She filled the bowl with water from the ewer, stripped off her clothes, and sponged herself from head to toe, shivering in the chill but relishing the sensation of washing away the salt and sweat and wretchedness of the previous night's miserable crossing and the day's jolting carriage ride along muddy lanes.
She'd have liked to wash her hair, but that was impractical with present facilities, so she made do with brushing it until some of the burnished luster had returned, then slipped into a nightgown, thrust her feet into a pair of velvet slippers, and threw a hooded cloak over her shoulders, drawing the hood over her hair.
The inn was dark and silent as she left the bedchamber, quietly turning the key on the sleeping child and dropping the key into her pocket. She'd opened the window a crack, and if Jake awoke and cried out for her, the sound would carry across the yard to the hayloft, where Nathaniel would, as always, have his own window open.
A lamp burned dimly on the stairs, and the steep oak steps creaked as she flew down them. Was Nathaniel waiting for her? Her own excitement was such that it was impossible to believe her lover wasn't sharing it a few feet away, across the stableyard.
Nathaniel, however, was sleeping the sleep of the just amid the sweet-smelling hay. Not for one minute had it crossed his mind to expect a visitor hell-bent on indulging an addiction. He was tired himself after the rigors and alarms and excursions of the past twenty-four hours and, since the opportunity for a night's sleep had been forced upon him, he had every intention of taking full advantage of it.
Lust was the last thing on his mind and far from his dreams as he slept lightly under the shaft of moonlight shining through the small round window.
But he heard the faint sounds from the stable below. They were not the ordinary shufflings and shiftings and whickerings of a dozen beasts. He didn't take the time to decide how he knew they were not. Without conscious decision he was out of his straw nest and crouching by the top of the ladder that rose from the stables through a hole in the floor. He had a knife in his hand. Not the pocket knife he'd used to cut veal and ham pie, but a wicked stiletto with a blade so thin and sharp, it would slide between a man's ribs and pierce the heart in one smooth insertion.
A dead body would be hard to explain, so fortunately for Gabrielle he was prepared to look before he acted. The hooded head of a cloaked figure emerged at the top of the ladder.
Nathaniel recognized the set of the head a second before the unmistakable scent of her assailed his nostrils. He held his breath on a wild surge of fury that for a moment knew no bounds as he thought of where they were-in the heart of Normandy with his life, his son's life, and the lives of seven agents in France dependent on his safety or, failing that, his ability to keep his tongue still in the ultimate extremity.
What the hell did she think she was doing? She was a spy. She lived on the edge of danger. She knew about unnecessary risks. But he also knew that she took them. He'd told Simon that she was undisciplined and that if she'd proved genuine, then he'd keep his own rein on her.
If she'd been one of his own agents, he knew exactly what he would would have done. And since she was playing the part, then he'd play his. The rage was replaced with a cold clarity of purpose, more ruthless and infinitely more dangerous than the hot flood of anger.
Gabrielle eased herself into the loft on her knees and looked around. And then a hand was clamped over her mouth with suffocating pressure and she was wrestled to the floor, the hand still across her mouth, her face buried in tickling straw. She struggled violently, twisting her body, trying to get leverage with one hip to throw him off, but he threw a leg across her thighs. Her feet drummed on the floor. It didn't seem to matter that she knew it was Nathaniel, that she believed he wouldn't hurt her. She continued to fight in a red mist of atavistic panic at the petrifying knowledge of her own weakness against the strength of this opponent.
She dried to cry out, to tell Nathaniel it was only her… Gabrielle… only Gabrielle How could he not recognize her?
She felt him grab a handful of her hair at the back of her head, and her face was pulled roughly upward. She opened her mouth on a sobbing breath, and something was thrust between her teeth, a wad of material that filled her mouth and choked off all sound. Then her head fell forward onto the straw again. His knee on her backside held her pressed to the floor as her hands were jerked behind her, her wrists bound with swiff efficiency.
It was all over in a matter of seconds, and she lay bound and gagged on the floor of the hayloft, stunned at the ease with which he'd handled her body, as easily in this assault as he handled her in love.
As instinctive terror receded, she was conscious only of amazement at the strength in Nathaniel's slender frame, the deft competency of his movements, the ruthlessness of it all. Because he did know who she was. He had to have known from the minute he laid hands on her.
And Gabrielle knew what was happening. He believed she'd forgotten the deadly serious nature of their shared enterprise, and the spymaster was punishing an errant recruit in a way that couldn't fail to impress upon her the seriousness of her offense. She lay still and compliant, waiting for it to be over.
She had made an unforgivable error. She'd forgotten for a moment in the uprush of desire the true nature of their business there. She'd unforgivably slipped out of role. She'd forgotten Guillaume and Talleyrand and Fouche and thought of herself only as a private citizen with an eager lover.
Nathaniel removed his knee and stood up. "How dare you!" he said with soft ferocity. "How dare you risk the safety of my son… your own safety… mine… that of my own people?"
Gabrielle, helpless on the floor, winced beneath the ferocious tongue-lashing. She had no defense and resigned herself to justice.
Nathaniel flayed her until he had nothing left to say and then he fell silent, staring down at the prone figure.
"Stand up!" he commanded harshly.
And just how was she supposed to do that with her hands tied uselessly behind her back and her nose pressed into the prickly straw? But compliance struck Gabrielle as the only possible course of action. She rolled onto her side, bent her underneath leg, and levered herself to a half-sitting position with her elbow and knee.
Her eyes spoke rueful appeal as she looked up at him. His expression was less than encouraging, his mouth thinned, the brown eyes hard stones.
"Get up," he demanded as harshly as before, and he stood with his hands on his hips, unmoving as she scrambled to her feet with as much grace and dignity as she could muster.
The tied hands weren't the problem so much as the gag, Gabrielle decided. It dehumanized one in some way. She had no choice but to stand there, mute, under a cold stare that made her feel like a worm. She thought longingly of her bed with its crisp white sheets and feather mattress. Why on earth hadn't she settled for the simple comforts of an uninterrupted night's sleep, instead of reaching for the moon?
"Turn around."
She obeyed, and to her inexpressible relief he unfastened the belt that bound her wrists. She pulled the wadded kerchief from her mouth and ran the back of her hand over her dry lips, trying to moisten her mouth with her tongue. But she kept her back to him, too intimidated by that ruthless display of the spymaster's power to face him as yet.
"Why?" Nathaniel demanded.
"I wanted you," Gabrielle spoke the truth because there was no lie that would be as convincing. "And I thought you probably wanted me too.”
Nathaniel's anger seemed to have exhausted itself, and the reality of the situation now hit him. For better or worse, she was there and so far undiscovered.