Velvet

Chapter 26

"They've captured the entire Danish fleet! Bombarded Copenhagen and the entirefleet captured!" The Emperor Napoleon paced the council chamber at the Tuilleries Palace, carrying his rotund belly high over his short legs, his hard eyes glaring at the select gathering of ministers.

"It would appear so, sir," Talleyrand agreed, taking snuff. The newly entitled Vice Grand Electot of France was standing in a window embrasure, leaning against the broad sill, resting his crippled leg as the debate raged around him.

The English government had responded to Talleyrand's artfully directed intelligence at Tilsit with both speed and efficiency. There was now no Danish fleet to enforce a blockade of the Baltic ports. Of course, the Danes weren't too happy about it, in fact rabidly anti-English as a result, but it certainly took the teeth out of the secret articles to the Treaty of Tilsit.

Talleyrand looked down idly on the gardens of the Tuilleries bathed in the late September sun. The leaves of the plane trees were turning russet, and from the Seine came the frantic barking of a dog in the stern of one of the long barges slipping beneath the Pont Neuf.

"Monsieur Talleyrand, what is your opinion of the Portuguese government's refusal to enforce the blockade?" The new Minister for Foreign Affairs posed the question somewhat hesitantly. He was still accustomed to deferring to the former minister but felt that perhaps he should be asserting his own opinions rather more definitely.

"Inconvenient, in the light of the Danish catastrophe," the Vice Grand Elector said.

"Inconvenient! You call it inconvenient!" exploded the emperor. "I tell you it's the epitome of treachery." He fell into a fulminating silence, examining Talleyrand with steely hostility. The man was too clever by half. Every diplomatic court in Europe hung on his opinion and advice, and if it came to a disagreement between the emperor and Talleyrand, Napoleon had the uneasy suspicion that the former's opinion would count in such circles for more than his own.

If only he could do without the man's cleverness and expertise himself. It was both disagreeable and inappropriate for an emperor to be dependent on the assistance of anyone, and most particularly a man who had distinct views of his own and didn't hesitate to impart them. But the fact remained that the Emperor Napoleon could not manage to govern his vast empire without the help of Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord.

"It would ruin Portugal to enforce the blockade, sir," Talleyrand pointed out as he'd done often before. But this was another instance where the emperor refused to listen to Talleyrand's doctrine of moderation when it came to dealing with opposition. The emperor never looked ahead, anticipating consequences, but acted only according to the dictates of his ambition. His genius lay in turning circumstances to his own advantage, but Talleyrand saw only disaster in increasing France's liabilities at this point.

"We shall enlist the help of Spain," Napoleon announced. "We will suggest to her a partition of Portugal. That will bring Portugal to heel. Champagny, send a message to the Spanish king, inviting him to send emissaries to Fontainebleau for a secret convention next month. We shall hold court there."

Talleyrand turned back to his contemplation of the garden beneath the window. The English government needed to know what Napoleon was up to now. The subjugation of Portugal was only an excuse for gaining French control of the entire Iberian Peninsular. Napoleon might well deceive the Spaniards with his offers of false friendship, but they'd discover the treachery of their assumed ally once they gave him free passage across their country to gain access to Portugal. Once in, Napoleon would secure the most important strategic positions and they'd never see the back of him.

The English couldn't afford to stand by while the Peninsular was peacefully incorporated into the French Empire and the killer blockade extended to its ports.

Gabrielle was now married to her spymaster, and Fouche was beside himself. The policeman had a long reach, but he couldn't be revenged on Gabrielle without jeopardizing his uneasy alliance with Talleyrand, an alliance he needed at the moment more than he needed revenge for being duped. While Gabrielle remained in England, she would be safe.

Safe and perfectly placed to be useful, her godfather reflected, if she could be persuaded.

He'd send the intelligence to her, suggesting she pass it on to the right quarters. She was clear-headed and pragmatic; he couldn't imagine she'd refuse to do again what she'd once done so successfully. She would see that she would only be helping her friends and her husband's country that was now her own.

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Gabrielle leaned back against the stone seat of the garden bench, Talleyrand's encoded letter lying open on her lap. The ground at her feet was a carpet of copper leaves that still wafted down from the beech tree behind her. The air was sharp with the acrid smell of burning leaves from the gardener's bonfire, reminding her of roasting chestnuts and eating buttered toast on winter afternoons before blazing log fires. Comforting, secure images of childhood in the DeVane schoolroom.

Damn Talleyrand! Damn this goddamned war! She folded the letter and pushed it into the pocket of her pelisse. Her godfather had offered no suggestions as to how she was to pass on the information, merely reiterated that his identity must be kept absolutely secret. The envelope had been addressed in a feminine hand and had arrived on the London mail coach. There was nothing to connect it with the author of the letter.

She shivered. It was getting cold, and the evening star was already visible in the metallic sky above the river. She stood up and began to walk hack to the house.

She could always ignore the letter.

She kicked at a pile of leaves, and suddenly a memory rose as vivid and clear as if it had been yesterday. Guillaume, at Valancay one October, lying on his back in a pile of leaves where she'd pushed him. He was laughing, holding his arms up in invitation…

It still happened occasionally, this upsurge of memory, but the sadness usually had a sweetness to it. The images were like the pictures and memorabilia of long-lost childhood that one looked at in attics: dusty portraits, forgotten toys, scraps of material, pressed flowers. But not this one, not this time. She felt only a deep well of loss, an awareness, sharp and bitter as aloes, of a squandered life.

Guillaume had always seen the war through Talleyrand's eyes, and he would expect her to do this. He would see it as her duty.

"Gabby… Gabby…" Jake came hurtling down the path toward her. "You look sad," he said with habitual directness. "Are you sad? Don't be." He took her hand, looking anxiously up at her.

"No," she said, dredging up a smile of reassurance. "I was just remembering things. Have you finished your lessons?"

Jake pulled a face. "I don't think it's fair I have to go to the vicarage on Saturday afternoons, do you?"

Jake now did his lessons in the vicarage schoolroom with the vicar's children, an arrangement that suited everyone and provided the child with much-needed company of his own age.

"Why don't you talk to Papa?" Jake now said with a crafty sideways glance. When Gabby took up his cause with his father, things usually changed for the better.

Gabrielle couldn't help laughing. "You're a sly one, young Jake. If you do lessons in the vicarage schoolroom, then you must abide by their rules. That's only fair, isn't it?"

"Perhaps you could talk to Reverend Addison," he suggested a little less confidently. Gabrielle's power over the vicar was so far unproven.

"I'll talk to Papa, but I'm not making any promises."

Jake was content and trotted beside her as they entered the hall, where the candles were already lit and the air was filled with the scent of dried lavender and rose petals from the bowls scattered on every surface.

"You'd better run along for your tea," Gabrielle said, shrugging out of her pelisse. Jake scampered off in the direction of the nursery stairs, and Gabrielle stood for a minute, indecisive. She wanted to go up to her own apartments and think in private about the letter and what options she had, but she knew in her heart that there was no decision to be made. She had only one option.

She turned aside to the library. She might as well fulfill her promise to Jake while it was fresh in her mind.

Nathaniel looked up from his papers as she came in, and smiled involuntarily. Gabrielle seemed to become more beautiful and more desirable day by day.

"Come and be kissed," he said, pushing back his chair.

She leaned over the back of his chair and brushed his lips with her own.

"That's not much of a kiss," Nathaniel grumbled, reaching for her arm and pulling her around his chair and onto his lap. He frowned. "What's the matter?"

"Matter? Nothing," Gabrielle said, moving to stand up.

His arm tightened around her waist. "Something's upset you, Gabrielle. I can feel it."

"It's this time of year," she improvised, not totally without truth. "It always makes me feel sad. For some reason it reminds me of my parents. It was October when I arrived at the DeVanes and I still couldn't absorb what had happened." She leaned back against his shoulder, playing with his fingers linked at her waist.

"Would you like to go to London for a couple of months? The Season should be getting under way by now."

"You hate London," she said, smiling slightly.

"I can endure it until Christmas."

It would be easier in London to do what she had to. Much easier to practice deception in a crowd.

"Yes, I'd like that." She twisted her head and kissed his mouth before untangling his hands at her waist and pushing herself off his knee. "We could take Jake, couldn't we?"

Nathaniel stroked his chin. "What about his lessons?”

"I have lots of friends with children his age. I'm sure we can find a temporary schoolroom for him to share. Incidentally, he doesn't think it's fair he should do lessons on Saturday afternoons. Behold in me his emissary."

Nathaniel chuckled. "The crafty little monkey. So what do you think?"

"I think there are many educational and certainly more amusing pursuits for a Saturday afternoon," she declared.

"Well, if we're taking him to London, the issue is moot for the time being."

"Such a just and reasonable Papa," Gabrielle said in tones of mock awe. "It does seem a waste for all that justice and reason to be expended on one small boy."

The light faded from Nathaniel's eyes. He pushed his chair away from the table with an angry scrape and gathered together his papers. He said nothing, but the silence was all too eloquent.

She wasn't making any headway on the subject of children. He was the most infuriatingly obstinate individual! He refused to be drawn on the issue, maintaining this steadfast silence whenever she offered the slightest opening.

Frustrated, Gabrielle watched him open the safe and deposit the papers, the tense silence wreathing around them.

But she had a bigger and more immediate problem on her plate at the moment.

"So, when should we go to London?" she asked cheerfully, as if the last tense minutes hadn't happened.

Nathaniel turned from the safe, clear relief in his own eyes, and responded in the same tone. "Next week… if you like."

"The Vanbrughs have been in Grosvenor Square for three weeks. I'll write to Georgie and let her know we're coming-oh, and shouldn't we send Mrs. Bailey, and perhaps Bartram, on ahead to get the house on Bruton Street ready?"

"Whatever you think best, madam wife." Gabrielle had the reins of his household firmly in her own hands, and he knew she was asking for his opinion only for politeness's sake.

Gabrielle gave a nod of acknowledgment and left the library. Ellie was drawing the curtains when she went into her boudoir, and the maid immediately began a gossipy account of some village scandal.

Gabrielle listened with half an ear. She didn't discourage Ellie's gossip in general because she often heard of trials and tribulations that could be alleviated by the manor, but this evening the girl's light tones grated and the story held no interest.

"Ellie, be a dear and fetch me some tea," she interrupted. "I feel as if I'm developing a headache."

"Oh, yes, my lady. I'll fetch it right up." Ellie's good-natured face expressed genuine concern as she hurried from the room.

Gabrielle sat by the fire, resting her feet on the fender. She was going to give Talleyrand's intelligence directly to Simon. He'd share it with Nathaniel, of course, but no one would know where it came from. She was going to create an anonymous character, a mole who had sensitive information from France. It should be simple enough to arrange for the delivery of an anonymous letter to Simon's government office at Westminster, particularly once she was living on Bruton Street.

In one way, she would be making up for her earlier deceit when she'd used Simon to introduce her to Nathaniel. Grief and the need for vengeance then had subsumed guilt at deceiving her friends, but she was still uncomfortable with the memory. Nathaniel had never referred to it because they never talked about that time; she had made her choice of loyalties and they both accepted it. She knew he must have done similar distasteful things in his own career; it went with the territory.

That night, for the first time in many months, she had the nightmare again.

Nathaniel held her, stroking the damp ringlets from her forehead as she wept, her body a tight bow of pain. She clung to him, shivering in her sweat-soaked nightgown, and he didn't know how to comfort her except to hold her, trying to infuse her with the warmth of his own body, the deep steadiness of his own heartbeat. He remembered he'd felt some strain, some unhappiness in her that afternoon, and she'd ascribed it to these old dreadful memories of childhood terror and loss.

When her sobs lessened, he drew her nightgown over her head and gently sponged and dried her body. And she lay still as he did so, her forearm covering her swollen eyes as if the soft glow of the candle hurt her. He moved her arm and bathed her eyes, then kissed her eyelids, her nose, her cheeks, her mouth, his hands visiting her body in long, healing strokes, seeking to exorcise her demons in the only way he knew. And slowly she relaxed beneath his touch and welcomed the warm length of his body measured along hers, drawing strength and renewal from a tender possession that gave much more than it took.

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Two weeks later Nathaniel drew his horses to a halt in front of an imposing mansion on Bruton Street. "I'll visit Tattersalls tomorrow and purchase something for you to drive," he observed to Gabrielle as he assisted her to alight. "Do you fancy a phaeton?"

"No, a curricle," she said promptly, standing on the pavement, looking up at the double-fronted facade of Praed House. "A handsome house, my lord."

"I trust it will meet with your approval inside." He gave her a mock bow, then offered her his arm to mount the steps.

The door opened before they reached it, and a smiling Bartram bowed them within. Mrs. Bailey greeted them in the hall with the information that she'd taken the liberty of hiring two footmen and three parlor maids. But she thought her ladyship would prefer to hire the cook herself. The agency would send suitable candidates to be interviewed as soon as Lady Praed was rested from her journey.

"I'll see them first thing tomorrow morning, Mrs. Bailey," Gabrielle said immediately, looking around, noting the highly polished banister, the gleaming marble beneath her feet, the sparkling chandelier. "You have done a wonderful job. Everything looks splendid."

Mrs. Bailey permitted herself a smile of satisfaction. "Nurse and Miss Primmer will be arriving with Master Jake this evening, I understand, my lady."

"Yes. In a couple of hours, I imagine. The postchaise is no match for Lord Praed's curricle." Gabrielle cast Nathaniel a sideways smile. "Or perhaps I should say for his lordship's driving skill." They'd had a friendly competition on the way up, alternating between changing posts. Nathaniel was a vastly superior whip.

"Perhaps you'd like to inspect the nursery quarters, my lady. I trust everything is in order, but I expect Master Jake will be tired, and Nurse does suffer so from her rheumatism cramped in a carriage, and poor Miss Primmer is a martyr to the headache."

The old Nathaniel would have offered the caustic observation that he provided his retainers with the most comfortable vehicles available and they should be grateful for it. Instead, he said relatively mildly, "I'll leave you to look to the comforts of the staff, Gabrielle. I'm going to the mews."

"Don't forget we're engaged to dine with the Vanbrughs," Gabrielle reminded him as she stripped off her gloves. "Show me around, Mrs. Bailey, and we'll see what needs to be done."

By the time the schoolroom party arrived two hours later, the house was ready to receive an excitable if slightly fractious Jake, a drawn but bravely suffering Miss Primmer, and a groaning Nurse.

"Thank God we're dining elsewhere," Nathaniel declared, watching the progress of bandboxes and trunks ascending the stairs. "How could one child require so much paraphernalia?"

Idon't think two requires much more than one. But on this occasion, Gabrielle kept the observation to herself.

"I'm going to dress for dinner. Look in on the nursery, will you? Someone needs to pour a little cold water on Jake's high spirits. I don't think Primmy and Nurse are quite up to it tonight."

Nathaniel grimaced but went off as requested and Gabrielle went up to her own apartments. Ellie had finished unpacking and was laying out Gabrielle's evening dress. "Bartram's fetching up bathwater for you, my lady."

"Oh, lovely. I could do with a bath after the journey," she said absently, unlocking her writing case that lay on the dainty Sheraton secretaire.

She ran her eye down the note she'd arrange to have delivered to Simon's office in the morning. She'd written the message in anonymous block letters on a piece of heavy vellum that could have come from any stationer's. The contents were short… were they too succinct? Had she left anything out?

Her eye flickered to Voltaire's Lettresphilosphiques on the bookshelf. She must encode a letter to Talleyrand, telling him what she'd done.

"I don't know what the hell's the matter with that child?" Nathaniel's voice, half exasperated, half amused, came from the doorway and she jumped, her hands suddenly shaking.

She was out of practice! "Why, what he was doing?" Her voice was steady, though, as she nonchalantly replaced the paper and closed the lid of the writing case, turning the tiny silver key in the lock.

"Running naked around the nursery, when he wasn't leaping in and out of his bath, saying he was a porpoise."

Gabrielle turned to face him, casually slipping the key into her pocket. "He's never been to London before. It’s not surprising he’s excited.”

“Well, he’s not so excited now,I can tell you," Nathaniel said, moving to the connecting door to his own apartments, shrugging out of his coat as he did so.

"You weren't cross, were you?"

"No." He tossed his coat through the door and began to unbutton his shirt. "Just somewhat dampening… as instructed, ma'am." He raised a quizzical eyebrow before disappearing into his own room.

The next morning a scruffy urchin handed a sealed paper to a liveried, powdered flunkey at Westminster Palace. The paper was addressed in block letters to Lord Simon Vanbrugh.

The flunkey barely noticed the lad and couldn't offer a description when summoned by Lord Vanbrugh a few minutes after his lordship had received the paper.

"Did he say where it came from?"

"No, my lord."

"Did you ask him?"

"No, my lord."

"Well, someone must have given it to him."

"Yes, my lord." The flunkey stared rigidly out of the narrow, slitted window in the ancient stone wall overlooking the river.

Simon scratched his head. If the intelligence in the note was genuine, then it was of incalculable importance. As important as the information about the secret articles to the Treaty of Tilsit.

He dismissed the flunkey, picked up his hat and cane, and left Westminster, hailing a hackney. "Bruton Street."

Nathaniel, in buckskin britches and top boots, was leaving the house as the hackney drew up. "Simon, what brings you in the middle of the day.?" He greeted his friend cheerfully. "Affairs of state not too pressing?"

"On the contrary," said Simon. "I need to discuss something with you."

"Oh, well, let's go to Brooks' in that case. I was thinking of going to Mantons Gallery for some target practice, but Brooks' will do as well. Gabrielle's interviewing cooks and the house is Bedlam. Jake's just slid down the banisters and twisted his ankle, which seems by any standards to be only justice, but Miss Primmer is wailing and gnashing her teeth, and Gabrielle insists on sending for the doctor. One more minute in that madhouse, and I shall seriously take to drink."

Chuckling, he flung an arm around Simon's shoulder, turning him toward Piccadilly.

Simon, despite his preoccupation, couldn't help reflecting with pleasure that his old friend had finally reemerged from the dour carapace of grief and guilt. But then, no one could live with Gabrielle for any length of time and remain morose. Outraged, perhaps, but never sullen or aloof.

In the hushed masculine seclusion of Brooks', Simon handed Nathaniel the paper. "This arrived by some mysterious messenger this morning." He reached for the decanter of port on the table between them and filled two glasses while Nathaniel perused the document.

"A secret convention at Fontainebleau with the Spanish," he murmured, sipping port. "We knew about that."

"But not about the threat to Portugal."

"No." Nathaniel sat back, crossing his legs. "Who the hell supplied this?" It was a rhetorical question, and Simon offered no answer.

"Do we believe it?" he asked.

Nathaniel nodded. "Can't afford not to, as I see it. Boney's had his eye on Spain for a long time. We need to support Portugal if we're to keep the entire Iberian Peninsular out of bis clutches."

"You'll put some of your people into the field?"

Nathaniel nodded again, setting down his glass. "I've several agents in Madrid who can be deployed to Lisbon. In fact," he added almost to himself, "I might go myself."

"You could talk directly with the Portuguese regent," Simon said. "You'd have more authority, carry more weight than one of your agents."

He stood up. "I'll see the prime minister immediately. I expect he'll want to consult with you without delay." He drew on his gloves. "I wonder if this mysterious source will produce anything else."

"If he does, make damn sure the messenger is held at the gate until I can interview him. I have every intention of getting to the bottom of this," Nathaniel declared. "If there's one thing I can't tolerate, it's manipulation, even if it is to our benefit. If this source is above board, then why the devil doesn't he show himself? Surely he must want something in exchange?"

"You're a cynic," Simon said. "Maybe his motives are of the purest… loyalty, patriotism…"

"In a pig's ear," Nathaniel retorted. "If they were, he'd show himself. No, something about this stinks to high heaven, Simon, and I intend to find out what."

He strode back to Bruton Street, his head full of dispositions and plans, and a deep sense of unease. All his instincts told him that something was badly wrong. Espionage by definition involved clandestine informers, but this intelligence was too important for a mere dabbler to have acquired. And Nathaniel was convinced he knew all the experienced players in the international field. And if it was a newcomer, how did he know to pass on his information to Simon? Simon's close government connections with Nathaniel's secret service were known to no one apart from the spymaster and the prime minister, not even Georgie or Miles.

Gabrielle knew, of course. He paused outside Hatchard's bow window, frowning, as a past world of suspicion reared its ugly head. Once a spy always a spy? No, that was nonsense. She had given up espionage with irrefutable conviction, and he had no justification for doubting her. Besides, there was no way she could be involved in this. Her marriage had defined her loyalties and cut her off from all access to such privileged information. And even if by some weird happenstance she had had such access, she'd simply have given the information to him. It was only logical. She'd gain nothing by this devious approach.

He walked on, convincing himself of this logic. A line of black-clad candidates for the post of cook snaked out of the door and down the steps of his house. With a fresh wash of irritation he stopped on the pavement. Surely Gabrielle should have finished this tedious business by now.

He marched in and entered the morning room, where Gabrielle was conducting her interviews.

"For God's sake, the house looks like an employment exchange," he declared. "Haven't you found someone suitable yet?"

"Thank you, I'll be in touch with the agency," Gabrielle said to the woman sitting on a straight-backed chair against the wall. The woman bobbed a curtsy and left.

"What's the matter with you?" Gabrielle demanded of Nathaniel. "That was so inconsiderate."

"What's going on in my house is inconsiderate," he said. "There must be twenty women out there."

"Well, I can't send them away without seeing them," she said reasonably. "I don't know why there are so many unemployed cooks in town at the moment. I should have told the agency to screen them first, but it slipped my mind."

She regarded her husband closely. He was in one of his impatient, preoccupied moods, and it wouldn't take much to trigger an explosion. "Something's upset you."

Nathaniel ran a hand through his hair in an impatient gesture. "I've just seen Simon, that's all."

Had Simon consulted Nathaniel about the information already? She'd expected him to consider the message, consult his cabinet colleagues, and certainly the prime minister, before involving Nathaniel. Was Nathaniel Simon's first call? The lad couldn't have delivered the paper much more than a couple of hours earlier.

"Is that all?" she said lightly. "Seeing Simon doesn't usually put you out of sorts."

"I hate mysteries," he said. "And I cannot abide the feeling that I'm being used in some way." His eyes skimmed her face, took note of her hands lying calmly in her lap.

Gabrielle's palms dampened. So it was about the information. "Who's using you?"

"I don't know… yet," he added, beginning to pace the room. "But I intend to find out."

"You're not being particularly informative." Gabrielle rose and went to the fire, bending to warm her hands, although she was uncomfortably hot. She had the feeling her cheeks might be flushed and the warmth of the fire would offer explanation.

Nathaniel looked at her, the graceful curve of her tall body, the flickering lights in her hair, caught by a spurting flame, the slenderness of her waist, the flare of her hips, outlined under the creamy beige cambric of her morning gown.

Gabrielle had nothing to do with the events of the morning.

A familiar urgent sweep of lust carried all unease and irritations from his mind.

He approached her softly, encircling her waist with one arm, holding her steady across one outthrust thigh, his free hand molding the curve of her buttocks beneath the gown, slowly drawing up the soft material, revealing the length of her legs inch by inch, the hollow behind her knees, the expanse of smooth thigh, the pale flesh above her stocking tops.

Gabrielle made no attempt to straighten her body, relaxing into the supporting hold of the arm around her waist, feeling the hardness of his buckskin-clad thigh beneath her belly. His hand slid under the ruffled hem of her drawers, and a shudder of delicious expectation rippled through her as the fingers insinuated themselves into her moistening cleft, searching her out in an ever-spiraling dance of erotic intimacies.

"This isn't going to get a cook hired," she murmured in a desperate attempt to keep herself from sliding too soon into the inferno.

Nathaniel removed his hand and whacked her bottom. "Not an appropriate response in the circumstances, wife." He flicked her skirt down so that it fluttered back to her ankles, and released his hold.

Gabrielle straightened, flushed, her eyes glowing. "That was hardly appropriate behavior in the circumstances." She gestured eloquently around the salon. "Anyone could have walked in."

The idea seemed to amuse him, judging by his complacent grin. "I didn't heat too many objections, my love."

"No, well, you wouldn't, would you?" she said with feigned resignation. "You know my weaknesses all too well."

His grin broadened. "I'll lock the door and then I can finish what I started without fear of interruption." He suited action to words and then leaned back against the door, regarding her with hooded eyes.

"What is it?" she whispered, her voice thick, as if the sounds were coming through treacle.

"I'm trying to decide how I want you." he replied.

Gabrielle glanced around the room at the available props, now so engrossed in their game that she gave no thought to her earlier anxiety. "Chaise longue?" she suggested. Nathaniel shook his head "Table?" Another headshake. "Chair?"

"Perhaps," he said consideringly, pushing himself away from the door. With a swift economical movement he toppled her forward over the back of an armchair.

"I might have guessed," Gabrielle said into the velvet cushions, laughter mingling with arousal in her voice. "You're in one of your dominant moods."

"So it would seem," he said affably, throwing her skirts up over her head and slipping her drawers down over her hips. "Are you comfortable?"

"Perfectly," she assured, chuckling, shifting her feet to brace herself.

His hand moved over her, long, slow sweeps caressing her buttocks and thighs, repeating the voluptuous intimacies of the moment by the fire, and all desire to laugh vanished as they both entered the closed world of passion.

He drove against her womb in a deep probing thrust, and she reached back, wanting to enclose him totally within her, to lose all sense of their separateness. His fingers curled into her hips in a biting grip that expressed his own need for this knowledge of completion. Her flesh was his. The rhythmic throbbing deep within her grew to envelop her in the crimson-shot blackness behind her eyelids. He had a strong hand on the nape of her neck, exerting warm pressure as he moved within her, and his other hand was teasing, nipping at the exquisitely sensitive bud of her sex. Her climax ripped through her in a devastating, mind-numbing tidal wave. Somewhere in the distance she heard her voice, and then Nathaniel's hand on her neck pushed her into the cushions, muffling the involuntary sobbing cries of bliss, and his length fell against her back, his hands on her breasts as he held her through his own explosive moment of joy.

"Sweet heaven!" Nathaniel straightened slowly, leaving her skin feeling cold and exposed as he peeled his body from hers. He ran a hand down her back.

Gabrielle pushed herself upright. "Tell me it's eleven o'clock on a Monday morning," she demanded weakly, fumbling with her clothes as she attempted to put herself back together again.

"It is," Nathaniel refastened his britches. "What is it about you?" He shook his head in bemusement. "Devil woman." He answered his own question.

"I don't think I had anything to do with that," Gabrielle declared, examining her reflection in the mirror above the fireplace. "Look at my hair, it's all over the place. How am I supposed to show myself outside the room like this?"

"I can't imagine," Nathaniel said with callous insouciance, unlocking the door. "But do something about those women. I want my house back."

"Yes, my lord. We arefeeling assertive this morning, aren't we?" Gabrielle stuck her tongue out at him in the mirror as she hastily tucked errant ringlets back into their pins.

Nathaniel raised a hand in mock threat and left her, unaware of the smile hovering on his lips or the bounce in his stride.

Gabrielle rang the bell for Mrs. Bailey and asked her to send in the next candidate.

Nathaniel went into his book room. He sat down at his desk, pulling a sheaf of reports toward him. He had to decide which of his agents could best be sent to Lisbon… or should he go himself? The Portuguese king was a pathetic, childlike individual, unable to govern; his regent was a coward, unfit to govern. They would crumple before a French advance. A British presence in Portugal was now vital…

Idly, he picked up his quill, noticing that the end was splitting. He looked for the small knife he used to sharpen his pens, but it wasn't on his desk and he remembered that Gabrielle had borrowed it the previous evening.

He didn't need it right now, but his mind was racing and he was too restless to sit in contemplative silence, so he strolled upstairs, pausing at the foot of the nursery stairs, thinking he would go up and see how Jake's twisted ankle was progressing. Perhaps he'd retrieve his penknife first.

Gabrielle's sitting room was quiet, sun-filled. It had been Helen's favorite room and the wallpaper and furnishings were distinctively her choice. He wondered if Gabrielle would decide to change anything. It was a very pastel foil for her vibrancy.

The secretaire was open, his penknife lying on the blotter. He picked up the knife and his eye fixed on the markings on the blotter.

Curious marks, back-to-front letters, numbers. He felt an enormous reluctance to pick it up, and yet he did so. He picked it up and held it in front of the mirror on the dresser.

Gabrielle had been playing with the Voltaire code.