Velvet (7 page)

Her laugh was rich and exultant. “You won’t lose me, Lord Praed, I can assure you.”

“Oh, I know that,” he called back, his eyes glittering. And neither of them missed the underlying meaning of their words. Something had been started that would not soon be finished. But neither of them was as yet prepared to put a name to what it was.

The chase took them across four fields and Gabrielle was at his heels throughout. They sailed over hedge and stream and he could almost feel her breath on his back. The frigid January air whistled past their ears; the hooves crashed over the hard-ridged furrows of the plowed fields; they plunged into a copse and he heard her laughing curse as a branch whipped her cheek and she dropped low on the horse’s neck.

And at the kill she sat her panting horse steadily, with no sign of flinching from the swift and bloody slaughter.

Nathaniel felt again the power emanating from the tall, taut figure. He was responding to the wildness, the passion, the force that drove her, and he couldn’t help himself. Fearless and unconventional, Gabrielle de Beaucaire spelled a form of trouble he didn’t think he could resist, not if he stayed in her vicinity.

He waited for her to show some fatigue as the day wore on. Or at least to say that she was hungry. But she stayed at the head of the field, unflagging and uncomplaining. He was famished and knew she must be too, but he couldn’t bring himself to admit a need that his indomitable companion ignored. They exchanged few words but their paths never veered. Sometimes Gabrielle took the lead, sometimes he did. And Nathaniel began to feel they were engaged in an unspoken
competition. Which of them would call a halt first?

In the end it was Gabrielle who said, “We’d better turn back. We’re about ten miles from Vanbrugh Court and we’ll be lucky to make it home before dusk.”

“The horses are tired,” he offered in assent.

Gabrielle shot him a quick glance at this bland observation and her lips twitched. “So am I.”

“Oh, are you? I feel as fresh as I did this morning.”

“That’s a Banbury story if ever I heard one,” she said, refusing to rise to provocation. “If we go this way, we can clip a mile off the ride.” She gestured with her whip across a style.

“And how many times do we risk breaking our necks?”

She seemed to consider the question. “Twice.” Chuckling, she turned her horse and jumped the style.

It was nearly dusk when the weary horses trotted up the drive of Vanbrugh Court. A postchaise with the Vanbrugh arms on its panels was being driven away from the front door. “Simon must have just arrived,” Gabrielle observed.

Nathaniel made no comment. Once he’d spoken his mind to his host, he would be free to leave the trouble and temptation resident in Vanbrugh Court before matters became any worse. He’d be on the road by dawn.

Gabrielle swung down from her mount without assistance, but Nathaniel’s sharp eyes noticed that she wavered for a second as her feet touched solid ground and the straight back curved slightly, her shoulders drooping.

So she wasn’t completely invincible. It was a small satisfaction. He put a hand lightly under her elbow as they went up the steps to the open front door. The touch was electrifying, and he heard her sharp indrawn breath.

“Oh, there you are!” Georgie came out of the library.
“You’re the last to come back. I was beginning to worry.”

“Gabby’s always the last to return from a hunt,” her husband commented, following her into the hail.

Simon Vanbrugh was a rotund man with a genial expression enlivened by a pair of very shrewd gray eyes. His assessing gaze ran over the new arrivals. Had Gabrielle managed to win over the prejudiced spymaster? It was hard to tell, but they’d presumably spent the day together and there was a promising informality to Nathaniel’s supporting hand beneath her elbow.

“Did she wear you out, Nathaniel?” He laughed lightly as he bent to kiss his wife’s cousin. He and Georgie had grown up as neighbors and had been childhood sweethearts, so Simon had known Gabby almost as long as his wife had.

“Did I, Lord Praed?” Gabrielle turned to look at her escort with a cool arch smile.

“I don’t believe so, madame,” he said, suddenly stiff and formal. His hand dropped from her elbow. “If you have a minute, Simon, I’d like a word with you.”

“Georgie, will you come and talk to me in my bath?” Gabrielle asked as the two men disappeared into the library. “Or must you play hostess for the next hour?”

Georgie shook her head, interest sparkling in her eyes. “Everyone’s dressing for dinner. Besides, nothing can take precedence over an account of your day with Nathaniel Praed.”

Gabrielle laughed, linking her arm through her cousin’s as they mounted the stairs. “I’ve a tale to tell, Georgie.”

In the library Nathaniel flung himself onto a leather sofa with an audible sigh. He stretched out his legs to the fire and examined his mud-splattered boots.

He came to the point with customary lack of ceremony.
“What the devil do you mean by foisting that wild woman on me, Simon?”

“Wild? Gabby?” Simon turned from the sideboard, a cut-glass decanter in his hand. “She’s not wild, Nathaniel. Oh, a trifle spirited, I grant you, but she’s got as cool a head on her shoulders as anyone I know.”

“Oh, is that so? And it’s a cool head that leads a woman to climb through my bedroom window at one o’clock in the morning? It’s a cool head that leads her to jump a ten-foot stone wall as if it’s a stack of firewood?”

“Claret?” Simon inquired, a chuckle in his voice. “Did she really climb through your window?”

“Thank you.” Nathaniel took the proffered glass. “Yes, she did, presenting me with that ridiculous scrap of velvet … of all the absurd, fanciful notions. Obviously she thinks the business of the service is some great game of secret signs and amusing clandestine excursions. I tell you, Simon, you had no right, no right at all, to compromise me by revealing my identity to a headstrong, reckless,
wild
woman.”

Having thus unburdened himself, Nathaniel drank deeply of his claret.

Simon sat down in a wing chair opposite him and thoughtfully sipped his own wine. “You’re not compromised, Nathaniel. You should know better than to imagine I would reveal your identity without good cause.”

He leaned back in his chair and took a pinch of snuff. “Gabby came to me some weeks ago. You remember that interesting piece of information we received about Napoleon’s intention to attack Sicily?”

Nathaniel nodded, his eyes sharp with attention. The piece of intelligence from a hitherto unknown source had enabled the government to strengthen the British fleet protecting the Bourbon king in Sicily. The show of strength had changed Napoleon’s mind somewhat abruptly.

“Well, it came from Gabby.” Simon permitted himself a satisfied smile as he saw his companion’s reaction. “She learned it from Talleyrand and brought it to me as an indication of her ability and her desire to act as an intelligence agent for England. I discussed it with Portland, of course, and we decided you should make the decision. Even if you decide against her, I will vouch absolutely for her discretion. I’ve known her since she was eight years old. She’s unusual. She’s clever. She has wit and courage. And she most desperately wants to be of service to England.”

“Even if I grant she has some of those qualities, you know I do not employ women.” Nathaniel stood up and went to refill his glass.

“There are exceptions to every rule,” his host reminded him. “Tell me where you would find another agent so perfectly placed, so impeccably qualified? She has entrees into every diplomatic, political, and social circle in Paris. Talleyrand is her godfather, man!”

“And she’s prepared to betray him?” Nathaniel looked skeptical.

“She grew up in England,” Simon explained. “When Talleyrand insisted she return to France, she was very unhappy. But he was in essence in loco parentis, and she really had no choice but to obey him. But she’s always been clear where her true loyalties lie. They lie here.”

Simon leaned forward and kicked a fallen log back into the grate. “After her husband’s death, she became very depressed … listless. Her letters had none of the usual spark and vitality. Georgie was worried about her. She invited her to stay for a while and Gabby came to me with the suggestion that she use her position and contacts in France to work for England. She was very convincing.” He shrugged lightly. “Her information was
most
convincing.”

He looked across at his now-silent companion. “She’s always had a political mind, unlike Georgie, who
most of the time couldn’t tell you the members of the cabinet. It doesn’t interest her. But Gabby’s very different. Her upbringing, perhaps. Losing her parents to the Terror. Talleyrand’s influence—whatever. But she blows a great deal. She can sift the wheat from the chaff when it comes to information. And she needs something to absorb her mind.” He examined his friend shrewdly as he hammered the nail on the head. “You’ve been looking for an insider in Paris. Gabby’s the best placed.”

“I don’t deny that.” Nathaniel, as Simon knew, could never resist logic and fact. Even his prejudices gave way before such potent persuaders.

Simon sat back, crossing his ankles, his eyes narrowed as they assessed Nathaniel’s reaction.

“It won’t do.” Nathaniel got to his feet again. “Even if she is what you say, I can’t see a way to working with her. She’s not disciplined and I’ll not jeopardize my other people by taking on an unknown quantity.”

“Very well.” Simon inclined his head courteously. “The decision was always yours. We know you know your own business best.”

“Oh, in this respect, Simon, believe me, I do.”

There was something about the way Nathaniel said this that struck Simon as a little curious.

Nathaniel put down his glass. “I must change for dinner. I’ll leave first thing in the morning, since my business here is done.” The door closed behind him.

And what of friendship?
Simon thought sadly. Is that done too? Nathaniel saw everything these days in terms of business, and the dictates of friendship meant nothing to him. It hadn’t always been the case. Like Miles Bennet, Simon Vanbrugh hoped for the day when the old Nathaniel would emerge from this cold, distant carapace. He’d had the faintest hope that Gabby might have some effect. Few people could come within her orbit and remain unaffected by her personality or her outlook
on life. But it seemed he’d been indulging himself in wishful thinking.

Upstairs, Gabrielle embalmed her weary muscles in hot water before a blazing fire in her bedchamber and told Georgie the details of her day with Lord Praed.

Her cousin was too worldly to be shocked at the picture of two near strangers locked in an ardent embrace in a deserted orchard. She did, however, somewhat tentatively question Gabrielle’s taste.

“I thought you didn’t like him. You said his eyes were like stones at the bottom of a pond.”

“So they are sometimes.” Gabrielle raised one leg and soaped it languidly. “But they can also be warm and merry … and
very
passionate,” she added with deliberation, switching legs.

“And you’re in the market for passion?” Georgie took a sip from her sherry glass, watching her friend closely.

“In the market and in the mood,” Gabrielle said calmly. “Fve played the grieving widow long enough.”

“Gabby!” This did shock Georgie. “You were desolated after your husband’s death.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Gabrielle said. “Roland was a deeply unpleasant man who managed to hide it until our wedding night. When he died, I was not desolated in the least. It seemed to me I’d suffer a lot fewer bruises as his widow than as his wife.”

“Oh.” Georgie was silent, absorbing this new light on her cousin’s past. “But your letters were so depressed … so listless.”

Gabrielle sat up and picked up her own glass of sherry from the carpet beside the hip bath. Frowning slightly, she traced a pattern in the condensation on the glass. “I was depressed, not at Roland’s death, but at the thought that I’d allowed myself to be treated as badly as he treated me. I’d misread him, fallen for the facade. I felt a fool … and worse.” She sipped and put the glass down again. “It’s humiliating to be ill-treated,
Georgie. Not the kind of thing you want people to know about. You begin to think you deserved it in some way.”

“Oh, Gabby, I wish you’d said something ….” Georgie stumbled in inarticulate sympathy. Such situations were not uncommon, but that didn’t make them any less horrifying.

Gabrielle looked up and gave her a reassuring smile. “It’s over and done with, and I’m my old self now. And I find the prospect of a little dalliance with Lord Praed very enticing … or do I mean challenging?” Her damp shoulders rose in a light shrug. “Either way, I want to go into dinner with him, if you can arrange it.”

Georgie laughed, only too glad to let go of the disturbing image of her strong and self-determining cousin suffering beneath the thumb of a violent husband. “Of course I can. But I must say, I don’t see what you see in him.”

“But you don’t like rocky roads,” her cousin pointed out. “Whereas I’ve always chosen them over the smooth path.”

And loving Guillaume was the rockiest road she could ever have chosen. Rocky, wonderful, desperate—no middle ground ever. He was either in her bed or facing death and danger somewhere. There was either love or fear. No chance for the contentment of ordinary happiness, the possibility of boredom, no time to learn the irritating little habits as well as the glorious
.

“That’s true, I suppose.” Georgie stood up. “Simon’s a very smooth path. I’d better go down to the drawing room. Lady Alsop always appears well before the other guests and feels very slighted if I’m not there to look after her and see she’s immediately ensconced by the fire, protected from the blaze by a screen, with a glass of ratafia beside her.”

“I don’t know why you let yourself be bullied by the old besom,” Gabrielle said irreverently.

Georgie shook her head “She’s Simon’s great-aunt And anyway, I don’t mind.”

No, of course you don’t, Gabrielle thought affectionately as the door closed on her friend Georgie had the sweetest nature.