Velvet (48 page)

“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.

He walked on, convincing himself of this logic. A line of black-clad candidates for the post of cook snaked out of the door and down the steps of his house. With a fresh wash of irritation he stopped on the pavement. Surely Gabrielle should have finished this tedious business by now.

He marched in and entered the morning room, where Gabrielle was conducting her interviews.

“For God’s sake, the house looks like an employment exchange,” he declared. “Haven’t you found someone suitable yet?”

“Thank you, I’ll be in touch with the agency,” Gabrielle said to the woman sitting on a straight-backed chair against the wall. The woman bobbed a curtsy and left.

“What’s the matter with you?” Gabrielle demanded of Nathaniel. “That was so inconsiderate.”

“What’s going on in my house is inconsiderate,” he said. “There must be twenty women out there.”

“Well, I can’t send them away without seeing them,” she said reasonably. “I don’t know why there are so many unemployed cooks in town at the moment. I should have told the agency to screen them first, but it slipped my mind.”

She regarded her husband closely. He was in one of his impatient, preoccupied moods, and it wouldn’t take much to trigger an explosion. “Something’s upset you.”

Nathaniel ran a hand through his hair in an impatient gesture. “I’ve just seen Simon, that’s all.”

Had Simon consulted Nathaniel about the information already? She’d expected him to consider the message, consult his cabinet colleagues, and certainly the prime minister, before involving Nathaniel. Was Nathaniel Simon’s first call? The lad couldn’t have delivered the paper much more than a couple of hours earlier.

“Is that all?” she said lightly. “Seeing Simon doesn’t usually put you out of sorts.”

“I hate mysteries,” he said. “And I cannot abide the feeling that I’m being used in some way.” His eyes skimmed her face, took note of her hands lying calmly in her lap.

Gabrieile’s palms dampened. So it
was
about the information. “Who’s using you?”

“I don’t know … yet,” he added, beginning to pace the room. “But I intend to find out.”

“You’re not being particularly informative.” Gabrielle rose and went to the fire, bending to warm her hands, although she was uncomfortably hot. She had the feeling her cheeks might be flushed and the warmth of the fire would offer explanation.

Nathaniel looked at her, the graceful curve of her tall body, the flickering lights in her hair, caught by a spurting flame, the slenderness of her waist, the flare of her hips, outlined under the creamy beige cambric of her morning gown.

Gabrielle had nothing to do with the events of the morning.

A familiar urgent sweep of lust carried all unease and irritations from his mind.

He approached her softly, encircling her waist with one arm, holding her steady across one outthrust thigh,
his free hand molding the curve of her buttocks beneath the gown, slowly drawing up the soft material, revealing the length of her legs inch by inch, the hollow behind her knees, the expanse of smooth thigh, the pale flesh above her stocking tops.

Gabrielle made no attempt to straighten her body, relaxing into the supporting hold of the arm around her waist, feeling the hardness of his buckskin-clad thigh beneath her belly. His hand slid under the ruffled hem of her drawers, and a shudder of delicious expectation rippled through her as the fingers insinuated themselves into her moistening cleft, searching her out in an ever-spiraling dance of erotic intimacies.

“This isn’t going to get a cook hired,” she murmured in a desperate attempt to keep herself from sliding too soon into the inferno.

Nathaniel removed his hand and whacked her bottom. “Not an appropriate response in the circumstances, wife.” He flicked her skirt down so that it fluttered back to her ankles, and released his hold.

Gabrielle straightened, flushed, her eyes glowing. “That was hardly appropriate behavior in the circumstances.” She gestured eloquently around the salon. “Anyone could have walked in.”

The idea seemed to amuse him, judging by his complacent grin. “I didn’t hear too many objections, my love.”

“No, well, you wouldn’t, would you?” she said with feigned resignation. “You know my weaknesses all too well.”

His grin broadened. “I’ll lock the door and then I can finish what I started without fear of interruption.” He suited action to words and then leaned back against the door, regarding her with hooded eyes.

“What is it?” she whispered, her voice thick, as if the sounds were coming through treacle.

“I’m trying to decide how I want you.” he replied.

Gabrielle glanced around the room at the available
props, now so engrossed in their game that she gave no thought to her earlier anxiety. “Chaise longue?” she suggested. Nathaniel shook his head. “Table?” Another headshake. “Chair?”

“Perhaps,” he said consideringly, pushing himself away from the door. With a swift economical movement he toppled her forward over the back of an armchair.

“I might have guessed,” Gabrielle said into the velvet cushions, laughter mingling with arousal in her voice. “You’re in one of your dominant moods.”

“So it would seem,” he said affably, throwing her skirts up over her head and slipping her drawers down over her hips. “Are you comfortable?”

“Perfectly,” she assured, chuckling, shifting her feet to brace herself.

His hand moved over her, long, slow sweeps caressing her buttocks and thighs, repeating the voluptuous intimacies of the moment by the fire, and all desire to laugh vanished as they both entered the closed world of passion.

He drove against her womb in a deep probing thrust, and she reached back, wanting to enclose him totally within her, to lose all sense of their separateness. His fingers curled into her hips in a biting grip that expressed his own need for this knowledge of completion. Her flesh was his. The rhythmic throbbing deep within her grew to envelop her in the crimson-shot blackness behind her eyelids. He had a strong hand on the nape of her neck, exerting warm pressure as he moved within her, and his other hand was teasing, nipping at the exquisitely sensitive bud of her sex. Her climax ripped through her in a devastating, mind-numbing tidal wave. Somewhere in the distance she heard her voice, and then Nathaniel’s hand on her neck pushed her into the cushions, muffling the involuntary sobbing cries of bliss, and his length fell against her back, his hands on
her breasts as he held her through his own explosive moment of joy.