Velvet Read Free Page B

Russia for Prussia. It remained to be seen which way the czar would jump in the end. It was hard to second-guess a man who, according to this latest report, was described by his closest associate as “a combination of weakness, uncertainty, terror, injustice, and incoherence that drives one to grief and despair.”
    Nathaniel swung out of bed and went to open the window. Whatever the temperature, he was unable to sleep with the window closed. Several narrow escapes had given him a constitutional dislike of enclosed spaces.
    It was a bright, clear night, the air crisp, the stars sharp in the limitless black sky. He flung open the window, leaning his elbows on the sill, looking out over the expanse of smooth lawn where frost glittered underthe starlight. It would be a beautiful morning for the hunt.
    He climbed back into bed and blew out his candle.
    He heard the rustling of the Virginia creeper almost immediately. His hand slipped beneath his pillow to his constant companion, the small silver-mounted pistol. He lay very still, every muscle held in waiting, his ears straining into the darkness. The small scratching rustling sounds continued, drawing closer to the open window. Someone was climbing the thick ancient creeper clinging to the mellow brick walls of the Jacobean manor house.
    His hand closed more firmly over the pistol and he hitched himself up on one elbow, his eyes on the square of the window, waiting.
    Hands competently gripped the edge of the windowsill, followed by a dark head. The nocturnal visitor swung a leg over the sill and hitched himself upright, straddling the sill.
    “Since you’ve only just snuffed your candle, I’m sure you’re still awake,” Gabrielle de Beaucaire said into the dark, still room. “And I’m sure you have a pistol, so please don’t shoot, it’s only me.”
    Nathaniel was rarely taken by surprise, and when he was, he was a master at concealing it. On this occasion, however, his training deserted him.
    “Only!” he exclaimed. “What the hell are you doing?”
    “Guess,” his visitor challenged cheerfully from her perch.
    “You’ll have to forgive me, but I don’t find guessing games amusing,” he declared in clipped accents. He sat up, his pistol still in his hand, and stared at the dark shape outlined against the moonlight. That aura of trouble surrounding Gabrielle de Beaucaire had not been a figment of his imagination.
    “Perhaps I should be flattered,” he said icily. “AmI to assume unbridled lust lies behind the honor of this visit, madame?” His eyes narrowed.
    Disconcertingly, the woman appeared to be impervious to irony. She laughed. A warm, merry sound that Nathaniel found as incongruous in the circumstances as it was disturbingly attractive.
    “Not at this point, Lord Praed; but there’s no saying what the future might hold.” It was a mischievous and outrageous statement that rendered him temporarily speechless.
    She took something out of the pocket of her britches and held it on the palm of her hand. “I’m here to present my credentials.”
    She swung off the windowsill and approached the bed, a sinuous figure in her black britches and glimmering white shirt.
    He leaned sideways, struck flint on tinder, and relit the bedside candle. The dark red hair glowed in the light as she extended her hand, palm upward, toward him, and he saw what she held.
    It was a small scrap of black velvet cut with a ragged edge.
    “Well, well.” The evening’s puzzles were finally solved. Lord Praed opened a drawer in the bedside table and took out a piece of tissue paper. Unfolding it, he revealed the twin of the scrap of material.
    “I should have guessed,” he said pensively. “Only a woman would have come up with such a fanciful idea.” He took the velvet from her extended palm and fitted the ragged edge to the other piece, making a whole square. “So you’re Simon’s surprise. No wonder he was so secretive.”
    He sat back against the pillows, an