Velvet

by Jane Feather

  Nathaniel froze even as recognition hit him, Jake jumped and spoke her name before he remembered he wasn’t to speak.

  “Shh,” Gabrielle said, putting a finger on her lips, smiling at him in the darkness.

  “What the hell do you mean, jumping out on me like that?” Nathaniel demanded in an outraged whisper. “I expected you in the crypt at dusk.”

  “It took me a while to arrange everything,” she whispered, seemingly unperturbed by his anger. “I have a laissez passer for you.” Her crooked smile gleamed white in the gloom. “With it, you can go anywhere in the city … stay at an inn, travel wherever you wish.”

  She reached into the pocket of her cloak and pulled out the precious document. “See. It’s in the name of Gilbert Delors, a servant in the household of Monsieur le Prince de Talleyrand, who’s instructed to journey to his master’s estates in Perigord and is to be allowed to pass without let or hindrance.”

  “How on earth did you get hold of this?” He stared at the paper.

  “i stole it,” she said. “You see, it’s signed by Talleyrand’s steward.” She pointed to the signature. “The real Gilbert Delors has been turning the house upside down looking for it all day. When he came out of the steward’s office, I had a most urgent errand for him to run, an armful of parcels that needed to be taken immediately to my chamber. He put the paper on the table when I filled his arms with packages … et voila.”

  Nathaniel turned the document over in his hands. It was Jake’s passport to safety. He could leave Paris, travel anywhere in the country without question. He could arrange passage on a regular paquet at Calais rather than wait in danger for the eventual return of the fishing boat.

  Gabrielle certainly didn’t do things by halves, he thought. He had a sudden absurd urge to laugh, to fling his arms around her and dance a jig as relief coursed through his veins, and he felt his muscles relax as he stepped back from the brink of the precipice for the first time since they’d reached Paris.

  “Let’s go and find some supper,” he said. “And a decent bed.”

  “Ah, well, I have that all planned too,” Gabrielle said with a mysterious smile. “There are certain establishments where a man can take a woman, no questions asked.” She let her cloak fall open, and Nathaniel’s eyes glazed.

  Gabrielle was wearing a gown of crimson velvet edged with tawdry lace. The décolletage was so low, it barely covered her nipples, and the skirt was caught up to reveal a petticoat hiked well above her ankles, ankles that were clad in what looked to his astonished gaze to be cotton stockings. On her feet she wore a pair of down-at-heel black shoes with paste buckles.

  “Sweet Jesus,” he whispered. “What game are you playing?”

  “A brigand’s game,” she said with a roguish gleam in her eye. She too seemed infected with an almost manic edge of delight. “Who’s to question a servant and his whore in Pigalle?”

  Nathaniel shook his head as if trying to clear the cobwebs from his brain. “Jake … ?”

  “He’ll be quite safe with us. He’s too young to understand anything about the place, and it’ll be a lot safer and more comfortable than hiding from secret police in crypts.”

  “And what do you know of such places?” Nathaniel demanded.

  “Well, if you must know, I had a lover,” Gabrielle said nonchalantly. “We used to have our assignations there. Come on, we’ll find a carriage at Notre Dame.”

  “What? Come back here!” Nathaniel grabbed her arm as she was about to prance off down the street.

  Gabrielle grinned at him. “You’re not going to be a prude, are you?” Wisping river mist from the Seine clung to the dark red hair tumbling loose over her shoulders, and the charcoal eyes were alight with the challenge and mischief that he hadn’t seen for an eternity, it seemed.

  Jake suddenly tugged at his father’s hand. He didn’t understand what Gabby and Papa were talking about, but the chocolate had melted in his mouth and now he was cold and hungry and tired again.

  “Papa.” The single word was a small, undifferentiated plea that caught their attention as nothing else could have at that moment.

  Nathaniel bent and picked him up. “I don’t know what the hell you’re up to, Gabrielle,” he said. “But let’s get going.”

  She seemed to have wings on her feet, he thought, following her exuberant progress to Notre Dame. There were several hackney carriages in the square before the cathedral. Gabrielle gestured to one with a vulgar flick of her Angers and, in accents of the streets, engaged the driver in a ribald exchange that had Nathaniel torn between laughter and total bemusement.

  She jumped into the carriage, took a bewildered but compliant Jake from him, settling him on the seat beside her as his father climbed in and closed the door.

  “Where in the devil’s name did you learn to speak like that?” Nathaniel demanded as the carriage lurched forward.

  Her eyes glinted in the darkness. “I always wanted to be an actress.”

  Nathaniel leaned back against the squabs, closing his eyes in defeat. “Brigand,” he murmured to himself. “A veritable brigand.”

  Gabrielle only chuckled, cuddling Jake, who sucked his thumb, rocking with the motion of the carriage, sensing the different atmosphere surrounding him. The fear and the tension were gone; and there was no sign of the anger that often sparked between his father and Gabby. They were behaving in the way that made him feel warm and happy, and Papa had that funny little smile that he only ever wore when he was with Gabby.

  The carriage came to a halt in Pigalle. Gabrielle jumped down and informed the driver with a cheeky wave that her escort was paying and he could well afford a good pourboire.

  Nathaniel handed over the fare and the required tip without demur. The square was busy and well lit, women plying their trade on every corner, potential customers idling by, examining the wares. He glanced down at Jake, who seemed indifferent to the scene, holding Gabrielle’s hand, his eyes half closed with tiredness.

  “This way.” Gabrielle linked her arm in Nathaniel’s, allowing her cloak to fall open, revealing her trollop’s costume. Her tumbling hair was a startling mismatch with the crimson gown.

  The garment was obviously as carefully selected as the rest of her wardrobe, Nathaniel thought with another quiver of amusement as she led them across the square and into a narrow side street where the houses had lanterns outside the doors and in the windows. Women lolled against door jambs or sat in the windows, displaying their charms.

  Gabrielle stopped outside a much more discreet establishment, where a lantern hung over a closed door and the windows were shuttered.

  “What is this place?” Nathaniel demanded as Gabrielle knocked smartly.

  “The madame here used to be Julien’s nurse, until she changed professions. He’d kept in touch with her, and he and his army friends used this house for their assignations. Madame is very accommodating and very discreet. It’s a profitable sideline for her, I imagine.”

  Julien was presumably the lover, Nathaniel decided as a grating slid back in the door and an eye filled the gap. But where did the Comte de Beaucaire figure in all this?

  He watched, fascinated, as Gabrielle raised her hand to the grating and made a circle with her thumb and forefinger, an identifying sign of some kind.

  The door was opened by a very fat woman in a gown of striped bombazine and a lace cap perched on graying hair. She greeted Gabrielle with a businesslike pleasure that indicated they were old acquaintances but not intimates, then she subjected Nathaniel to an unnervingly close inspection before swooping on Jake with cries of entrancement.

  “Oh, le pauvre petit!” She enveloped the startled child against her massive bosom, all the while listening with sharp calculation to Gabrieile’s request for two adjoining rooms.

  She nodded and promptly named a sum that sounded extortionate to Nathaniel. Gabrielle, however, raised her skirt in the manner of her adopted profession and extracted a wad of notes from her garter, counted out the requisite n
umber, replaced the remainder, thanked their hostess warmly, and turned to Nathaniel with a smile.

  “There, that’s all settled. Jake can have the smaller room, and we can … well …”

  “We might,” he agreed dryly.

  “Well, that’s what you’re supposed to do in houses like this,” she pointed out. “Oh,” she said as if struck by a novel thought. “Perhaps you’ve never frequented one before.”

  “Just you wait!” he said in a ferocious whisper.

  “I’m not sure I can,” she returned, touching her tongue to her lips before turning to follow Madame’s expansive rear up the stairs.

  The strains of a piano came from behind a closed door, the sounds of laughter, whispers, a little shriek—more of excitement than fear, Nathaniel decided. They were clearly in a rather more salubrious brothel than those they’d passed in the square. The floors were clean, the paint fresh, the decor discreet. And the two bedchambers Madame showed them were clean and well appointed, if somewhat more flamboyantly decorated than the corridors outside. Fires blazed in both grates, an ample supply of logs beside the hearths.

  “Will you be wanting anything?” she asked Gabrielle. “Some milk, perhaps, for le petit.”

  “Bread and milk for the child,” Gabrielle said. “And we would like champagne and oysters.”

  “Comme d’habitude,” Madame said with a brisk, comprehending nod.

  As usual? Just how often had the Comtesse de Beaucaire eaten oysters with her lover in this place? Had the lover been another spy? The husband simply a convenient cover? His death had certainly been the cover story behind her desire to join the English secret service ….

  “Help me to put Jake to bed.” Gabrielle interrupted his reverie and he put the questions aside. There would be time enough for them later.

  Jake sleepily submitted to being undressed and washed. The room was warm and cozy, the bed all covered in red satin, and there was a heavy flowery smell in the air that wasn’t exactly unpleasant but made his nose tingle. Papa found his nightshirt in the portmanteau and slipped it over his head, then lifted him into bed.

  The bread and milk tasted almost like it did when Nurse made it for him, and when he dribbled milk on his chin, Papa wiped it off with his handkerchief.

  Feeling warm and safe, Jake snuggled down under the covers. Gabby was smiling and Papa’s mouth had a funny twitch to it, as if he were going to laugh. He thought it would be better than anything in the world if they could stay there forever, just the three of them. His eyes closed.

  Nathaniel watched the child slide into sleep and felt a deep satisfaction in seeing him, for the first time since they’d left Burley Manor, ensconced in a proper bed with all his accustomed bedtime rituals. The fact that the bed was in a brothel in the city’s most disorderly district didn’t seem to matter.

  He bent to turn the oil lamp low beside the child’s bed and kissed Jake’s cheek, brushing the curly hair off his forehead. Jake’s heavy eyelids lifted and then dropped again, and he snuggled deeper under the covers. So like Helen … but he wasn’t Helen. He was a separate, discrete entity whose birth had cost Helen her life. But that wasn’t Jake’s responsibility. It was his father’s.

  Nathaniel straightened and stood looking down on the sleeping child, the embodiment of his guilt. For nearly seven years he’d carried that guilt. But in the last few days something had happened to the burden. Jake wasn’t the embodiment of anything—he was a small boy with needs, both basic and complex. And in his own self-indulgent morass of guilt, the father had failed to address the child’s needs.

  He turned away from the bed and became aware of Gabrielle standing in the doorway connecting the two rooms. She inclined her head in an almost questioning gesture, her eyes gravely smiling.

  She had given him back his son. No, not given back. He hadn’t had his son in any real sense. Gabrielle had given him Jake. Whatever else she was, whatever eke she might have done, she’d shown him the joys and responsibilities of fatherhood and had forged the bond that he now felt so powerfully with the sleeping child.

  The lamp from the room behind her set fire alight in her deliberately disheveled hair. Her outrageous, lascivious costume accentuated every luscious curve of her body, and that aura of sensual mischief pulsed around her. A joyous throb of sexual energy coursed through him, obliterating all but desire.

  He moved toward her, and she stepped into the room behind.

  Her eyes held his as he closed the door gently. For a moment he leaned against it, and the excitement built as they both stood still, eyes held by the invisible thread of pulsating arousal.

  Suddenly Nathaniel laughed, a wann, rich sound of joy. He sprang toward her, picked her up, and tossed her onto the bed.

  “Brigand!” His mouth came down on hers, his tongue delving in the sweet cavern beneath. “Brigand,” he murmured against her lips. “God, I want you. It seems an eternity.”

  Her answering chuckle was a soft breath on his face, and her hands raked through his hair. He reached down and pulled her skirt up to her thighs, exposing the cheap cotton stockings. His fingers brushed across the remaining notes thrust into her garter.

  “Now, just which one of us is for sale, I wonder,” he mused, raising his head to look down at her.

  “You, if I can afford you,” she responded promptly.

  He sat back on his heels, astride her thighs, and slowly pulled out the notes, one by one, from their hiding place. He counted them with great deliberation, then pushed them into the pocket of his britches, announcing solemnly, “I can be bought for such a sum.”

  “I’m relieved, sir,” Gabrielle whispered, stretching beneath him, arching her back, pointing her toes, feeling the muscular energy ripple through her. “I have bought you in order that you should take me.”

  “The pleasure will be all mine, ma’am.”

  “Oh, I trust not, my lord …”

  Gabrielle had worried about how she would feel bringing Nathaniel to the place where she’d shared so much joy with Guillaume, but as the night passed in hours of glory, she realized that it didn’t matter.

  When Nathaniel pried an oyster off its pearly shell and dropped it into Gabrielle’s readily opened mouth, she remembered Guillaume doing the same thing. The memory was precious but not sullied. When he moved the damp stem of the champagne glass in a cold caress over her belly, setting her skin fluttering, she only smiled with languid pleasure at a bodily memory of a similar response long ago.

  “So where did your husband fit into the eternal triangle?” Nathaniel asked lazily as dawn began to break.

  “It was a marriage of convenience. Julien was already married when we met. I married Roland because one has to be married.” She shrugged as if it had been a matter for total indifference.

  “And what happened to them both?”

  “Roland died of typhus.”

  “And the lover?”

  Oh, no, she wasn’t ready for this. Suddenly the euphoria was shattered and she understood that she’d been fooling herself all night. The memories flooded back, and she turned her head aside, reaching across Nathaniel’s belly for the champagne glass on the table.

  “He was killed,” she said. “In the line of duty.”

  Nathaniel laid a hand on her back and immediately felt the strain beneath the damask skin. “You loved him,” he stated quietly.

  “Very much. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” Not to you, of all people.

  “You’re still mourning?” he persisted.

  “I think I always will to some extent. Please, can we go to sleep now?”

  Nathaniel took her chin between finger and thumb and brought her face around. Immediately she closed her eyes as if to hide the pain in them. “Look at me,” he said, softly insistent.

  Her eyes opened reluctantly, and they were sheened with tears. He took the glass from her and gathered her into his arms, holding her against his chest as he’d held Jake, soothing the child’s fear.

  Gabriell
e began to weep. She wept for Guillaume and the love they’d had, but she also wept in confusion and terror because somehow she was beginning to feel just as deeply for the man who had snatched Guillaume from her. How was it possible to feel such a powerful and obsessive and impossible love when one should feel only hate? How was it possible to feel such overwhelming passion when one should desire only vengeance?

  Nathaniel stroked her back, bending his head to press his lips to the curve of her neck as his hand smoothed over her buttocks in a caress that imparted warmth and reassurance rather than sensuality. She was jangling, he could hear and feel her discordance. He felt it himself, this terrible confusion of emotions when clear logic and absolute fact was routed again and again by the voracious hungers of lust.

  Gabrielle fell asleep first, her head pillowed in the crook of his neck, one arm flung across his body. Nathaniel, despite his own fatigue, lay awake listening to the sounds of a house that worked at night.

  He realized that for the first time since Helen’s death, he was thinking beyond the present, envisaging a future where the landscape was vibrant and full of promise. But how could the English spymaster be envisaging such a future with a French spy? It didn’t make any sense.

  He finally fell asleep, no nearer to an answer.

  When he awoke, he was alone in the bed, daylight pouring through the unshuttered windows. Jake’s chattering voice came from the next room, interspersed with Gabrielle’s more measured tones. Throwing aside the covers, he stood up and stretched and yawned. The room was warm, the fire freshly made up. It was an amazing luxury after the cheerless attic on rue Budé, not to mention that dreadful day in the crypt. His body felt good, suffused with the energy that a night of energetic and blissful lovemaking always engendered.

  “Did we wake you?” Gabrielle’s voice came from the connecting door and he turned with a half-smile. She was wearing her harlot’s dress again and still managing to look achingly desirable, although he could detect tiny lines of strain around her eyes and mouth. Something new? he wondered, or just the residue of last night’s torrent of weeping?