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 pa
led, 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.
"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 te
nsed 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.