The raw violence of the encounter left Gabrielle feeling drained and sick. She sat down at the table, resting her still-stinging cheek on her palm, and waited until the shock had dissipated somewhat and she could think clearly.

Nathaniel was wrong-headed in his dealings with Jake. But that didn't give her the right to speak to him as she had. She could have said the same things reasonably, without hurling insults and sarcasm at him. A few days ago she'd thought she'd been making some headway, but matters between father and son seemed to have reverted to the old bad ways, and somehow she'd lost the patience for subtle teaching by example.

Perhaps it wasn't the patience she'd lost but Nathaniel's attention. Since he'd agreed to employ her in the network, his attitude had changed toward her. They spent hours in his office constructing a code she would use to pass on her intelligence, and she had to pretend the incompetence of a tyro while her mind leaped three steps ahead of his painstaking tutorial. They studied maps of Europe and discussed the kind of intelligence that the English spymaster would find invaluable, and she offered suggestions as to how she could acquire it.

They made love every night with the same wild passion and slept until morning in each other's arms, but a different dimension had entered their relationship. The natural equality had vanished. Nathaniel was instructor, director, employer. He wasn't cold in these roles, but he was businesslike and distant and Gabrielle followed his lead because it was what she was there to do.

But all the rational thought in the world didn't diminish the sense of loss over the days when they'd sparred and loved as if nothing else could ever concern them.

And how on earth were they to recover from that vile encounter?

A cloud of depression settled over her as she stood up and left the dining room to go in search of Jake.

She ran the child to earth behind the boathouse. He was huddled on the narrow jetty, shoulders hunched, chin pressed into his chest.

Gabrielle dropped a coat around his shoulders and sat down beside him, drawing him into the curve of her arm. He snuffled and swallowed a sob.

"I want Primmy. I don't want her to go away."

Gabrielle let him cry, offering soothing murmurs and the warm comfort of her body until he'd exhausted his tears. Then she tried to explain why his father had decided this was best for him. It was hard to be convincing when she was so far from convinced herself. But Nathaniel was such a distant authoritarian figure in the child's life that she felt she could at least impress upon Jake that his father had only his best interests at heart. And she did believe that. Nathaniel simply didn't know what those best interests were.

Jake was not to be persuaded, and he trailed dolefully after her as they returned to the house.

She accompanied him to the nursery, where a resolutely dry-eyed Miss Primmer told her she'd been given two weeks notice by his lordship and a most generous settlement. His lordship was all kindness, all consideration. But the governess hugged her wan charge convulsively as she made these vigorous protestations, and Jake's tears began to flow again.

There seemed nothing useful she could do, nothing comforting to be said at this point, and Gabrielle left them together.

Mr. Jeffrys passed her on the stairs. He was fussily directing the footman to be careful with his trunk of books and globes. He gave Gabrielle yet another ingratiating smile that she ignored, even as she wondered what interpretation he'd put on her presence. Nathaniel hadn't introduced her, although he'd referred to her as "countess." Presumably, he expected the same discreet acceptance from the tutor that he did from the rest of his staff.

Mrs. Bailey came out of the drawing room, feather duster in hand, as Gabrielle reached the hall. She bore the air of one attending at a deathbed.

"Did you wish me to put the snowdrops in your boudoir, ma'am?" The housekeeper gestured to the bunch of delicate flowers that Gabrielle had abandoned on the console table in the earlier flurry.

"Oh, yes, thank you."

"Miss Primmer will be sadly missed," the housekeeper observed, picking up the flowers. "And I don't know what to make of that tutor. All smarm and smiles, he is, but you mark my words, once he gets his feet under the table, he'll be giving orders left, right, and center. I know the type."

It was an extraordinary speech from the discreet Mrs. Bailey. Gabrielle was hard pressed to know how to respond. She wanted to agree, but couldn't without seeming to criticize Nathaniel to his staff. She offered a vague smile and satisfied herself with agreeing that Miss Primmer would indeed be missed, then she made her escape into the garden in search of privacy and tranquil surroundings.

There was a stone sundial and bench in the middle of the shrubbery, and she made her way there, knowing she would be invisible from the house.

She leaned back against the seat and raised her face to the pale sun, closing her eyes, allowing the feeble warmth to caress her eyelids. A fresh breeze carried the scents of the river and marshes and a chaffinch chirped busily from a bay tree.

She was so deeply immersed in her meditation that she didn't hear the footsteps on the gravel path behind her. When the hand fell on her head, she jumped with a startled cry.

"Penny for them," Nathaniel said quietly, keeping his hand where it was.

Gabrielle shrugged. "I was just musing."

His hand slipped to clasp the back of her neck. "May I share the muse?"

She arched her neck against the warm, firm pressure of his hand. "How did that happen, Nathaniel? Civilized people don't get into those kinds of fights."

"No, only excessively passionate people who both know they deserve to be flogged for such disgraceful lack of control," he agreed with a wry, self-mocking smile. Still holding her neck, he moved around the bench and sat down beside her.

"How about a pact of mutual forgiveness?" His fingers tightened around the slim column of her neck.

"Done," she said.

They sat in silence for a while. It was a companionable silence. Gabrielle was acutely conscious of his hand on her neck, of the moving blood beneath his skin, of his even breathing, of the warm proximity of his body. She realized suddenly that she'd become accustomed to such moments, and they'd been absent in the last days. Only now did she realize how much she'd missed these periods of silent and effortless communion in the turbulent seas of passion.

"I want you to go to Paris." Nathaniel's startling announcement broke the silence.

"When?" She turned on the bench to look at him.

"In three days time." He let his hands fall from her and leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. "I need a courier to take a vital message to my agents in Paris. I told you I was having problems with the network in Toulouse?"

"Yes?" Her mind was in a ferment. It was what she'd been working toward, but she hadn't expected him to send her into the field so soon-or so abruptly.

"I'll give you your instructions just before you leave. Your papers are in order, I assume?"

"Yes, I have a laissez passer signed by Fouche, no less."

"Good." He stood up. "There'll be a fishing boat sailing from Lymington to Cherbourg in three days. You'll sail on her and be put ashore in a small village just along the coast. From there you'll be able to make your own arrangements."

“I see.”

A silver eyebrow rose quizzically as he regarded her. "For some reason I'd expected a little more enthusiasm. It's what you've been wanting, after all."

She summoned a smile. "You just took me by surprise, that's all."

"Well, having made the decision, I can see little point in waiting."

"No, neither can I," she agreed, injecting firm confidence into the statement. "But you will tell me exactly what to do?"