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. "Am I 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 expression of boredom now on the lean features. "This is a tedious waste of time, madame. I don't employ women in my business, and Simon knows it."

"How very definite you sound," Gabrielle said, seemingly unperturbed. "Women make good spies. They have different assets and techniques from men, I would imagine."

"Oh, they're tricky enough, I grant you," he declared as indifferently as before. "But they're more vulnerable… they hurt more easily."

Gabrielle shrugged. "If a woman decides to take the risk and accept the consequences, it's hardly your responsibility, Lord Praed."

"On the contrary. Each agent is part of an interlocking network… dependent upon one another. In my experience, women are not good team members. And they don't stand up well to pressure." His lips thinned. "You understand me, I'm sure."

Gabrielle nodded. "Women are more likely to talk under torture."

"Not more likely," he said with a shrug. "Just more quickly. In the end, everyone talks. But the lives of an entire cell can depend on the extra hour a man can hold out."

"I believe I have as much fortitude as most men," Gabrielle declared. And certainly as much experience in your business, Sir Spymaster-but that was a private reflection. "I can move freely between England and France," she continued. "I speak both languages without accent." She sat on the edge of his bed with an air of calm assurance that Nathaniel found supremely irritating. It seemed calculated to increase the disadvantages of his position, huddled in bed in his nightshirt like some invalid.

"You'll have to forgive me," he said sardonically, "but I don't trust women." He began to count off on his fingers. "As I said, they don't make good team members; they lack concentration; they can't focus on one task; and in general they fail to grasp the significance of information. I do not employ women."

Clearly a man of blind and stupid prejudice. It was amazing he was as successful and highly regarded as he was.

"I also know Talleyrand very well." She continued to enumerate her credentials as if she hadn't heard him. "He was a close friend of my father's and his house is always open to me. I move in political circles in Paris and have entrees at court. I even know Fouche quite well. I could be very useful to you, Lord Praed. I don't think a spymaster can afford to indulge his prejudices about women in general when faced with such advantages in a potential agent."

Nathaniel hung on to his temper by a thread. "I am not prejudiced toward women in general," he said in frigid accents. "As it happens-"

"Oh, good," she interrupted cheerfully. "I'm glad we've established that. Working together could be tricky if you really dislike women. Simon seemed to think that I could be put to good use discovering the identities of the French agents in London."

"Simon is not responsible for selecting agents, madame." Why did he have this almost desperate feeling of facing an immovable object?

"No," she agreed. "You are. But I'm sure you take advice. And Simon is a very senior minister in Lord Portland's government." She examined her fingernails with an air of great interest.

Her hands were long and narrow, he noticed, the nails short, the fingers white and slender. He pulled himself up sharply. She had just made the outrageous suggestion that he was bound to submit to the instructions of Simon Vanbrugh. Only the prime minister had the power of veto over the affairs of the secret service… and even that was open to question.

"You are greatly mistaken, madame, if you think I can be influenced against my better judgment by anyone. Myword is the last one, countess, and the only one that counts. I do not employ women agents."

"There are exceptions to every rule, my lord," she pointed out with a tranquil smile. "My credentials are impressive, don't you think?"

They were, of course. Simon hadn't exaggerated when he'd described the potential usefulness of this candidate to the service. Her sex, of course, explained the elaborate setup. Simon knew that if he'd been honest, Nathaniel would have refused point blank even to see her. But presumably Simon had tasted the mettle of Gabrielle de Beaucaire and was no more capable of convincing her to take no for an answer than he himself seemed to be.

He spoke now with calculated hostility, flavoring the words with insult. "Oh, yes, very impressive, madame. As impressive in the service of France as in the service of England. As I understand it, you've spent most of the last few years in France, and now I'm supposed to believe you're eager to betray France to her enemy? It's testing my credulity a little too far, I'm afraid."

He watched her expression, looking for the slightest telltale signs of hesitation, of shiftiness-a slide of the eye, a touch of color to the cheek, a quiver of the lips. The candid charcoal gaze didn't waver, however, and the pale skin remained translucent.

"It's not an unreasonable question," she said steadily. "Let me explain. I've always felt closer to my mother's side of the family." Her voice was no longer light but quiet and somber. "I spent most of my childhood here with Georgie's family during the Terror. My father was a supporter of reform before the Revolution, but he was always a royalist and would have supported the Bourbons if they'd survived the Terror. I can best serve my parents' memories and my own loyalties by helping to defeat Napoleon and restore the Bourbon monarchy to the throne of France."

She put her head on one side, and a smile enlivened the somber countenance. "So, Lord Praed, I am at the service of the English secret service."

"Your husband…?”

Shadows darkened her eyes to black. "He loved France, sir. He would agree to anything that would benefit his beloved country… and Napoleon is not good for France."

"No." Nathaniel found himself agreeing, forgetting for a moment the reason for this discussion. "In the long run, I'm sure that's true. Although military victories seem to indicate otherwise," he added wryly.

Her explanation was convincing. His reports indicated these days that many concerned, thinking Frenchmen were beginning to understand that Napoleon's increasing megalomania was detrimental to his country. He wanted to control the whole of Europe, but the time would come when the countries he'd subjugated and humiliated would form alliances and rise up against the tyrant because they'd have nothing further to lose. And when that happened, it would be ordinary French men and women who would pay the price for one man's overweening ambition. Working to bring down Napoleon was not necessarily the act of a traitor to France.

And Gabrielle de Beaucaire was superbly placed to gather the kind of information it could take another agent months to discover.

But he didn't employ women.

He regarded her in brooding silence. She lacked something essential to femininity, he thought, some weakness or vulnerability that he associated with the female sex. She was tensile, strong, unwavering. But with a sense of humor. And something else, something he'd learned to recognize in a good spy a long time ago. He believed she had that indefinable and essential quality of bending, like the willow tree in a wind. A spy had to bend, to adapt, to switch rapidly from stance to stance.

And there were exceptions to every rule, but not this one.

"I don't deny your credentials, but I do not employ women. There is nothing more to be said. Now, perhaps you'd do me the favor of removing yourself. I don't mean to be inhospitable…" He tried another heavily ironic smile, lifting one eyebrow. But if he'd hoped to disconcert her, he was disappointed again.

"Very well." She rose from the bed. "Then I'll bid you good night, Lord Praed." She went toward the door. "You won't mind if I go out this way?"

"No," he said, seizing on a legitimate complaint. "On the contrary. Perhaps you'd like to explain why you chose to arrive in such unorthodox fashion. What the devil was wrong with the door in the first place? The house is asleep."

"It seemed more interesting… more amusing," she said with a shrug.

"And more dangerous." His voice was harsh. "This is not a game. We're not in this business for amusement. We don't take unnecessary risks in the service. You may have the credentials, madame, but you obviously do not have the wisdom or the intelligence."

Gabrielle stood still, her hand on the doorknob, her lower lip clipped between her teeth as she fought to conceal the violent upsurge of anger at such stinging scorn. He didn't know how far off the mark he was. She never took unnecessary risks, and this one had been entirely justified in terms of her plan. But Nathaniel Praed was not to know that, of course.

With a supreme effort she conjured up a tone of dignified defense. "I'm no fool, Lord Praed. I can tell the difference between games and reality. Nothing was at stake tonight, so I could see no reason not to indulge myself in a little unorthodox exercise."

"Apart from compromising your reputation," he remarked aridly.

At that she laughed again, and again he was attracted to the deep, warm sound. "Not so," she said. "The house is asleep, as you said. And even if anyone saw me scaling the walls, they'd hardly recognize the Comtesse de Beaucaire in this outfit." She passed a hand in a sweeping gesture down her body, delineating her frame. "Would they?"

"It would depend on how well they know you," he said, as aridly as before, reflecting that once seen like this, Gabrielle would be impossible to forget.

"Well, no harm's done," she said with a dismissive shake of her head. "And I do take your point, sir."

"I'm relieved. Not that it makes any difference to anything. Good night." He blew out his candle.

"Good night, Lord Praed." The door closed behind her.

He lay on his back, staring up into the darkness. Hopefully that was the end of any involvement with Gabrielle de Beaucaire. He'd give Simon a piece of his mind tomorrow. What the hell had he thought he was doing, encouraging that troublesome woman to see herself as an agent? She presumably had some romantic, glamorous conception of what was at best a dirty and dangerous business, and Simon was always susceptible to female persuasion.