Page 39 of The Avenging Angel and the Spy
“Feydeau had his faults,” Belle protested, “but he loved his horses. I never saw him take the reins into his hands when he was anything less that stone-cold sober.”
“There is always a first time,mon ange. Regrettably for Feydeau, it was also the last.”
Belle frowned. It still made no sense to her, but she supposed the important fact was not how Feydeau had died, but that she had lost a reliable fellow agent.
“We shall need to find someone else to drive coach for us,” she said.
“Leave that to me. I will see to it.”
And Belle knew that Baptiste would. She had always been able to depend upon him. She caught his hand and squeezed it. “Despite the fact you were so unkind as to be wishing megone, I am very glad you are here, my old friend. I would not have thought of accepting such a dangerous undertaking for one moment without your support.”
The little Frenchman had never been in the least shy about accepting any sort of compliment. It therefore surprised Belle when he tugged free of her, his cheeks mottling with red.
“Bah! You’ve little use for an old stick like me, not with a strapping specimen like your Mr. Carrington about.”
“He is not my Mr. Carrington,” Belle said. “What is your opinion of Sinclair?”
She tried to make the question sound casual, but knew she had not succeeded when Baptiste eyed her shrewdly. “How eagerly she asks that. Like a shy little maid, bringing her latest swain home to meet Papa.”
Belle tried to laugh at his raillery, but felt the color seep into her cheeks. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Ehbien, I think Monsieur Carrington is tall, young, handsome, everything that I am not. I also think you should take care,monange.” Baptiste abruptly averted his gaze. “You should not place too much trust in any man.
“And now, I have more important things to consider than abducting the first consul of France. Mademoiselle Pierrepont will have my head if I don’t have her fan finished by five of the clock.”
Baptiste stood on tiptoe to plant a brusque kiss upon Belle’s cheek before skittering out of the apartment. Belle stared at the door long after it had closed behind him, his words echoing through her mind. “You should not place too much trust in any man.”
It was not like Baptiste to offer such platitudes or needless advice. Perhaps what disturbed her the most was that his words had not really seemed so much like advice. They had carried more the ring of a warning.
But a warning against whom? Sinclair? What could Baptiste have possibly detected about Sinclair upon such short acquaintance? This was absurd, Belle thought, rubbing her hand across her eyes. She was reading far too much into one casual remark. Likely she was tired. It had been a long day, a long journey. She would feel much better after a good night’s rest.
But that notion brought a bitter smile to her lips. When had she ever enjoyed a restful night in Paris? Her gaze strayed back to the window. Her earlier excitement and her joy in seeing Baptiste again had fled. With a feeling of dread, she marked the sun’s downward course, shedding a final burst of golden glory above the rooftops, the street shadows lengthening.
In a few hours it would be night, and eventually she would have to try to sleep. She might assure herself that she had survived the return to Paris in full light of day, but the dark would release all those phantoms she had subdued. The moment she closed her eyes, the nightmares would crowd forward: of Jean-Claude, of the Revolution, the massacres, the guillotine and the heavy, dank walls of the Conciergerie
No one has ever been slain by a memory, she told herself again. Then why could she already feel herself dying a little inside?
Eight
His first night in Paris was not the worst Sinclair had ever spent, but he could not rank it among the best, either. The next morning he awoke to the sound of rain drumming against the window and a dull ache behind his eyes.
He had slept poorly, and insomnia was not an affliction he was accustomed to endure. It was partly the fault of this damned bed, he thought as he rolled over with a groan. He stared with disgust at the golden canopy suspended tent-like above him, the corners caught in the grasp of fat, grinning cherubs. The mattress and pillows were too soft. His weight seemed to sink beneath a billowing cloud of silk, silk moreover that reeked of eau de heliotrope. The cloying scent clung to him, making him feel like he had spent the night with a Covent Garden doxy.
But the bed, he had to admit, had only been part of the problem. Most of his sleeplessness was owing to the sounds that had emanated from the bedchamber adjoining his, the creak of the floorboards, the footfalls which told him that Belle had stayed awake well past midnight.
Glancing toward the sheer bed-curtains drawn together to keep the draft from his naked flesh, Sinclair could just make outthe gray light of morning and wondered if Belle had paced until nearly dawn. More terrifying dreams? Or was her restlessness owing to those memories that frequently brought that look of hopelessness to her eyes?
Sinclair’s urge to go to her had been strong, but he knew from bitter experience she would spurn his comfort. Belle seemed to have learned a long time ago to endure her pain alone. Who had helped her to con that lesson, the Comte de Egremont, Jean-Claude Varens? Astonishing, Sinclair thought, that one could begin to harbor an intense loathing for such a noble gentleman, one that he scarcely knew.
All things considered, it was for the best that he had curbed his desire to slip into Belle’s room. He was no saint, and Belle had been honest enough to admit she was not impervious to his touch. What might have begun as comfort could have ended far differently. He had known casual encounters in bed before and so, he suspected, had Belle, but he feared that the emotion that pulsed between them was too intense for that. She might finish by hating him, and he didn’t want that. But it was a prospect he had to face all the same, for it had occurred to him there might be one other reason to account for her sleeplessness.
She could be suffering from a guilty conscience. An ugly thought that—and he had lain awake a great deal of the night, attempting to convince himself beyond all doubt that it could not be so, that it could not possibly be Belle who was the traitor he had been sent to capture. His every instinct told him that she was not, but could instinct be trusted when clouded by an image of hair of spun gold; eyes, the color of an azure sky; a face so rife with hidden strength and delicate beauty it could haunt a man to the end of his days? How he prayed the counteragent would prove to be Lazare. If it was, he could derive great pleasure from putting an end to Lazare’s activities in passing information to the enemy.
Slowly Sinclair raised to a sitting position, wincing at his stiff muscles. However the affair turned out, he needed to stop thinking and start acting. He was in Paris now. Time to cease the speculations and set about finding out the truth.
He started to fling the coverlet aside when he heard the door to his chamber swing open. Astonished, he froze in position, observing a shadowy figure rustling about beyond the bedcurtains. Who in thunder would enter his room that boldly? He had been careless in not locking his door, in not keeping a weapon close to hand, especially with a madman like Lazare, overly fond of his knife, living just two floors above in the garret.
Cautiously Sinclair parted his bedcurtains just enough to peer out. He relaxed somewhat. It was only that woman Paulette, Belle’s erstwhile maid, her brown curls peeking out from beneath a frilled cap. She had deposited a white pitcher upon the dressing table and now stooped to pick Sinclair’s shirt off the floor. In one day he had already managed to reduce his room to a state of comfortable clutter. Paulette would have appeared the image of the perfect maid tidying up, garbed in her somber gown, except for the thin red ribbon forming a bright slash about her throat and an indefinable something in her manner that rendered Sinclair uneasy.
