Jane Feather - Velvet

Gabrielle had been playing with the Voltaire code.

It wasn't possible that she was still involved in espionage. She couldn't be. It wasn't logical.

Nathaniel looked across the dining table to where Gabrielle sat in animated conversation with her neighbor. As if aware of his scrutiny, she glanced up briefly, her eyes flickering across the expanse of glowing rosewood, the glistening silver, the puddles of golden candlelight. Her lips twitched into her crooked little smile that imparted a special intimacy among the buzzing voices of their fellow guests. Then she turned back to her neighbor and Nathaniel heard her laugh, that deep, warm sound of merriment that had never failed to delight him even when he was angry with her.

His own neighbor offered a tentative conversational sally, and he realized that he'd been sitting in brooding silence for the better part of the second course. He went through the motions for a few minutes but was as relieved as his partner when she was drawn into a conversation on her other side.

Absently, he helped himself from a dish of quail in aspic, remembering too late that he disliked the fiddly little birds and couldn't abide aspic.

He'd asked her about the notations on her blotter-a genial, casual question-and she'd responded in the same manner, saying it had been such a long time since she'd exercised her mind in that way and she'd been testing herself to see how much of the code she could remember.

It was a perfectly reasonable explanation.

Why on earth was Nathaniel eating quad? Gabrielle frowned, watching him dissect one of the birds and then push it to the side of his plate with an impatient gesture. He loathed aspic and despised quail. And didn't he realize how discourteous he was being, sitting in morose silence? Poor Hester Fairchild looked as uncomfortable as if she were sitting next to a hungry tiger.

But he'd been in an unpredictable mood for the past ten days, ever since his meeting with Simon. As luck would have it, he wasn't satisfied with merely receiving and acting upon such valuable information. There was a mystery attached to it, and the need to solve it had become a near obsession. For some reason, she hadn't considered that possibility.

He didn't know that solving it would do nothing for his peace of mind, quite the opposite. And it would do nothing for Gabrielle's peace of mind either. The prospect of his reaction to the truth filled her with a healthy fear. However useful her information, she was still manipulating him at Talleyrand's bidding.

Lady Willoughby rose from her chair at the foot of the table, signaling that the ladies should withdraw, and Gabrielle's neighbor stood to pull back her chair for her. She noticed that Nathaniel moved a fraction too late for courtesy to render his own partner the same service. Something had to be done… but what?

Nathaniel lingered in the dining room with Lord Willoughby, long after the other men had left to join the ladies over the teacups in the drawing room. Lord Willoughby was more than happy to find one of his guests prepared to match him glass for glass as the port decanter circulated, particularly when the guest was disinclined for conversation and as content to ruminate in silence as his generally reclusive host.

"Is Nathaniel still in the dining room, Miles?" Gabrielle crossed the drawing room as Miles came in.

"Yes, the last one. He and Willoughby are partnering each other in sullen silence. He's in one of his vile moods tonight. What's the matter with him, Gabby?"

"I don't know." Miles was ignorant of Nathaniel's true working life, so she couldn't offer even a vague explanation about pressure of work. "It's probably London. You know how he hates all this." She gestured around the room with a half-smile. "The inane gibbering of a troupe of monkeys…"

Miles chuckled. "I thought he'd recovered from his misanrhropy."

"I think it's an innate characteristic," Gabrielle said seriously. "But in general he keeps its manifestations in check."

"Mmmm. Let me fetch you a cup of tea." Miles strolled over to where his hostess was dispensing tea and brought back two cups. "So what do you think of your godfather's new position as Vice Grand Elector? It would seem a position of title rather than power."

Gabrielle laughed. "If you believe that, you don't know Talleyrand, Miles. You can be sure he's peddling his influence as much now as he ever did as Minister for Foreign Affairs. I'll lay any odds he was at Fontainebleau last month… Oh, Georgie, I was hoping to have a word." She held out a hand to her cousin, who was weaving her way through the knots of tea drinkers toward them. "I need your advice. Should I invite your mama and papa to dinner with the prime minister? Or do you think they would prefer a group of their own friends?"

Her voice rose and fell, and Nathaniel, who'd come quietly into the room, stood frozen in the shadows behind her. What did Gabrielle know of Fontainebleau? He'd told her no details of the mysterious message, and she'd accepted his refusal to discuss it with what now struck him as unusual compliance.

If she knew what the message was, then she wouldn't need to pursue it.

His head felt as if it were about to burst. Fat grubs of suspicion heaved in his brain. But it still made no sense. There was no logical reason why, if in some extraordinary fashion she'd come across such information, she shouldn't be honest about it. And it was always possible Simon had mentioned Fontainebleau to her. She was often at the house on Grosvenor Square and he and Gabrielle were great confidants. He talked to her with complete freedom.

No, Gabrielle couldn't reasonably be the source of that intelligence. She had no contacts in France anymore. Or did she? Was she still part of the network of French agents in London?

Suddenly she turned, and the candid gray eyes filled with pleasure at the sight of him.

She had sworn to him that she loved him, that she forswore all previous allegiances. She had brought him her loyalty as the gift of love. She had pursued him, saved his life, forced him to accept his own love as he accepted hers. She had done nothing to warrant his suspicions. And yet…

"Nathaniel, there you are. I was beginning to think I'd lost you permanently to the port decanter." There was a hint of rebuke in her voice, although her eyes smiled.

"Come, I wish to go home," he said. He hadn't meant to say that, or at least not in that curt manner. Why was it that he could dissemble in his work, never show a hint of his thoughts and feelings, and yet in the everyday world he found himself speaking straight from his heart without any mental filtering?

A slight flush touched Gabrielle's translucent cheeks and her chin lifted in ominous fashion. Miles and Georgie exchanged glances and stepped backward, blending into the group behind them.

"Then I suggest you go," she said icily. "As it happens, I'm not ready to leave yet."

He wasn't going to leave her there. While the doubts and mistrust swirled in his head, he wanted-no, desperately needed-her under his eye. It was an instinctive but nonetheless compelling reaction.

"Nevertheless, we are leaving." He drew her arm through his, and she was immediately aware of the muscular power clamping her arm to his body.

She had no choice but to submit if this was to be a dignified exit. Nathaniel whisked them through the salons in search of their hostess. Gabrielle glanced at his tight-lipped countenance and struggled for the sake of politeness to keep her own anger from showing as she made her farewells, trying to compensate with her own warmth for Nathaniel's taciturn mutter.

They stood in the hall while a maid went in search of her cloak and the footman ran to the mews for their carriage. Gabrielle tapped one foot on the parquet, her eyes blazing. Nathaniel still held her arm in the vise of his own, and when she attempted to pull free, he smacked his other hand over hers so that she was held fast.