The anticlimax of their visitors' departure seemed the only logical explanation for the slight constraint throughout the evening. Gabrielle tried to shake off the tendrils of depression that clung to them both, but Nathaniel was abstracted and failed to respond to her various sallies.

"Is something troubling you?" she asked as they got up from the dinner table.

"I have a problem with one of my agents in Toulouse," he said. "It's distracting me, I'm afraid."

"Oh," she said casually. "Not a problem you'd care to share, I presume."

"No," he said. "At least not at:he moment."

Gabrielle raised an eyebrow at this. Could she be making headway at last? She'd originally given herself two weeks to persuade him to change his mind, but was beginning to accept that the way things were going, she was going to need more time before the English spymaster threw in the towel and accepted her in his network.

"Well, I'll leave you to your cogitations," she said. "I should reply to my godfather's letter." She turned to the stairs and then paused, one hand on the newel post. "Anything you'd like me to tell him?"

Treacherous whore! "Not at the moment," he repeated, smiling. "I'll frank the letter for you when it's written." And read it too, with the aid of the code, once I've broken it.

Gabrielle composed her response to Talleyrand with great care. Hidden within the chatty, innocuous text was a brief factual account of her activities so far; what she had learned from the spymaster's diary; and her belief that if she persevered, he would eventually accept her in the network.

She sanded the paper, folded it, and sealed the envelope with a wafer before taking it downstairs and leaving it on the hall table for Nathaniel to frank before the carrier collected the mail.

Five minutes after she'd returned upstairs, Nathaniel came out of the library, picked up the envelope, and dropped it in his pocket. He would decipher its real message in the privacy of his bedchamber later.

Gabrielle stood for a minute in her boudoir, looking out the uncurtained window into the night. Rain lashed against the panes, dreary English rain that crept into one's bones. She drew the curtains tightly, then threw another log on the fire. Hugging her breasts with her crossed arms, she stared into the fire. For the first time in this crusade of vengeance, serpents of doubt raised their heads and hissed softly in her mind and in her heart.

If Nathaniel had not been responsible for Guillaume's murder, would she still be willing to betray him? She'd been involved in French intelligence for five years. But a courier's work hadn't involved direct contact and her adversaries had been nameless and faceless. This was very different.

She closed her eyes, seeing Guillaume's face in the red glow behind her eyelids. She could hear his voice, quiet and level, telling her that the end justified the means. That in the land of shadows where they worked, ordinary ethical considerations didn't apply. Nathaniel Praed didn't operate by those considerations, and one must meet fire with fire. She was carrying on Guillaume's work because her loyalties lay first and foremost with his memory.

When she returned to France at Talleyrand's bidding six years earlier, she'd left England and the DeVanes with deep reluctance, but her godfather had insisted that her father would have wanted her to take her place in French society, reconstituted after the chaos of revolution. England and France had just signed the Peace of Amiens, but the peace had not lasted long and soon Gabrielle had found herself with an emotional foot in both camps. Then she'd met Guillaume, and had buried her English loyalties deep, even the abiding friendship and gratitude she owed the DeVanes.

When Nathaniel joined her in bed that night, she welcomed him with a fierce eagerness for their fusion, desperate to blind herself to all but the physical contact, the explosive satisfaction of the lust that nothing could blunt between them.

******************************************************************

Nathaniel awoke first the next morning. He lay in the dim light of dawn, preparing himself for what he was about to do. He turned his head toward the dark one on the pillow beside him. Paper-thin, blue-veined eyelids shielded the sometimes passionate, sometimes mocking, frequently challenging charcoal eyes. Black lashes formed dark crescents against the white skin, where just the faintest bloom of sleep tinged the high cheekbones. The retrousse nose winkled slightly, and her mouth tightened suddenly as if her sleeping thoughts disturbed her in some way.

And so they should, he thought bitterly, such an accomplished spy, she was. The concealed message in the letter to her godfather had been a masterpiece.

He wondered how best to wake her. She preferred a slow awakening, so…

He drew his knees up, catching the sheet and blanket on his feet, and then thrust out his legs, kicking the covers to the foot of the bed, baring Gabrielle's naked body to the chill morning air and his own gaze.

Gabrielle was so deeply asleep that the abrupt change in temperature caused only an instinctive response. She rolled onto her side, curling her body as she reached blindly for the covers, searching with innate animal impulse for the lost warmth.

Nathaniel tapped the curve of her buttocks thus presented to him. "Wake up, Gabrielle."

Gabrielle rolled onto her back and her eyes flew open. She covered her breasts with her arms. "I'm cold! What's happened to the blanket?"

"I kicked it off."

"Brute!" She sat up, reaching down for the covers, still too muzzy to question what he'd said. "Oh… that's better." With a sigh of relief she fell back on the pillows, dragging the blanket up to her neck and closing her eyes again.

"I said wake up!" Firmly, he unhooked her fingers and again stripped off the blanket. "You have a debt of honor to pay." He raised an eyebrow as Gabrielle blinked in bemusement.

"Today's the day I have a handmaiden for twenty-four hours," Nathaniel announced. "I believe I win the wager."

Gabrielle closed her eyes to hide the rush of speculation at these words. Curiously, she'd forgotten the wager, she'd been too busy concentrating on discovering his secrets and winning his confidence. But it didn't surprise her that Nathaniel had remembered. It was the kind of thing he would remember. And if today was Sunday, and, judging from the pealing church bells outside, it seemed that it was, then the two weeks were up and Nathaniel Praed had not recruited her into his spy network.

Maybe a day of passionate lust would chase off the demons of depression that dogged her at the moment.

"Well, now," she drawled, still keeping her eyes closed. "As I recall, we agreed it was a wager as well to be lost as won."

"You'll have to tell me about that this time tomorrow," he murmured. "For now I can concentrate only on the privileges of the winner."

Her eyes opened. "So, make your wishes known, my lord."

"Well, first, I'd like you to understand that for twenty-four hours every inch and every cell of your body is at my disposal-and that includes your tongue, madame, which I wish you for once to keep under control."

Reaching out, he ran his flat thumb over her mouth. "And since I don't want to put too great a strain on your powers of compliance, I'll help you by imposing a rule of silence. As of now."

Gabrielle's eyes spoke volumes as she absorbed this statement. Surprise and a shade of resistance leaped out at him from the deep gray pools. Automatically, she opened her mouth to demand further explanation and Nathaniel's thumb pressed firmly against her lips.

"Now," he said softly. "You had better disappear next door while I arrange matters here. I'll call you when I'm ready."