Page 30 of The Avenging Angel and the Spy
“It has been a long time, Isabelle,” he said softly. “You are still very beautiful.”
The color rushed back into Belle’s cheeks. “Thank you, Jean-Claude.”
She sounded so damn grateful and looked so vulnerable, Sinclair felt a surge of irritation. The way she pronounced the man’s name told him all he needed to know about how intimate she and this Jean-Claude once had been. Sinclair experienced a strange sensation, like a giant claw raking across his insides. He surprised himself by stepping closer to Belle and wrapping his arm possessively about her waist.
“It would seem that you and my wife are acquainted, monsieur.”
He felt Belle stiffen at his words, a spark of anger firing her eyes. Jean-Claude flinched as though Sinclair had dealt him a blow to the face.
“Your—your wife?”
“No—” Belle started to say, trying to pull away from him.
“Just recently wed.” Sinclair cut her off, tightening his grip. “Sinclair Carrington’s the name. And you are?”
“The Comte de Egremont.” Jean-Claude’s lips tightened, but he forced a smile. “My congratulations, monsieur, Isabelle.” He regained his icy composure. “Pray excuse my rudeness. My son grows restless.” He glanced down to where John-Jack wriggled, clearly impatient with all this mysterious adult conversation. “I must see him returned to hisbonne.”
“No, Jean-Claude. Wait.” But Belle’s protest came too weak and too late. Scarce giving John-Jack a chance to wave farewell, Jean-Claude tugged his son along the docks. Sinclair was astonished by the degree of vicious satisfaction he felt at the man’s retreat, almost as though he had vanquished an enemy.
Belle wrenched herself away from Sinclair. He half expected her to go running after the Frenchman. She took a few hesitant steps and stopped, rounding on Sinclair. Her face was taut with fury.
“How dare you tell him that! How dare you refer to me as your wife!”
“I thought we had agreed on that, Angel.”
“But you needn’t have introduced me that way to—to?—”
“To Jean-Claude?” Sinclair filled in. “Why? What difference does it make?”
Her lips parted to make a furious retort and then clamped shut. The fire in her eyes slowly died to be replaced by emptiness. “No difference, I suppose. None at all.”
Wrapping her arms about herself, she walked to the end of the pier and stared unseeing at the channel. She looked weary,a woman defeated. Sinclair had an urge to go to her, pull her into his arms, but his mind reeled with confusion over his own feelings.
What the devil had gotten into him just now? He had been acting like a jealous lover. Which was absurd because he had never made love to Isabelle Varens. What had they shared? A kiss. Never mind that it had been a kiss unlike any other that he had ever known, that the ridiculous thought had flashed through his mind that in Belle he had found something he had been searching for all his life.
So this is what it felt like to make an idiot of oneself over a woman. Chuff, if only you could see your rakehell brother now, he thought with a groan.
Completely cool in his past relations with women, Sinclair was not sure how to cope with this new unsettling experience. Did one apologize for behaving like a jealous fool or simply let the matter drop? Belle seemed too lost in her own unhappy thoughts to take any interest in what he might have to say.
But he discovered he was wrong. She was aware of both him and his silence, for she remarked bitterly, “Well, Mr. Carrington? You are always so curious. I had expected by now to be barraged with questions about my relationship to the Comte de Egremont.”
“I am not sure this time, Angel, that l want to know?—”
“He was my husband.”
For a moment Sinclair was too stunned to say anything. Then he blurted out, “Your husband! I thought he was dead.”
“To me, he is, but it is a living death. In France they call it divorce.”
Sinclair thought himself past the age of being shocked by anything, but he could not quite manage to conceal his dismay.
“Divorce?”
“Another of the Revolution’s civilizing improvements, Mr. Carrington.” She essayed a careless laugh, which stuck in her throat. “It does not require an act of Parliament to dissolve a marriage in Paris, only a few pen strokes on a piece of parchment, a mutual agreement to make an end.”
How mutual had that agreement been in Belle’s case? Sinclair wondered. One look at the misery brimming in her eyes answered his question. As he groped for his pocket handkerchief, he damned Jean-Claude Varens for a fool.
Usually adept at turning aside the flood of feminine tears he so disliked, for once Sinclair could not think of anything witty or consoling to say. He handed Belle the handkerchief in a gesture of silent sympathy.
