Velvet v-3

by Jane Feather

  He moved away, leaving his father to continue his observation. The exquisite Madame Walewska, in a delicate gown of white satin over a pale gold and pink underskirt, a simple laurel wreath on her fair curls, was partnering the emperor in a quadrille. The contrast between the lady's exquisite grace and her partner's clumsiness was laughable, but Napoleon wouldn't give a fig for his awkward performance, as Talleyrand knew well. In the emperor's opinion, a man at home on a battlefield had no right to be at home on the dance floor.

  The emperor, however, was making no secret of the fact that he found Madame Walewska enchanting. However, could the lady be persuaded to sacrifice her honor for her country? Talleyrand had discovered that Marie was passionately devoted to the cause of Polish liberation. He knew she would give everything she had, maybe even her life, in the cause, as. indeed, so many of her countrymen were doing. But she was young, innocent, delicately bred. Would she give Napoleon the one thing he wanted?

  His eyes flickered to a deep window embrasure, where Anastase Walewski stood preening himself as he watched his wife. There would be no trouble from the old man, Talleyrand thought with cynical knowledge. He'd give his wife to Napoleon without a qualm for the sake of the reflected glory.

  However, to be on the safe side, Napoleon's Minister for Foreign Affairs would devote some flattering attention to the self-important chancellor.

  The prince moved away from the railing and limped to the sweeping curve of staircase leading down to the ballroom. Pimping for his emperor was a new experience, but Talleyrand used what tools were at hand in his diplomacy. If the way to the liberation of Poland lay through the emperor's bed, then so be it.

  It might be useful to inform Gabrielle of Napoleon's new love interest. He would send a letter by express messenger to the contact in London, who would send it on to the Vanbrughs' house in Kent-the seemingly chatty, innocuous letter of a godfather to his dearly loved godchild. Gabrielle would pass the nugget on to her spymaster as a token of good faith and further proof of her access to the private ears of the emperor's inner circle. Disseminating the information would do France and Talleyrand's own plans no harm. The English were only observers in the fate of Poland.

  Smiling benignly, he crossed the room toward Chancellor Anastase Walewski, preparing to congratulate him on his wife's success and the possibility of his imminent cuckledom.

  ******************************************************************

  The faces crowded closer. Sweating, red, eyes bloodshot, the mob pressed forward. Their mouths were open, gaping holes in the grotesque faces as they yelled their obscenities at the man and woman standing at bay behind a long table against the salon wall.

  A cudgel smashed against the polished tabletop, gouging a great wound in the rosewood. The woman shrank back against the silk-c overed wall and her husband tried to speak above the tumult. His tones were measured, reasonable, and they were drowned under screeching, mocking laughter and more obscenities.

  A citoyenne in the red bonnet of the Revolution spat across the table, and from somewhere came the sound of smashing glass as a window broke beneath the assault of a cudgel.

  A man in the bloodstained apron of a butcher struggled to lift the edge of the table. Another heaved with him, the veins in his forearms great blue ropes beneath the weather-beaten skin. The table fell onto its side with an almighty crash. The couple behind were now exposed to the mob, their fragile barrier demolished. Hands reached for them, hauled them out, and they were lost in the throng, pushed and jostled to the great double doors of the salon. The sounds of breaking glass continued and the child, lying rigid along the beams of the ceiling, smelled smoke as someone fired the tapestries in the long gallery upstairs and the orgy of destruction reached new levels of enthusiasm…

  The narrow cobbled street was thronged, the stench of un washed humanity heavy in the sultry summer air. The open tumbrils clattered over the cobbles in an endless stream, their passengers standing cheek by jowl, hands bound in front of them, hair scraped back from their faces, white faces staring unseeing into the jeering crowd running beside the carts, pelting them with rock-hard dried mud and rubbish from the kennels.

  The child now stood at a gabled window under the eaves of a wine shop. She hugged the shadows as she lo iced out on the scene below. It was the same scene ever from dawn to dusk when Madame Guillotine closed eyes for the night.

  The face of a woman among the condemned in the second cart became suddenly sharply defined amid the sea of desperation. The child pressed her hand to her mouth to keep from crying out as she watched the cart pass below the window and out of sight around the comer of the Rue de Seine…

  The low, heartbroken sobbing jerked Nathaniel into full awareness before he realized what it was. The bedroom was filled with moonlight, the ruddy glow of the dying embers in the grate a counterpoint to the cold silver clarity of the light.

  Gabrielle was sitting up beside him, tears sliding out from her closed lids to track down her cheeks. The sobs were in her throat, and she rocked her body as she hunched pitifully over her drawn-up knees.

  "Gabrielle," he whispered, shocked to his core. She made no response, and he touched her bare back. Her skin was slick with sweat and cold as the grave.

  "Gabrielle," he said again, louder this time, his warm palm cupping the damp curve of her shoulder. When her eyes remained shut and the sobs continued, he realized she was still asleep. Fast asleep, she sat hunched over her knees, racked with some devastating inner anguish. What nightmare world was she inhabiting?

  "Gabrielle! Wake up!" He spoke with a calm authority, swiveling to take her shoulders from the front and shake her awake. "Wake up, you're having a bad dream."

  Her eyes opened and the sadness in them struck to his heart. The dark red ringlets clustering around her face clung to her cheeks, damp with tears and sweat, and she stared at him for a minute, unrecognizing. The sobs gathered in her throat, but as he watched in impotent compassion, she swallowed vigorously, wiped the back of her arm over her eyes, and loosened her hair with her fingers, tossing it back over her shoulders.

  "I'm sorry," she said, her voice thick with the residue of tears. "Did I wake you?"

  "What was it?" he asked gently. "What were you dreaming?"

  Her shoulders lifted in an infinitesimal shrug and she shook her head. "Nothing… nothing at all." She lay down again, closing her eyes firmly. "Go back to sleep, Nathaniel. I'm sorry I woke you."

  "That won't do," he said sharply, gazing down at her.

  "What won't?" She rolled onto her side in the fetal position. "I'm sleepy."

  He could feel the jagged edges of her pain as an almost palpable aura around the curled figure, and he knew she was as wide awake as he was.

  "It won't do," he repeated, swinging out of bed. "And don't pretend you're sleepy, because Iknow damn well you're as far from sleep as you could possibly be."

  He went over to the fireplace and bent to rake through the embers, stirring them into flickering life. He tossed kindling onto the flicker and waited until the dry wood caught. Then he turned back to the bed.

  Gabrielle was lying on her back now, her eyes still resolutely closed. Tears stained the translucent pallor of her cheeks, and there was a bead of lip where she'd bitten it.

  A few hours earlier he'd fallen into a satiated sleep beside a bold, imperious, exciting woman of inventive and ingenious passion. And he'd woken beside a vulnerable, deeply hurt woman who looked both much younger than her years and yet paradoxically older.

  "Gabrielle." He came and sat on the bed beside her, laying a hand on her stomach, feeling the muscles jump in instant reflex against his cool palm. "Iwant to know what you were dreaming."

  Her eyes opened and he saw the residue of stark pain in their charcoal depths.

  "It was nothing, I told you. Nothing important. I'm sorry I woke you."

  "Don't keep saying that." Impatience, never far below the surface, broke through his compassion. "You were dreaming something te
rrible."

  Sighing, Gabrielle sat up. "And what if I was? We're all entitled to our privacy, Nathaniel. You have no rights over my soul."

  Nathaniel stood up abruptly. "Now, just listen to me. We make the most wonderful, transcendent love for hours and I fall asleep holding you in my arms, feeling your breathing, smelling your skin and your hair, aware of every millimeter of your skin touching mine. And then I wake in the middle of the night to find you soaked in sweat, sobbing in utter desolation, and you tell me I'm not entitled to know what's the matter. Well, it won't do, Gabrielle. Passion can't exist in a vacuum." He glared at her.

  "Biting my head off isn't going to encourage me to bare my soul," she observed. A shiver ran through her as the sweat cooled in the cold night air and goose bumps rose on her skin.

  Nathaniel heard the beginning of resignation in her voice. He turned to the armoire and drew out a heavy velvet robe. "Put this on and come to the fire," he said, his voice calm and gentle now. Kindness on the heels of exasperation could be a potent persuader, as any skilled interrogator knew. Throwing another robe around his own shoulders, he went to the door. "I'll bring up some cognac."

  "I'd love some warm milk," Gabrielle murmured, huddling into the warm folds of the robe. "If you're going downstairs."

  Nathaniel scratched his head. He rarely ventured into the back regions of his house and wasn't at all certain that he'd know how to produce such a commodity.

  Gabrielle was smiling at him in perfect comprehension, just a tinge of her customary mockery in her eyes. "I'll come with you," she said. "I'm sure the kitchen fire's well banked for the night. It'll be warmer than here."

  "And then I'll hear the story, he asserted.

  Gabrielle had shared the nightmare with only two others: Georgie and Guillaume. They were the only people until then with whom she’d shared a bed throughout the long, dark hours of the night when the memories of terror awoke. But to tell Nathaniel was to reveal a weakness-a corner of her soul-to the enemy. Then again, the pragmatic voice of reason said, it would substantiate her hostility to her father's nation.

  Reason won over instinctive reluctance. "Yes, I'll tell you," she said. "It'll probably happen again, so it's only reasonable that you should know."

  Nathaniel held out his hand. They went down to the kitchen, the skirts of his velvet robe brushing Gabrielle's bare toes. She set a pan of milk on the range and sat down, propping her feet on the shiny brass fender before the fire, while Nathaniel fetched the decanter of cognac from the library.

  "So?" he said quietly when they were both sitting in the hushed kitchen, only the loud ticking of the longcase clock disturbing the somnolent peace.

  Gabrielle cupped her hands around the mug of hot milk, inhaling the brandy-rich steam. "At the beginning of the Revolution, my father voted with the Third Estate at the Estates General, with he Duc d'Orleans and Mirabeau and Talleyrand. They all believed in reform. When matters ran out of hand, Talleyrand went into exile." She shrugged and allowed a flicker of distaste to tinge her words. Nathaniel must believe that she held no brief for her godfather.

  "He's a wily bird… wilier than my father ever was. Talleyrand knew the fickleness of the wind and the populace when anarchy reigns, and he always knows where his best interests lie. My father, I think, believed that the people would always know him for what he was. He truly believed that he could not be harmed by those whom he'd sworn to support."

  "But the Terror didn't distinguish," Nathaniel said.

  "No," she agreed with a somber headshake. "It swallowed its own most fanatical supporters as eagerly as it swallowed the aristos. Anyway, my parents were taken one afternoon by the mob. They were taken directly to the Tribunal, condemned, and executed the next day… at least," she added, "my mother was. I saw her in the tumbril. I don't know exactly what happened to my father. He disappeared into the prisons and was never heard of again."

  "And where were you?" Nathaniel prompted.

  "When they realized the mob was coming, my father hid me in the rafters of the salon. They were broad oak beams, quite wide enough for a small child to lie on, hidden from below." She raised her eyes to him over the lip of her mug. "In the nightmare I relive that afternoon. It's not really a nightmare in that it's not all jumbled and symbolic the way dreams usually are. It's always just a very straight repicturing… reliving… of what happened. And then afterward, always, I relive seeing my mother in the tumbril on her way to the guillotine."

  She drank deeply and fell silent. The bare bones of the story were all she was prepared to reveal.

  "How did you escape France?"

  "Talleyrand," she said. "He kept contacts in Paris throughout the Terror, although don't ask me how. He's an expert opportunist, a master at keeping a foot in every camp."

  She stared into the fire. "He probably could have saved my parents… oh, I don't know. I just sometimes think that his attentions to me have been out of guilt." She shook her head impatiently. "Although I can't imagine His Highness of Benevento feeling guilt for anything. He's far too pragmatic."

  Nathaniel absorbed this and tucked it away for future reflection. "So what happened next?"

  "Talleyrand's contacts smuggled me out of Paris and onto a fishing boat in Brittany. I was deposited on the doorstep of the De Vanes' London house early one morning by a French refugee who'd been told where to take me. The DeVanes took in an almost mute, terrified, grieving child and left her alone to come to herself in her own time. They put up with my silences, my grief, my moods, automatically assumed Iwould join them in their pursuits and accepted it when I didn't. And one day I came out of it. I stayed with them until I was eighteen. They're my family, and their loyalties are mine."

  She smiled slightly over the lip of her cup. "I don't have enough words to describe what they did for me. Itried 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. "Idoubt 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 awhile. 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 amoment, 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 exce
ss 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 bunched 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, toproject 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.