"We should be on our way," Simon said.

"Oh, must you?" Gabrielle looked disappointed.

"Yes," Miles said firmly. "We've intruded sufficiently."

"If you leave within the hour, you could probably make it back to London in time for a late dinner," Nathaniel said readily.

Even Georgie recognized that Nathaniel this time was making fun of himself and joined in the laughter, but no one attempted to alter the plan, and an hour later Gabrielle waved the chaise away from the house.

"Are you tired of being alone with me?" Nathaniel inquired as they turned back into the hall.

"No." She shook her head. "Far from it. But that said, I imagine I'm a more sociable being than you."

"That wouldn't be difficult," he agreed with a wry smile. "I'm afraid I'm going to be very boring and shut myself up with some work."

Gabrielle shrugged. "I wouldn't mind going into town to do some shopping."

"I'll tell Milner to bring the brougham round from the stables."

"I'd rather take your curricle and your grays."

Nathaniel regarded her quizzically. "I don't wish to offend you, ma'am, but they'll be very fresh."

"I can handle them."

"Yes, I'm sure you can." He shook his head with a resigned chuckle. "Very well. But Milner had better go with you." He turned aside toward the library.

"Could I take Jake?"

The question arrested him with his hand on the library door. "He has lessons."

"A surprise holiday never did anyone any harm."

"You don't want a child hanging on to your skirts while you're shopping."

"If I didn't, I wouldn't have suggested it," she pointed out.

To his surprise, Nathaniel heard himself saying, "If you really want to, I see no objection."

"Thank you," Gabrielle said with quiet satisfaction. One made progress little by little.

Nathaniel watched the departure of the curricle from the library window an hour later. Jake was bouncing on the gravel like an india rubber ball, apparently chattering nineteen to the dozen to the patient Milner and the smiling Gabrielle, who swung herself gracefully into the curricle and took up the reins. Milner lifted Jake onto the seat beside her and then jumped up behind.

Nathaniel watched critically as Gabrielle felt the grays' mouths with a delicate pull on the reins. They were very fresh, stamping the gravel, lifting their heads to the brisk wind blowing in from the river, their breath steaming in the cold air. He wondered uneasily if he'd been wise to allow her to drive them. She gave the order to the groom to release their heads, and the horses plunged forward.

Nathaniel drew breath sharply, then relaxed as he saw her draw on the reins, asserting her mastery, bringing the grays round on the gravel and trotting them sedately down the drive. Gabrielle was clearly a capital whip-as he'd expected.

He went upstairs to the Queen's Suite. He had a good two hours in hand to conduct his search.

Jake was in seventh heaven at this unexpected holiday. He chattered throughout the short drive, too excited to take much notice of what they passed on the way, demanding to know what shops they would go to and what Gabrielle wanted to buy, and whether they could buy an ice from the tea shop on the quay. Primmy had once bought him an ice there a long time ago when he'd had to go to the dentist and he'd been very brave. The afternoon stretched magically ahead for the child, an uncharted landscape with no limits.

Gabrielle listened attentively to the boy's seemingly irrelevant prattle as they drove along the country lanes between hedgerows bright with holly berries. It was almost as if someone had taken the lid off a bubbling well, she thought. Jake talked as if he could talk forever. Was he not used to an audience? she wondered as he embarked on a convoluted description of some fantasy game he liked to play. It was an elaborate and imaginative scenario, the details lovingly and carefully described to his attentive listener. This was clearly a child who lived in his head, she concluded, as the rich inner landscape took shape for her. And Nathaniel presumably had no idea.

What kind of child had he been? As lonely as Jake, certainly, but tougher, she suspected. The son of the daunting-looking sixth Lady Praed, rather than the sweetfaced, gentle-natured Helen, seventh Lady Praed.

As she thought these thoughts and lent an attentive ear to the child's chatter, the seventh Lord Praed was conducting a systematic search of her possessions.

Nathaniel had conducted many such searches in his career, more often than not unuer conditions of secrecy and the threat of imminent exposure. That afternoon he was in his own house, secure in the knowledge that Gabrielle was well out of the way and that no one would either question his presence in this room or interrupt him.

It gave him the leisure to proceed with excessive thoroughness. Coldly, he blocked out all thought of the personality behind the possessions as he examined the gowns in the wardrobe, checking seams and hems. She had an enormous number of shoes, he registered distantly as he examined the soles of each one, testing for the hollow sound that would indicate a cavity in the heel.

He went through the lacy undergarments in the drawers of the armoire, looking for concealed pockets, loose seams. He had the advantage of Gabrielle in that he knew the room itself contained no secret hiding places. If she did have anything compromising, it would be in her possessions, unless she'd made her own hiding place in the furniture or draperies.

He went through her jewel case, raising his eyebrows slightly at the priceless gems, realizing that so far he'd seen Gabrielle wear barely half of the treasure of the Hawksworths.

He went through the contents of the secretaire, running his eye over the letter from Talleyrand that she'd read at breakfast. She'd left nothing out in her reading. There was no other correspondence, no journal even.

He stripped the bed and examined the mattress. There were no suspicious cuts or lumps. He ran his hands along the curtains at the windows and around the bed. He looked under the carpets, turned the chairs upside down, and lifted the cushions.

There was nothing to be found. He wondered if he'd expected to find anything. And only then did he realize how relieved he was.

He stretched in the shaft of weak sunlight falling from the window and ran his fingers through the silver swatches at his temples. Then his eye fell on the books on the floor beside the window seat. For some reason, he'd missed them.

He bent to pick them up. There was a copy of Delphine by Madame de Stael and a copy of Voltaire's Lettres philosophiques. He opened the latter, shaking out the pages. Nothing fluttered loose. He did the same for Delphine with the same results. Idly, he picked up the Voltaire again. It had been a long time since he'd read this critique of prerevolutionary French institutions. The inflammatory book had sent the author into exile and was generally considered an incitement to the revolution that had followed its publication.

He flipped through the pages, his eye running over the text. Suddenly he went cold, the hairs on his forearms rising.

He stared down at a long paragraph where certain letters were marked faintly with lead pencil. There were numerical annotations in the margin.

With a heart of stone he took the book into his own room next door and copied out the passage, including the annotations. He would master the code at his leisure. Then he replaced the book and checked the room to make sure that everything was as he'd found it. The bed looked a little less neat than it had, but no one would notice. He smoothed the coverlet and then went down to the library to await the return of Gabrielle and his son.