Velvet (38 page)

Nathaniel enjoyed the luxury of a sponge bath with ample hot water in the fire-warmed room. Gabrielle sat on the window seat, her appearance of relaxation just that. The world had reasserted itself this morning as she had known it had to. Last night’s interlude had been glorious, but the time for glorious interludes was over.

Jake kept up a stream of chatter and questions, his ordeals apparently forgotten in the warm and fear-free present.

Two maids brought breakfast, laying it on a round table beside the window. If they were aware of Nathaniel shaving, still naked, at the dresser, they gave no sign. Presumably they didn’t find it an unusual sight.

“Come and sit down, Jake.” Gabrielle lifted him onto a chair. “There’s hot chocolate for you and a brioche.” She broke a fragrant round brioche and spread it liberally with strawberry jam. “Brioches don’t have crusts,” she informed him. “But if you have bread, then you should dip the crust in your chocolate. Like so.” She suited action to words.

“That’s bad manners,” Jake said, wide-eyed.

“Not in France,” Gabrielle said firmly. “It’s very polite. Ask Papa.”

Jake giggled. “Is it, Papa?”

“In the nursery it may be,” Nathaniel said, pulling on his britches. “But not in serious company.”

“Stuffy!” Gabrielle accused, pouring hot milk into two deep bowls before adding the steaming, fragrant coffee. “I dip my bread in my coffee wherever I am.”

“Well, we both know how shamelessly you set bad examples.” He shrugged into his shirt, tucking it into the waist of his britches before coming to the table.

“What’s that mean?” Jake demanded, his eyes bright with curiosity.

“Never you mind.” Nathaniel ruffled his hair and sat down opposite him. “We have to decide how best to travel, Gabrielle. If it weren’t for Jake, who’ll be noticeable, I’d say we’d draw less attention traveling by stage, at least until we get into the countryside.”

“It would fit better with your identity as a servant,” Gabrielle agreed. “You could pass Jake off as a nephew, or something. I’m sure he’d be able to pretend he was invisible again, wouldn’t you, Jake?”

She dipped a crust of bread into her coffee bowl and expertly carried the dripping bread to her mouth, spilling not a drop. Jake watched her, fascinated, his mouth full of brioche.

“’Course I could,” he mumbled.

“And what of your identity?” Nathaniel broke into the brioche. “Perhaps you should travel independently.”

“I think I must stay here,” Gabrielle said. She tore a hunk off the baguette for Jake, cautioning, “You have to be careful of the drips if you’re going to dip it.”

“Oh? Why is that?” Nathaniel’s voice was calm as he waited to hear how she would explain herself. He now understood the reason for this new strain. She’d betrayed her French masters by saving him. There was no evidence against her at this point, but if she left France at the same time their quarry disappeared, then she’d incriminate herself. Fouché would hunt her down
wherever she was. Not even her godfather, even if he was so inclined, could protect her from the knife in the night. He leaned back in his chair, cradling his coffee bowl between his hands, regarding her steadily.

“It would look strange if I were just to disappear,” Gabrielle said. “Talleyrand would wonder about it. Catherine is having a ball next week to welcome me back. It would be discourteous, unless there was an absolutely vital reason for leaving, like a death or a wedding with the DeVanes, or something.”

Not bad, Nathaniel thought with detachment. Not bad at all.

“So you’ll follow when you can?”

“Of course.”

Jake shifted in his chair. Something had changed. Gabby was looking sad and Papa’s mouth had gone thin again. His tummy tightened and he pushed away his hot chocolate. Gabby wasn’t going to come with them. “Gabby’s coming with us,” he said. If he said it, then perhaps they’d say yes, she was.

“No, love, I can’t. Not at the moment.” Gabby patted his hand.

“Gabrielle has things to do here,” Nathaniel said, his voice flat.

Jake felt his lip tremble. They were going to go on that horrible boat again and Gabby wasn’t going to be there. A tear splashed on the table, and he pushed back his chair and ran into the next room before they could tell he was crying.

“I’m sorry,” Gabrielle said helplessly. “But I don’t see what else I can do.”

“No,” Nathaniel agreed steadily. “Neither do I.” Suddenly he was unutterably weary of this hideous charade. The desire for the clean knife of truth, even though it would sever everything, took possession of his soul. His gaze held hers.

The silence elongated. The fire hissed and the clock ticked. Nathaniel’s eyes were for once readable,
burning their message deep into hers, and comprehension crept over Gabrielle, lifting the fine hairs on her neck, setting her scalp crawling.

Nathaniel watched shock and understanding flood the dark gray depths of her eyes.

“You know,” she said finally.

“Yes.”

Gabrielle cupped her chin in her palms. “Since when? I thought I’d been so careful.”

“Since Burley Manor. I found your code in the Voltaire.”

She raised her eyes and looked at him, her expression swept clear of all emotion. “I wasn’t clever enough for you.”

“No,” he agreed. “Was I clever enough for you?”

“No.”

The space between them was a cool, clear wash of cleanliness. He wanted no explanations or excuses, and Gabrielle would not offer them.

“So what now?” Gabrielle asked.

“We go our separate ways. What we know of each other dies here.” He stretched his hand across the table.

She put her own in his. “I wish it could be different.”

“But it can’t.”

“I’ll say good-bye to Jake and then I’ll leave.”

“Before you go—”

“Yes?”

“What we know of each other dies here, unless … unless you ever oppose me professionally again. You understand that, Gabrielle? If that ever happens, it will be as if we had never met before.”

Gabrielle shivered. Despite the bleakness in his eyes, the despairing recognition that matched her own that all was at an end between them, there was unmistakable menace in the statement. The English spymaster would not forgive and forget an enemy a second time.

She nodded silently and went into the next chamber.

Nathaniel heard her voice in the other room, then he heard the door to the corridor close on the sound of his son’s sobbing. He heard her footsteps, light on the stairs. He heard the front door open and close. He stood before the window and watched as she disappeared in her black cloak around the corner into Pigalle.

On June fourteenth Napoleon defeated the Russians at Friedland and Alexander finally yielded to the wisdom of his brother, Grand Duke Constantine, and sued the French emperor for peace.

The news created great excitement in the salons of Paris, where Gabrielle had passed the past months in a state of limbo. She had passed similar periods—ostensibly taking lively part in court life, talking, smiling, flirting—during her affair with Guillaume, when there had been deserts of time between their meetings, and she’d lived in fear and emptiness, and none of her desolation had shown on her face or in her eyes.

“Now,
man enfant
, the fun starts,” Talleyrand announced three days after the battle. He came into her apartments, flourishing a dispatch bearing the Napoleonic eagle.

“Alexander is sending his plenipotentiary to the emperor requesting a truce, one that I suspect will leave England isolated. I am summoned to Napoleon’s side to assist with the terms of the truce. You shall accompany me.”

“Me? Why, sir?” Gabrielle stared in surprise.

“I shall need a hostess,” he said blandly, “Catherine cannot perform such a task with either discretion or distinction, as you know. So you shall take her place. No one will consider it strange.”

“I’d been thinking of going to Valencay,” she said. She strolled over to the window, looking down at the street. The plane trees had the dusty look of city foliage in summer, and a mongrel cur lay in the shade, his tongue lolling. She’d been intending to visit Talleyrand’s country chateau for a few weeks. She’d often stayed there in the old days, waiting for Guillaume. Once or twice they’d had more than a week together in the idyllic country setting, undisturbed by any but the most discreet staff. They’d fished the river and swam in the deep pool under the bridge. They’d ridden over the countryside under the moonlight, picnicked and picked peaches and greengages in the lush orchards. And they’d made love—under the trees, in the river, in the hayloft, in the fields—whenever and wherever the mood had taken them.

“This will offer you greater distraction,” her godfather pointed out.

“You think I’m in need of distraction?” She turned from the window, raising an ironic eyebrow.

Talleyrand made no response to what was a rhetorical question. Gabrielle was a wan shadow of her former self. She had little interest in anything, and none at all in the business of espionage. The bitter end to her encounter with Nathaniel Praed had engendered a deep loathing for anything clandestine. She slept little and ate less, and he’d been an impotent observer of her suffering for too long. It was too much akin to the dreadful weeks after Guillaume’s death, and he found himself wishing that she didn’t have to feel so deeply, didn’t have to throw her entire self, body and soul, into her love affairs. But he also knew that that was Gabrieile’s nature and there was no changing it. All he could hope to do was alleviate her pain as and when he could.

Gabrielle smiled in rueful resignation as he merely held out the dispatch to her.

She read it and then shrugged in acceptance. “So when do we leave?”

Talleyrand couldn’t conceal his satisfaction. “We travel to Tilsit in the morning. It will be a tedious journey, no doubt. But at least it’s summer and the roads are no longer enmired.”

Tilsit was on the border of Russia and Prussia, a small town on the River Niemen, and it took a week of hard journeying to reach it. Gabrielle rode beside the carriage whenever she could, but she was soon heartily sick of the primitive way stations where they passed the nights and the rancid meat and hard bread that passed for decent fare.

Her godfather was a poor traveling companion, nursing his aching leg and saying very little, his brain ceaselessly at work on plotting his campaign.

They arrived in Tilsit on the evening of June twenty-fourth. The minister’s staff had traveled ahead and had laid claim to a house on the left bank—the Prussian side of the river—to accommodate the Minister for Foreign Affairs and his hostess. It was one of the larger houses in the modest town as befitted the prince’s consequence.

The town was taken over by Napoleon’s entourage and his Imperial Guard. His victorious army camped in the surrounding fields, as usual living off the land with blithe disregard for the peasantry. They were a conquered people, after all, and Napoleon had little time for his defeated enemies unless they could be useful to him. Alexander, the Czar of all the Russias, he believed, could be useful in the battle he fought against the intransigent English. Therefore, he would treat him accordingly.

“What on earth is that?” Gabrielle exclaimed, wearily dismounting outside the house assigned to them. She stared at the river, where a massive raft was anchored
midstream. It bore two lavishly adorned white pavilions, the larger of which carried a massive embroidered letter
N
on the side facing Napoleon’s camp.

“Our emperor,
ma chère
, has always had a flair for the dramatic,” Talleyrand declared. “He and the czar are to meet tomorrow morning in the large pavilion. I daresay, if you went to the opposite bank, you would see the letter A embroidered in the same style on the other side.”

Gabrielle shook her head and muttered, sotto voce, “He is a vulgar little man, isn’t he?”

Talleyrand tapped her wrist in half-serious reproof. “Be careful where and to whom you say such things,
mon enfant
. I must go now and pay my respects. I’ll leave you to inspect the accommodation and make what adjustments you think fit. I intend to entertain quite lavishly at some point in the next few days.”

“D’accord.”
Gabrielle entered the house. The duties of a diplomatic hostess sat easily on her shoulders, and Catherine was always very happy to yield her place at such tedious functions to the younger woman. No one here would think twice about the role of the prince’s goddaughter.

She chose a bedchamber for herself overlooking the river and sat in the window for a few moments, looking across the river with its flamboyant raft. On the right bank lay Russia. There was no sign of the Russian emperor or his entourage on the shore, where a crumbling cottage stood in the middle of a field.

A summons to dine with the emperor arrived with Talleyrand’s return, and it was late when she finally got to bed. The conversation had all been about the upcoming meeting between Napoleon and his erstwhile enemy, and there was an air of suppressed excitement in the town, as if great things were about to be accomplished.

Midmorning the next day found Gabrielle positioned in her window. She saw a line of barouches
arrive on the opposite bank and a small group of men alight and enter the ruined cottage.