"Will you be wanting anything?" she asked Gabrielle. "Some milk, perhaps, for le petit."

"Bread and milk for the child," Gabrielle said. "And we would like champagne and oysters."

"Comme d'habitude," Madame said with a brisk, comprehending nod.

As usual? Just how often had the Comtesse de Beaucaire eaten oysters with her lover in this place? Had the lover been another spy? The husband simply a convenient cover? His death had certainly been the cover story behind her desire to join the English secret service…

"Help me to put Jake to bed." Gabrielle interrupted his reverie and he put the questions aside. There would be time enough for them later.

Jake sleepily submitted to being undressed and washed. The room was warm and cozy, the bed all covered in red satin, and there was a heavy flowery smell in the air that wasn't exactly unpleasant but made his nose tingle. Papa found his nightshirt in the portmanteau and slipped it over his head, then lifted him into bed.

The bread and milk tasted almost like it did when Nurse made it for him, and when he dribbled milk on his chin, Papa wiped it off with his handkerchief.

Feeling warm and safe, Jake snuggled down under the covers. Gabby was smiling and Papa's mouth had a funny twitch to it, as if he were going to laugh. He thought it would be better than anything in the world if they could stay there forever, just the three of them. His eyes closed.

Nathaniel watched the child slide into sleep and felt a deep satisfaction in seeing him, for the first time since they'd left Burley Manor, ensconced in a proper bed with all his accustomed bedtime rituals. The fact that the bed was in a brothel in the city's most disorderly district didn't seem to matter.

He bent to turn the oil lamp low beside the child's bed and kissed Jake's cheek, brushing the curly hair off his forehead. Jake's heavy eyelids lifted and then dropped again, and he snuggled deeper under the covers. So like Helen… but he wasn't Helen. He was a separate, discrete entity whose birth had cost Helen her life. But that wasn't Jake's responsibility. It was his father's.

Nathaniel straightened and stood looking down on the sleeping child, the embodiment of his guilt. For nearly seven years he'd carried that guilt. But in the last few days something had happened to the burden. Jake wasn't the embodiment of anything-he was a small boy with needs, both basic and complex. And in his own self-indulgent morass of guilt, the father had failed to address the child's needs.

He turned away from the bed and became aware of Gabrielle standing in the doorway connecting the two rooms. She inclined her head in an almost questioning gesture, her eyes gravely smiling.

She had given him back his son. No, not given back. He hadn't had his son in any real sense. Gabrielle had given him Jake. Whatever else she was, whatever else she might have done, she'd shown him the joys and responsibilities of fatherhood and had forged the bond that he now felt so powerfully with the sleeping child.

The lamp from the room behind her set fire alight in her deliberately disheveled hair. Her outrageous, lascivious costume accentuated every luscious curve of her body, and that aura of sensual mischief pulsed around her. A joyous throb of sexual energy coursed through him, obliterating all but desire.

He moved toward her, and she stepped into the room behind.

Her eyes held his as he closed the door gently. For a moment he leaned against it, and the excitement built as they both stood still, eyes held by the invisible thread of pulsating arousal.

Suddenly Nathaniel laughed, a warm, rich sound of joy. He sprang toward her, picked her up, and tossed her onto the bed.

"Brigand!" His mouth came down on hers, his tongue delving in the sweet cavern beneath. "Brigand," he murmured against her lips. "God, I want you. It seems an eternity."

Her answering chuckle was a soft breath on his face, and her hands raked through his hair. He reached down and pulled her skirt up to her thighs, exposing the cheap cotton stockings. His fingers brushed across the remaining notes thrust into her garter.

"Now, just which one of us is for sale, I wonder," he mused, raising his head to look down at her.

"You, if I can afford you," she responded promptly.

He sat back on his heels, astride her thighs, and slowly pulled out the notes, one by one, from their hiding place. He counted them with great deliberation, then pushed them into the pocket of his britches, announcing solemnly, "I can be bought for such a sum."

"I'm relieved, sir," Gabrielle whispered, stretching beneath him, arching her back, pointing her toes, feeling the muscular energy ripple through her. "I have bought you in order that you should take me."

"The pleasure will be all mine, ma'am."

"Oh, I trust not, my lord…"

Gabrielle had worried about how she would feel bringing Nathaniel to the place where she'd shared so much joy with Guillaume, but as the night passed in hours of glory, she realized that it didn't matter.

When Nathaniel pried an oyster off its pearly shell and dropped it into Gabrielle's readily opened mouth, she remembered Guillaume doing the same thing. The memory was precious but not sullied. When he moved the damp stem of the champagne glass in a cold caress over her belly, setting her skin fluttering, she only smiled with languid pleasure at a bodily memory of a similar response long ago.

"So where did your husband fit into the eternal triangle?" Nathaniel asked lazily as dawn began to break.

"It was a marriage of convenience. Julien was already married when we met. I married Roland because one has to be married." She shrugged as if it had been a matter for total indifference.

"And what happened to them both?"

"Roland died of typhus."

"And the lover?"

Oh,no, she wasn't ready for this. Suddenly the euphoria was shattered and she understood that she'd been fooling herself all night. The memories flooded back, and she turned her head aside, reaching across Nathaniel's belly for the champagne glass on the table.

"He was killed," she said. "In the line of duty."

Nathaniel laid a hand on her back and immediately felt the strain beneath the damask skin. "You loved him," he stated quietly.

"Very much. I don't want to talk about it anymore." Not toyou, of all people.

"You're still mourning?" he persisted.

"I think I always will to some extent. Please, can we go to sleep now?"

Nathaniel took her chin between finger and thumb and brought her face around. Immediately she closed her eyes as if to hide the pain in them. "Look at me," he said, softly insistent.

Her eyes opened reluctantly, and they were sheened with tears. He took the glass from her and gathered her into his arms, holding her against his chest as he'd held Jake, soothing the child's fear.

Gabrielle began to weep. She wept for Guillaume and the love they'd had, but she also wept in confusion and terror because somehow she was beginning to feel just as deeply for the man who had snatched Guillaume from her. How was it possible to feel such a powerful and obsessive and impossible love when one should feel only hate? How was it possible to feel such overwhelming passion when one should desire only vengeance?

Nathaniel stroked her back, bending his head to press his lips to the curve of her neck as his hand smoothed over her buttocks in a caress that imparted warmth and reassurance rather than sensuality. She was jangling, he could hear and feel her discordance. He felt it himself, this terrible confusion of emotions when clear logic and absolute fact was routed again and again by the voracious hungers of lust.