She accompanied him to the nursery, where a resolutely dry-eyed Miss Primmer told her she'd been given two weeks notice by his lordship and a most generous settlement. His lordship was all kindness, all consideration. But the governess hugged her wan charge convulsively as she made these vigorous protestations, and Jake's tears began to flow again.
There seemed nothing useful she could do, nothing comforting to be said at this point, and Gabrielle left them together.
Mr. Jeffrys passed her on the stairs. He was fussily directing the footman to be careful with his trunk of books and globes. He gave Gabrielle yet another ingratiating smile that she ignored, even as she wondered what interpretation he'd put on her presence. Nathaniel hadn't introduced her, although he'd referred to her as "countess." Presumably, he expected the same discreet acceptance from the tutor that he did from the rest of his staff.
Mrs. Bailey came out of the drawing room, feather duster in hand, as Gabrielle reached the hall. She bore the air of one attending at a deathbed.
"Did you wish me to put the snowdrops in your boudoir, ma'am?" The housekeeper gestured to the bunch of delicate flowers that Gabrielle had abandoned on the console table in the earlier flurry.
"Oh, yes, thank you."
"Miss Primmer will be sadly missed," the housekeeper observed, picking up the flowers. "And I don't know what to make of that tutor. All smarm and smiles, he is, but you mark my words, once he gets his feet under the table, he'll be giving orders left, right, and center. I know the type."
It was an extraordinary speech from the discreet Mrs. Bailey. Gabrielle was hard pressed to know how to respond. She wanted to agree, but couldn't without seeming to criticize Nathaniel to his staff. She offered a vague smile and satisfied herself with agreeing that Miss Primmer would indeed be missed, then she made her escape into the garden in search of privacy and tranquil surroundings.
There was a stone sundial and bench in the middle of the shrubbery, and she made her way there, knowing she would be invisible from the house.
She leaned back against the seat and raised her face to the pale sun, closing her eyes, allowing the feeble warmth to caress her eyelids. A fresh breeze carried the scents of the river and marshes and a chaffinch chirped busily from a bay tree.
She was so deeply immersed in her meditation that she didn't hear the footsteps on the gravel path behind her. When the hand fell on her head, she jumped with a startled cry.
"Penny for them," Nathaniel said quietly, keeping his hand where it was.
Gabrielle shrugged. "I was just musing."
His hand slipped to clasp the back of her neck. "May I share the muse?"
She arched her neck against the warm, firm pressure of his hand. "How did that happen, Nathaniel? Civilized people don't get into those kinds of fights."
"No, only excessively passionate people who both know they deserve to be flogged for such disgraceful lack of control," he agreed with a wry, self-mocking smile. Still holding her neck, he moved around the bench and sat down beside her.
"How about a pact of mutual forgiveness?" His fingers tightened around the slim column of her neck.
"Done," she said.
They sat in silence for a while. It was a companionable silence. Gabrielle was acutely conscious of his hand on her neck, of the moving blood beneath his skin, of his even breathing, of the warm proximity of his body. She realized suddenly that she'd become accustomed to such moments, and they'd been absent in the last days. Only now did she realize how much she'd missed these periods of silent and effortless communion in the turbulent seas of passion.
"I want you to go to Paris." Nathaniel's startling announcement broke the silence.
"When?" She turned on the bench to look at him.
"In three days time." He let his hands fall from her and leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. "I need a courier to take a vital message to my agents in Paris. I told you I was having problems with the network in Toulouse?"
"Yes?" Her mind was in a ferment. It was what she'd been working toward, but she hadn't expected him to send her into the field so soon-or so abruptly.
"I'll give you your instructions just before you leave. Your papers are in order, I assume?"
"Yes, I have a laissez passer signed by Fouche, no less."
"Good." He stood up. "There'll be a fishing boat sailing from Lymington to Cherbourg in three days. You'll sail on her and be put ashore in a small village just along the coast. From there you'll be able to make your own arrangements."
“I see.”
A silver eyebrow rose quizzically as he regarded her. "For some reason I'd expected a little more enthusiasm. It's what you've been wanting, after all."
She summoned a smile. "You just took me by surprise, that's all."
"Well, having made the decision, I can see little point in waiting."
"No, neither can I," she agreed, injecting firm confidence into the statement. "But you will tell me exactly what to do?"
"To the letter," he said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to meet with the bailiff. I'll see you at nuncheon."
Gabrielle nodded and watched him stride off down the gravel path toward the house. So it was the end of the passionate interlude. Once she was working in the field, there'd be few opportunities for lustful encounters between the spymaster and his agent. In fact, Nathaniel would probably consider them dangerously out of bounds in a working relationship. Perhaps that lay behind the distancing of the past few days. He was preparing them both for the inevitable separation.
Well, in many ways it would be a relief. Vengeance would become relatively simple again. Apart from him, she would manage to overcome her addiction to Nathaniel Praed's lovemaking. She'd have to, wouldn't she?
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The courier bearing Gabrielle's letter caught up with Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Pengord in an inn in a small village in East Prussia, where he'd stopped for the night on his way back to Paris. He was in no cheerful frame of mind. His crippled leg ached unmercifully from the cold and the violent jolting of the carriage along the broken, ice-covered roads of a part of the world he was rapidly considering totally benighted, and not even the prospect of his comfortable house in the rue d'Anjou could truly compensate for the miseries of the journey.
Napoleon's victory over the Russians at Eylau on February eighth had finally given his Minister for Foreign Affairs the opportunity to leave the emperor's side. Napoleon had correctly described Eylau as "not a battle but a slaughter," in which the Russians lost nearly twenty-six thousand men, and the French casualties were almost as disastrous. It was moot which side could truly claim victory. Alexander had congratulated his own General Bennigsen on defeating "the one who has never yet known defeat." However, since Bennigsen ordered his troops to fall back on Kaliningrad, technically Napoleon remained master of the field.
Poor consolation for the widows and orphans on either side! Talleyrand reflected, gazing morosely into the clear liquid in his rather smeared vodka glass. But now the emperor was marching the army to Osterode to make winter quarters, and Talleyrand was free to shake the dust of Eastern Prussia from his boots. With luck he'd reach Paris by the end of the week.
He stared into the meager fire and sipped his vodka, nothing more civilized being offered in this wayside halt. Absently he rubbed his aching leg and reexamined the decoded message within the letter. Gabrielle had become an expert at this means of communication during her work as a courier, and she had the kind of mind that lent itself to the construction of cryptic yet nonetheless informative messages.
But something niggled at him. Not in the coded message but in the letter that enclosed it. It was a somewhat formal communication, as her role demanded. For public consumption, she held no brief for her godfather and wouldn't therefore engage in anything other than dutifully courteous correspondence. Should anyone happen to look over her shoulder while she was writing the letter, they would read only the tone they would expect.