Velvet

by Jane Feather

  “I see”.

  A silver eyebrow rose quizzically as he regarded her. “For some reason I’d expected a little more enthusiasm. It’s what you’ve been wanting, after all.”

  She summoned a smile. “You just took me by surprise, that’s all.”

  “Well, having made the decision, I can see little point in waiting.”

  “No, neither can I,” she agreed, injecting firm confidence into the statement. “But you will tell me exactly what to do?”

  “To the letter,” he said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to meet with the bailiff. I’ll see you at nuncheon.”

  Gabrielle nodded and watched him stride off down the gravel path toward the house. So it was the end of the passionate interlude. Once she was working in the field, there’d be few opportunities for lustful encounters between the spymaster and his agent. In fact, Nathaniel would probably consider them dangerously out of bounds in a working relationship. Perhaps that lay behind the distancing of the past few days. He was preparing them both for the inevitable separation.

  Well, in many ways it would be a relief. Vengeance would become relatively simple again. Apart from him, she would manage to overcome her addiction to Nathaniel Praed’s lovemaking. She’d have to, wouldn’t she?

  The courier bearing Gabrieile’s letter caught up with Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord in an inn in a small village in East Prussia, where he’d stopped for the night on his way back to Paris. He was in no cheerful frame of mind. His crippled leg ached unmercifully from the cold and the violent jolting of the carriage along the broken, ice-covered roads of a part of the world he was rapidly considering totally benighted, and not even the prospect of his comfortable house in the rue d’Anjou could truly compensate for the miseries of the journey.

  Napoleon’s victory over the Russians at Eylau on February eighth had finally given his Minister for Foreign Affairs the opportunity to leave the emperor’s side. Napoleon had correctly described Eylau as “not a battle but a slaughter,” in which the Russians lost nearly twenty-six thousand men, and the French casualties were almost as disastrous. It was moot which side could truly claim victory. Alexander had congratulated his own General Bennigsen on defeating “the one who has never yet known defeat.” However, since Bennigsen ordered his troops to fall back on Kaliningrad, technically Napoleon remained master of the field.

  Poor consolation for the widows and orphans on either side! Talleyrand reflected, gazing morosely into the clear liquid in his rather smeared vodka glass. But now the emperor was marching the army to Osterode to make winter quarters, and Talleyrand was free to shake the dust of Eastern Prussia from his boots. With luck he’d reach Paris by the end of the week.

  He stared into the meager fire and sipped his vodka, nothing more civilized being offered in this wayside halt. Absently he rubbed his aching leg and reexamined the decoded message within the letter. Gabrielle had become an expert at this means of communication during her work as a courier, and she had the kind of mind that lent itself to the construction of cryptic yet nonetheless informative messages.

  But something niggled at him. Not in the coded message but in the letter that enclosed it. It was a somewhat formal communication, as her role demanded. For public consumption, she held no brief for her godfather and wouldn’t therefore engage in anything other than dutifully courteous correspondence. Should anyone happen to look over her shoulder while she was writing the letter, they would read only the tone they would expect.

  But Talleyrand was sensing something awry in the relationship between the spymaster and Gabrielle. The vengeful seduction had gone exactly according to plan, and she expected to gain the spymaster’s total confidence very shortly, but she was withholding something … there was a sense of uncertainty, a slight ambiguity in her expressions that caused her godfather considerable speculation. Only someone who knew her as well as he did would have been aware of it, and Gabrielle probably hadn’t been aware of it herself. But something had occurred that might well muddy the waters of the minister’s perfect plan.

  Talleyrand kicked at a slipping log in the grate. Gabrielle knew that his goal was not the destruction of Nathaniel Praed, but quite the opposite. The spymaster was to be the recipient of selected information that he would pass on to his government, and thus Talleyrand would be in a position to manipulate the war to his own desired end: the defeat of Napoleon. Only thus would peace and stability return to Europe without the destruction of France. Napoleon had served his purpose in stabilizing the country after the postrevolution chaos, but now he no longer spoke for France. He was a megalomaniac and he had to be stopped before his territorial ambitions ruined his country by creating a coalition of vengeful powers headed by England that France would be unable to withstand.

  But Gabrielle had her own overriding personal motive for manipulating Nathaniel Praed. It was that that made her a perfect partner in her godfather’s scheme. If something was going on that would eradicate Gabrieile’s own motivation, how would that affect her willingness to play Talleyrand’s deep game?

  Talleyrand sighed and examined a plate of pickled cabbage and fat sausage with a disgusted twitch of his thin, aristocratic mouth. Peasant food! It was a far cry from the gourmet chefs in Warsaw, let alone Paris. But he had to endure only a few more days.

  14

  Jake lay in the nursery, staring at the black square of the window at the end of his bed. The springlike day had given way to a violent, blustery night and the bare branches of the oak tree outside scratched against the panes. He could hear the slapping of the river against the jetty and the scream of a benighted sea gull fleeing inland from the choppy waters of the Solent.

  His stomach hurt and felt empty, as if he’d had no supper. But he’d had an egg and toast and Nurse had made him hot chocolate and Primmy had read him a story. Gabby had come to kiss him good night. He could still smell her hair as she’d bent over him. It smelled like the flowers she had in her boudoir.

  He wanted to cry, but he felt all dried up. Whenever he thought about being left alone by Primmy and Gabby, he wanted to scream and shout and throw something. He wanted to hurt someone. It was Papa’s fault … everything was Papa’s fault. He’d brought that horrible man who smelled like sour milk and wore a black gown and flapped around the schoolroom like the gigantic crow that lived in the elm tree behind the orchard. Papa had told Primmy she had to leave, and now he was sending Gabby away. Why couldn’t Papa go away and never come back … never!

  Jake sniffed and stared dry-eyed at the window. It was wicked to think something like that, but he couldn’t help it, and he didn’t care if God did strike him dead. It would be better than staying here alone with that nasty man and his swishy stick and his Latin verbs.

  Why wouldn’t Gabby let him go with her? He’d asked and asked but she’d said no, it was too far and Papa wouldn’t like it and he had to go to school ….

  Well, he wasn’t going to school, and he didn’t care about Papa. He was going with Gabby.

  Jake tossed onto his side and curled up, feeling for the knitted donkey that Nurse had made him when he was a baby. It had slipped to the bottom of his bed, and he pulled it up with his feet, wrapping his body around it, smelling its familiar woolly smell. His thumb took the forbidden path into his mouth and his eyes closed. He wasn’t staying here. He was going to run away with Gabby.

  For the next two days Jake listened. He listened to the servants, to Primmy when she talked to Nurse, to Milner in the stables when he went for his riding lessons. The only person he didn’t listen to was Mr. Jeffrys, but then, the tutor didn’t talk about Gabby and when she was leaving Burley Manor. The swishy stick stung his knuckles when he was inattentive, but Jake didn’t care. His whole body seemed centered on his glowing purpose, and he could think of nothing else.

  From Milner he discovered that Gabby was driving to Lymington in the chaise on Thursday evening. Gabby told him she was taking a fishing boat to France from Lymington quay. Jake knew that fishi
ng boats had decks with coils of rope and nets, and usually they had a cabin. He would find somewhere to hide, he was sure. The chaise had a narrow ledge at the back and a strap for a spare groom to hang on to, but there wouldn’t be a groom on the short journey to Lymington. The prospect of clinging up there himself made him feel rather sick, but it didn’t dent his purpose in the least.

  From Primmy and Nurse, he learned that his father was leaving on the same day and expected to be away for several weeks. If his father was away, Jake couldn’t see how he’d discover that Jake had gone until he came back, so there’d be nobody to chase him even when his disappearance was discovered. And that wouldn’t be until the morning, when Nurse came to wake him up. And once they reached France, Gabby would look after him. His mind couldn’t stretch beyond that immediate goal, and he was untroubled by speculation on the future.

  Gabrielle was puzzled by the suppressed excitement she felt in the child. She’d expected him to be unhappy, cross even, blaming her for leaving him. But instead his eyes were unnaturally bright and he giggled in a most unJakelike fashion, and he seemed hard pressed to put a coherent sentence together. Primmy commented on it too, and Mr. Jeffrys complained at length to his employer about his pupil’s general inattentiveness.

  Nathaniel heard the complaint in frowning silence, then delivered the acerbic comment that he’d assumed a tutor to whom he paid the princely sum of one hundred pounds a quarter would know how to command the attention of a six-year-old.

  A chagrined Mr. Jeffrys left the library, and Gabrielle observed from her secluded fireside corner, “Much as I enjoy his discomfiture, I hope he doesn’t take his mortification out on Jake in the interests of gaining his attention.”

  “Jeffrys knows exactly what I will and will not permit,” Nathaniel said shortly.

  “And how are you to know if he doesn’t keep within those boundaries?” she inquired. “I don’t see Jake telling you, do you?”

  Nathaniel ran his hands through his hair in a gesture of frustration. “I don’t know why he wouldn’t. I give him plenty of opportunity to talk to me.”

  Gabrielle shook her head but said nothing. It was too late now for her opinions. They hadn’t been accepted before, and there was no reason to believe that a flash of insight would illuminate the eve of departure and bring forth a change of heart.

  Nathaniel had made all the arrangements for her journey and given her the details calmly and efficiently, as if he weren’t describing the way she would walk out of his life forever. Gabrielle had responded in the same fashion. They were pleasant and polite to each other; they made love, but the spark was missing. Gabrielle supposed it eased the prospect of parting. One withdrew from addiction by slow steps. But it also felt soulless, almost as if they were determined now to negate the strength of what they’d shared.

  They dined early on the Thursday evening and Gabrielle went up to say good-bye to Jake. The little boy was sitting up in bed, unusually pale, but his brown eyes had an almost febrile glitter to them. Gabrielle felt his forehead as she kissed him. He was warm but not feverish. Most unusually, he didn’t seem to want her to stay. Instead of prolonging the visit in his customary fashion with questions, requests for another story, or endless narratives with neither beginning nor end, he docilely accepted her good-bye kiss and said good night, snuggling down almost before she’d left the nursery.

  It was a relief, of course. She’d been dreading tears and recriminations. But it was still a little hurtful to think how quickly one could be dismissed by both father and son.

  “Are you ready?” Nathaniel came into her apartments just before nine o’clock. “The tide’s full at eleven o’clock and you have to catch it.”

  “Yes, I’m ready.” She looked up from the jewel casket she was closing and blinked in surprise. Nathaniel was wearing boots and britches, a plain white linen shirt open at the neck with a scarf knotted carelessly at his throat. He had a cloak slung over one arm and leather gauntlets held in one hand.

  “That’s a very serviceable dress,” she commented. “Are you intending to travel all night?”

  “It might be necessary,” he replied in the tone that she’d learned prohibited further inquiry. “Has Bartram taken your traps to the chaise?”

  “Yes, and I’ve said good-bye to Ellie and Mrs. Bailey.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  There was a lump in Gabrielle’s throat as she followed him downstairs. She couldn’t understand why she wasn’t excited, triumphant at the success of her plan. She had the spymaster where she wanted him. But she was aware only of a bleak depression and a deep and irrational hurt. She wanted Nathaniel to be as regretful at their parting as she was, and he patently wasn’t.

  Nathaniel handed her into the chaise waiting at the door and climbed in after her, first checking that the luggage was properly stowed on the roof. He knocked on the panel, the coachman clicked his whip, and the carriage moved down the long drive.

  At the bottom of the drive they stopped while the gatekeeper opened the gate for them. A small figure crept out of the bushes and clambered onto the narrow ledge, standing on tiptoe to seize the leather strap, pressing his slight body against the back of the coach as it rattled through the gate and down the lane. The gatekeeper closed the gate after them, muttering to himself as his rheumaticky hands fumbled with the heavy iron bar. He was shortsighted and it was a dark night. If he discerned a darker shadow against the rear panels of the coach as it swayed down the road, he thought nothing of it.

  Gabrielle tried to think of some topic of conversation, something to break the silence. But there’d only ever been one acceptable topic of conversation, and it was hardly appropriate at this juncture. Although the last time they’d traveled in the coach, on the way from Vanbrugh Court, it had been more than appropriate …

  Nathaniel sat back against the squabs, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes hooded as he watched her face in the shifting shadows of the coach. She wasn’t happy about this mission; in fact, if asked, he would have said she was downright depressed. As indeed he would be if he believed they were about to part ways. Not even her treachery, it seemed, could destroy his passion for her. There was some level on which they were totally compatible, and in his more detached moments it struck him as the most damnable twist of fate that they should find themselves on opposite sides in the dirty war they fought. They would have made the most amazing partners if they shared the same goals and the same loyalties.

  Instead, they were bitterest enemies, each out to manipulate and betray the other. And in his heart he knew that even if he won, as he intended to, they would still both be losers.

  In half an hour the chaise clattered across the cobbles at the Lymington quay. Lamplight poured out from the Black Swan Inn as inebriated fishermen staggered out, yelling, cursing, and singing. Most made their way to the fleet of boats tied up at the quay, leaping on decks with a dexterity that belied the effects of carousing. But time and tide made no concessions when a man’s livelihood came from the sea.

  Jake slipped to the cobbles and darted behind a coil of tarred rope. In the general melee no one noticed a small boy in nankeen britches and a knitted blue jersey. He watched as the coachman snapped his fingers at one of the inn’s ostlers lounging against the timbered wall of the inn with a pipe in his hand. The man shook out the pipe and sauntered across. Money changed hands, and between them the ostler and coachman unloaded the bags from the roof of the chaise. They took them to a relatively large fishing boat at the far end of the quay. A man standing in the stern greeted them with a hail and gestured that they should come aboard.

  Jake slipped from his hiding place and darted forward. His father and Gabby were still standing by the coach, talking to each other. No one was looking in his direction. Around him people were running, shouting, leaping from the quay to the boat decks and back again. Ropes were being untied, sheets loosened, and sails unfurled. Lymington estuary was in full flood, the tide flowing strongly toward the Solent at i
ts mouth, and there was a night of fishing and crabbing to be done. Some would trawl their nets in the deep waters off the Brittany coast, on the lookout for hostile French shipping, and one craft at least, like the Curlew, would ferry and offload those who sailed by night about clandestine business.

  The three men had their backs turned to the gangway. Jake leaped across it in four steps and dived behind a roll of canvas sailcloth in the bow of the boat. He crouched there, his heart beating fast, but too excited for fear. In a minute Gabby would come aboard and his father would drive off and the boat would sail out of the river. He wouldn’t tell anyone he was there until they got to France. How long did it take to sail to France? Perhaps all night?

  “Let’s get you aboard,” Nathaniel said, putting an arm lightly around Gabrielle’s shoulders, shepherding her toward the craft riding easily on the swelling tide. “I’ll give you your detailed instructions in the cabin.”

  He went ahead of her across the gangplank, jumped down to the deck, and, turning, held out his hand to her. He was smiling, and there was something raffish about him, Gabrielle realized as he stood there in the torchlit night, the carelessly knotted kerchief at his throat, one booted foot on the gangplank, his other hand resting on his knee, the cloak falling back from his shoulders revealing the slender, tensile frame.

  She didn’t think she’d ever seen him like this, radiating some secret pleasure … just like Jake, she thought, recognizing one of those flashes of similarity between parent and child.

  Nathaniel was obviously relishing the prospect of whatever adventure awaited him once she’d left. Not to be outdone, Gabrielle forced a smile of her own and sprang lightly across the gangplank, disdaining his helping hand with an airy wave.

  “There’s a cabin of sorts below,” Nathaniel said, ushering her toward the hatchway. “Primitive, I’m afraid, but hopefully not too fishy.” His voice was bright and his eyes had the wicked gleam in their depths that Gabrielle associated with their most imaginative playtimes.