Page 74 of The Avenging Angel and the Spy
“I remember,” she said. A reluctant smite escaped her. “Mostly you walked along daydreaming with me attempting to steer you through the crowds and see that you didn’t fall off the bridge.”
“I don’t do much of that anymore—daydreaming.” An expression of melancholy washed over him. The brief spark that had appeared in his eyes vanished, and he fell into a brooding silence.
Belle’s urge to comfort him was strong, but instead she studied the man whom for so many years she had regarded as the entire possessor of her heart. His face was pale, but then it always had been. The strands of silver were new, but not unbecoming to his gaunt face. His countenance had never been an animated one, not like Sinclair’s— She broke off the thought, refusing to compare the two men. Impossible. They were so unalike.
Jean-Claude’s attractiveness had come from the dreamy, other-worldly expression in his eyes. Without that he was an empty shell of a man, broken and defeated. Looking upon him like this was enough to break her heart, wrenching feelings deep inside of her, but was that feeling love?
It shocked and frightened her that she should question something that she had believed in for so long. Unable to bear to examine her own emotions too closely at this moment, she sought to draw him out of his unhappy reflections.
“So what are you doing here in Paris?” she asked. “Have any of your old friends returned as well?”
“I don’t know. I have not troubled myself to find out. I have little use for the company ofphilosophesthese days. I prefer men of action.”
“Such as Napoleon Bonaparte?” Even at the risk of offending him, she was burning to know what Jean-Claude had been doing attending the reception at the Tuileries.
The vehemence of his answer startled her. “Non, not Bonaparte! I despise him. It sickens my soul to breathe the same air as he.”
Belle regarded him with astonishment, not a little discomfited. She had never seen such a fierce light in Jean-Claude’s eyes, never heard him express such hatred of any living being.
She laid her hand soothingly on Jean-Claude’s arm. “I understand what you must feel, being deprived of your estates, your home, but?—”
“That has nothing to do with it.” Jean-Claude glared down at her. “It is Bonaparte, himself. What he is. Do you not see it? He is the dark side of the Revolution.”
When she looked at him with incomprehension, Jean-Claude flung his hands wide in an impassioned gesture. “He is the embodiment of all the violence, all the greed, the power hunger that destroyed the fine ideals, the noble purpose and the quest for freedom that the Revolution should have been.”
“I will grant you that General Bonaparte is something of a freebooter, an opportunist, perhaps, who took advantage of the circumstances?—”
“He is evil incarnate.”
Belle tried to reason with him, but saw it was of no avail. Jean-Claude, who had ever thrived on debate, attempting to see all viewpoints, was totally beyond reason. It was as though he had taken all the anger and the bitterness of the Revolution he had never been adequately able to express and had found anoutlet for it by settling his hatred on the person of one man. Foreboding coursed through her.
“If you hate the man so,” she asked, “why were you at his reception?”
“Because at last I have learned the advantage of playing my enemy’s games, disguising my feelings, watching, waiting—” The glazed look in Jean-Claude’s eyes made her acutely uneasy. “There is the future of France to consider and my son.”
“Yes, Jean-Jacques.” Belle seized eagerly upon the boy’s name, hoping to snap Jean-Claude out of this strange mood. “Jean-Jacques is the most charming child. Do you intend to bring him over to France to live with you?”
“Not until things are different.”
“How different?” Belle asked sharply, now thoroughly alarmed. She knew that the members of her group were not the only plotters to be found in Paris. There had always been other wild dreamers, some of them even highly placed in the French army, hoping to generate another coup, sweep Napoleon from power. A ridiculous fantasy, considering Bonaparte’s military skill and his popularity with the people. Surely Jean-Claude could not have fallen prey to any of those fanatics.
“Jean-Claude,” ‘she demanded. “Exactly what have you gotten yourself involved in?”
“Nothing.” He forced a smile. “Nothing that I would wish you to be concerned about. All I can tell you now is that these past few months I have been like a man slowly coming awake from a dream, beginning to know myself for the first time. I am a fool.”
“No, Jean-Claude. You?—”
He shook his head, gently pressing her hands to silence her protest. “Even worse than a fool, I was a villain of the worst sort. I did France more harm than any of those murderous scoundrels who marched in the streets. “I discovered too late that the careless tossing around of ideas is more dangerous thanthe blaze of cannonfire. All I did was muse and dream of Utopia, and while I did so, I let them murder my king.”
Jean-Claude raised one trembling hand to cup her cheek. “I failed you as well, didn’t I, my Isabelle? I let my pride murder our love.”
“You could not help it,” she assured him. “After all you had been through?—”
“After all I had been through, I foolishly flung away the one precious possession I had left. My Isabelle.”
For a moment she thought he meant to catch her up in his arms. How often had she prayed for such a thing. She was surprised at the relief she felt when he didn’t. It was just that she was so confused. Her head was reeling.
“You do still care for me, don’t you, Isabelle? A little?”
