Velvet

by Jane Feather

  “Miles is wicked,” Georgie declared. “Nathaniel Praed’s his closest friend, I don’t know why he so relishes making mischief.”

  “Oh, dear,” Gabrielle said. “Should I beg Lord Praed’s pardon?” Her expression had changed completely. There was warmth in her eyes as she smiled at her cousin and a vibrancy to the previously bland expression. “I didn’t mean to disgrace you, Georgie, by offending your guest.”

  “Stuff!” Georgie declared. “I don’t like him myself, really, but he’s a most particular friend of Simon’s. They seem to have a kind of partnership.” She shrugged. “I expect he’s something to do with the government, whatever he might say. But he’s such a cold fish. He terrifies me, if you want the truth. I always feel tongue-tied around him.”

  “Well, he doesn’t intimidate me,” Gabrielle declared. “For all that his eyes are like stones at the bottom of a pond.”

  The butler announced dinner at this point and Gabrielle went in on the arm of Miles Bennet. Nathaniel Praed was sitting opposite her, and she was able to observe him covertly while responding to the easy social chatter of her dinner partners on either side. His eyes were definitely stonelike, she thought. Browny-green, hard and flat in that lean face, with its chiseled mouth and aquiline nose. He reminded her of some overbred hunter. There was the same nervous energy to the slender athletic frame, supple and wiry rather than muscular. His hair was his most startling feature: crisp and dark, except for silver-gray swatches at his temples, matching the silver eyebrows.

  She became abruptly aware of his eyes on her and understood that her own observation had ceased to be covert … in feet, not to put too fine a point on it, she’d been staring at him with unabashed interest.

  Thankful, not for the first time in her life, that she rarely blushed, Gabrielle turned her attention to the man on her left with an animated inquiry as to whether he was familiar with Sir Walter Scott’s poem “The Lay of the Last Minstrel.”

  In the absence of their host, the men didn’t sit long over their port and soon joined the ladies in the drawing room. To his irritation, Nathaniel found himself looking for the titian, but the Comtesse de Beaucaire was conspicuous by her absence. He wandered with apparent casualness through the smaller salons, where various games had been set up, but there was no sign of the redhead among the exuberant players of lottery tickets or the more intense card players at the whist tables.

  He examined the faces of the men at the whist tables. One of them at some point in the week would be revealed as Simon’s candidate … once Simon decided to stop playing silly undercover games. He’d dragged him down here with the promise of a perfect candidate for the service, refusing to divulge his identity, choosing instead to play a silly game with a ridiculous form of introduction.

  It was typical Simon, of course. For a grown man, he took a childish delight in games and surprises. Nathaniel took his tea and sat in a corner of the drawing room, frowning at the various musical performances succeeding each other on harp and pianoforte.

  “Miss Bayberry’s performance doesn’t seem to find favor,” Miles observed, wandering over to his friend’s corner. “Her voice is a trifle thin, I grant you.”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” Nathaniel said shortly. “Besides, I’m no judge, as well you know.”

  “No, you never have had time for life’s niceties,” Miles agreed with a tranquil smile. “How’s young Jake?”

  At this reference to his small son, Nathaniel’s frown deepened. “Well enough, according to his governess.”

  “And according to Jake … ?” Miles prompted.

  “For heaven’s sake, Miles, the lad’s six years old; I’m not about to consult him. He’s far too young to have an opinion on anything.” Nathaniel shrugged and said dismissively, “From all reports, he appears obedient enough, so it’s to be presumed he’s happy enough.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.” Miles didn’t sound too convinced, but he knew which of his friend’s tender spots were better left without exacerbation. If the child didn’t bear such an uncanny resemblance to his mother, maybe it would be different.

  He changed the subject. “So what inducements bring you to Vanbrugh Court? Country houseparties aren’t your usual style of entertainment.”

  Nathaniel shrugged with an appearance of nonchalance. Not even Miles knew how Nathaniel Praed served his country. “Quite frankly, now that I’m here, I don’t know. Simon was at his most pressing and just wore me down. Agreeing seemed the only way to achieve peace. He seemed to think it would amuse me. You know what he’s like.” Nathaniel shook his head in mingled exasperation and resignation. “He’s never taken no for an answer, not even at Harrow.” He glared around the room. “You’d think in the circumstances, he’d manage to be here himself.”

  “He does have a fairly lofty position in Portland’s ministry,” Miles pointed out mildly. “Anyway, he’ll be here tomorrow.”

  “And in the meantime we have to endure this tedium with an appearance of good grace.”

  Miles chuckled. “You’re an ill-tempered bastard, Nathaniel. The most thoroughgoing misanthropist.” He glanced around the room. “I wonder where Gabrielle’s disappeared to.”

  “Mmmm,” responded Lord Praed, taking snuff.

  Miles cast his friend a sharp look. For some reason the indifferent mumble didn’t ring true. Nathaniel hadn’t always been a misanthropist. It had taken Helen’s death to turn him into this introspective, chilly character who seemed to delight in rebuffing all friendly overtures. Most of his friends had given up by now; only Miles and Simon persevered, partly because they’d known Nathaniel since boyhood and knew what a stout and unstinting friend he was when a man needed a friend, and partly because they both knew that despite his attitude, Nathaniel needed and relied on their loyalty and friendship, that without it he would retreat from the world completely and be utterly irreclaimable.

  A man couldn’t grieve forever, and the old Nathaniel would one day inhabit his skin again. Perhaps this concealed interest in Gabrielle de Beaucaire was a hopeful sign.

  “I expect she decided to have an early night,” he commented. “Be fresh for the hunt tomorrow.”

  “Somehow, I doubt that. The countess didn’t strike me as a woman in need of much sleep in any circumstances.” Nathaniel’s tone was disapproving; but then, he made a habit of disapproval, Miles reflected.

  Nathaniel went up to his own room shortly after, leaving the sounds of merriment behind. He had some work to do, and reading reports struck him as an infinitely more rewarding way of spending the shank of the evening.

  Around midnight the house fell silent. House-parties kept early hours, particularly with a hunt on the morrow. Nathaniel yawned and put aside the report from the agent at the court of Czar Alexander. The czar had appointed a new commander in chief of his army. It remained to be seen whether Bennigsen would do better than the enfeebled Kamensky when it came to engaging Napoleon’s troops in Eastern Prussia. Ostensibly the czar was fulfilling his promise to support Prussia against Napoleon, but Nathaniel’s agent reported the vigorous opposition of the czar’s mother to a policy that could sacrifice Russia for Prussia. It remained to be seen which way the czar would jump in the end. It was hard to second-guess a man who, according to this latest report, was described by his closest associate as “a combination of weakness, uncertainty, terror, injustice, and incoherence that drives one to grief and despair.”

  Nathaniel swung out of bed and went to open the window. Whatever the temperature, he was unable to sleep with the window closed. Several narrow escapes had given him a constitutional dislike of enclosed spaces.

  It was a bright, clear night, the air crisp, the stars sharp in the limitless black sky. He flung open the window, leaning his elbows on the sill, looking out over the expanse of smooth lawn where frost glittered under the starlight. It would be a beautiful morning for the hunt.

  He climbed back into bed and blew out his candle.

  He heard the rustling of the Virginia creep
er almost immediately. His hand slipped beneath his pillow to his constant companion, the small silver-mounted pistol. He lay very still, every muscle held in waiting, his ears straining into the darkness. The small scratching rustling sounds continued, drawing closer to the open window. Someone was climbing the thick ancient creeper clinging to the mellow brick walls of the Jacobean manor house.

  His hand closed more firmly over the pistol and he hitched himself up on one elbow, his eyes on the square of the window, waiting.

  Hands competently gripped the edge of the windowsill, followed by a dark head. The nocturnal visitor swung a leg over the sill and hitched himself upright, straddling the sill.

  “Since you’ve only just snuffed your candle, I’m sure you’re still awake,” Gabrielle de Beaucaire said into the dark, still room. “And I’m sure you have a pistol, so please don’t shoot, it’s only me.”

  Nathaniel was rarely taken by surprise, and when he was, he was a master at concealing it. On this occasion, however, his training deserted him.

  “Only!” he exclaimed. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Guess,” his visitor challenged cheerfully from her perch.

  “You’ll have to forgive me, but I don’t find guessing games amusing,” he declared in clipped accents. He sat up, his pistol still in his hand, and stared at the dark shape outlined against the moonlight. That aura of trouble surrounding Gabrielle de Beaucaire had not been a figment of his imagination.

  “Perhaps I should be flattered,” he said icily. “Am I to assume unbridled lust lies behind the honor of this visit, madame?” His eyes narrowed.

  Disconcertingly, the woman appeared to be impervious to irony. She laughed. A warm, merry sound that Nathaniel found as incongruous in the circumstances as it was disturbingly attractive.

  “Not at this point, Lord Praed; but there’s no saying what the future might hold.” It was a mischievous and outrageous statement that rendered him temporarily speechless.

  She took something out of the pocket of her britches and held it on the palm of her hand. “I’m here to present my credentials.”

  She swung off the windowsill and approached the bed, a sinuous figure in her black britches and glimmering white shirt.

  He leaned sideways, struck flint on tinder, and relit the bedside candle. The dark red hair glowed in the light as she extended her hand, palm upward, toward him, and he saw what she held.

  It was a small scrap of black velvet cut with a ragged edge.

  “Well, well.” The evening’s puzzles were finally solved. Lord Praed opened a drawer in the bedside table and took out a piece of tissue paper. Unfolding it, he revealed the twin of the scrap of material.

  “I should have guessed,” he said pensively. “Only a woman would have come up with such a fanciful idea.” He took the velvet from her extended palm and fitted the ragged edge to the other piece, making a whole square. “So you’re Simon’s surprise. No wonder he was so secretive.”

  He sat back against the pillows, an expression of boredom now on the lean features. “This is a tedious waste of time, madame. I don’t employ women in my business, and Simon knows it.”

  “How very definite you sound,” Gabrielle said, seemingly unperturbed. “Women make good spies. They have different assets and techniques from men, I would imagine.”

  “Oh, they’re tricky enough, I grant you,” he declared as indifferently as before. “But they’re more vulnerable … they hurt more easily.”

  Gabrielle shrugged. “If a woman decides to take the risk and accept the consequences, it’s hardly your responsibility, Lord Praed.”

  “On the contrary. Each agent is part of an interlocking network … dependent upon one another. In my experience, women are not good team members. And they don’t stand up well to pressure.” His lips thinned. “You understand me, I’m sure.”

  Gabrielle nodded. “Women are more likely to talk under torture.”

  “Not more likely,” he said with a shrug. “Just more quickly. In the end, everyone talks. But the lives of an entire cell can depend on the extra hour a man can hold out.”

  “I believe I have as much fortitude as most men,” Gabrielle declared. And certainly as much experience in your business, Sir Spymaster—but that was a private reflection. “I can move freely between England and France,” she continued. “I speak both languages without accent.” She sat on the edge of his bed with an air of calm assurance that Nathaniel found supremely irritating. It seemed calculated to increase the disadvantages of his position, huddled in bed in his nightshirt like some invalid.

  “You’ll have to forgive me,” he said sardonically, “but I don’t trust women.” He began to count off on his fingers. “As I said, they don’t make good team members; they lack concentration; they can’t focus on one task; and in general they fail to grasp the significance of information. I do not employ women.”

  Clearly a man of blind and stupid prejudice. It was amazing he was as successful and highly regarded as he was.

  “I also know Talleyrand very well.” She continued to enumerate her credentials as if she hadn’t heard him. “He was a close friend of my father’s and his house is always open to me. I move in political circles in Paris and have entrees at court. I even know Fouché quite well. I could be very useful to you, Lord Praed. I don’t think a spymaster can afford to indulge his prejudices about women in general when faced with such advantages in a potential agent.”

  Nathaniel hung on to his temper by a thread. “I am not prejudiced toward women in general,” he said in frigid accents. “As it happens—”

  “Oh, good,” she interrupted cheerfully. “I’m glad we’ve established that. Working together could be tricky if you really dislike women. Simon seemed to think that I could be put to good use discovering the identities of the French agents in London.”

  “Simon is not responsible for selecting agents, madame.” Why did he have this almost desperate feeling of facing an immovable object?

  “No,” she agreed. “You are. But I’m sure you take advice. And Simon is a very senior minister in Lord Portland’s government.” She examined her fingernails with an air of great interest.

  Her hands were long and narrow, he noticed, the nails short, the fingers white and slender. He pulled himself up sharply. She had just made the outrageous suggestion that he was bound to submit to the instructions of Simon Vanbrugh. Only the prime minister had the power of veto over the affairs of the secret service … and even that was open to question.

  “You are greatly mistaken, madame, if you think I can be influenced against my better judgment by anyone. My word is the last one, countess, and the only one that counts. I do not employ women agents.”

  “There are exceptions to every rule, my lord,” she pointed out with a tranquil smile. “My credentials are impressive, don’t you think?”

  They were, of course. Simon hadn’t exaggerated when he’d described the potential usefulness of this candidate to the service. Her sex, of course, explained the elaborate setup. Simon knew that if he’d been honest, Nathaniel would have refused point blank even to see her. But presumably Simon had tasted the mettle of Gabrielle de Beaucaire and was no more capable of convincing her to take no for an answer than he himself seemed to be.

  He spoke now with calculated hostility, flavoring the words with insult. “Oh, yes, very impressive, madame. As impressive in the service of France as in the service of England. As I understand it, you’ve spent most of the last few years in France, and now I’m supposed to believe you’re eager to betray France to her enemy? It’s testing my credulity a little too far, I’m afraid.”

  He watched her expression, looking for the slightest telltale signs of hesitation, of shiftiness—a slide of the eye, a touch of color to the cheek, a quiver of the lips. The candid charcoal gaze didn’t waver, however, and the pale skin remained translucent.

  “It’s not an unreasonable question,” she said steadily. “Let me explain. I’ve always felt closer to m
y mother’s side of the family.” Her voice was no longer light but quiet and somber. “I spent most of my childhood here with Georgie’s family during the Terror. My father was a supporter of reform before the Revolution, but he was always a royalist and would have supported the Bourbons if they’d survived the Terror. I can best serve my parents’ memories and my own loyalties by helping to defeat Napoleon and restore the Bourbon monarchy to the throne of France.”

  She put her head on one side, and a smile enlivened the somber countenance. “So, Lord Praed, I am at the service of the English secret service.”

  “Your husband … ?”

  Shadows darkened her eyes to black. “He loved France, sir. He would agree to anything that would benefit his beloved country … and Napoleon is not good for France.”

  “No.” Nathaniel found himself agreeing, forgetting for a moment the reason for this discussion. “In the long run, I’m sure that’s true. Although military victories seem to indicate otherwise,” he added wryly.

  Her explanation was convincing. His reports indicated these days that many concerned, thinking Frenchmen were beginning to understand that Napoleon’s increasing megalomania was detrimental to his country. He wanted to control the whole of Europe, but the time would come when the countries he’d subjugated and humiliated would form alliances and rise up against the tyrant because they’d have nothing further to lose. And when that happened, it would be ordinary French men and women who would pay the price for one man’s overweening ambition. Working to bring down Napoleon was not necessarily the act of a traitor to France.

  And Gabrielle de Beaucaire was superbly placed to gather the kind of information it could take another agent months to discover.

  But he didn’t employ women.

  He regarded her in brooding silence. She lacked something essential to femininity, he thought, some weakness or vulnerability that he associated with the female sex. She was tensile, strong, unwavering. But with a sense of humor. And something else, something he’d learned to recognize in a good spy a long time ago. He believed she had that indefinable and essential quality of bending, like the willow tree in a wind. A spy had to bend, to adapt, to switch rapidly from stance to stance.