Rendezvous (9781301288946) (44 page)

"Stay still!" His hand tightened upon
the pistol.

"Why do you want to kill Sinclair?" she
asked, making a futile attempt to reason with him. "He is one of
us. He—"

"He's an English spy."

"How do you know that?"

Lazare's lips curved into a taut
secretive smile. "That doesn't concern you. All you need understand
is that I don't like being spied upon. Though I suppose I should
thank the British pig for one thing. Without him, I would never
have known of the Beauvais slut's treachery."

"Yes," Belle whispered, a sickening
image of Paulette's mutilated body rising to her mind. "I have seen
what you did with her."

"It was necessary. Someone had to stop
her, although I never desired to have the slut in my bed. But I've
had no time to do aught else with her."

His eyes glazed over and some of the
tension seemed to go out of him. Belle tried to gauge her chances
of leaping at him, disarming him. No, she would never have the
strength to subdue him without a weapon.

"Get that rope over there from off the
trunk," he suddenly commanded. "I want you to truss up
Carrington."

"I don’t see the necessity of that,"
she snapped. "You've made quite sure in your cowardly fashion that
he will be of no threat to you."

Lazare shifted the pistol to the region
of Sinclair's heart. "I can make sure in far more permanent fashion
unless you do as I tell you."

"You may intend to kill us both
anyway," she flung back, desperately trying to avoid carrying out
the command, scarce breathing for fear her defiance would drive
Lazare over the brink.

"Oh, no,
ma chére
amie
,
Carrington may live for the present. And as for you and me, we must
go."

"Go?" she repeated numbly. "Go
where?"

He shot her a mocking look. "How short
your memory has grown. You must make all haste to array yourself
for your assignation with Bonaparte."

Belle stared at him. Was he mad enough
to think she intended to go on with the plot after all of this,
indeed that she would go anywhere in his company?

He appeared to read some of her
thoughts, for he said, "We will not abandon our mission now, will
we, Isabelle? Not with Carrington and Mademoiselle Beauvais so
nicely taken care of."

"And if I refuse?" Belle asked
quietly.

"Then I will show you how large a hole
can be made in a man's chest at this range. Now go get that
rope."

Belle hesitated, but only for a moment.
She had no choice but to obey. Lazare stood far too close to
Sinclair to risk further defiance. She must think, try to play for
time.

Slowly she edged toward the rope Lazare
indicated, the length of hemp that had held closed his battered
trunk. Keeping close watch upon her, Lazare bent long enough to
scoop up the papers Sinclair had dropped. He stuffed them in the
pocket of his greatcoat.

They looked like letters, Belle
thought. What had Sinclair read in them that had made him call out
to her with such urgency only moments before Lazare had entered the
apartment? Did they hold the key to why Lazare so desperately
wanted to destroy Sinclair? Belle did not believe his simple
explanation that he hated being spied upon. That should not bother
a man who had nothing to conceal from the rest of their
society.

Lazare continued to stare down at
Sinclair with such a look of contempt and hatred, Belle feared
anything she might do would prove of no avail. But Lazare appeared
able to keep his more turbulent emotions in check, merely saying,
"Hurry. Make haste. And make sure you do a thorough
job."

Belle picked up the rope, no longer
able to delay returning to Sinclair's side to carry out the order.
Her gaze flicked to the cudgel Lazare had dropped, but she rejected
the notion almost immediately. She might not be able to move quick
enough in these cramped quarters. Her best chance of saving
Sinclair was to pretend to cooperate with Lazare and draw him away
from these lodgings.

As Belle handled the thick length of
rope, she could almost hear Sinclair's voice that long-ago rainy
afternoon in the apartment, his laughing comment, "Never let your
captive dictate his own bindings. The thick heavy kind is easiest
undone."

A hope stirred inside her. If she could
get Lazare away from here, if Sinclair regained consciousness, she
had no doubt he would be able to free himself. It was a forlorn
hope, but all that she had.

As she struggled to pull Sinclair's
hand behind his back, she noticed a scrap of white trapped beneath
his body—one of the letters that he had been reading. It had
escaped Lazare's notice. As she wound the rope about Sinclair's
hands, she deftly slipped the scrap of vellum up her
sleeve.

Looping the rope about Sinclair's
wrists, she tried to make it as loose as she dared.

"Tighter," Lazare snarled. "I know you
can do better than that."

Gritting her teeth, she complied.
Sinclair seemed so cold, so still, but she had to pull the knots
snug with Lazare's narrowed eyes tracking her every move. With his
free hand, Lazare tugged a dirty tricolor scarf from around his
neck and flung it down at her.

"Gag him with this."

"He won't be able to breathe," Belle
protested.

"He'll breathe less easy with a pistol
ball through his lungs. Gag him, Isabelle. Now!"

With a heavy sigh, Belle forced the
scarf between Sinclair's lips. As she did so, she detected a slight
fluttering of his eyes. Dear God, he showed signs of stirring to
life. Relief mingled with terror. She had no idea what action that
might provoke from Lazare. She risked an anxious glance up at the
Frenchman, but he appeared to have noticed nothing.

She stood slowly, trying to shield
Sinclair's face from Lazare's sight as much as possible. But he
shoved her aside.

"Adequate," Lazare said, regarding
Belle's handiwork with a satisfied grunt. "Now let us be going. I
understand the first consul does not like to be kept
waiting."

He grabbed her roughly by the arm,
pressing the muzzle of his weapon against the base of her spine. "I
trust there need be no reminders of what will happen if you are
tempted to call out for help once we gain the street."

"I am as eager to get on with our
mission as you," she lied. Her chief desire was to get Lazare from
this room. She had seen Sinclair shift his head.

As she marched toward the door, it
occurred to her that this might be the last time she ever saw
Sinclair, and she dared not even glance back. Her anger and her
unwillingness to forgive his deception now seemed so incredibly
foolish, so petty. Why did one always see matters with such
appalling clarity when it might be too late?

As Lazare shoved her out onto the
landing, it was as though he sensed some of her feelings, for he
taunted her, "This is so touching, Isabelle. All this concern you
have shown for Carrington. One might suppose you had fallen in love
with the man."

One might indeed suppose that, Belle
thought, a lump rising to her throat.

But then Lazare smiled and said
something that drove all other thoughts out of her head.

You have proved to be distressingly
inconstant, ma there. What about Jean-Claude?"

The darkness that seemed to be
suffocating Sinclair's senses was lifting, bringing forth a
throbbing pain that felt likely to split his head in
twain.

He would have been grateful to sink
back into the peaceful realms of oblivion, but some sense of
urgency nagged at him, denying him the release.

And then there were the voices, Belle's
and Lazare's. But what they were saying seemed to make little
sense:

". . . be going . . .first consul kept
waiting . . .as eager to get this mission over as you."

Belle was going somewhere with Lazare.
Sinclair needed to cry out a warning, to tell her she should not.
Yet when he moved his lips to speak, something thick and dry
pressed against his tongue, felt like it was choking
him.

He heard a click as though a door had
been closed. With great effort he forced his eyes to open. Even
that caused his head to swim with pain, made him feel as though he
would be ill. He fought down the sensation of nausea, fought to
stop the room around him from continuing in a dizzying
whirl.

Gradually he could bring the room into
focus, but he stared blankly at the fading plaster walls, unable to
place his surroundings. If only the throbbing in his head would
cease so he could think. If only he could move. He realized with
another sharp stabbing pain that his arms were bound behind his
back and the thickness suffocating him was a gag.

What the devil had happened! Although
the pain shooting through his head threatened to spin him back into
blackness, Sinclair forced himself to concentrate.

He and Belle had gone to find Lazare.
Yes, that was where he was—Lazare's lodgings above the
confectioner's shop. He and Belle had been searching the place.
Belle had gone into the other room while he had examined the trunk
and found the letters.

The letters! Memory came back to
Sinclair in a searing flood. Those writings that had clearly
revealed to him Lazare's treachery—even worse, the treachery of
that damned Merchant, who had sent them on this mission. And
Jean-Claude Varens! Sinclair's suspicions about the fool had been
right all along. Lazare had the idiot duped, was using him in an
effort to destroy Belle.

Sinclair had to warn her. He groaned
softly, remembering that had been what he had been about to do when
she had cried out to him. He had caught the barest glimpse of
Lazare when—Sinclair flinched, the dull pain in his head telling
him clearly what had happened next.

But where were Belle and Lazare now?
Despite the fading light in the apartment, he could see that he had
been left alone. Dimly he recalled the shadowy figures, the voices
that had seemed to be part of a dream.

"The first consul does not like to be
kept waiting."

No, that had been no dream. Lazare had
said that. He was forcing Belle to keep that appointment at the
theater. The man had invested far too much in his plan to give up
now. And Belle had no idea of what awaited her.

How long had they been gone? Sinclair
strained backward, his gaze flashing up toward the window. Even
through the dingy panes, he could see twilight settling over the
city. Raw panic threatened to consume him.

Yet he could not afford to panic.
Forcing himself to remain calm, he tested his bonds. Tight, he
thought, but not impossible, and the gag already felt a little
loose. Given time, he was sure he could free himself. But time was
in precious short supply. Sweat beading his forehead, Sinclair set
to work.

The fiacre lurched through the darkened
streets, the seats creaking out a rhythm that rasped at Belle's
already raw nerves. She faced Lazare across the ancient cab's
shadowy interior. He held the pistol negligently, no longer
guarding her with such care. But he did not need to. She had no
intention of trying to escape until she obtained an answer to the
question tormenting her.

"What do you know of Jean-Claude?" she
demanded again.

Lazare merely smiled. "Poor Isabelle.
Tell me, Do you still have those dreadful nightmares? The ones
about returning to the Conciergerie, about Jean-Claude parting with
his head in the company of Madame Guillotine?"

Belle strove not to reveal how his
words startled her. How could Lazare possibly know about her
nightmares? He had never been near her while she slept
except—except, she realized with a jolt, that time he had nursed
her through her delirium. Dear God, what weaknesses had she
inadvertently revealed to this madman, and what use did he intend
to make of them?

He leaned back against the seat,
balancing the pistol upon his knee. His soft laugh chilled her
blood. "I often wondered about this man Jean-Claude, who so haunted
your dreams. I rather hoped to meet him one day. I finally had my
chance in London last summer. It was most enlightening. We became
close companions."

"Liar," she said hotly. "The Comte de
Egremont would never have anything to do with the likes of . . ."
But her voice faded along with her conviction. Had she not made a
similar declaration once to Sinclair? He had tried to warn her then
that there might be a link between Lazare and Jean-Claude. But she
had not wanted to listen.

Her mind drifted back to that afternoon
with Jean-Claude, when they had walked together upon the Pont Neuf.
She had sensed then he might be in some sort of trouble, or may
have fallen under the influence of some intriguer. The possibility
that it was Lazare made her blood run cold.

"So you met Jean-Claude by chance," she
asked, trying to make some sense of all this.

"Not by chance, by design. Once I knew
of his existence, I took great pains to track him down."

She did not need to ask Lazare why. The
answer was obvious in the way he deliberately tipped his head so
that moonlight filtering through the coach window played across his
scar, reminding her, ever reminding her. So he did want his
vengeance, had come for it at last, striking at her in a way she
would never have expected.