Rendezvous (9781301288946) (35 page)

Yet somehow standing here beside
Sinclair in the bright sunlight, the grim memory faded to become
exactly what it was—a memory and no more than that.

"From some of the things you tell me,
Angel," he said, "you make me glad I could not come to Paris before
this."

As she watched Sinclair squinting past
the Pont Neuf to the not far distant shore, she remarked, "Yet it
seems so strange to me than an adventurer such as yourself never
did so."

He shrugged, tossing the last of his
bread down to the ducks. "My father was not exactly the sort of man
to spend money on a grand tour."

"No, doubtless he was not," she agreed.
Sinclair had never said, but Belle retained the comforting feeling
that Sinclair's background was not so different from her own. Like
herself, he was an adventurer who had never known wealth, rank, or
respectability. There was not that social gap between them that had
existed between herself and Jean-Claude. It was what made their
relationship so much more comfortable.

Sinclair pointed to a distant spire
across the river. "Is that Notre Dame?"

"It is." But when she saw the eager
look cross his features, she said, "Oh, no. I have no intention of
trudging all the way across the Pont Neuf to tour Notre Dame. You
would be quite disappointed anyway. The cathedral was damaged
during the Revolution, and I understand the repairs have not been
completed."

"Don't distress yourself,
Angel:" He favored her with a lazy grin. "Touring churches is not
exactly my style, either. I am content to admire the
grande
Dame from a
distance. But what are those ugly towers there in the
foreground?"

Belle squinted toward four
conical-shaped towers, grim and forbiddingly cast in
stone.

"The Conciergerie," she said softly,
looking quickly away.

Sinclair frowned. Gripping her by the
elbow, he began to lead her in the opposite direction.

"The sight of it doesn't upset me that
much," she assured him. "There is no need to run away."

"No, we have more a need to act
casual," Sinclair said, slowing the pace. "I think we are being
followed."

Belle suppressed a startled
exclamation, the immediate desire to whip around and look.
"Who?"

"The man in the gray. Just over there
by that last bookseller's stall. He—" Sinclair broke off. He had
been in the act of taking a cautious look behind him when he
froze.

Belle also stole a peek. The man in
gray was making no attempt to hide the fact that he was coming
after them. As he drew closer, he called her name.
"Isabelle."

Jean-Claude. Although her eyes widened
with incredulity, her heart didn't do its usual patter at the sight
of him. She felt the tension cording her muscles. Scarce knowing
what to expect, she waited while he caught up to them.

"Monsieur le Comte," Sinclair said, a
hard edge in his voice. "We meet yet again. They tell me Paris is
one of the largest cities in the world, but I am beginning to doubt
it. The place has begun to seem too infernally small."

His face rigid with dignity,
Jean-Claude looked through Sinclair. He fixed his attention upon
Belle.

"I have been following you ever since
you left the military review," Jean-Claude admitted. "I have been
waiting, hoping for a chance. Isabelle, I must speak to
you."

"Of—of course," Belle stammered, taken
completely aback. After Jean-Claude's behavior at the reception,
that he would seek her out again was the last thing she would have
expected.

"Speak to you alone," he added
pointedly. He glanced hesitantly toward Sinclair as though seeking
his permission and despising himself for doing so.

"That would be entirely up to Belle,"
Sinclair said coldly.

Belle found herself in the awkward
position of being stared at by two pairs of masculine eyes, both of
them questioning, both of them hostile. But even if other ages-old
feelings were not stirred in her by Jean-Claude, curiosity alone
would have won out.

She placed her hand upon Sinclair's
arm. "Sinclair, if you truly would not mind—"

"I can manage to amuse myself." But he
took the sting from his harsh answer with an intent look. "You know
where I'll be if you need me."

She understood what he was trying to
convey and flashed him a grateful smile. As Sinclair stalked away,
Belle turned expectantly toward Jean-Claude.

"Perhaps we could walk out on the
bridge," he said. "Sit on one of the benches."

She nodded in agreement, further
astounded when he offered her his arm. After a moment's hesitation
she took it.

Sinclair watched their retreat from his
vantage point by one of the bookseller's stalls. He noted the
stiffness of Jean-Claude's gesture, but it was a gesture toward
Belle all the same.

Sinclair felt the beginnings of that
familiar hollow ache. He had once told Belle he did not mind her
memories of Jean-Claude. He could live with them.

"It seems that I lied, Angel," he
murmured. "I do mind. I mind like hell."

When he had said that, he had not yet
known he was in love with Isabelle Varens. Yes, in love, he
admitted at last. But it was the devil of a time to realize that as
Belle vanished on the arm of Jean-Claude.

Sinclair glanced about him, his
pleasure in the day, the city life teeming about him, suddenly
gone. He wondered if the time would come when he would never want
to come back to Paris, loathing it with the same bitter memories as
Belle.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

Belle walked alongside Jean-Claude, her
silence as rigid as his, two stiff figures jostled by the gay crowd
that flocked over the bridge. Hawkers displayed their wares to
pretty ladies shaded beneath parasols. Artists dabbled with oils
upon their canvases. Street singers warbled their tunes, offering
for sale the new sheet music.

It was strange, Belle thought. Only a
moment ago with Sinclair, she had felt so much a part of all this
color, this gaiety. Now once more she had the sensation of being
removed, as though in the carnival of faces pressing past her, life
itself were passing her by.

She glanced at Jean-Claude, wondering
if he could feel that, too, but the stony set of his profile told
her nothing, only the deep-set misery of his eyes. Why? She wanted
to shout at him. He had made it clear at the reception he could
never forgive her, that he could scarce bear the sight of her. Then
why did he choose to seek her out again, subject them both to an
interview that would only cause them fresh pain?

They had not even passed by the second
arch of the bridge when she halted. "I think we have come far
enough, Jean-Claude," she said. "What did you wish—"

"No, not here. Please, Isabelle. The
noise." He nodded upward toward La Samarataine, the huge hydraulic
pump rising three stories above the bridge, its facade adorned with
gilded figures of Christ receiving water from the Good Samaritan.
The pump shuddered with activity as it sped a water supply to the
Louvre and the Tuileries.

"Let us go just a little farther," he
pleaded.

Belle found the clatter of the pump
somehow more bearable as a backdrop than the happy chatter and
laughter of the Pont Neuf's other occupants, but she fell into step
beside Jean-Claude once more.

They continued on until they reached
the next half moon embrasure, one of the bridge's many stone bays
which jutted out over the Seine. The semicircular seat was
unoccupied. Belle settled herself upon it, and Jean-Claude sank
down beside her, taking great care to keep a decorous distance
between them.

Still, he seemed unable to break the
silence, his gloved hands fidgeting nervously with the
silver-tipped handle of his walking cane. Once even for all his
coldness, his rigid anger, Belle would have given much to have him
seated thus by her side. Now she was surprised to discover she felt
nothing but impatience. Certainly she had no desire to make this
any easier for him, or to offer him any encouragement.

She stared out across the sluggish
waters of the Seine watching the ferry boats and the flat-bottomed
barges laden with their cargoes.

Jean-Claude cleared his throat. "There
seems to be more river traffic than I recall."

"Is that why you have been following me
all this time?" Belle asked. "To discuss the number of barges on
the Seine?"

"
Non.
" She heard him draw in a
tremulous breath. After a long moment of hesitation, his hand
reached out and tentatively covered hers where it rested upon the
balustrade of the bay.

Startled by the gesture, her gaze flew
up to meet his. He said, "I sought you out to tell you that I am
sorry for my behavior at the reception the other night."

Belle blinked, almost unable to
assimilate the meaning of his words. Apologizing? He was actually
apologizing to her for his hurtful remarks, for attempting to
ignore her.

"My manners were atrocious, my words
certainly not those of a gentleman."

"Not at all, sir." Belle slid her hand
from beneath his. "You were ever the gentleman." Even when
Jean-Claude had been demanding the divorce, he had been so
unbearably civil, so damnably polite.

"Truly, Isabelle," he continued,
sounding more earnest. "I am sorry. I didn't want to offend you or
wound you. It is just that it was so hard for me seeing you
again."

"It was not precisely easy for me,
either."

But he stared at her with that wistful
look in his eyes. She had never been proof against it.

"Let us simply forget the quarrel," she
said with a weary sigh. "I am not so easily wounded these days. I
survived the incident." She reflected that this was true. In these
last few days she had given little thought to the ugly scene with
Jean-Claude. Sinclair had had a great deal to do with
that.

"I am glad," Jean-Claude said. "It is a
great relief to know you are not angry with me."

"And you?" she asked. "Does this mean
you have forgiven me at last?"

"I am trying very hard. I wish more
than anything that we could both simply forget the
past."

"Forget the past? Do you truly believe
that's possible?"

"Perhaps not. But maybe we could learn
to recall only the good. There were some good times, were there
not, Isabelle?"

She had always thought so, but she had
believed his own memory of them erased the day he had learned the
secret of her birth.

A soft light came into his gray eyes.
"We often used to stroll upon this bridge together that first
summer in Paris. Do you recall?"

"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
of
philosophes
these 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—"