing hair made her wrinkle her nose, but Hester seemed oblivious, twisting, twining, pulling at the corkscrews she