Rendezvous (9781301288946) (49 page)

Glancing about her, she saw that both
Baptiste and Sinclair had leaped down from the coach and gone round
to the horses' heads. Baptiste stood soothing the restive leader
while Sinclair talked to him. Sinclair fell silent as she
approached, her steps made a little awkward by the unaccustomed
stiffness of the Hessian boots she wore.

"No sign of Crecy's men?" she
asked.

Sinclair backed up to consult his
pocket watch by the light of one of the carriage lanterns. "It is
too early yet."

"We arrived in good time," Baptiste
said, stroking the leader's nose. "We came through the barrier much
more easily than I had expected. The customs officer did not even
ask to search the coach. It was much more difficult during the
Revolution, I promise you.”

Baptiste smiled at Belle. "I daresay it
was all because of you, Monsieur Gordon. You make such a
fierce-looking gentleman."

Belle pulled a wry face at him,
whipping off her tricorne hat and wig. Her hair tumbled about her
shoulders.

She glanced at Sinclair, half-expecting
some teasing remark from him as well. He remained unusually quiet
even as he had ever since leaving Paris.

"Has Monsieur le Comte survived his
uncomfortable journey?" Baptiste asked.

"He is a little stiff," Belle said. The
place of concealment beneath the false seat had been cramped
quarters. Jean-Claude had been most grateful to be released from
it. Bruised from the jolts of the road, he had at last dozed off in
a corner of the carriage.

Belle sensed a tension in Sinclair as
soon as Jean¬Claude's name was introduced. He paced off down the
road, the gravel road crunching beneath his boots, and pretended to
be scanning the horizon for some sign of approaching
riders.

Belle sighed. She had had no chance to
speak to Sinclair alone since leaving Crecy's apartment. She had
slept as one dead for the better part of the afternoon, only
awakening to be told it was time to make ready for their
escape.

She trailed after Sinclair. She knew he
was aware of her presence, although he did not look round at her.
As she stepped in place beside him, she observed with dismay the
unyielding set to his shoulders. He was deliberately attempting to
hold her at a distance because of Jean-Claude.

She wanted to beg Sinclair to
understand why she had had to go to Jean-Claude this afternoon, but
she feared that was unnecessary. Sinclair did understand, and it
engendered a kind of sad resignation in him.

"It is a clear night," she remarked at
last. She stamped her feet in an effort to set the blood
circulating through her numbed toes. She cursed the awkwardness of
her tongue. Even at the worst of their troubled times together, she
and Sinclair had never had difficulty finding words.

He seemed to share her problem. After a
pause he replied, "I trust Crecy's men will be able to find
us."

"You need not worry about that. All of
us are most familiar with this rendezvous. Baptiste and I held our
meetings here after I left Paris. Our partings have always taken
place on the edge of this forest."

Silence lapsed between them again, the
air unbearably quiet but for the Rouvray with all its mysterious
night sounds, some nocturnal creature scurrying through underbrush,
the hoot of an owl, the crackling of some twigs.

"We will be back in England after two
days," Belle ventured. "I suppose you will have to make haste to
London to report to your superiors."

"I shall first pay a call on Victor
Merchant," Sinclair said grimly.

"And I would only be too pleased to
accompany you."

Their eyes met, fired with the steel of
a shared determination to settle accounts with the treacherous
nobleman, their thoughts as ever marching the same. Sinclair smiled
and Belle felt some of the ice begin to melt between
them.

"And after that, Angel—" he began
softly.

"Isabelle." An anxious voice called out
from the interior of the carriage. With a sinking heart, Belle
realized that Jean-Claude must have awakened to find her
gone.

She tried to ignore the call for the
moment. Blowing on her hands, she waited for Sinclair to
continue.

But he had already stiffened, saying,
"You had best go back to the carriage, Belle. You are getting
cold."

She started to protest, but Sinclair
strode back to help Baptiste with the restless horses. Belle had
little choice but to return to the coach.

Sinclair was aware of Baptiste's shrewd
stare as he rejoined the little Frenchman. "I can manage the
horses," Baptiste said. "Perhaps you ought to warm yourself awhile
inside the coach."

"It is a little too cramped in there to
suit me," Sinclair replied tersely.

Baptiste looked at him and shook his
head. "Young imbecile. You should not be leaving Belle alone so
much with Monsieur le Comte."

"I don’t see that as my concern."
Sinclair compressed his lips, hoping Baptiste would take the hint
that he did not wish to discuss the situation. But Baptiste never
took hints.

"You must not take this
attitude,
mon ami
,"
he scolded. "A rival, even a paltry one, but adds spice to the
romance. What sort of love is this you bear my Isabelle if it is
not worth the fighting for?"

"Isabelle is not a bone. I don't
propose to snarl over her like a dog. The lady is free to make her
own choice."

"Bah, you English." Baptiste snorted
with disgust. "What cold fish you are!"

Stamping about to keep warm, the little
man reminded Sinclair of some sort of surly gnome who had strayed
too far from his forest lair. Sinclair was sorry to quarrel with
the old man, but at least his annoyance caused Baptiste to drop a
subject Sinclair found increasingly more painful.

Within the confines of the coach, Belle
huddled beneath a fur lap robe, restlessly drumming her fingers
against the window. She wished that Crecy's men would come, so that
they could be on their way. Even more so, she wished Jean-Claude
had remained asleep. The wait was making him nervous, though he
strove to hide it. The comte was not formed for this sort of
intrigue.

"I never thought to say it," he
admitted ruefully, "but I shall be glad to be back in England. I
have missed Jean-Jacques."

When she made no comment, he added, "It
should be a relief to you as well, to at least reach the warmth of
an inn and be able to change into one of your frocks."

From the first, Jean-Claude had not
appeared comfortable with her in her masculine garb. Some streak of
perversity in her made her say, "I rather like being in breeches.
It gives one a great deal of freedom, which I believe you men don't
quite appreciate. You should try struggling along beneath a pair of
skirts sometime."

As soon as the words were out of her
mouth, Belle had to choke back a laugh, imagining what sort of
ribald riposte she would have elicited from Sinclair. Jean-Claude
merely looked shocked. She had forgotten how much she had always
had to mind her tongue in his presence. After so many years she
feared it was too late to get back in the habit again.

"You never told me how you came to be
connected with this band of intriguers," he said.

"It is a long, tiresome story." One
that she had no desire to relate to Jean-Claude.

Reaching across to her, he squeezed her
hand. "You have been leading a life all these years the horrors of
which I cannot begin to comprehend. It is all my fault. I abandoned
you. I—"

"Please, Jean-Claude," she cut him
short. "Let us make an end to all this harboring of guilt and blame
on both our parts. Nothing was forced upon me. I lived my life as I
chose to do so."

She faltered over her own words, a
little stunned herself as to what she was saying. Yes, it was true,
she realized with a jolt. Jean-Claude had left her a tidy sum of
money. She could have returned to England, sought out a more
respectable sort of existence then, if it had ever been what she
truly wanted.

Jean-Claude raised her hand to his
lips. "I ask no questions about your past, Isabelle. I have learned
something from this fiasco. It is only the future that matters. I
can no longer offer you a grand estate, but I do possess a most
comfortable manor house. And who can say? One day I may still
return to Egremont. I have not given up hope."

He seized both of her hands in a quiet,
firm clasp. "I want you to come back to me, be my wife again, the
mother to my son."

Belle studied his earnest face in the
moonlight filtering past the window, those solemn features she had
so long held dear. He offered her everything that she thought she
had ever wanted, the security of a home, his love, even his child,
the last being perhaps the most precious gift of all.

Yet she felt herself drawing away from
him, even though she knew this gray-eyed man would ever hold some
small corner of her heart, the place where memories were kept,
bittersweet like faded roses pressed between the leaves of a book.
His image already wavered before her eyes, replaced by another, a
midnight-haired rogue with a warm smile, green eyes vivid with
love, laughter, life. Set beside Sinclair, Jean-Claude paled,
becoming naught but a gentle ghost from her past.

She disengaged her hands, letting him
down as easily as she could. "I thank you for your offer,
Jean-Claude. You cannot know how happy it makes me to know you have
forgiven me at last. But we both know that I cannot possibly
accept."

A soft cry of protest escaped him, but
she continued. "You will realize this yourself if you search your
heart. We were always ill-suited. Perhaps we might have remained
happy if the Revolution had not disrupted our lives. But it did. We
cannot pretend otherwise. It is useless to say that the intervening
years do not matter, for we know that is not true."

"We could make all those lost years not
matter," he pleaded. "Surely we could if we desired it
enough."

She placed her fingers against his lips
to gently silence him. "You will only give us both more pain if you
try to pursue this dream. I beg you say no more. This time when we
part, let it be as friends."

He slumped against his seat. Belle
feared he meant to give way to despair. But the age-old dignity of
the comtes de Egremont came to his rescue. "As you wish, my dear,"
he said quietly.

After such a discussion it seemed
intolerable to both of them to remain closed together within the
carriage. Jean-Claude alighted first, handing her down. Belle
discovered Sinclair sitting up on the coachman's box, Baptiste
pacing by the front wheels.

"I have never known Crecy's men to be
late," Baptiste grumbled to her. "They would be delayed on one of
the coldest nights thus far this year."

"I am sure—" Belle never finished what
she had been about to say. The thud of hoofbeats carried to where
they stood, the sound of a mount crashing through the
brush.

"At last," Jean-Claude said,
brightening.

But Belle tensed, listening. She caught
Baptiste's worried frown and knew he was thinking the same
thing.

"Something is not right," she muttered.
"It sounds like a single rider and coming through the forest, not
by the road."

She turned to call up to Sinclair, to
warn him as the pounding of hooves drew nearer. The next instant a
horse and rider burst through the thicket onto the road. The
stallion's mane whipped back, flowing black as the cape of the man
astride him, both seeming phantom-spawned of the night and that
secret primeval darkness which was the depths of the
Rouvray.

Belle froze with dread as the beast
charged toward her. She heard Jean-Claude's gasp, and Sinclair's
warning shout as he scrambled for Baptiste's
blunderbuss.

But she could not tear her gaze from
the rider. He sawed at the reins, dragging his horse to such a
violent halt, the beast's head jerked to one side, its eyes rolling
wildly. The man's hood flew back, revealing Lazare's ravaged
features, his lips pulled back in a snarl of hatred. Belle caught
the flash of a pistol in his hand and read her death in his
eyes.

Before she could react, Baptiste dived
forward, shoving her aside. The pistol went off in a blaze of blue
fire. The sound rang in her ears, but she felt herself unharmed.
With a savage curse, Lazare struggled to control his plunging
mount.

Another shot cracked through the
clearing as Sinclair leveled Baptiste's ancient weapon, but missed.
The sound only served to terrify Lazare's horse. The stallion
reared and threw him to the ground, where he lay
stunned.

Jean-Claude tugged at her arm.
"Isabelle, you must get back inside the safety of the
coach."

Belle shook him off, her alarmed gaze
drawn to Baptiste as he sagged against the coach wheel, his knees
buckling beneath him.

"Baptiste!" she cried, breaking his
fall. A cry of pain breached the old man's lips, his face drawn
white as he tottered into her arms. As he sank down, Belle's hand
came away, sticky with blood.