Reason won over instinctive reluctance. "Yes, I'll tell you," she said. "It'll probably happen again, so it's only reasonable that you should know."
Nathaniel held out his hand. They went down to the kitchen, the skirts of his velvet robe brushing Gabrielle's bare toes. She set a pan of milk on the range and sat down, propping her feet on the shiny brass fender before the fire, while Nathaniel fetched the decanter of cognac from the library.
"So?" he said quietly when they were both sitting in the hushed kitchen, only the loud ticking of the longcase clock disturbing the somnolent peace.
Gabrielle cupped her hands around the mug of hot milk, inhaling the brandy-rich steam. "At the beginning of the Revolution, my father voted with the Third Estate at the Estates General, with he Duc d'Orleans and Mirabeau and Talleyrand. They all believed in reform. When matters ran out of hand, Talleyrand went into exile." She shrugged and allowed a flicker of distaste to tinge her words. Nathaniel must believe that she held no brief for her godfather.
"He's a wily bird… wilier than my father ever was. Talleyrand knew the fickleness of the wind and the populace when anarchy reigns, and he always knows where his best interests lie. My father, I think, believed that the people would always know him for what he was. He truly believed that he could not be harmed by those whom he'd sworn to support."
"But the Terror didn't distinguish," Nathaniel said.
"No," she agreed with a somber headshake. "It swallowed its own most fanatical supporters as eagerly as it swallowed the aristos. Anyway, my parents were taken one afternoon by the mob. They were taken directly to the Tribunal, condemned, and executed the next day… at least," she added, "my mother was. I saw her in the tumbril. I don't know exactly what happened to my father. He disappeared into the prisons and was never heard of again."
"And where were you?" Nathaniel prompted.
"When they realized the mob was coming, my father hid me in the rafters of the salon. They were broad oak beams, quite wide enough for a small child to lie on, hidden from below." She raised her eyes to him over the lip of her mug. "In the nightmare I relive that afternoon. It's not really a nightmare in that it's not all jumbled and symbolic the way dreams usually are. It's always just a very straight repicturing… reliving… of what happened. And then afterward, always, I relive seeing my mother in the tumbril on her way to the guillotine."
She drank deeply and fell silent. The bare bones of the story were all she was prepared to reveal.
"How did you escape France?"
"Talleyrand," she said. "He kept contacts in Paris throughout the Terror, although don't ask me how. He's an expert opportunist, a master at keeping a foot in every camp."
She stared into the fire. "He probably could have saved my parents… oh, I don't know. I just sometimes think that his attentions to me have been out of guilt." She shook her head impatiently. "Although I can't imagine His Highness of Benevento feeling guilt for anything. He's far too pragmatic."
Nathaniel absorbed this and tucked it away for future reflection. "So what happened next?"
"Talleyrand's contacts smuggled me out of Paris and onto a fishing boat in Brittany. I was deposited on the doorstep of the De Vanes' London house early one morning by a French refugee who'd been told where to take me. The DeVanes took in an almost mute, terrified, grieving child and left her alone to come to herself in her own time. They put up with my silences, my grief, my moods, automatically assumed Iwould join them in their pursuits and accepted it when I didn't. And one day I came out of it. I stayed with them until I was eighteen. They're my family, and their loyalties are mine."
She smiled slightly over the lip of her cup. "I don't have enough words to describe what they did for me. Itried to describe at dinner what a large, loving, and chaotic family they are."
"Yes," Nathaniel said, uncomfortably remembering his own surly, monosyllabic response to those attempts at conversation. "I wasn't too receptive, was I?"
"You could say that." Her smile broadened. "But you recovered your good humor… what there is of it," she added with the customary mocking glimmer in her eye.
Nathaniel shook his head in rueful acceptance. "Miles and Simon are always telling me what an ill-tempered bastard I am."
"Why are you?" Gabrielle asked, putting her empty cup on the floor beside her chair. "I think a little reciprocation is in order. Tell me something about yourself." Even as she made the demand, she regretted it. She didn't want to know any secrets about Nathaniel Praed. But it was too late to withdraw the question.
Nathaniel shook his head, throwing his hand wide in a comprehensive gesture. "You're in my house, sharing my life. The story's there to be read."
"But perhaps I don't read the language," she said, unsmiling now.
Again he shook his head in brusque dismissal. "Idoubt that, madame. I have the unshakable conviction that you're multilingual. Let's go back to bed." He turned to the door.
Gabrielle concealed her relief at this escape.
"You go on up," she said. "I'm not sleepy yet. I'll stay by the fire for awhile. I'll sleep in my own bed, so I don't disturb you when I come up."
Nathaniel, holding the door latch, turned back to her. His eyes raked her face. Her expression was calm, the dark eyes returning his scrutiny with candor "If you're sure that's what you want," he said.
"Quite sure. I'm perfectly calm now. It won't happen again tonight."
He continued to regard her for amoment, then nodded as if satisfied. "Don't stay up too long, then."
"Good night, Nathaniel."
"Good night, Gabrielle." The door closed softly on his departure.
Gabrielle gazed into the vermilion glow of the fire, flexing her toes against the fender in the warmth. The longcase clock struck three. The household was asleep and would remain so for at least another two hours. Nathaniel would be asleep soon. She'd intended to explore the safe tonight, but an excess of tumultuous passion had somehow knocked her out. It seemed the nightmare had given her a second chance.
Without further thought she rose and went to the door, her bare feet soundless on the stone flags of the kitchen floor. She stood in the narrow corridor leading to the main hall, ears pricked for the slightest sound of movement. A kitchen cat brushed against her legs as it slithered by on a mouse hunt, nose twitching, ears flattened, tail erect.
To Gabrielle's ears, the sleeping house seemed filled with little sounds-creaks and whispers and rustles. She could hear her own heart and the rush of her blood. Scaling walls and setting a hunter to an outrageous fence required a different kind of courage from this creeping around illicitly, prying into someone else's privacy.
But she'd never lacked the courage when working with Guillaume, and she wasn't about to let his memory down.
She ran on tiptoe down the corridor and entered the great square hall. The double doors to the library were on her right. Inside, she closed the doors softly and stood, accustoming her eyes to the moonlit room. The servants must have pulled back the curtains before retiring, and the long windows were filled with silver light. The heavy furniture formed massive bunched shapes on the Aubusson carpet.
Gabrielle slid out the volumes of Locke's Treatise on Government, placing them soundlessly on the table behind her. She stood and looked without moving at the gray metal safe set into the paneled wall, trying to picture the tumblers within the lock, toproject her mind into them. It was a powerful way to concentrate.