She had vowed then she would never live in the midst of such tawdry glamour. But like so many of her vows, it was worth about as much as the dust now coating the surface of a heavily ornate mahogany dining table. Belle trailed her gloved finger along it, leaving a glossy streak.
Baptiste bustled forward, apologizing. "Ah, I meant to get up here, have the place cleaned and aired, but I had no notion when you would arrive. I will get a fire going at once."
He flung open a set of double doors leading into a cream and gilt drawing room furnished with a stiff-backed settee supported by clawed griffin feet and cases of books whose pristine spines suggested that the volumes did little more than adorn the shelves. As Baptiste bent to his task by the hearth, Belle felt Sinclair touch upon her shoulder. She glanced up to meet his eyes and saw a frown creasing his brow.
"You don't like this place, do you?" he asked.
She started, but she did not know why. She ought to be accustomed by now to how easily Sinclair seemed to discern her thoughts.
"What's not to like?" she quipped. "It has all the charm and elegance of a high-priced brothel."
"We don't have to stay here. I am sure I could find us someplace else."
"Don't be ridiculous. We have a job to do and this place will serve our needs as well as any. You seem to keep forgetting that you are not an eager husband striving to please a new bride."
"So I do. What a fortunate thing that I have you to keep reminding me."
As Sinclair stalked away to explore another door, taking the stairs that led to the next floor of the apartment, Belle nearly called him back to apologize for her ungracious manner of rejecting his concern. But the next thing she knew, she might find herself explaining her reaction, telling him all about her mother, telling him far too much. If she had annoyed him, it was far better to leave it that way.
She followed Baptiste into the drawing room, stripping off her cloak and gloves, glad to have a moment alone with her old friend. She had seen little of him these past years, since she never went into Paris and he never traveled far from that city. All that they had shared had been hurried meetings in Rouvray Forest, and those had always been too fraught with the urgency of varied missions to allow much time for idle chat.
Baptiste knelt before the hearth, applying the bellows to a tiny flame he had coaxed amongst the kindling. His ruddy cheeks and leather apron were smudged with ash, the fire's light dancing in his large brown eyes. He reminded Belle of an illustration she had once seen in a book of legends, the dwarf-king at work upon his forge, conjuring treasures from the dark secret places beneath the earth.
But then Baptiste had always given Belle the impression of not being quite of this world. Some of the smuggling feats they had pulled off together during the Revolution had been nothing short of wizard's work. She smiled softly at the remembrance, watching as his nimble fingers stacked more wood upon the fire.
"And how have you been, my old friend?" she asked.
"Well enough," he replied without looking up. "Not getting any younger."
"That is what you have been telling me ever since the day we first met."
"And it is as true now as it was then." Baptiste stood up, dusting off his knees. He paused, a chuckle erupting from deep in his chest. At Belle's inquiring gaze, he said, "I was thinking of that first day, mon ange. What a mad lady you were, all draped in your fake mourning, attempting to transport that coffin with the petite Duc de Ferriers hidden inside past the very noses of the soldiers sent out to look for him."
"I was doing well enough until the poor child happened to sneeze Then you popped out of nowhere, covering for me with your little snuff box, spilling so much of the stuff, you had half the street sneezing until no one could tell where the first sounds had come from."
"Ah, I recall it well! How ridiculous those great hulking soldiers looked, wheezing until the tears ran down their cheeks. Having thus come to your rescue, I would have been far wiser if I had gone about my own business."
"But think how much duller your life would have been. Besides, my 'funerals' proceeded much more smoothly after you had become partner to them."
"C’est vrai." Baptiste scratched his chin, his thoughtful manner belied by the twinkle in his eye. "How many elderly aunts and uncles did you have perish in that one year alone?"
"Oh, a dozen at least. I was once part of a very large family."
Baptiste's smile faded and Belle could have bitten out her tongue. Her jest came too near the truth for Baptiste. Once the eldest of five siblings, he was now the last of the brothers Renault.
He turned away from her, picking up the poker and taking sharp jabs at the logs. "Why is it so easy to burn down the house," he said gruffly, "but wood never catches when you want it to?"
Belle realized he was signaling her that he wished the subject turned, and she regretted that it had ever been broached in the first place. Even the lighter recollections of their days during the Revolution invariably led to other ones more tragic. All memories were better left untouched.
While Baptiste struggled with the fire, Belle moved toward the chamber's high narrow windows, their latticed panes overhung with double curtains of gold-fringed silk. Belle parted them to allow more light into the room.
The Rue St. Honoré in all its bustle lay sprawled below her, and she pressed her face against the glass, the pane cool against her cheek. She had spent much of her time in that other Paris apartment at No. 17, too much perhaps, staring down into the street.
From such a lofty height she had once watched a king pass by in the frosty morning hours of a winter's day to keep his appointment with death, and a host of other folk as well, more humble perhaps but bearing the same regal dignity as they were trundled forth to meet the guillotine's embrace. Would she be able to behave with such courage if faced with the prospect of such a terrifying death? Belle had often wondered.
"You should not have come back, mon ange."
Belle turned, surprised to discover Baptiste standing at her elbow, even more surprised by his remark.
"And I thought you were so glad to see me again," she mocked.
"I am—but it is a most selfish joy." His mouth turned down at the corners, and Belle sensed for the first time a subtle change in her friend. Despite what blows life had dealt him, Baptiste had ever remained Baptiste, a man with a fierce, unquenchable joy in life. Such a somber mood was most unlike him.
"I wish Merchant had sent someone else," he continued. "My Paris has never been good for you."
"Perhaps this time will be different. Who knows? If we succeed in removing Napoleon, restoring the king, perhaps you will finally be able to show me that glorious Paris of the old days which you have always told me about, the city that you so adore."
Baptiste merely shook his head, his dour expression calling forth to Belle once more the image of the brooding dwarf king.
"Eh bien, in any event you are here. There is naught to be done about it now." He sighed. Detaching the apartment key from his belt, he pressed it into her hand. "So! And what else would you have me be doing besides procuring you an apartment?"
His abrupt question caught her off guard. She had focussed so much of her energies into the task of simply getting to Paris, surviving the floodtide of memories, she had given little thought to the next step. As she ran her hand distractedly through her hair, her mind worked quickly.
"Give me the rest of the day to settle in, then tomorrow afternoon I want a meeting to lay out our strategy, you, myself, Sinclair, and Lazare. I also want you to get word to Marcellus Crecy and old Feydeau."
"That might prove difficult. Old Feydeau has been summoned by an angel with higher authority than yours."
Belle frowned at him in confusion.
"The Angel Gabriel." Baptiste rolled his eyes heavenward. "Feydeau is dead, mon ami."
Feydeau dead? Belle thought she should have been accustomed by now to the uncertainty of life, but Baptiste's words sent a shock through her all the same. Had
it not been only a month ago that she had stood in the innyard of the Golden Sun, listening to Feydeau swear at her for having no outriders?
"When did he die? How?"
"A coaching accident, not long after your little adventure with the Coterins. Feydeau was believed to have been drunk."
"Feydeau had his faults," Belle protested, "but he loved his horses. I never saw him take the reins into his hands when he was anything less that stone-cold sober."
"There is always a first time, mon ange. Regrettably for Feydeau, it was also the last."
Belle frowned. It still made no sense to her, but she supposed the important fact was not how Feydeau had died, but that she had lost a reliable fellow agent.
"We shall need to find someone else to drive coach for us," she said.
"Leave that to me. I will see to it."
And Belle knew that Baptiste would. She had always been able to depend upon him. She caught his hand and squeezed it. "Despite the fact you were so unkind as to be wishing me gone, I am very glad you are here, my old friend. I would not have thought of accepting such a dangerous undertaking for one moment without your support."
The little Frenchman had never been in the least shy about accepting any sort of compliment. It therefore surprised Belle when he tugged free of her, his cheeks mottling with red.
"Bah! You've little use for an old stick like me, not with a strapping specimen like your Mr. Carrington about."
"He is not my Mr. Carrington," Belle said. "What is your opinion of Sinclair?"
She tried to make the question sound casual, but knew she had not succeeded when Baptiste eyed her shrewdly. "How eagerly she asks that. Like a shy little maid, bringing her latest swain home to meet Papa."
Belle tried to laugh at his raillery, but felt the color seep into her cheeks. "That doesn't answer my question."
"Eh bien, I think Monsieur Carrington is tall, young, handsome, everything that I am not. I also think you should take care, mon ange." Baptiste abruptly averted his gaze. "You should not place too much trust in any man.
"And now, I have more important things to consider than abducting the first consul of France. Mademoiselle Pierrepont will have my head if I don't have her fan finished by five of the clock."
Baptiste stood on tiptoe to plant a brusque kiss upon Belle's cheek before skittering out of the apartment. Belle stared at the door long after it had closed behind him, his words echoing through her mind. "You should not place too much trust in any man."
It was not like Baptiste to offer such platitudes or needless advice. Perhaps what disturbed her the most was that his words had not really seemed so much like advice. They had carried more the ring of a warning.
But a warning against whom? Sinclair? What could Baptiste have possibly detected about Sinclair upon such short acquaintance? This was absurd, Belle thought, rubbing her hand across her eyes. She was reading far too much into one casual remark. Likely she was tired. It had been a long day, a long journey. She would feel much better after a good night's rest.
But that notion brought a bitter smile to her lips. When had she ever enjoyed a restful night in Paris? Her gaze strayed back to the window. Her earlier excitement and her joy in seeing Baptiste again had fled. With a feeling of dread, she marked the sun's downward course, shedding a final burst of golden glory above the rooftops, the street shadows lengthening.
In a few hours it would be night, and eventually she would have to try to sleep. She might assure herself that she had survived the return to Paris in full light of day, but the dark would release all those phantoms she had subdued. The moment she closed her eyes, the nightmares would crowd forward: of Jean-Claude, of the Revolution, the massacres, the guillotine and the heavy, dank walls of the Conciergerie
No one has ever been slain by a memory, she told herself again. Then why could she already feel herself dying a little inside?
CHAPTER EIGHT
His first night in Paris was not the worst Sinclair had ever spent, but he could not rank it among the best, either. The next morning he awoke to the sound of rain drumming against the window and a dull ache behind his eyes.
He had slept poorly, and insomnia was not an affliction he was accustomed to endure. It was partly the fault of this damned bed, he thought as he rolled over with a groan. He stared with disgust at the golden canopy suspended tent-like above him, the corners caught in the grasp of fat, grinning cherubs. The mattress and pillows were too soft. His weight seemed to sink beneath a billowing cloud of silk, silk moreover that reeked of eau de heliotrope. The cloying scent clung to him, making him feel like he had spent the night with a Covent Garden doxy.
But the bed, he had to admit, had only been part of the problem. Most of his sleeplessness was owing to the sounds that had emanated from the bedchamber adjoining his, the creak of the floorboards, the footfalls which told him that Belle had stayed awake well past midnight.
Glancing toward the sheer bed-curtains drawn together to keep the draft from his naked flesh, Sinclair could just make out the gray light of morning and wondered if Belle had paced until nearly dawn. More terrifying dreams? Or was her restlessness owing to those memories that frequently brought that look of hopelessness to her eyes?
Sinclair's urge to go to her had been strong, but he knew from bitter experience she would spurn his comfort. Belle seemed to have learned a long time ago to endure her pain alone. Who had helped her to con that lesson, the Comte de Egremont, Jean-Claude Varens? Astonishing, Sinclair thought, that one could begin to harbor an intense loathing for such a noble gentleman, one that he scarcely knew.
All things considered, it was for the best that he had curbed his desire to slip into Belle's room. He was no saint, and Belle had been honest enough to admit she was not impervious to his touch. What might have begun as comfort could have ended far differently. He had known casual encounters in bed before and so, he suspected, had Belle, but he feared that the emotion that pulsed between them was too intense for that. She might finish by hating him, and he didn't want that. But it was a prospect he had to face all the same, for it had occurred to him there might be one other reason to account for her sleeplessness.
She could be suffering from a guilty conscience. An ugly thought that—and he had lain awake a great deal of the night, attempting to convince himself beyond all doubt that it could not be so, that it could not possibly be Belle who was the traitor he had been sent to capture. His every instinct told him that she was not, but could instinct be trusted when clouded by an image of hair of spun gold; eyes, the color of an azure sky; a face so rife with hidden strength and delicate beauty it could haunt a man to the end of his days? How he prayed the counteragent would prove to be Lazare. If it was, he could derive great pleasure from putting an end to Lazare's activities in passing information to the enemy.
Slowly Sinclair raised to a sitting position, wincing at his stiff muscles. However the affair turned out, he needed to stop thinking and start acting. He was in Paris now. Time to cease the speculations and set about finding out the truth.
He started to fling the coverlet aside when he heard the door to his chamber swing open. Astonished, he froze in position, observing a shadowy figure rustling about beyond the bedcurtains. Who in thunder would enter his room that boldly? He had been careless in not locking his door, in not keeping a weapon close to hand, especially with a madman like Lazare, overly fond of his knife, living just two floors above in the garret.
Cautiously Sinclair parted his bedcurtains just enough to peer out. He relaxed somewhat. It was only that woman Paulette, Belle's erstwhile maid, her brown curls peeking out from beneath a frilled cap. She had deposited a white pitcher upon the dressing table and now stooped to pick Sinclair's shirt off the floor. In one day he had already managed to reduce his room to a state of comfortable clutter. Paulette would have appeared the image of the perfect maid tidying up, garbed in her somber gown, except for the thin red ribbon forming a bright slash about her throat and an indefinable somethi
ng in her manner that rendered Sinclair uneasy.
As he watched her bend to retrieve his breeches, all but caressing the fabric, he felt his flesh crawl. Thrusting the bed-curtain back, he gripped the sheet about himself and boomed out, "What the devil do you think you are doing in here?"
She straightened with a tiny gasp, clasping her hands to her ample bosom. "Monsieur Carrington! How you startled me. I thought you still asleep."
"That doesn't answer my question."
"I brought you up some hot water for shaving and started to tidy some of your things. Since you have no valet—"
"I manage quite well without one. You might have seen fit to knock, mademoiselle."
"But I did, monsieur. You must not have heard me." She lowered her lashes demurely but not before Sinclair sensed her hot gaze rake over him. He felt at a distinct disadvantage. It was difficult to appear indignant reclining on a bed, garbed only in a sheet. With a low curse he stretched down to scoop up his dressing robe. Retreating behind the bed-curtains, he struggled into the garment, tying the sash with a hard tug.
When he emerged, he discovered Mistress Beauvais had nonchalantly gone on with her task of cleaning up, moving toward his cloak draped over a chair and his umbrella. Sinclair leaped out of bed and started toward her, his bare feet padding across the thick rosette-patterned carpet. He reached her side in time to snatch the umbrella from her grasp and toss it upon a gilt-edged dressing table. It was unlikely that anyone could detect the secret compartment in the handle that housed his papers, but he wasn't taking any chances.
"Merci bien, mademoiselle," he said. "If I require anything else, I will ring."