Velvet

Chapter 21

On June fourteenth Napoleon defeated the Russians at Friedland and Alexander finally yielded to the wisdom of his brother, Grand Duke Constantine, and sued the French emperor for peace.

The news created great excitement in the salons of Paris, where Gabrielle had passed the past months in a state of limbo. She had passed similar periods- ostensibly taking lively part in court life, talking, smiling, flirting-during her affair with Guillaume, when there had been deserts of time between their meetings, and she'd lived in fear and emptiness, and none of her desolation had shown on her face or in her eyes.

"Now, mon enfant, the fun starts," Talleyrand announced three days after the battle. He came into her apartments, flourishing a dispatch bearing the Napoleonic eagle.

"Alexander is sending his plenipotentiary to the emperor requesting a truce, one that I suspect will leave England isolated. I am summoned to Napoleon's side to assist with the terms of the truce. You shall accompany me."

"Me? Why, sir?" Gabrielle stared in surprise.

"I shall need a hostess," he said blandly. "Catherine cannot perform such a task with either discretion or distinction, as you know. So you shall take her place. No one will consider it strange."

"I'd been thinking of going to Valencay," she said. She strolled over to the window, looking down at the street. The plane trees had the dusty look of city foliage in summer, and a mongrel cur lay in the shade, his tongue lolling. She'd been intending to visit Talleyrand's country chateau for a few weeks. She'd often stayed there in the old days, waiting for Guillaume. Once or twice they'd had more than a week together in the idyllic country setting, undisturbed by any but the most discreet staff. They'd fished the river and swam in the deep pool under the bridge. They'd ridden over the countryside under the moonlight, picnicked and picked peaches and greengages in the lush orchards. And they'd made love-under the trees, in the river, in the hayloft, in the fields-whenever and wherever the mood had taken them.

"This will offer you greater distraction," her godfather pointed out.

"You think I'm in need of distraction?" She turned from the window, raising an ironic eyebrow.

Talleyrand made no response to what was a rhetorical question. Gabrielle was a wan shadow of her former self. She had little interest in anything, and none at all in the business of espionage. The bitter end to her encounter with Nathaniel Praed had engendered a deep loathing for anything clandestine. She slept little and ate less, and he'd been an impotent observer of her suffering for too long. It was too much akin to the dreadful weeks after Guillaume's death, and he found himself wishing that she didn't have to feel so deeply, didn't have to throw her entire self, body and soul, into her love affairs. But he also knew that that was Gabrielle's nature and there was no changing it. All he could hope to do was alleviate her pain as and when he could.

Gabrielle smiled in rueful resignation as he merely held out the dispatch to her.

She read it and then shrugged in acceptance. "So when do we leave?"

Talleyrand couldn't conceal his satisfaction. "We travel to Tilsit in the morning. It will be a tedious journey, no doubt. But at least it's summer and the roads are no longer enmired."

Tilsit was on the border of Russia and Prussia, a small town on the River Niemen, and it took a week of hard journeying to reach it. Gabrielle rode beside the carriage whenever she could, but she was soon heartily sick of the primitive way stations where they passed the nights and the rancid meat and hard bread that passed for decent fare.

Her godfather was a poor traveling companion, nursing his aching leg and saying very little, his brain ceaselessly at work on plotting his campaign.

They arrived in Tilsit on the evening of June twenty-fourth. The minister's staff had traveled ahead and had laid claim to a house on the left bank-the Prussian side of the river-to accommodate the Minister for Foreign Affairs and his hostess. It was one of the larger houses in the modest town as befitted the prince's consequence.

The town was taken over by Napoleon's entourage and his Imperial Guard. His victorious army camped in the surrounding fields, as usual living off the land with blithe disregard for the peasantry. They were a conquered people, after all, and Napoleon had little time for his defeated enemies unless they could be useful to him. Alexander, the Czar of all the Russias, he believed, could be useful in the battle he fought against the intransigent English. Therefore, he would treat him accordingly.

"What on earth is that?" Gabrielle exclaimed, wearily dismounting outside the house assigned to them. She stared at the river, where a massive raft was anchored midstream. It bore two lavishly adorned white pavilions, the larger of which carried a massive embroidered letter N on the side facing Napoleon's camp.

"Our emperor, ma chere, has always had a flair for the dramatic," Talleyrand declared. "He and the czar are to meet tomorrow morning in the large pavilion. I daresay, if you went to the opposite bank, you would see the letter A embroidered in the same style on the other side."

Gabrielle shook her head and muttered, sotto voce, "He is a vulgar little man, isn't he?"

Talleyrand tapped her wrist in half-serious reproof. "Be careful where and to whom you say such things, mon enfant. I must go now and pay my respects. I'll leave you to inspect the accommodation and make what adjustments you think fit. I intend to entertain quite lavishly at some point in the next few days."

" D'accord."Gabrielle entered the house. The duties of a diplomatic hostess sat easily on her shoulders, and Catherine was always very happy to yield her place at such tedious functions to the younger woman. No one here would think twice about the role of the prince's goddaughter.

She chose a bedchamber for herself overlooking the river and sat in the window for a few moments, looking across the river with its flamboyant raft. On the right bank lay Russia. There was no sign of the Russian emperor or his entourage on the shore, where a crumbling cottage stood in the middle of a field.

A summons to dine with the emperor arrived with Talleyrand's return, and it was late when she finally got to bed. The conversation had all been about the upcoming meeting between Napoleon and his erstwhile enemy, and there was an air of suppressed excitement in the town, as if great things were about to be accomplished.

Midmorning the next day found Gabrielle positioned in her window. She saw a line of barouches arrive on the opposite bank and a small group of men alight and enter the ruined cottage.

At precisely eleven o'clock Napoleon rode to the left bank between columns of cheering troops. His entourage followed, a glittering group of lavishly decorated officers. The contrast between the victor's approach to the raft and the supplicant's struck Gabrielle as more than a little pointed.

This was a purely ceremonial meeting, one that would set the tone for the real negotiations. It was then that Talleyrand would come to the fore.

With the now-familiar wrenching ache, Gabrielle wondered where Nathaniel was. These negotiations were of vital interest to the English. Did he have an agent among the Russians? Or even among the French? She wondered if he had found a replacement for herself, perhaps not so closely attached to the imperial circle, but close enough to watch and listen.

Talleyrand had accepted her return and Nathaniel's departure without comment, and she had no idea whether he was pursuing an alternative method of influencing the English government's actions.

Fouche's rage at the escape of his quarry had resounded throughout the headquarters of the secret police. He had questioned Gabrielle many times, but Talleyrand had always been there, an urbane yet alert witness, and she'd managed, if not to fool the policeman, at least to give him no evidence on which he could act. She knew that one of his men followed her for several weeks after Nathaniel's escape, and she made no attempt to evade him, although she was skilled enough to do so if she'd wished. Monsieur Fouche received dull reports of the blameless and ordinary social life of a widow at the court of the Emperor Napoleon.

Now, as she watched from her window, both emperors from their own side of the river stepped simultaneously into boats, their staff falling in behind them, and teams of rowers bent to their oars, their white-shirted arms pumping in unison under the brilliant summer sun.

Napoleon, in the uniform of the Imperial Guard, the red ribbon of the Legion of Honor on his chest, his hat pulled low over his forehead, jumped lightly from the boat to the raft before Alexander had set foot on the structure. The czar, with his powdered hair, white knee britches, and the green tunic of the Preobrazhensky regiment, was a tali, elegant figure as he stepped onto the raft in his turn.

Gabrielle felt a strange little thrill at the ceremonious panoply despite her earlier remarks about the vulgarity of such a display of power. Tbe stocky little man held out his hand to his willowy counterpart, and the two men embraced.

Talleyrand, standing at Gabrielle's shoulder, pursed his lips at this open sign of friendship. He'd have his work cut out manipulating this burgeoning relationship to his own ends. But it could be done. His hand rested lightly on Gabrielle's shoulder, and she turned her head.

"You'd prefer there to be enmity between them, sir?"

"Make no mistake, machere, there will be… there will be."

There was no indication of such a future when Napoleon and Alexander reappeared from the pavilion arm in arm. Napoleon proposed that the town of Tilsit be declared neutral territory and divided into a French section and a Russian section so that the two courts could meet and mingle and entertain each other, and the serious negotiations, to be conducted on the French side by Talleyrand and on the Russian by Prince Lobanov and Prince Kurakin, could move ahead without a physical boundary separating the two parties.

It was done amid much ceremony and protestations of friendship. Talleyrand greeted his Russian counterparts with urbane courtesy, giving no indication of the contempt in which he held them, and informed Gabrielle that they would be hosting a reception the following evening for the Russian dignitaries.

Gabrielle spent an exhausting day trying to organize a reception that her godfather insisted should be as splendid as any offered in the emperor's accommodations. Since the emperor had his own gold dinner service and his own crystal as well as a traveling cellar and an army of chefs, she was at something of a disadvantage. However, by seven o'clock she had managed to assemble sufficient china, crystal, and silver to serve the fifty guests, and was not displeased with the bowls of caviar on ice, the silver salvers of lobsters, the delicate creamy salmon mousses shivering on Sevres platters, the oyster patties, and the crystal bowls of syllabub.

"A delicate theme," she informed Talleyrand as he paused in the dining room on his way to dress. "Pink and cream and very light. They will have dined heavily beforehand, so this should tempt the taste buds nicely. And since excellent champagne is one wine that seems in plentiful supply, we have the perfect match."

"Your mother had the same flair," Talleyrand observed, kissing her cheek. "In her wardrobe and in her decor, and she was a superb hostess. Society fought over her invitations."

Gabrielle's smile was sad. "I don't remember."

"By the time you were old enough to remember, ma chere,there wereno parties. Marie Antoinette had told the people to eat cake if they couldn't afford bread, and the Revolution was in full swing."

"I suppose so. I must go and dress. What time will the emperor make his appearance?"

"He and Alexander intend arriving together, a further show of amity," he said dryly. "When all the other guests are assembled, a messenger will run to alert their imperial majesties."

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At eleven o'clock the two salons were buzzing with officers in the uniforms of the most distinguished regiments of Russia and France. Their ladies glittered, plied fans vigorously in the overheated rooms, and cast sharp, assessing eyes at their counterparts' coiffures, gowns, and jewels.

Gabrielle moved easily through the throng. The Russians all spoke fluent French, so communication was natural enough. Talleyrand was an impeccable host, but Gabrielle noticed that, as always, he stood aside during conversations, rarely participating beyond making the original introductions or subtly suggesting a topic of conversation.

Wily old rogue, she thought with a surge of affection. He was a firm proponent of the principle that the more a man talked, the less he understood, and the less he was worth listening to.

The sound of running feet came from the hallway, and a messenger hurried into the room, making his way to the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Talleyrand nodded, excused himself, and gestured to Gabrielle. The whisper ran around the room: " Les empereurs arrivent." And the guests moved to either side of the double doors.

Gabrielle was known to Napoleon and had had many conversations with him, so she felt no excitement at making her curtsy to the great man. She was, however, very interested in meeting Czar Alexander.

Their imperial majesties strolled into the salon side by side and their various subjects made ritual obeisance.

Napoleon raised Gabrielle from her curtsy with a smile, and still holding her hand introduced her to Alexander. " Moncher ami, permit me to introduce the Comtesse de Beaucaire, our charming hostess."

Gabrielle curtsied again, murmuring the correct platitudes. As she raised her head, her eyes met those of a man standing some way behind the emperor in a small knot of courtiers in evening dress, who had accompanied Alexander and Napoleon.

The room spun; her stomach turned to water, her knees to jelly, her blood seemed to stop flowing. Nathaniel's cool brown gaze held hers with absolute command. If he was as numbed by seeing her as she was by seeing him, he wasn't showing it. And it would be death to show it.

The crisp dark hair with the silver swatches at his temples was now all silver, and he wore a small, neat beard that accentuated the leanness of his face, the angularity of his features. But no superficial changes could alter the magnetism that flowed from him, or disguise the lithe agility of the slender frame, or the power in the long, white hands-those long, slow, arousing hands.…

Gabrielle was aware that she was breathing rather fast and her palms were moist within her silk gloves. She was also aware that Czar Alexander was talking to her.

The need to respond to the emperor was her salvation. She murmured about honor and pleasure and made polite inquiries as to his health and contentment. Alexander held her hand for rather longer than strictly necessary and complimented her on her gown and the elegance of her salon. Then their imperial majesties moved down the twin lines of guests, Talleyrand limping beside them, presenting his guests.

Gabrielle turned to greet the knot of civilian courtiers who had accompanied the emperors. Alexander's aide-de-camp performed introductions, bowing deeply with each presentation.

Gabrielle held out her hand to one Benedict Lubienski, introduced as a Polish acquaintance of the aide-de-camp's.

For a moment she was mute, her mind as frozen as her tongue. He bowed over her hand. His fingers tightened on hers in powerful warning, and she found her voice.

"Are you here in an official capacity, sir?" she inquired, managing a flickering smile of courteous welcome.

"Not really, madame. The fate of Poland is dear to my heart, but I can't expect it to be under consideration during these negotiations."

"No, I imagine not." She withdrew her hand and turned to greet the next man, vaguely aware that she was smiling inanely and nodding her head as if she were a marionette with a slack string.

Nathaniel moved away, greeting acquaintances, smiling agreeably, saying little, and drawing even less attention to himself. He took a glass of champagne from a footman and joined the outskirts of a group standing beside the long windows that stood open to a terrace overlooking the river.

The broad sweep of water glittered under the myriad lamps of the town, and the raft with its white canvas pavilions was ablaze, strains of music coming from an orchestra playing in the smaller pavilion for the pleasure of Monsieur Talleyrand's guests.

He watched Gabrielle unobtrusively as she moved around the room. For one terrifying minute he'd thought she was going to give them away. Her hand in his had been shaking like a leaf in a gale, and her face had gone so white, he'd thought she was about to faint. If he could have warned her, he would have, but he'd discovered she was there only when he was on the way to the reception. It had been casually mentioned that Talleyrand's goddaughter was acting as the minister's hostess.

Forewarned had been forearmed, andyet he hadn't been totally prepared for her, for the moment when his eyes had locked with hers. It had taken all the years of living on the edge of danger to withstand the annihilation of reason and control, to keep from putting his hands on her body, from covering that wide, crookedly smiling mouth with his own.

The bodily memory of her, the thick, rich silk of her hair, the cool smoothness of her skin, the sweet fragrances of her honeyed core had haunted his lonely nights since he'd left her. But greater than passion's loss had been the absence of the essence of Gabrielle-of her laughter, and her temper, and her warmth, and her generous impulses, and her challenges.

And here she was, in the same room with him, as striking as ever, in a gown of deepest blue taffeta, sapphires at her throat, the dark red hair drawn up through a sapphire-studded comb, then tumbling in artful ringlets on either side of her face.

And he wanted her with the overpowering bodily hunger she had always aroused in him. He wanted to put her down on the parquet floor, raise those elegant rustling skirts, part the creamy, impossibly long thighs, lay his hand on their moist, heated apex…

He turned abruptly aside, stepping through the window onto the terrace, desperately hoping the cool air would dampen his now-embarrassing ardor. Of all the insane self-indulgences!

"How long have you been at the Russian court, Monsieur Lubienski?"

Gabrielle spoke at his shoulder, and he turned very slowly, a social smile on his lips.

"Several weeks, comtesse. I have many friends there, since I spent some months in Russia three years ago."

"I see." Presumably, before he became spymaster, he'd been an English agent in St. Petersburg. A Polish cover would be perfect. The Polish nobility mingled freely with the Russian, and it would explain both any lack of facility in the Russian language and his ease with French, since it was the lingua franca of both Russia and Poland.

"How are we to manage?" she demanded in a sudden urgent whisper, her hand brushing his black silk sleeve, her eyes molten lava. The past was forgotten in the desperation of their longing, the agony of their separation, the wonder of this meeting.

Nathaniel glanced around the terrace. Groups of people were drifting away from the overheated salons to enjoy the cool river breeze. Without answering, he clicked his heels and inclined his head in a formal bow, offering her his arm.

She laid her gloved hand on his arm, and they strolled the length of the terrace, Nathaniel making innocuous comments on the loveliness of the night, Gabrielle responding as best she could, but she was on fire, as if in the grip of a devastating fever, at the feel of his body so close to hers, the music of his voice, the special scent of his skin.

When they'd twice made public promenade of the length of the terrace and everyone was perfectly accustomed to the sight of them arm in arm, Nathaniel directed their steps toward a shadowy corner screened by a group of bay trees in wooden tubs.

Gabrielle forced herself to keep her pace to Nathaniel's slow, idling stride as she saw where he was heading. She wanted to leap forward into the dim privacy of the trees and lose herself in his body, but the spymaster, in the grip of the same compulsion, knew what he was doing. No one took any notice of them as they slid unobtrusively into the shadows.

"Dear God," Gabrielle whispered. "I can't bear it another minute." She flung her arms around his neck.

He wrapped her in his arms, lifting her off the ground as their mouths met, crushing her against him. Bearing her backward, he pressed her against the stone parapet of the terrace, his tongue driving into her mouth as they drank of each other's sweetness. Her body bent backward as he leaned over her as if all the better to devour her, and his hands pushed her skirt up to her waist, holding it there with his body. A fingernail snagged the delicate silk of her stocking, and his flat palm pushed up inside the leg of her drawers. This was no slow and easy exploration, but a rough and hungry revisiting of her body, damp and aching with its own passionate arousal.

She groaned against his mouth and bit his lip as his fingers delved deep within her. She pressed her loins against the hard mound of his erect flesh as if she could somehow achieve the fusion that was now such a desperate need.

"Come into me," she whispered. "You have to, now,Nathaniel."

"No… no… sweetheart. No." He withdrew his hand, pulled away from her, gazed at her in the dimness from his own passion-filled eyes. "Not here-it's not possible."

She sagged against the wall, her breathing ragged, her heart racing, her eyes closed as she fought to control the conflagration of her senses.

Nathaniel straightened her skirt, barely touching her as he did so, as if she were a burning brand that would set him alight.

"Where?" she breathed finally.

"Outside the town, along the river," he said with soft-voiced urgency. "Walk north, and I'll wait for you."

She nodded slowly as if the physical effort was almost too much for her.

"Go back now, ahead of me," he instructed, adjusting his cravat, smoothing his hair.

"But what must I look like?" She touched her lips that still sang with the memory of that consuming kiss.

"A little disheveled, that's all," he reassured. "Nothing that a couple of minutes in the retiring room won't put right. Now, off you go, before you're missed."

She left him, gliding out from the screen of trees but keeping in the shadows of the house as she made her way inside, hurrying through the brilliantly lit salons, keeping her head down so that she wouldn't catch anyone's eye.

Nathaniel took his time about emerging. He leaned on the parapet and breathed deeply until his aroused loins were once again comfortable and his head was clear. Madness… utter madness. But he hadn't been able to help himself, and for two pins he'd have yielded to Gabrielle's desperation and joined with her there and then, standing against the parapet of a terrace in the midst of the two most illustrious courts in the world.

Madness! But he wanted to laugh aloud. And that was not the prudent reaction of a man who walked in the lion's den and whose life presently depended upon a mixture of good fortune, experience, cool nerves, and utter discretion.

He'd half hoped, when he left her in Paris, that distance would lend detachment, but it had done the opposite, merely intensified his addictive passion. She continued to obsess his dreams, both sleeping and waking.

And here, on the banks of the River Nieman, in surroundings that would be more suited to a theatrical drama, she was with him again and it was the stuff of fantasy.

Gabrielle somehow managed to get through the rest of the evening without any obvious signs of insanity. The two emperors left together as they'd arrived, in perfect unity. Benedict Lubienski made his farewells with a group of others, his lips brushing her gloved hand, his eyes opaque.

"Well, that went off very well," Tal'eyrand declared as the last guest left. "Congratulations, ma chere."

"On what?" she asked swiftly.

Her godfather's eyebrows rose. "On what do you think?'

Flustered, Gabrielle waved a vaguely dismissive hand. "I didn't mean to be obtuse. I'm rather tired."

"Iimagineyoumightbe."Heexaminedher thoughtfullyforasecond."Youseemedtoenjoythe companyofMonsieurLubienski."

Thecraftyoldfoxnevermissedanything!"DidI, mon parrain?"Shemethisshrewdgazeandsighed; therewasnopointinprevaricatingwithTalleyrand.

"YouforgetthatIknowhowyouarewithyourlovers, monenfant."

"Justtwo,"sheremindedhim.

"Morethanenoughforawomanwholovesashard asyou,Gabrielle."

"Yes," sheagreed withasubduedsmile.

"Youwerenotexpectinghim?"Hisglancewassuddenlysharp.

"No."Sheshookherheadhelplessly."Ifeelasif I'minsomedreamworld.Ineverexpectedtoseehim again."

"D'accord."Hekissedhercheek,andthenstood back,holdinghershoulderslightly.

"Iwon'tinsulteitherofyoubyrecommendingcaution."

"No," she agreed.

The door closed on the Minister forForeign Affairs, and Gabrielle gave alittle involuntary skip ofexcitement. Nothing now lay between her and the rendezvous on the nverbank.