Jane Feather - Velvet

"We shall enlist the help of Spain," Napoleon announced. "We will suggest to her a partition of Portugal. That will bring Portugal to heel. Champagny, send a message to the Spanish king, inviting him to send emissaries to Fontainebleau for a secret convention next month. We shall hold court there."

Talleyrand turned back to his contemplation of the garden beneath the window. The English government needed to know what Napoleon was up to now. The subjugation of Portugal was only an excuse for gaining French control of the entire Iberian Peninsular. Napoleon might well deceive the Spaniards with his offers of false friendship, but they'd discover the treachery of their assumed ally once they gave him free passage across their country to gain access to Portugal. Once in, Napoleon would secure the most important strategic positions and they'd never see the back of him.

The English couldn't afford to stand by while the Peninsular was peacefully incorporated into the French Empire and the killer blockade extended to its ports.

Gabrielle was now married to her spymaster, and Fouche was beside himself. The policeman had a long reach, but he couldn't be revenged on Gabrielle without jeopardizing his uneasy alliance with Talleyrand, an alliance he needed at the moment more than he needed revenge for being duped. While Gabrielle remained in England, she would be safe.

Safe and perfectly placed to be useful, her godfather reflected, if she could be persuaded.

He'd send the intelligence to her, suggesting she pass it on to the right quarters. She was clear-headed and pragmatic; he couldn't imagine she'd refuse to do again what she'd once done so successfully. She would see that she would only be helping her friends and her husband's country that was now her own.

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Gabrielle leaned back against the stone seat of the garden bench, Talleyrand's encoded letter lying open on her lap. The ground at her feet was a carpet of copper leaves that still wafted down from the beech tree behind her. The air was sharp with the acrid smell of burning leaves from the gardener's bonfire, reminding her of roasting chestnuts and eating buttered toast on winter afternoons before blazing log fires. Comforting, secure images of childhood in the DeVane schoolroom.

Damn Talleyrand!Damn this goddamned war! She folded the letter and pushed it into the pocket of her pelisse. Her godfather had offered no suggestions as to how she was to pass on the information, merely reiterated that his identity must be kept absolutely secret. The envelope had been addressed in a feminine hand and had arrived on the London mail coach. There was nothing to connect it with the author of the letter.

She shivered. It was getting cold, and the evening star was already visible in the metallic sky above the river. She stood up and began to walk hack to the house.

She could always ignore the letter.

She kicked at a pile of leaves, and suddenly a memory rose as vivid and clear as if it had been yesterday. Guillaume, at Valancay one October, lying on his back in a pile of leaves where she'd pushed him. He was laughing, holding his arms up in invitation…

It still happened occasionally, this upsurge of memory, but the sadness usually had a sweetness to it. The images were like the pictures and memorabilia of long-lost childhood that one looked at in attics: dusty portraits, forgotten toys, scraps of material, pressed flowers. But not this one, not this time. She felt only a deep well of loss, an awareness, sharp and bitter as aloes, of a squandered life.

Guillaume had always seen the war through Talleyrand's eyes, and he would expect her to do this. He would see it as her duty.

"Gabby… Gabby…" Jake came hurtling down the path toward her. "You look sad," he said with habitual directness. "Are you sad? Don't be." He took her hand, looking anxiously up at her.

"No," she said, dredging up a smile of reassurance. "I was just remembering things. Have you finished your lessons?"

Jake pulled a face. "I don't think it's fair I have to go to the vicarage on Saturday afternoons, do you?"

Jake now did his lessons in the vicarage schoolroom with the vicar's children, an arrangement that suited everyone and provided the child with much-needed company of his own age.

"Why don't you talk to Papa?" Jake now said with a crafty sideways glance. When Gabby took up his cause with his father, things usually changed for the better.

Gabrielle couldn't help laughing. "You're a sly one, young Jake. If you do lessons in the vicarage schoolroom, then you must abide by their rules. That's only fair, isn't it?"

"Perhaps you could talk to Reverend Addison," he suggested a little less confidently. Gabrielle's power over the vicar was so far unproven.

"I'll talk to Papa, but I'm not making any promises."

Jake was content and trotted beside her as they entered the hall, where the candles were already lit and the air was filled with the scent of dried lavender and rose petals from the bowls scattered on every surface.

"You'd better run along for your tea," Gabrielle said, shrugging out of her pelisse. Jake scampered off in the direction of the nursery stairs, and Gabrielle stood for a minute, indecisive. She wanted to go up to her own apartments and think in private about the letter and what options she had, but she knew in her heart that there was no decision to be made. She had only one option.

She turned aside to the library. She might as well fulfill her promise to Jake while it was fresh in her mind.

Nathaniel looked up from his papers as she came in, and smiled involuntarily. Gabrielle seemed to become more beautiful and more desirable day by day.

"Come and be kissed," he said, pushing back his chair.

She leaned over the back of his chair and brushed his lips with her own.

"That's not much of a kiss," Nathaniel grumbled, reaching for her arm and pulling her around his chair and onto his lap. He frowned. "What's the matter?"

"Matter? Nothing," Gabrielle said, moving to stand up.

His arm tightened around her waist. "Something's upset you, Gabrielle. I can feel it."

"It's this time of year," she improvised, not totally without truth. "It always makes me feel sad. For some reason it reminds me of my parents. It was October when I arrived at the DeVanes and I still couldn't absorb what had happened." She leaned back against his shoulder, playing with his fingers linked at her waist.

"Would you like to go to London for a couple of months? The Season should be getting under way by now."

"You hate London," she said, smiling slightly.

"I can endure it until Christmas."

It would be easier in London to do what she had to. Much easier to practice deception in a crowd.

"Yes, I'd like that." She twisted her head and kissed his mouth before untangling his hands at her waist and pushing herself off his knee. "We could take Jake, couldn't we?"

Nathaniel stroked his chin. "What about his lessons?”

"I have lots of friends with children his age. I'm sure we can find a temporary schoolroom for him to share. Incidentally, he doesn't think it's fair he should do lessons on Saturday afternoons. Behold in me his emissary."

Nathaniel chuckled. "The crafty little monkey. So what do you think?"

"I think there are many educational and certainly more amusing pursuits for a Saturday afternoon," she declared.

"Well, if we're taking him to London, the issue is moot for the time being."

"Such a just and reasonable Papa," Gabrielle said in tones of mock awe. "It does seem a waste for all that justice and reason to be expended on one small boy."