Velvet

by Jane Feather

  She smiled slightly over the lip of her cup. “I don’t have enough words to describe what they did for me. I tried to describe at dinner what a large, loving, and chaotic family they are.”

  “Yes,” Nathaniel said, uncomfortably remembering his own surly, monosyllabic response to those attempts at conversation. “I wasn’t too receptive, was I?”

  “You could say that.” Her smile broadened. “But you recovered your good humor … what there is of it,” she added with the customary mocking glimmer in her eye.

  Nathaniel shook his head in rueful acceptance. “Miles and Simon are always telling me what an ill-tempered bastard I am.”

  “Why are you?” Gabrielle asked, putting her empty cup on the floor beside her chair. “I think a little reciprocation is in order. Tell me something about yourself.” Even as she made the demand, she regretted it. She didn’t want to know any secrets about Nathaniel Praed. But it was too late to withdraw the question.

  Nathaniel shook his head, throwing his hand wide in a comprehensive gesture. “You’re in my house, sharing my life. The story’s there to be read.”

  “But perhaps I don’t read the language,” she said, unsmiling now.

  Again he shook his head in brusque dismissal. “I doubt that, madame. I have the unshakable conviction that you’re multilingual. Let’s go back to bed.” He turned to the door.

  Gabrielle concealed her relief at this escape.

  “You go on up,” she said. “I’m not sleepy yet. I’ll stay by the fire for a while. I’ll sleep in my own bed, so I don’t disturb you when I come up.”

  Nathaniel, holding the door latch, turned back to her. His eyes raked her face. Her expression was calm, the dark eyes returning his scrutiny with candor. “If you’re sure that’s what you want,” he said.

  “Quite sure. I’m perfectly calm now. It won’t happen again tonight.”

  He continued to regard her for a moment, then nodded as if satisfied. “Don’t stay up too long, then.”

  “Good night, Nathaniel.”

  “Good night, Gabrielle.” The door closed softly on his departure.

  Gabrielle gazed into the vermilion glow of the fire, flexing her toes against the fender in the warmth. The longcase clock struck three. The household was asleep and would remain so for at least another two hours. Nathaniel would be asleep soon. She’d intended to explore the safe tonight, but an excess of tumultuous passion had somehow knocked her out. It seemed the nightmare had given her a second chance.

  Without further thought she rose and went to the door, her bare feet soundless on the stone flags of the kitchen floor. She stood in the narrow corridor leading to the main hall, ears pricked for the slightest sound of movement. A kitchen cat brushed against her legs as it slithered by on a mouse hunt, nose twitching, ears flattened, tail erect.

  To Gabrielle’s ears, the sleeping house seemed filled with little sounds—creaks and whispers and rustles. She could hear her own heart and the rush of her blood. Scaling walls and setting a hunter to an outrageous fence required a different kind of courage from this creeping around illicitly, prying into someone else’s privacy.

  But she’d never lacked the courage when working with Guillaume, and she wasn’t about to let his memory down.

  She ran on tiptoe down the corridor and entered the great square hall. The double doors to the library were on her right. Inside, she closed the doors softly and stood, accustoming her eyes to the moonlit room. The servants must have pulled back the curtains before retiring, and the long windows were filled with silver light. The heavy furniture formed massive hunched shapes on the Aubusson carpet.

  Gabrielle slid out the volumes of Locke’s Treatise on Government, placing them soundlessly on the table behind her. She stood and looked without moving at the gray metal safe set into the paneled wall, trying to picture the tumblers within the lock, to project her mind into them. It was a powerful way to concentrate.

  She placed her ear against the lock and began delicately to turn the knob. The clicks sounded like crashing cymbals in the silence, but experience told her that only she could hear them. Her fingers were slippery with sweat and her shoulders cramped abruptly with the tension.

  She straightened, rolling her shoulders, and dried her sweating fingers on the skirt of the robe. Then she bent again to her task, listening for the sweet connection when the tumblers meshed. The night stretched into eternity in the silent, silver-washed room. The winter-bare branch of a tree scraped against the window and her heart jumped into her throat. She took a deep breath and continued with the delicate manipulation.

  “Got it!” she breathed in soft satisfaction as she felt the tumblers connect. Gently, she eased open the door of the safe and surveyed its contents—the spymaster’s secrets laid bare.

  Wiping her hands again, she took out the sheaf of papers. She hadn’t known what she’d find, but this series of neat accounting documents, columns of figures, prices of wheat, lists of repairs to tenant housing, was not what she’d expected.

  Disappointed, she replaced the papers and closed the safe. Back to square one. She turned to pick up the volumes from the side table. Something caught her eye. A shaft of moonlight set something aglimmer on the carpet at the bottom of the bookcase.

  She bent to look more closely. A fine strand of silvery hair lay on the carpet. Her body went very still as her mind raced. It was easily explained. Nathaniel had been at the safe earlier, she’d seen him. He could have brushed a fallen hair from his shoulder.

  But supposing he hadn’t? The hair was an old trick to test for intruders. Could Nathaniel be testing her?

  Of course he could. He was a spymaster. The cleverest the English had ever had, according to Talleyrand and Fouché. Why else would he so nonchalantly reveal the location of his safe?

  Damn the man! He was a crafty, devious, bloody-minded, oversuspicious snake! And now she’d have to put it back.

  The whole tedious business of manipulating the knob began again. She refused to wonder how long she’d been down here … to speculate on whether Nathaniel was asleep … to consider for one minute the possibility of discovery.

  The safe door finally opened again. Gabrielle held the hair between finger and thumb. Where had he placed it? At the top, or at the side?

  Merde! She couldn’t possibly know. But then again, perhaps it wouldn’t matter. As soon as he opened the door, the hair would surely fall out just as it had when she’d opened it. And he’d never see where it came from. But he might be looking for it.

  She had no choice. Swiftly yet delicately she inserted the hair between the upper edges of the safe and its door and closed the door again. She wiped the surface of the safe with the full sleeve of the robe so there were no smudges or fingerprints. Then her heart sank again. Could he have used a film of dusting powder as well? If so, she was lost.

  There was no sign of powder now and no use in worrying about it, she told herself briskly, replacing the volumes of Locke. She looked around the room again.

  To her astonishment, she saw from the clock that the entire futile operation had lasted less than half an hour.

  Her spirit rebelled at retiring empty-handed. There was still the locked drawer in the desk. A much easier proposition, and it might yield something of interest.

  She flitted to the desk. The paper knife was where it had been that morning. She sat in Nathaniel’s big leather chair and gently slid the blade of the knife between the top of the drawer and the desk, feeling for the hinge of the lock. Once located, it was simplicity itself to press the hinge down with the tip of the knife, springing the lock. The drawer contained a roll of parchment tied with a black ribbon.

  Gabrielle looked at it, chewing her lip. Surely a spymaster wouldn’t keep precious secrets tied up with a ribbon. They must be private documents.

  Just to be sure, she lifted the roll of papers from the drawer, untied the ribbon, and unrolled them.

  They were letters, very private letters. Love letters. They were
a courtship correspondence between Nathaniel Praed and his then fiancée, Helen. Gabrielle stared at the signatures, hardly taking in the contents. She hadn’t bargained for anything quite so intimate.

  Suddenly, the fine hairs on the nape of her neck rose and her scalp crawled. She couldn’t hear anything, but the knowledge that someone was approaching ran in her veins, turning her blood as cold and thin as a mountain stream. She dropped the letters into the drawer, the ribbon on top of them, and softly closed the drawer just as the doorknob turned.

  “I’ve been looking all over for you. I can’t go to sleep when you’re staying up on your own. What are you doing in here? It’s as cold as charity.”

  Nathaniel, still in his robe, stood in the doorway, squinting into the silvered dimness.

  Gabrielle’s heart hammered. How long had he been looking all over for her? How had she not heard his steps in the house? What if he’d walked in a minute earlier?

  “I was looking for something to read,” she said, rising casually from the chair, turning to lean against the desk with the appearance of complete relaxation while covering the violated drawer with the skirts of Nathaniel’s robe. Not that there was anything to see, but for the moment she was so unnerved, she could almost imagine her guilt gleaming behind her.

  “In the dark?” Nathaniel stepped farther into the room.

  “I was looking for flint and tinder.” Both commodities were in full view on the mantelshelf, and she averted her eyes.

  “I’ll light the candle for you.” Nathaniel strolled over to the fireplace. Flint scraped and a pool of golden light fell from the candle on the mantelpiece.

  “What do you feel like reading?” Taking the candlestick, he held it high and walked over to the bookshelves.

  Gabrielle pushed herself away from the desk. Somehow, she’d have to reopen the drawer and retie the letters with the black ribbon. Surely he wouldn’t want to look at them tonight. Oh, please don’t let him want to revisit the correspondence tonight!

  “I don’t really know. I was feeling restless.” She came up beside him, brushing against him as she examined the spines of the books under the candlelight.

  Nathaniel glanced down at her. Her pallor in the golden glow seemed more pronounced than usual. “I don’t know about restless,” he commented. “You look drained. Why don’t you try to sleep instead?”

  “Yes, perhaps I will.” She pushed back her hair and offered him what she hoped was a natural smile. Lightly, she blew out the candle he held. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  Nathaniel made no attempt to persuade her to join him in his bed when she turned toward her own apartments. He said only, “If you need me, you know where to find me.”

  “Yes,” she replied. “Thank you.”

  She stood by the connecting door between her boudoir and Nathaniel’s apartments for ten minutes, listening for the silence that would tell her he was asleep again. When she could no longer hear the creak of the bedropes as he settled himself for sleep, she sped down to the library, once again blocking her mind to all thoughts of discovery, worked her trick with the paper knife again, retied the letters, and replaced them in as near to their original position as she could remember.

  It had been an unproductive night’s work … except that she now knew that the spymaster did not trust her.

  9

  “How long will it take us to journey to Burley Manor, Simon?”

  “Burley Manor?” Lord Vanbrugh looked up from his platter of sirloin, regarding his wife with some surprise as she entered the breakfast parlor.

  “Yes. I’ve just had a letter from Gabby.” Georgiana flourished a sheet of paper that had arrived with her morning chocolate. “She wants us to send on all her belongings. She’s staying with Lord Praed for—let me see, how did she put it—ah, yes, here it is, an indefinite period, she says.”

  Georgie looked up, a glimmer of mischievous amusement in her blue eyes. “Isn’t it scandalous?”

  “It sounds just like Gabby,” Miles Bennet observed, taking a draft of ale from his pewter tankard. “Although not at all like Nathaniel.”

  “Well, it’s clearly our bounden duty to go there and save her reputation,” Georgie declared, reaching across her husband’s shoulder to take a mushroom from his plate.

  “Go there?” Simon and Miles declared in unison, looking appalled.

  “Descend on a man without warning when he’s involved in … in … intimate, private business?” Miles continued, shaking his head in horror.

  Georgie swallowed her mushroom and stole another. “Gabby’s as much a sister to me as my own,” she said. “Mama would insist it was my family duty to rescue her from social disaster.” She gave a smug little nod of her head.

  “You crafty minx.” Her husband slapped her hand aside as it began a renewed forage of his plate. “You’re not fooling me for one minute. You’re just nosy!”

  “Not at all,” Georgie declared with an air of injured innocence. “If it gets out that Gabby’s staying un-chaperoned under a bachelor roof, she’ll be ruined. Papa would say it was as much your duty as mine to offer our protection. In fact,” she added thoughtfully, “he’d probably expect you to call Lord Praed out.”

  “Good God! What a hideous prospect. No man in his right mind would attempt a duel of any kind with Nathaniel Praed.”

  “Not if he intended to come out of it alive,” Miles agreed, chuckling. “Georgie my dear, a man does not interfere in the private concerns of his friends.”

  “What a pair of lily-livers you are,” Georgie said in disgust. “Well, I am going if you’re not! Gabby needs me.” She turned and swept from the breakfast parlor.

  Simon groaned.

  “You could always forbid it,” Miles suggested tentatively, regarding his friend with some compassion.

  “It wouldn’t work,” Simon said with conviction. “Georgie may act the demure helpmeet and look as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but she’s a DeVane, remember.”

  “Ah, yes.”

  Gloomy silence fell over the breakfast table as the two men contemplated the obdurate personality of the DeVanes.

  “Of course, she could be right,” Miles said finally. “If it ever did get out …”

  “That’s not what interests my inquisitive wife in the least,” Simon said forcibly. “She wants to gossip with Gabby and find out exactly what’s going on. Can you imagine how Nathaniel’s going to view such an imposition … the three of us descending—”

  “Hey! Who said anything about three?” Miles exclaimed hastily.

  “You don’t think I’d go without you!” his friend demanded. “Oh, no, dear boy, we’re in this one together.”

  “I’m not married to a DeVane,” Miles pointed out.

  “Nathaniel’s as much your friend as he is mine.”

  “But this isn’t about Nathaniel, it’s about Gabby’s reputation. And she’s your kin, not mine.”

  “And you’re my cousin and therefore connected to that enfant terrible too.”

  “Oh, that’s outrageous! Of all the spurious, tenuous threads of connection …”

  “Nevertheless, my dear fellow, you’re coming with us.” Simon pushed back his chair and rose from the table. “I can’t permit Georgie to go alone. Two women under a bachelor roof is simply doubly scandalous. Her father would visit me with a horsewhip!”

  “And you’re unable to rule your wife,” Miles observed.

  “’Fraid so,” Simon agreed with an accepting shrug, his hand on the doorknob. “We’ll say we’re passing through and thought we’d ask for a night’s hospitality. With any luck, one evening with Gabby should satisfy Georgie’s inveterate curiosity.”

  “And you think that’ll fool Nathaniel?”

  “No, of course it won’t. But he’ll not turn us away even if he refuses to speak two words all evening. It wouldn’t be the first time, would it?”

  “No,” murmured Miles moodily as the door closed behind Lord Vanbrugh. “Far from it.” He put up his eye
glass and examined axe chafing dishes on the sideboard, but for some reason his appetite for breakfast had diminished.

  “Oh, it looks as if you have a stack of work to do,” Gabrielle observed, entering the library in the bright sun of relatively early morning.

  Nathaniel looked up from the desk and ran a hand through his crisp dark thatch of hair. “Yes, dispatches,” he agreed. “You’ll have to amuse yourself, I’m afraid.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of doing so, sir.”

  Nathaniel nodded, then abruptly pushed back his chair. He took a sheaf of papers off the desk and strolled casually to the bookshelves.

  Gabrielle wandered over to the window, looking with apparent idle interest across the stone-flagged terrace to the frost-tipped lawn beyond.

  The fine hairs on the nape of her neck were prickling as she heard his movements and visualized his hands removing the volumes of Locke, his fingers manipulating the lock of the safe, his eyes searching for the telltale hair.

  Nathaniel glanced over his shoulder at Gabrieile’s averted back. He’d waited for her to be in the room before he checked the safe for signs of tampering.

  Turning back to the safe, he began to manipulate the lock. Before opening the door, he looked behind him again and swore loudly. “Hell and damnation!”

  “What’s the matter?” Gabrielle said calmly, turning from her contemplation of the garden. Her eyes were calm, her ivory complexion as translucent as ever. “Have you forgotten the combination, Sir Spymaster?” One of her crooked little smiles accompanied the teasing question.

  No revealing reaction there, Nathaniel decided. Not a flicker of anxiety in her gaze. “No, but I caught my fingernail in the lock,” he said, sucking his index finger for the sake of verisimilitude, before gently easing open the door of the safe.