Velvet

by Jane Feather

  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. A
nd 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.

  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?”

  I don’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. Elite 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 secrétaire.

  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 Letters philosphiques 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
his 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.