His eyes flickered to a deep window embrasure, where Anastase Walewski stood preening himself as he watched his wife. There would be no trouble from the old man, Talleyrand thought with cynical knowledge. He'd give his wife to Napoleon without a qualm for the sake of the reflected glory.
However, to be on the safe side, Napoleon's Minister for Foreign Affairs would devote some flattering attention to the self-important chancellor.
The prince moved away from the railing and limped to the sweeping curve of staircase leading down to the ballroom. Pimping for his emperor was a new experience, but Talleyrand used what tools were at hand in his diplomacy. If the way to the liberation of Poland lay through the emperor's bed, then so be it.
It might be useful to inform Gabrielle of Napoleon's new love interest. He would send a letter by express messenger to the contact in London, who would send it on to the Vanbrughs' house in Kent-the seemingly chatty, innocuous letter of a godfather to his dearly loved godchild. Gabrielle would pass the nugget on to her spymaster as a token of good faith and further proof of her access to the private ears of the emperor's inner circle. Disseminating the information would do France and Talleyrand's own plans no harm. The English were only observers in the fate of Poland.
Smiling benignly, he crossed the room toward Chancellor Anastase Walewski, preparing to congratulate him on his wife's success and the possibility of his imminent cuckledom.
******************************************************************
The faces crowded closer. Sweating, red, eyes bloodshot, the mob pressed forward. Their mouths were open, gaping holes in the grotesque faces as they yelled their obscenities at the man and woman standing at bay behind a long table against the salon wall.
A cudgel smashed against the polished tabletop, gouging a great wound in the rosewood. The woman shrank back against the silk-covered wall and her husband tried to speak above the tumult. His tones were measured, reasonable, and they were drowned under screeching, mocking laughter and more obscenities.
A citoyenne in the red bonnet of the Revolution spat across the table, and from somewhere came the sound of smashing glass as a window broke beneath the assault of a cudgel.
A man in the bloodstained apron ofa butcher struggled to lift the edge of the table. Another heaved with him, the veins in his forearms great blue ropes beneath the weather-beaten skin. The table fell onto its side with an almighty crash. The couple behind were now exposed to the mob, their fragile barrier demolished. Hands reached for them, hauled them out, and they were lost in the throng, pushed and jostled to the great double doors of the salon. The sounds of breaking glass continued and the child, lying rigid along the beams of the ceiling, smelled smoke as someone fired the tapestries in the long gallery upstairs and the orgyof destruction reached new levels of enthusiasm…
The narrow cobbled street was thronged, the stench of unwashed humanity heavy in the sultry summer air. The open tumbrils clattered over the cobbles in an endless stream, their passengers standing cheek by jowl, hands bound in front of them, hair scraped back from their faces, white faces staring unseeing into the jeering crowd running beside the carts, pelting them with rock-hard dried mud and rubbish from the kennels.
The child now stood at a gabled window under the eaves of a wine shop. She hugged the shadows as she lo iced out on the scene below. It was the same scene ever from dawn to dusk when Madame Guillotine closedeyes for the night.
The face of a woman among the condemned in the second cart became suddenly sharply defined amid the sea of desperation. The child pressed her hand to her mouth to keep from crying out as she watched the cart pass below the window and out of sight around the comer of the Rue de Seine…
The low, heartbroken sobbing jerked Nathaniel into full awareness before he realized what it was. The bedroom was filled with moonlight, the ruddy glow of the dying embers in the grate a counterpoint to the cold silver clarity of the light.
Gabrielle was sitting up beside him, tears sliding out from her closed lids to track down her cheeks. The sobs were in her throat, and she rocked her body as she hunched pitifully over her drawn-up knees.
"Gabrielle," he whispered, shocked to his core. She made no response, and he touched her bare back. Her skin was slick with sweat and cold as the grave.
"Gabrielle," he said again, louder this time, his warm palm cupping the damp curve of her shoulder. When her eyes remained shut and the sobs continued, he realized she was still asleep. Fast asleep, she sat hunched over her knees, racked with some devastating inner anguish. What nightmare world was she inhabiting?
"Gabrielle! Wake up!" He spoke with a calm authority, swiveling to take her shoulders from the front and shake her awake. "Wake up, you're having a bad dream."
Her eyes opened and the sadness in them struck to his heart. The dark red ringlets clustering around her face clung to her cheeks, damp with tears and sweat, and she stared at him for a minute, unrecognizing. The sobs gathered in her throat, but as he watched in impotent compassion, she swallowed vigorously, wiped the back of her arm over her eyes, and loosened her hair with her fingers, tossing it back over her shoulders.
"I'm sorry," she said, her voice thick with the residue of tears. "Did I wake you?"
"What was it?" he asked gently. "What were you dreaming?"
Her shoulders lifted in an infinitesimal shrug and she shook her head. "Nothing… nothing at all." She lay down again, closing her eyes firmly. "Go back to sleep, Nathaniel. I'm sorry I woke you."
"That won't do," he said sharply, gazing down at her.
"What won't?" She rolled onto her side in the fetal position. "I'm sleepy."
He could feel the jagged edges of her pain as an almost palpable aura around the curled figure, and he knew she was as wide awake as he was.
"It won't do," he repeated, swinging out of bed. "And don't pretend you're sleepy, because Iknow damn well you're as far from sleep as you could possibly be."
He went over to the fireplace and bent to rake through the embers, stirring them into flickering life. He tossed kindling onto the flicker and waited until the dry wood caught. Then he turned back to the bed.
Gabrielle was lying on her back now, her eyes still resolutely closed. Tears stained the translucent pallor of her cheeks, and there was a bead of lip where she'd bitten it.
A few hours earlier he'd fallen into a satiated sleep beside a bold, imperious, exciting woman of inventive and ingenious passion. And he'd woken beside a vulnerable, deeply hurt woman who looked both much younger than her years and yet paradoxically older.
"Gabrielle." He came and sat on the bed beside her, laying a hand on her stomach, feeling the muscles jump in instant reflex against his cool palm. "Iwant to know what you were dreaming."
Her eyes opened and he saw the residue of stark pain in their charcoal depths.
"It was nothing, I told you. Nothing important. I'm sorry I woke you."
"Don't keep saying that." Impatience, never far below the surface, broke through his compassion. "You were dreaming something terrible."
Sighing, Gabrielle sat up. "And what if I was? We're all entitled to our privacy, Nathaniel. You have no rights over my soul."
Nathaniel stood up abruptly. "Now, just listen to me. We make the most wonderful, transcendent love for hours and I fall asleep holding you in my arms, feeling your breathing, smelling your skin and your hair, aware of every millimeter of your skin touching mine. And then I wake in the middle of the night to find you soaked in sweat, sobbing in utter desolation, and you tell me I'm not entitled to know what's the matter. Well, it won't do, Gabrielle. Passion can't exist in a vacuum." He glared at her.