Velvet

Chapter 12

Jake was in seventh heaven at this unexpected holiday. He chattered throughout the short drive, too excited to take much notice of what they passed on the way, demanding to know what shops they would go to and what Gabrielle wanted to buy, and whether they could buy an ice from the tea shop on the quay. Primmy had once bought him an ice there a long time ago when he'd had to go to the dentist and he'd been very brave. The afternoon stretched magically ahead for the child, an uncharted landscape with no limits.

Gabrielle listened attentively to the boy's seemingly irrelevant prattle as they drove along the country lanes between hedgerows bright with holly berries. It was almost as if someone had taken the lid off a bubbling well, she thought. Jake talked as if he could talk forever. Was he not used to an audience? she wondered as he embarked on a convoluted description of some fantasy game he liked to play. It was an elaborate and imaginative scenario, the details lovingly and carefully described to his attentive listener. This was clearly a child who lived in his head, she concluded, as the rich inner landscape took shape for her. And Nathaniel presumably had no idea.

What kind of child had he been? As lonely as Jake, certainly, but tougher, she suspected. The son of the daunting-looking sixth Lady Praed, rather than the sweetfaced, gentle-natured Helen, seventh Lady Praed.

As she thought these thoughts and lent an attentive ear to the child's chatter, the seventh Lord Praed was conducting a systematic search of her possessions.

Nathaniel had conducted many such searches in his career, more often than not unuer conditions of secrecy and the threat of imminent exposure. That afternoon he was in his own house, secure in the knowledge that Gabrielle was well out of the way and that no one would either question his presence in this room or interrupt him.

It gave him the leisure to proceed with excessive thoroughness. Coldly, he blocked out all thought of the personality behind the possessions as he examined the gowns in the wardrobe, checking seams and hems. She had an enormous number of shoes, he registered distantly as he examined the soles of each one, testing for the hollow sound that would indicate a cavity in the heel.

He went through the lacy undergarments in the drawers of the armoire, looking for concealed pockets, loose seams. He had the advantage of Gabrielle in that he knew the room itself contained no secret hiding places. If she did have anything compromising, it would be in her possessions, unless she'd made her own hiding place in the furniture or draperies.

He went through her jewel case, raising his eyebrows slightly at the priceless gems, realizing that so far he'd seen Gabrielle wear barely half of the treasure of the Hawksworths.

He went through the contents of the secretaire, running his eye over the letter from Talleyrand that she'd read at breakfast. She'd left nothing out in her reading. There was no other correspondence, no journal even.

He stripped the bed and examined the mattress. There were no suspicious cuts or lumps. He ran his hands along the curtains at the windows and around the bed. He looked under the carpets, turned the chairs upside down, and lifted the cushions.

There was nothing to be found. He wondered if he'd expected to find anything. And only then did he realize how relieved he was.

He stretched in the shaft of weak sunlight falling from the window and ran his fingers through the silver swatches at his temples. Then his eye fell on the books on the floor beside the window seat. For some reason, he'd missed them.

He bent to pick them up. There was a copy of Delphine by Madame de Stael and a copy of Voltaire's Lettres philosophiques. He opened the latter, shaking out the pages. Nothing fluttered loose. He did the same for Delphine with the same results. Idly, he picked up the Voltaire again. It had been a long time since he'd read this critique of prerevolutionary French institutions. The inflammatory book had sent the author into exile and was generally considered an incitement to the revolution that had followed its publication.

He flipped through the pages, his eye running over the text. Suddenly he went cold, the hairs on his forearms rising.

He stared down at a long paragraph where certain letters were marked faintly with lead pencil. There were numerical annotations in the margin.

With a heart of stone he took the book into his own room next door and copied out the passage, including the annotations. He would master the code at his leisure. Then he replaced the book and checked the room to make sure that everything was as he'd found it. The bed looked a little less neat than it had, but no one would notice. He smoothed the coverlet and then went down to the library to await the return of Gabrielle and his son.

He'd used such codes himself many times, he reflected distantly as he poured himself a glass of cognac. Books were the ideal medium. They were such a natural component of one's personal possessions, easy to carry around, and only those fluent in the language of spies would notice on a casual glance anything remarkable about faint markings on the text.

Fluent in thelanguage of spies.. Dear God in heaven! Of all the treacherous, duplicitous whores- peddling the glorious wares of her body while she betrayed…

He hurled the glass into the fireplace. The delicate crystal shattered and the fire spurted blue flame as drops of brandy splattered on the logs.

How close he'd been to believing her! A hairbreadth away from entrusting her with the most sensitive political intelligence and the lives of half a dozen agents in France. A hairbreadth away from entrusting her with his own soul…

What a fool! How could he have been such a fool? With her laughter and her challenges and exuberance… with the glorious wildness of her passion and her deeply erotic sensuality… she'd wormed her way under his skin, nibbling away at his defenses like some internal parasite, destroying the protective shield he'd erected since Helen's death.

She'd entranced him and captivated his son in order to betray him.

Icy sweat broke out on his brow as a wave of revulsion swept through him. Jake-she’d used the child, Helen's child, to weave her damnable spells around her quarry, to learn his secrets, to exploit his weaknesses. And he'd let it happen.

And her friends. He saw her laughing with Simon and Georgie, singing that silly song, joined in the deepest intimacies of a shared past. A shared past to be exploited, without conscience and without loyalty. She had duped Simon as neatly as she'd almost duped himself.

He stared into the fire and in the wreathing flames he could see Gabrielle's body contorted with joy, her hair flowing on the white pillow, her limbs twisting around his, drawing him ever closer to her center, to be engulfed in the glorious conflagration of their fusion.

With a violent oath he swung away from the fire and its mesmerizing images. He strode out of the library and left the house, almost running down to the river, heedless of the sharp edge to the wind gusting off the water, ruffling the feathers of the mallards as they clustered among the reeds on the far bank. A flock of geese rose from the water at his approach, and the vigorous flapping of their wings and their mournful cry of warning echoed his bleak fury.

As he strode along the bank he fought to defeat the images, to banish emotion, to rediscover the cold pragmatism of the spymaster. He'd unmasked a double agent. Gabrielle de Beaucaire was a French spy as intent on betraying Nathaniel Praed's country as he was on betraying hers. He must see just that simple fact. There was only one issue: What was he to do with her?

He could hand her over to the people who knew how to extract information. They would wring every last scrap of knowledge from her and then they would hang her. Spying was unprotected by the civilized laws governing the treatment of prisoners of war. Gabrielle knew that. She knew what she risked in this venture.

Or… or he could use her as she had tried to use him.

There would be little personal satisfaction in condemning her to the dungeons and instruments of the interrogators and the hangman's rope. It would relieve none of his own wounds and would do nothing to salvage his shattered pride. But to turn the tables… to outwit Talleyrand and Fouche with their own tool! Now, that was a plan that carried the deepest satisfaction. He would spin his own web. Gabrielle would carry false information to her masters in Paris, and that information would entrap the French network.

The evening mist rolled in over the river and Nathaniel paused under a willow tree. He bent to pick up a smooth round stone and sent it skimming over the wind-ruffled water. His features were etched in granite, his eyes hard and flat as he stared sightlessly across to the mud-furrowed fields along the opposite bank. Somehow, he would have to behave with Gabrielle as if nothing had changed. In fact, he must deepen their intimacy, allow her to feel that he had relaxed completely with her. When he told her he had changed his mind and was prepared to bring her into the service, she must believe her seduction had succeeded.

As it so nearly had. By God, she'd made a fool of him with her charcoal eyes and the rich curves of her body and the uninhibited glories of her sexuality.

Enough! He spoke the word aloud, a fierce and desperate attempt to halt the swiftly spiraling fury and self-disgust that threatened to engulf him again.

Slowly, cold pragmatism overcame futile passion. He shivered under the blast of bitter wind racing across the tidal marshes from the sea. It seemed to penetrate his skin, lodging deep in the marrow of his bones, an icy shaft stabbing his heart.

It was time to go back, to face what had to be faced. He returned to the house, arriving just as the curricle drew up before the house. He stood in the hall and waited for them to enter.

His son's eyes were shining and he had a smear of something sticky around his mouth. He was talking to Bartram, who'd opened the door for them, and instantly included the hovering Mrs. Bailey in a convoluted account of his excursion. His eyes darted toward his father, and he offered a timid smile as if to include him in the telling.

"I had two pink ices and Gabby bought some new gloves, and there were these puppies in a basket that some little girl was trying to sell, an' some men got into a fight on the quay an' Gabby said we'd better keep out of the way because they were rough sailors…"

Gabrielle was smiling down at him as she drew off her gloves. She cast a glance toward Nathaniel, her eyes warm as she invited him to share in Jake's delight.

She was using his son. Bitter bile filled his mouth and his fingers flexed. He could feel the slender column of her throat between his hands, the pulse beating in frantic fear as his fingers tightened… squeezed…

Again he fought the crimson tide of passion until his head was a cold, clear space.

"That'll do, Jake," he said curtly. "It's almost your suppertime. It's to be hoped you can eat something after stuffing yourself with ices all afternoon. Go up to the schoolroom."

Jake's face fell and the bubbling words died on his lips, the light faded from his eyes. Without another word he ran to the stairs and scampered up them.

Gabrielle frowned slightly and Mrs. Bailey with a murmur of excuse returned to the kitchen.

"That was a little harsh, wasn't it?" Gabrielle said quietly, going ahead of Nathaniel into the library. "He wasn't doing any harm."

"You kept him out far too late, and I certainly don't want him witnessing sailors' brawls on the quay. I'd have thought you'd have had more sense."

"I'm sorry," she said simply. The Nathaniel of the breakfast table raillery seemed to have disappeared. She couldn't imagine throwing a roll at the man who stood before her now, but then, she was becoming accustomed to his changes of mood. It was hard for little Jake, though. One minute his father unbent toward him and the next reverted to his old manner. However, she knew enough about Nathaniel now to realize that she'd achieve nothing by pursuing the issue at this point.

"I'll go and dress for dinner."

Nathaniel pulled himself up sharply. He offered a conciliatory smile. "Sorry, I didn't mean to snap. I was a little worried because you were out so long. Would you like a glass of sherry before you go upstairs?"

"Thank you." Gabrielle took the glass with a smile that she felt could have been more animated. Nathaniel's greeting had certainly doused the pleasantness of her afternoon with Jake, and there was a strange atmosphere in the house. Rather empty and bleak, but that was probably because Georgie's vibrant presence had departed.

The anticlimax of their visitors' departure seemed the only logical explanation for the slight constraint throughout the evening. Gabrielle tried to shake off the tendrils of depression that clung to them both, but Nathaniel was abstracted and failed to respond to her various sallies.

"Is something troubling you?" she asked as they got up from the dinner table.

"I have a problem with one of my agents in Toulouse," he said. "It's distracting me, I'm afraid."

"Oh," she said casually. "Not a problem you'd care to share, I presume."

"No," he said. "At least not at:he moment."

Gabrielle raised an eyebrow at this. Could she be making headway at last? She'd originally given herself two weeks to persuade him to change his mind, but was beginning to accept that the way things were going, she was going to need more time before the English spymaster threw in the towel and accepted her in his network.

"Well, I'll leave you to your cogitations," she said. "I should reply to my godfather's letter." She turned to the stairs and then paused, one hand on the newel post. "Anything you'd like me to tell him?"

Treacherous whore! "Not at the moment," he repeated, smiling. "I'll frank the letter for you when it's written." And read it too, with the aid of the code, once I've broken it.

Gabrielle composed her response to Talleyrand with great care. Hidden within the chatty, innocuous text was a brief factual account of her activities so far; what she had learned from the spymaster's diary; and her belief that if she persevered, he would eventually accept her in the network.

She sanded the paper, folded it, and sealed the envelope with a wafer before taking it downstairs and leaving it on the hall table for Nathaniel to frank before the carrier collected the mail.

Five minutes after she'd returned upstairs, Nathaniel came out of the library, picked up the envelope, and dropped it in his pocket. He would decipher its real message in the privacy of his bedchamber later.

Gabrielle stood for a minute in her boudoir, looking out the uncurtained window into the night. Rain lashed against the panes, dreary English rain that crept into one's bones. She drew the curtains tightly, then threw another log on the fire. Hugging her breasts with her crossed arms, she stared into the fire. For the first time in this crusade of vengeance, serpents of doubt raised their heads and hissed softly in her mind and in her heart.

If Nathaniel had not been responsible for Guillaume's murder, would she still be willing to betray him? She'd been involved in French intelligence for five years. But a courier's work hadn't involved direct contact and her adversaries had been nameless and faceless. This was very different.

She closed her eyes, seeing Guillaume's face in the red glow behind her eyelids. She could hear his voice, quiet and level, telling her that the end justified the means. That in the land of shadows where they worked, ordinary ethical considerations didn't apply. Nathaniel Praed didn't operate by those considerations, and one must meet fire with fire. She was carrying on Guillaume's work because her loyalties lay first and foremost with his memory.

When she returned to France at Talleyrand's bidding six years earlier, she'd left England and the DeVanes with deep reluctance, but her godfather had insisted that her father would have wanted her to take her place in French society, reconstituted after the chaos of revolution. England and France had just signed the Peace of Amiens, but the peace had not lasted long and soon Gabrielle had found herself with an emotional foot in both camps. Then she'd met Guillaume, and had buried her English loyalties deep, even the abiding friendship and gratitude she owed the DeVanes.

When Nathaniel joined her in bed that night, she welcomed him with a fierce eagerness for their fusion, desperate to blind herself to all but the physical contact, the explosive satisfaction of the lust that nothing could blunt between them.

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Nathaniel awoke first the next morning. He lay in the dim light of dawn, preparing himself for what he was about to do. He turned his head toward the dark one on the pillow beside him. Paper-thin, blue-veined eyelids shielded the sometimes passionate, sometimes mocking, frequently challenging charcoal eyes. Black lashes formed dark crescents against the white skin, where just the faintest bloom of sleep tinged the high cheekbones. The retrousse nose winkled slightly, and her mouth tightened suddenly as if her sleeping thoughts disturbed her in some way.

And so they should, he thought bitterly, such an accomplished spy, she was. The concealed message in the letter to her godfather had been a masterpiece.

He wondered how best to wake her. She preferred a slow awakening, so…

He drew his knees up, catching the sheet and blanket on his feet, and then thrust out his legs, kicking the covers to the foot of the bed, baring Gabrielle's naked body to the chill morning air and his own gaze.

Gabrielle was so deeply asleep that the abrupt change in temperature caused only an instinctive response. She rolled onto her side, curling her body as she reached blindly for the covers, searching with innate animal impulse for the lost warmth.

Nathaniel tapped the curve of her buttocks thus presented to him. "Wake up, Gabrielle."

Gabrielle rolled onto her back and her eyes flew open. She covered her breasts with her arms. "I'm cold! What's happened to the blanket?"

"I kicked it off."

"Brute!" She sat up, reaching down for the covers, still too muzzy to question what he'd said. "Oh… that's better." With a sigh of relief she fell back on the pillows, dragging the blanket up to her neck and closing her eyes again.

"I said wake up!" Firmly, he unhooked her fingers and again stripped off the blanket. "You have a debt of honor to pay." He raised an eyebrow as Gabrielle blinked in bemusement.

"Today's the day I have a handmaiden for twenty-four hours," Nathaniel announced. "I believe I win the wager."

Gabrielle closed her eyes to hide the rush of speculation at these words. Curiously, she'd forgotten the wager, she'd been too busy concentrating on discovering his secrets and winning his confidence. But it didn't surprise her that Nathaniel had remembered. It was the kind of thing he would remember. And if today was Sunday, and, judging from the pealing church bells outside, it seemed that it was, then the two weeks were up and Nathaniel Praed had not recruited her into his spy network.

Maybe a day of passionate lust would chase off the demons of depression that dogged her at the moment.

"Well, now," she drawled, still keeping her eyes closed. "As I recall, we agreed it was a wager as well to be lost as won."

"You'll have to tell me about that this time tomorrow," he murmured. "For now I can concentrate only on the privileges of the winner."

Her eyes opened. "So, make your wishes known, my lord."

"Well, first, I'd like you to understand that for twenty-four hours every inch and every cell of your body is at my disposal-and that includes your tongue, madame, which I wish you for once to keep under control."

Reaching out, he ran his flat thumb over her mouth. "And since I don't want to put too great a strain on your powers of compliance, I'll help you by imposing a rule of silence. As of now."

Gabrielle's eyes spoke volumes as she absorbed this statement. Surprise and a shade of resistance leaped out at him from the deep gray pools. Automatically, she opened her mouth to demand further explanation and Nathaniel's thumb pressed firmly against her lips.

"Now," he said softly. "You had better disappear next door while I arrange matters here. I'll call you when I'm ready."

Something didn't feel right. But it was a game they'd both agreed to play. Gabrielle slipped off the bed and went toward the connecting door.

"Oh… and Gabrielle…" His voice arrested her as she turned the knob. "Don't get dressed."

Now, what did he have in mine'? His instructions so far indicated he intended to hold her to the very letter of the wager as well as its spirit and she couldn't help her initial response, that little spurt of annoyed resistance coming on the heels of a vague stirring of unease.

Gabrielle wrapped herself in a cashmere shawl against the morning cold and sat on her accustomed seat in the window to await his summons. As she relaxed, little prickles of excitement began to stir the downy hairs on the nape of her neck and flutter in the pit of her stomach. Twenty-four hours was a long time… and Nathaniel was an inspired lover with an extravagant sense of fantasy.

Silence, she was to discover as the long morning moved into afternoon, had the most powerful effect on the senses. It facilitated an extraordinary concentration on touch and feel, on taste and sight and smell. She imagined it was like moving in the womb, as Nathaniel rolled her beneath him with a fluid maneuver of her body that didn't disturb the union of their loins, and she felt the coolness of the sheets against her back, where before there had been the softness of the fire-warmed air of the bedchamber, and his body pressed into hers, molding the planes and concavities of his torso to the softer curves and indentations beneath him.

And in this closed world of silent concentration, she found herself focusing intensely on Nathaniel, and she could feel currents in his body that disturbed the smooth rhythms of their lovemaking. Sometimes, she detected a distance in him, as if, while his body played on hers, he himself was absent, was looking down upon their twisting, sinuous forms with a cool objectivity. The realization would chill her and then he would move over her again, would make some quiet demand that intensified their mutual pleasure, and the disturbance would pass.

Passive compliance, she also discovered throughout those long hours, had the same effect as the silence, or perhaps the one facilitated the other. She had only to be in this coupling. Her self didn't have to inhabit her body; indeed, her self was only an ever-shifting pool of sensations. She obeyed the authoritative touch, the soft-voiced command, and only once or twice did an uneasy resistance rustle through her, a tiny disturbance like a light breeze in autumnal leaves; when the body on hers felt as if it belonged to a stranger.

It was dusk before Nathaniel broke the spell. He was sprawled on the long couch beneath the windows, Gabrielle's bright head resting on his belly as she knelt on the floor beside the sofa, one languid hand stroking intimately between his thighs.

His gaze fell on the Chippendale clock on the wall above the fireplace. It was six o'clock. He moved his hand down, twisting his fingers in the dark red curls, turning her head on his belly so that she was looking toward him. Her eyes were heavy with fulfillment, her features somehow smudged, no longer sharply delineated on the pale, translucent skin.

"Enough, now," he said quietly, and yet his voice sounded shockingly loud after the long hours of silence in the firelit intimacy of their love chamber.

Gabrielle smiled dreamily, her eyes asking a question.

"You may speak," Nathaniel pronounced.

"I think I've forgotten how to. Perhaps it's tomorrow rather than today."

Nathaniel shook his head and said nothing.

Again Gabrielle felt that dart of unease. His eyes were unreadable as they looked down into her face, and she was used to seeing warm tenderness, a languid glow of satiation in their brown depths after such an excess of sensual joy.

But perhaps she was imagining it. They had been strange hours, eliciting new responses. Nathaniel had led them into uncharted territory, and unfamiliar emotions were to be discovered in such a landscape.

Without moving her position or ceasing her stroking attentions, she attempted to reassert the comforting realities of every day. "I seem to be hungry."

To her relief, Nathaniel responded in the same tone, and the ordinary contours of the room reappeared and she was conscious of the prickle of the carpet beneath her knees and the dampness of his skin under her cheek.

"Me too," he said briskly. He caught her busy hand and put it away from him. "Now move your head, woman." He heaved himself upright and swung his legs off the sofa, looking around the disheveled room, where a bathtub of long-cold water still stood before the fire, and a table bore the remains of a cold chicken and a bowl of fruit.

Bending, he caught Gabrielle beneath the arms and hauled her upright. She swayed and leaned against him, nudging at his thighs with one knee.

"That'll do," Nathaniel instructed, taking her waist and moving her aside. He filled two glasses from a depleted wine bottle and handed one to her. "Drink this."

Gabrielle sipped and regarded him with a quizzically raised eyebrow."So what now, Sir Spymaster? You'veanother twelve hours to enjoy your prize."

"No," Nathaniel said. "I'm declaring a moratorium.”

"Oh? Why so?"She was puzzled and takenaback.

"Because it doesn't seementirely fair," hesaid, reaching for a dressing gown andshrugging into it. "Iwon the wager under false pretenses."

"What?" Gabrielle became suddenly conscious of her own nakedness as Nathaniel wrapped the robe around himself, tying the girdle securely. The atmosphere in the room was fractured in some way, and she felt an overwhelming sense ofvulnerability.

"I've decided to take you into the network," he stated calmly. "So, one could say that Icheated you out of your winnings."

Gabrielle stood very still, trying to make sense of this. "Then you didn't play fair," she said finally in tones of hurt confusion.

"Fair play, my dear, is not to be expected in the world of espionage," hepointed out in a voice like sere leaves. His eyes raked her face, looking for a conscious flash in her eyes, a hint of color in her cheeks, but there was nothing. Gabrielle de Beaucaire knew the underworld and the many dark faces of man, and she wore the velvet cloak of deceit as easily as he wore it himself.

"No, I suppose it's not," she said, suddenly matter-of-fact, going toward her own door. She paused, her hand on the latch as an explanation occurred to her for the strange, disturbing moments. "Was there some kind of test embodied in the last hours, Nathaniel?"

"I wanted to see whether I could trust you to play with the team," he said casually. "Whether you could control your own vigorous responses and follow the direction of a leader." He smiled. "It seems you can… in bed, at least. I'm willing to assume you'll be able to do it in other situations."

Gabrielle went into her own room. Distaste nibbled at her soul at the thought that all the while he'd been watching her, assessing her, as she lay open to him, her defenses down, utterly trusting in the loving congress that had always been inviolate, untouched by her own muddled emotions. He'd used sex to discover something about her. Surely he could have chosen some other arena.

But she'd succeeded. That was the important thing. Coldly, she concentrated on that fact. From now on she'd have access to the spymaster's world.

Nathaniel found himself staring at the closed door. Despite the ruthless pragmatism that had lain behind the scenario he had engineered that day, he was as stirred by her as ever. She had been more exciting in the role she'd played at his direction than he could ever have believed possible. Absorbing herself into the fantasy with her own brand of erotic magic.

Gabrielle de Beaucaire was a woman unlike any other. She could meet him and match him on every level-from hasty, lustful tumbling to exquisite love games; from angry challenge to witty retort; from analytic discourse to novel opinion. And on the back of a hunter, honesty obliged him to admit that Gabrielle probably had the edge.

His eye fell on the rumpled bed, the piled cushions on the floor where their game had led them at one point, the straight-backed chair where Gabrielle had-

Helen hadn't cared for hunting. The thought burst through his lascivious reverie. She'd been like Jake, timid on horseback. She'd not been playful either. A quietly smiling, grave woman of sweet disposition, she'd lent herself to him willingly, but he remembered now how once or twice he'd had the nagging suspicion that she'd found the sweaty antics of entwined naked bodies faintly ridiculous at best, distasteful at worst. He hadn't dwelt upon the suspicion, of course… had dismissed it as silly. Helen was too sweet and compliant to make such feelings overt, and what man wanted to see himself as ridiculous in the eyes of an adoring wife?

Gabrielle mocked him, challenged him, laughed at him, but nothing they did together, however outrageous, undignified, and sometimes downright silly, made him feel ridiculous. He did things with Gabrielle that he couldn't have imagined doing with Helen. Could never reveal to anyone else without being covered with embarrassment.

But they were alike, he and Gabrielle. They played in the same dark world… but on opposite sides. They understood risks and took them boldly. It was hardly surprising that they should be so well matched… in challenge as well as in treachery.