Jane Feather - Velvet

The light faded from Nathaniel's eyes. He pushed his chair away from the table with an angry scrape and gathered together his papers. He said nothing, but the silence was all too eloquent.

She wasn't making any headway on the subject of children. He was the most infuriatingly obstinate individual! He refused to be drawn on the issue, maintaining this steadfast silence whenever she offered the slightest opening.

Frustrated, Gabrielle watched him open the safe and deposit the papers, the tense silence wreathing around them.

But she had a bigger and more immediate problem on her plate at the moment.

"So, when should we go to London?" she asked cheerfully, as if the last tense minutes hadn't happened.

Nathaniel turned from the safe, clear relief in his own eyes, and responded in the same tone. "Next week… if you like."

"The Vanbrughs have been in Grosvenor Square for three weeks. I'll write to Georgie and let her know we're coming-oh, and shouldn't we send Mrs. Bailey, and perhaps Bartram, on ahead to get the house on Bruton Street ready?"

"Whatever you think best, madam wife." Gabrielle had the reins of his household firmly in her own hands, and he knew she was asking for his opinion only for politeness's sake.

Gabrielle gave a nod of acknowledgment and left the library. Ellie was drawing the curtains when she went into her boudoir, and the maid immediately began a gossipy account of some village scandal.

Gabrielle listened with half an ear. She didn't discourage Ellie's gossip in general because she often heard of trials and tribulations that could be alleviated by the manor, but this evening the girl's light tones grated and the story held no interest.

"Ellie, be a dear and fetch me some tea," she interrupted. "I feel as if I'm developing a headache."

"Oh, yes, my lady. I'll fetch it right up." Ellie's good-natured face expressed genuine concern as she hurried from the room.

Gabrielle sat by the fire, resting her feet on the fender. She was going to give Talleyrand's intelligence directly to Simon. He'd share it with Nathaniel, of course, but no one would know where it came from. She was going to create an anonymous character, a mole who had sensitive information from France. It should be simple enough to arrange for the delivery of an anonymous letter to Simon's government office at Westminster, particularly once she was living on Bruton Street.

In one way, she would be making up for her earlier deceit when she'd used Simon to introduce her to Nathaniel. Grief and the need for vengeance then had subsumed guilt at deceiving her friends, but she was still uncomfortable with the memory. Nathaniel had never referred to it because they never talked about that time; she had made her choice of loyalties and they both accepted it. She knew he must have done similar distasteful things in his own career; it went with the territory.

That night, for the first time in many months, she had the nightmare again.

Nathaniel held her, stroking the damp ringlets from her forehead as she wept, her body a tight bow of pain. She clung to him, shivering in her sweat-soaked nightgown, and he didn't know how to comfort her except to hold her, trying to infuse her with the warmth of his own body, the deep steadiness of his own heartbeat. He remembered he'd felt some strain, some unhappiness in her that afternoon, and she'd ascribed it to these old dreadful memories of childhood terror and loss.

When her sobs lessened, he drew her nightgown over her head and gently sponged and dried her body. And she lay still as he did so, her forearm covering her swollen eyes as if the soft glow of the candle hurt her. He moved her arm and bathed her eyes, then kissed her eyelids, her nose, her cheeks, her mouth, his hands visiting her body in long, healing strokes, seeking to exorcise her demons in the only way he knew. And slowly she relaxed beneath his touch and welcomed the warm length of his body measured along hers, drawing strength and renewal from a tender possession that gave much more than it took.

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Two weeks later Nathaniel drew his horses to a halt in front of an imposing mansion on Bruton Street. "I'll visit Tattersalls tomorrow and purchase something for you to drive," he observed to Gabrielle as he assisted her to alight. "Do you fancy a phaeton?"

"No, a curricle," she said promptly, standing on the pavement, looking up at the double-fronted facade of Praed House. "A handsome house, my lord."

"I trust it will meet with your approval inside." He gave her a mock bow, then offered her his arm to mount the steps.

The door opened before they reached it, and a smiling Bartram bowed them within. Mrs. Bailey greeted them in the hall with the information that she'd taken the liberty of hiring two footmen and three parlor maids. But she thought her ladyship would prefer to hire the cook herself. The agency would send suitable candidates to be interviewed as soon as Lady Praed was rested from her journey.

"I'll see them first thing tomorrow morning, Mrs. Bailey," Gabrielle said immediately, looking around, noting the highly polished banister, the gleaming marble beneath her feet, the sparkling chandelier. "You have done a wonderful job. Everything looks splendid."

Mrs. Bailey permitted herself a smile of satisfaction. "Nurse and Miss Primmer will be arriving with Master Jake this evening, I understand, my lady."

"Yes. In a couple of hours, I imagine. The postchaise is no match for Lord Praed's curricle." Gabrielle cast Nathaniel a sideways smile. "Or perhaps I should say for his lordship's driving skill." They'd had a friendly competition on the way up, alternating between changing posts. Nathaniel was a vastly superior whip.

"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. Ellie 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 secretaire.

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?