Rendezvous (9781301288946) (50 page)

"No!" she whispered. "Oh, God.
No!"

With Jean-Claude's help, she eased
Baptiste to the ground, her one thought to stay the crimson flow
spreading over his chest. She was oblivious to all further
danger.

Although stunned by his fall, Lazare
regained his feet. With a bestial snarl, he drew forth the knife
from his belt, the blade glinting in the moonlight. Sinclair leapt
down from the coach, flying at him.

The two men toppled to the ground,
grappling for possession of the knife, Lazare fought with almost
inhuman strength, his rage-crazed eyes glaring up at Sinclair. But
Sinclair's heart fired with a fury of his own, a tempest of anger
such as he had never felt.

"Drop the blade, maggot, before I crush
your arm."

Lazare spat in his face. With a violent
jerk Lazare nearly broke Sinclair's grasp. The tip of the knife
glanced off Sinclair's throat. He barely deflected the deadly
slice. Clenching his teeth, he forced the blade hand down, cracking
Lazare's fingers against a jagged stone to the sound of splintering
bone. Lazare screamed, releasing the blade.

Sinclair drew back his fist and drove
it against Lazare's hate-twisted features again and again, his hand
smearing with blood. Lazare's head snapped back and he was still.
With great difficulty, Sinclair stopped himself from meting out the
punishing blows. A low groan assured him that Lazare was still
alive. Yanking off the man's own scarf, Sinclair used the silk to
bind Lazare's hands behind his back.

Only then did he turn back to face the
scene unfolding by the side of the coach. Belle hovered over
Baptiste, his head pillowed on her garrick as she tried futilely to
stop the flow of blood from the gaping wound in his chest. As
Sinclair approached with halting step, he met Jean-Claude's gaze
above her. Looking at Sinclair, the comte sadly shook his
head.

"Damn you Baptiste," Belle cried. "What
sort of trick was this to play upon me? Now I shall have to return
to your wretched Paris to nurse you back to health."

Even through his pain,
Baptiste managed a crooked smile. "
Non
,
mon
ange
. Not this time."

Belle felt a lump form in her throat,
hard, burning. She wanted to deny Baptiste's words, but she could
feel the old man's life slipping away beneath her hands.

"You should have let him shoot me! Oh,
Baptiste, what have I done to you? I should have left you alone
amongst your fans to live in peace. I should have . . ."

She could not go on. His hand closed
round hers and squeezed, those slender, clever fingers already so
cold. "No regrets," he rasped. "I have none. You forget that it was
I who chose. I had brothers once, avenging to do of my
own."

A spasm of pain wracked his leathery
features, a pain she felt pierce her own heart. The hand clutching
hers grew weaker. He tugged her closer to make her hear, his voice
barely a whisper.

"One last favor. I beg
you,
mon ange
."

Belle swallowed hard. "Anything,
Baptiste. You have but to tell me what it is."

He tried, using the last of his
strength, but he could not seem to make his lips form the words. He
released her, raising his hand in a final gesture. Then his arm
slumped to the ground, those clear brown eyes staring sightlessly
past her into the endless depths of the night.

"Baptiste?" She breathed his name,
knowing he could no longer hear her. After all the horrors she had
seen, Belle had never had trouble accepting the reality of death
before. Not until now. She continued to kneel beside Baptiste,
frozen as though she knew any movement would disrupt the moment of
numbing disbelief, allowing the pain of realization to come
flooding through her.

Sinclair stooped down, gently closing
the old man's eyes. Still Belle did not stir, not until she felt
Jean-Claude's tentative touch on her shoulder. She wrenched away.
She wanted no comfort.

Jerking herself to her feet, she
glanced wildly about her until her gaze focused on the one she
sought. Lazare. The murdering bastard rested but yards away, making
no effort to struggle against his bonds. He was conscious. Even
beneath the hideous swelling that was his face, the streaks of
blood, she could see the vicious gleam in his eyes.

Her grief threatened to burst the
confines of her heart, forming a fiery knot of rage, searing
through her veins. Her mouth grim with purpose, she stalked forward
and picked up Lazare's knife from the ground.

She heard Jean-Claude's frightened
voice. "Isabelle! What are you doing?"

Ignoring him, Belle moved
relentlessly closer to Lazare's tensed form. Jean-Claude stepped in
front of her. "Ma
chére
, there is no need for you to—to-. The villain has been
rendered harmless."

"Leave her alone," Sinclair said
quietly. Her gaze flashed briefly to his. He said nothing, but
merely watched her intently, waiting.

She placed one hand against
Jean-Claude's chest, shoving him out of her way. With three quick
strides she towered over Lazare, the knife poised in her
hand.

She longed to see him squirm in terror,
his eyes fill with the tormenting fear of the death he had
inflicted upon so many others. But his swollen lips stretched back
in a sneer that was almost obscene, his eyes lighting up with
insane triumph. She gripped the blade so hard, it trembled in her
sweat-slickened hand, seeing nothing but the face of Lazare. In
those ravaged bloodstained features seemed centered all the
ugliness, the violence, the cruelty in the world, the dark side of
the Revolution. Or was it her own reflection she saw at this
moment, mirrored back to her in the mad depths of those piercing
eyes?

The thought gave her pause. She raised
the knife, but it was too late. With that brief pause came the
return of her sanity. Drawing in a deep breath, she cast the blade
aside with a dull thud. Lazare's vicious triumph turned first to
bewilderment, then rage.

"Bitch,” he panted as she turned from
him. "Cowardly bitch. Come back here. Kill me. You know you want
to."

As she walked slowly away, he started
to sob, to curse her. "Isabelle!" He screamed her name, the sound
echoing in the vast rustling silence of the Rouvray.

Belle marched onward to the two men
waiting for her by the coach. Jean-Claude looked sick with relief,
but Sinclair's expression remained calm.

As she met his eyes, she realized that
Sinclair had known all along she would never kill in cold blood. He
knew her better than she did herself.

Slipping past him, she returned to keep
vigil over Baptiste. Jean-Claude joined her, gazing sorrowfully
down at him.

"A courageous man," he murmured. "It is
a pity he could not tell you his final request."

"He had no need. I know what he
wanted." Belle bent down beside Baptiste's still form, folding his
hand across her old friend's breast, the hand that had been
gesturing toward Paris.

Chapter Twenty

Belle remained calm in the hours
following Baptiste's death. Too calm, Sinclair feared. Crecy's men
arrived, and she had her friend wrapped in a cloak and laid inside
the carriage, while making arrangements to have him transported
back to the city he had so loved for his burial.

Lazare appeared all but
forgotten, his cursing and sobbing finally ceased. One of Crecy's
servants inquired what Belle wanted done with the miscreant. She
spared Lazare only a cursory glance, saying, "See him delivered to
the gates of the Tuileries, with a note—
A
gift for the first consul, Napoleon Bonaparte. Receive one Etienne
Lazare, the man who sought your life. With the compliments of the
Avenging Angel.”

She never seemed to hear the way Lazare
damned her to hell or his continued blustering threats of vengeance
as she mounted her horse and rode away.

Sinclair had feared that Belle might
have insisted on risking the return, to escort Baptiste to the city
herself. But she remained content to linger amongst the straggling
trees on the fringe of the Rouvray Forest, watching Crecy's men
drive the coach to the distant gates of the city.

If Belle had desired to go back into
Paris, Sinclair would have found her a way. But when he asked her,
she only said, "No, it is not necessary. Crecy will know what to
do. Baptiste and I have ever said our farewells here at the edge of
the forest."

Shading his eyes, Sinclair could just
see the coach joining the procession of other carts awaiting
admittance to the gates as dawn broke over Paris, tinting the city
with hues of rose and gold. Then he, Belle, and Jean-Claude whipped
their horses about, heading for the road that would take them to
the coast.

Belle waxed silent most of the journey,
lost in thought, her eyes dulled with sadness. She withdrew from
Varens as much as from himself, Sinclair noted. It would have given
him pain to see her turning to Jean-Claude, but Sinclair would have
felt relieved to see Belle seek comfort of somebody, rather than
retreat behind a wall of grief.

They caught the packet boat on the eve
of the following day. Sinclair expected Belle to retire to the
cabin, fighting off her customary bout of seasickness. Yet she did
not seem to notice the white-capped waves as the boat rocked along
the surface of the channel.

Sinclair drew near to where she stood
alone, staring over the deck rail, fingering an ivory-handled fan,
spreading out the leaves of silk. Sinclair needed no identification
of the delicate strokes to recognize Baptiste's handiwork. The old
man had depicted none of the usual classical motifs so popular with
the ladies. Like a lover capturing the essence of his mistress upon
canvas, Baptiste had painted a scene of the banks of Paris, the
silver-green waters of the Seine reflecting back the soaring towers
of Notre Dame, the arches of the Pont Neuf, the ducks skimming the
surface. Gazing at the fan, Sinclair was flooded with the memory of
the smell of the reeds, the lapping of the river waters, the
laughter of the crowds thronging the bridge.

Belle closed the fan. She surprised him
by glancing up with a tremulous smile. "I was just thinking about
Baptiste, all those times he and I arranged those fake funerals,
smuggling people out of Paris in coffins. It was rather ironic that
in the end, we had to spirit him back in. Baptiste would have found
that rather amusing, don't you think?"

Her voice broke unexpectedly on the
last word. Her eyes filled, and slowly, the tears tracked down her
cheeks. Sinclair said nothing, merely held out his arms. She cast
herself into them, burying her face against his
shoulder.

Several days later Belle descended the
stairs of the Neptune's Trident. Mr. Shaw passed her with his usual
beaming smile, his eyes twinkling over the rims of his
glasses.

"The fire is banked high in the coffee
room," the inn's host said. "Your brandy has been laid out, and the
luncheon is ready to be served."

"Thank you." Belle returned Shaw's
smile. Strange, she reflected, but she had never thought that
returning to this familiar old inn would feel in some odd way like
coming home.

Shaw added with a discreet cough, "Your
gentleman friend is already waiting."

Belle's heart skipped a beat. Sinclair.
She had not seen him since they had left the ship. He had been very
gentle as he handed her into the carriage. He had affairs to attend
to, he said, but he would call upon her soon—a promise he had not
kept. And she had not even known the address of his current
lodgings to find him.

Sweeping eagerly into the coffee room,
she said, "At last, Mr. Carrington. For once I hoped you might have
been more punct—"

The playful greeting died upon her
lips. It was not Sinclair's tall form silhouetted by the fireside,
but the reed-thin frame of Quentin Crawley, warming his hands at
the blaze, the tufts of his sandy hair standing on end.

"Oh, Quentin," she said in a voice flat
with disappointment.

He spun about, greeting her with his
prim expression.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Varens. Welcome
back to England. You are well, I trust?"

Belle closed the door, in no mood for
Crawley's punctiliousness or for making the pretense of a social
call.

"Never mind all that," she snapped.
"Where is Victor Merchant? I rode out to Mal du Coeur yesterday.
The butler told me Merchant had gone. I want to know where he is
hiding."

"Mr. Merchant is not hiding anywhere.
He was arrested."

"Arrested!" Belle exclaimed.

"All arranged by Mr. Carrington. He is
a spy for the British army, though I expect you know that." Quentin
frowned reprovingly as though he suspected her of deliberately
keeping secrets from him. "Carrington had Mr. Merchant charged with
plotting the murder of a British agent. Mr. Merchant was taken off
by a guard of soldiers, though I have a feeling he was glad to go
by the time Mr. Carrington had done with him." Crawley gave an
expressive shiver.

Annoyance and chagrin swept through
Belle. So Sinclair had gotten to Merchant first. He might have
included her in the capture, for she surely had greater complaint
against Victor than he. But she supposed it mattered little as long
as the traitor had been apprehended.