Nathaniel's expression was inscrutable, showing nothing of his thoughts. A wise man recognized when to drop his prejudices. Gabrielle de Beaucaire had courage, ingenuity, nerve, and audacity-everything essential for a good spy-except that she was a woman. For several years he'd been trying to place someone in the inner circles of Napoleon's government. This woman could be the perfect answer.
But was she genuine? She had convinced Simon, but Nathaniel ultimately trusted no one's judgment but his own when so many lives were at risk. She could be a plant. Her contacts in France were every bit as strong as her contacts here. She was as much French as she was English. And seduction and betrayal were the oldest tricks in the business.
If she was genuine, then she was a gift that only a stubborn fool would refuse. At Burley Manor he would have all the time he needed to test her out.
Deliberately, his expression lightened and a glimmer of amusement appeared in his steady gaze. "Your powers of persuasion are fearsome, madame. I can see I shall have my work cut out to withstand them."
"I'll make a small wager that you won't succeed," she said with a mischievous grin.
"Stakes?"
"Oh…" She pursed her lips, considering. "Let's say at the end of two weeks the loser puts him or herself entirely at the disposal of the winner for twenty-four hours."
Nathaniel smiled slowly. "Now, those are stakes worth winning."
"They might even be worth losing," she murmured with a lascivious chuckle that sent the blood coursing hot and swift through his veins.
"You have a wager, my wanton brigand."
Sofar so good. Gabrielle inclined her head in silent acknowledgment as the chaise came to a halt in the yard of the Black Cock in Horsham.
Chapter 6
Jake sat on the bottom step of the stone flight leading up to the front door of Burley Manor. He was scratching with a stick in the gravel at his feet. A square box of a house with rectangular windows appeared beneath the point of the stick as he frowned over his artwork.
The mid-morning sun highlighted the almost white streaks in his blond head and his lower lip was caught between his teeth. He was a slight child who had not yet lost the round face and dimpled hands of babyhood.
At the sound of carriage wheels on the driveway, he looked up. His father's chaise bowled around the corner onto the gravel sweep before the house. Jake dropped the stick and slowly stood up, wiping his hands on the seat of his nankeen trousers. A wary look appeared in the round brown eyes, but he remained where he was, standing with his hands behind his back as the carriage came to a halt and the door swung open.
He watched as his father kicked free the footstep and jumped lightly to the ground. Then he held out a hand and to Jake's surprise a woman stepped out beside him.
His father often had visitors although Jake wasnever presented to them. They usually arrived at night and left at night, remaining closeted in the library with his father throughout their visit. He only ever met with his godfather, Miles Bennet. And he didn't come very often. Jake never remembered a lady arriving at Burley Manor before.
This one stood smiling in the sunshine, looking up at the graceful weathered facade of the Queen Anne house. She was hatless and her hair was pinned somewhat carelessly in a knot at the nape of her neck.
Then Nathaniel saw his son and tiny frown lines appeared on his brow, his mouth stiffening in the way that Jake knew so well. The child felt his stomach tighten. He always hoped for something different, although he didn't know how to put such a wish into words, but his father's response to him never changed.
"Jake." Nathaniel stepped toward the child, extending his hand in greeting. Solemnly, the little boy shook it. "Why aren't you at your lessons?" His father released the small hand, his frown deepening.
"It's Sunday, sir. I don't have lessons on Sunday." Jake's voice was a little tentative as he wondered if that had changed and no one had told him.
Nathaniel looked down at his son, remembering the Sundays of his own boyhood. During those wonderful hours of liberty, he would have been in the stables or down by the river fishing, or climbing the big beech tree at the entrance to the park, or…
Anything but sitting in unimaginative idleness on the steps of the house.
"How do you do, Jake?" The lady came toward him, smiling. "Have you been drawing pictures in the gravel? I used to love to do that." She bent to examine the scratchings. "I always put two chimneys on my houses, one in each corner. May I?" Laughing up at him, she reached for his discarded stick and deftly added a second chimney pot while Nathaniel stood staring and Jake's eyes grew ever rounder.
He thought she had to be the most beautiful woman with her smiling dark eyes and her hair glowing in the sunlight and her white white skin. He loved Primmy, his governess, with a fierce love and he tolerated the fussing attentions of Nurse because they made him feel warm and comfortable even when they were irritating, but he didn't think of those two as women. His father's companion was unlike any lady he'd ever seen. He thought of Mrs. Bailey, the housekeeper, but she was like Primmy and Nurse, really. Mrs. Addison, the vicar's wife, was more like this lady, and yet not at all like her. Mrs. Addison was stiff with bombazine and held her nose in the air and she had a sharp chin.
"Where are your manners, Jake?" His father spoke sharply. "Make your bow to the Comtesse de Beaucaire."
Blinking, Jake complied.
"Oh, you must call me Gabby," Gabrielle said, taking his hands in a warm clasp. "All my English friends do."
"Go up to the schoolroom, Jake," Nathaniel directed. "It may be Sunday, but I'm sure you have "our collect to learn."
"Or some other improving work," Gabrielle murmured as the child turned and mounted the steps with obvious reluctance.
"It is not appropriate for him to call you Gabby," Nathaniel said in a fierce undertone. "It shows marked lack of respect."
"Stuff!" Gabrielle declared as quietly as he, watching until the child was safely out of earshot. "What's he to call me that wouldn't he a dreadful mouthful for such a babe?"
"In the first place, he's no longer a baby. And in the second, 'madame' will do very well and is far from a mouthful."
Gabrielle's nose wrinkled. "If he has my permission, I can't see why you should object. There's no disrespect in that."
"It's overly familiar." Nathaniel glared at her. "You said yourself it's what your friends call you. A six-year-old child doesn't come into that category."
"I sincerely hope he will," Gabrielle averred.
"If all your English friends call you Gabby and I do not, where does that place me?" Nathaniel switched the angle of the discussion to himself without knowing why. The issue of Jake was far from settled.
"Wherever you wish." Her eyelids drooped with a seductive indolence as she squinted against the sun, her eyebrows quirked, lips curved in mischievous invitation. "Lovers have a special position, one that transcends mere friendship."
"Transcends, perhaps," he said slowly, his eyes locked with hers. "But it can encompass it, presumably?"
"One would hope so," she replied. But not inthis case. Not with the man responsible for Guillaume's death.
The bleak thought came nowhere near her expression. The years of loving in the shadows with Guillaume had taught Gabrielle well how to conceal true feelings from a watchful world.
Now she shook her head, still smiling, and said, "Let's not quarrel about something as simple and unimportant as what Jake calls me while I'm here. If Gabby really makes you uncomfortable, then tell him to call me madame. I shan't like it, but…" She shrugged. "He's your son."