Page 15 of The Avenging Angel and the Spy
“You need not try to convince me, Chuff. I am not arguing with you.” Sinclair brushed the knees of his breeches clear of the dust that had clung when he had knelt to start the fire. “It would be more to the point, little brother, if you would tell me what you are doing here.”
“Colonel Darlington sent a message for you.”
Sinclair stiffened at the mention of the British officer highly placed in army intelligence.
“The courier chosen was Tobias Reed, an old friend of mine.” Charles flushed guiltily, unable to meet Sinclair’s stern gaze. “So I persuaded Toby to let me bring the message instead.”
Sinclair scowled. “You could get both yourself and your friend in deep trouble. This was not the wisest course of action, Chuff.”
“Wise be damned! II had to see you again before you disappear to parts unknown.” He glanced up, coaxing, “Come now, Sinclair. You can’t be angry with me.”
With that pleading look on his face, Charles reminded Sinclair of nothing so much as a wistful puppy. Would his brother never mature?
“Hand over the message,” Sinclair said wearily.
Charles brightened. Reaching inside his waistcoat, he drew forth a sealed, slightly damp square of parchment. “You’re to burn it after you read it.”
“No!” Sinclair arched his brows in mock astonishment. “I thought I was supposed to publish it in the Times.”
Charles made a face and tossed the letter at him. “Sorry. I forgot you’re not exactly a greenhorn at all of this.”
Sinclair caught the letter and broke the wax seal. The message was in code, of course.
“Excuse me for a moment,” he murmured to his brother. Sinclair strode over to the desk. Tumbling his coat, hat, and most of the papers aside, he finally located a quill, a half-driedpot of ink, and a blank sheet of vellum. Drawing up a chair, he began to decode the message. It was not a simple code, but Sinclair had worked with this particular one enough that he was able to accomplish his task with reasonable swiftness.
Darlington’s letter began with a word of congratulations to Sinclair for having successfully insinuated himself into Merchant’s group. Many Frenchèmigreshad fled to England during the Reign of Terror, most of them royalists dreaming and plotting to restore the French monarchy. But none of these French royalists were so well organized and so well funded as Merchant’s Society for the Preservation of Ancient Relics. The British army, bearing no fondness for Napoleon, applauded Merchant’s efforts to overturn the Corsican upstart’s government.
At least, the army had done so until recently. Evidence from British spies operating in Paris revealed that one or more of Merchant’s little band, possibly Merchant himself, was really working for Bonaparte.
Under the guise of being a royalist plotter, this counteragent was drawing maps of the English coastline and fortifications, passing the information back to Napoleon for use in a possible invasion. It was Sinclair’s task to expose Bonaparte’s spy and put a halt to these activities, an assignment which Sinclair understood well enough. There was no need for Darlington to elaborate further upon it. Consequently, the rest of the colonel’s message was brief.
“Eliminate the name Feydeau from your list. Now beyond suspicion. The man died last week in a coaching accident.
Sinclair paused in his decoding to reach for his umbrella. He unscrewed the top and then slipped a scroll of paper from inside the hollowed-out bone handle. Unrolling the parchment, Sinclair read down the list of names and brief notes he had jotted about the agents known to work for Merchant. Laurent Coterinhad already been scratched out. After dipping his quill into the ink, Sinclair put a line through the name of Simon Feydeau.
With two of the eight names thus eliminated, it made Sinclair’s task that much easier. Thoughtfully stroking his chin, Sinclair studied the ones remaining. Baptiste Renois, Paulette Beauvais. Marcellus Crecy-Sinclair could form no conjectures about these people, for he had yet to meet any of them.
Victor Merchant—here, Sinclair had the advantage of one meeting and some sketchy background information. Merchant, once known as the Baron de Nerac, had fled France shortly after the execution of the late Louis XVI. He had arrived in England, possessing scarcely more than the shirt on his back, and yet in the intervening years, Merchant had somehow acquired seemingly limitless funds with which to finance the activities of his society.
Funds that could be coming from Bonaparte, Sinclair thought. Yet if Merchant was the counteragent, someone else had to be doing the actual spying for him, for Merchant rarely strayed far from his townhouse in London.
Reserving any further judgment on Merchant, Sinclair moved to the next name on the list: Quentin Crawley. Well, Quentin certainly traveled about enough to qualify. But a smile tugged at Sinclair’s lips. He did not often trust merely his intuition, but he would be astonished if Crawley turned out to be the one he sought. As Mrs. Varens had pointed out, Quentin very much enjoyed ‘playing spy,’ but to involve himself in any real danger, the precarious position of being a counteragent-Sinclair doubted that Crawley possessed the steady nerves such a deception would require.
On the other hand, Sinclair thought, his gaze resting on the last name, there was Isabelle Varens herself, cool, sophisticated, obviously intelligent. Sinclair did not doubt that Isabelle had the courage to take such a risk. One didn’t earn a sobriquetlike Avenging Angel from one’s peers for being a timid soul. And Isabelle traveled freely on both sides of the channel. She had balked at the notion of working with Sinclair, declaring her intention of telling Merchant he must make other arrangements. That, of course, Sinclair did not intend to let happen. Isabelle could have been genuinely angry about the kiss, or she could have a more sinister motive. It would not be easy for her to contact Napoleon with Sinclair tagging after her. Thus far, of all the names on the list, she seemed most likely to be Bonaparte’s spy. Sinclair dipped his quill pen into the ink-pot and underscored her name with a thick line, only to frown and follow it up with a question mark.
He kept remembering how soft and enticing she had felt in his arms, how warm and sweet her lips. Yet he had had no business attempting to kiss her. He felt almost grateful that she had slapped him, bringing him to his senses. He knew some men might consider seduction a good method for gaining information, but Sinclair had his own code. He did not bed women in order to learn their secrets and then betray them.
In truth, he had not been thinking of information at all when he had held Isabelle, only the flaring of his own desire. That disturbed Sinclair more than anything else. He was no saint by any means. He had a keen appreciation for beautiful women, but he had always known how to check his passions until the appropriate place and time. What was it about Isabelle Varens that overrode his natural caution? Beautiful, she certainly was, but he had known many beautiful women before. Perhaps it was Isabelle’s more elusive qualities. An aura of mystery seemed to cling to her, her fine sculpted features touched by a deep sadness even when she smiled.
When he had asked about her husband, he had seen the haunted expression in her eyes, as though some specter from her past had risen to torment her. Sinclair rarely felt protectiveimpulses toward women, but he had had an astonishing urge to cradle Isabelle Varens against him, lay all her ghosts to rest.
A loud clatter from the region of the fireplace disrupted his wandering thoughts. Startled, he glanced up, having all but forgotten his brother’s presence in the room. Charles, in the act of removing his boots, had accidently kicked up against the fire irons.
“Sorry,” Charles muttered. “Are you nearly finished, Sinclair?”
“Another minute or two,” Sinclair said with a grimace. Chuff never could sit still for more than five minutes at a time.
Sinclair set the list aside and dragged his attention back to Colonel Darlington’s letter.
