Rendezvous (9781301288946)

  "Good-bye, Angel," he said with a rueful smile as he rubbed his stinging flesh. "At least until tonight."

  CHAPTER THREE

  The rain had turned to a fine mist by the time Sinclair wended his way toward the house where he had rented lodgings—a two-story stucco building with black roof tiles glazed to withstand the buffets of winds blowing off the sea. He walked slowly, in no hurry to return to his empty rooms, especially when he saw the figure lurking beneath the narrow portico of the front door. It appeared to be a man of medium height, the collar of his coat pulled up to his ears, obscuring his face.

  Sinclair hooked his umbrella over his arm and approached with deliberate casualness. Pausing a few yards down the street, he pretended to grope in the pocket of his boxcoat for his room key while he stole a glance at the bedraggled figure.

  As he studied the blond curls plastered to ruddy cheeks, the wet cloak clinging to a familiar stocky frame, Sinclair swore, the tension between his shoulder blades relaxing. In civilian dress, soaked to the skin, the man looked not in the least like Lieutenant Charles Carr of the Ninth Cavalry, but very much like Chuff, Sinclair's nuisance of a younger brother, his junior by eight years.

  Sinclair covered the distance between them in four great strides. "Chuff! What the devil are you doing here?"

  "Waiting for you," Charles said in a disgruntled voice.

  "At the age of three and twenty I'd think you would at least have the sense to get in out of the rain. Why are you here in Portsmouth? I told you not—" Sinclair broke off his tirade when Charles erupted into a fit of sneezing.

  Sinclair gave vent to an exasperated sigh. "Well, don't continue to stand there. Get inside. If you caught your death on my doorstep, the entire family would be sure to blame me."

  Sinclair opened the front door. Motioning Charles to follow, Sinclair led the way up a narrow stair to the second floor. Unlocking the first door at the head of the steps, he shoved it open and impatiently pulled the shivering Charles past him.

  "Damnation!" Charles said, coming to a dead halt on the threshold. Sinclair pushed him the rest of the way inside, closing the door after them.

  Charles's mouth hung open in dismay at the sight of the small floral-papered chamber that served as both sitting room and study to Sinclair. A battered oak desk was littered with papers spilling over onto the floor. Remains of last night's supper were stacked on a tray in front of the brick fireplace. One could scarce take a step without treading upon boots, stockings, and sundry other articles of clothing strewn over the carpet. A door stood ajar, revealing that the bedchamber beyond was in little better state.

  Charles shook his head. "How can you live this way, Sinclair? If any of Merchant's people decided to ransack your rooms, you'd never know it."

  "It is a little difficult to pose as a spy with a valet and chambermaid in tow." Impervious to his brother's horror, Sinclair added his cloak, hat, and umbrella to the heap upon the desk. "Besides, Merchant's people have no reason to search my room. They have all accepted me as one of them.”

  Or almost all, Sinclair amended to himself as he thought of golden silk-spun hair, a face so delicate, so fine-boned, it could have been sculpted from ivory, eyes that flashed blue fire. Isabelle Varens might detest her nickname, but if only she knew exactly how like an avenging angel she had appeared when she struck him. Wincing at the memory, Sinclair touched his cheek. It would not surprise him if he sported a bruise. For such a fragile-looking lady, she could land a man quite a facer:

  Sinclair turned, forcing his attention back to his brother. "Take off that wet coat, Chuff," he said. "And I'll get the fire going again. I think you might find a bottle of indifferent port behind that stack of books in the corner."

  "That's quite all right." Charles sniffed. "I am sure I would never be able to locate a clean glass as well."

  Sinclair stepped past him to stir up the embers of the fire he had built that morning. Tossing on a few more logs and using the bellows, he soon had a blaze crackling. By that time Charles had peeled off his cloak and arranged it carefully over a wall peg whose existence Sinclair had never noticed before. Sinclair shoved his dressing gown and a copy of last week's London Times off a faded wing-backed chair and invited Charles to sit down.

  "I'd offer you a change of clothes, but spies don't appear to eat as well as cavalry officers." Sinclair patted Charles's stomach straining beneath his waistcoat.

  Charles self-consciously splayed his fingers across his slight paunch. "That will all disappear once I see some action again. Plague take this peace treaty. It won't hold for long, I tell you that. Not that our side will start anything, but old Boney will never rest quiet. Ambitious fellow, that Napoleon. Bound to stir up something."

  "You need not try to convince me, Chuff. I am not arguing with you." Sinclair brushed the knees of his breeches clear of the dust that had clung when he had knelt to start the fire. "It would be more to the point, little brother, if you would tell me what you are doing here."

  "Colonel Darlington sent a message for you."

  Sinclair stiffened at the mention of the British officer highly placed in army intelligence.

  "The courier chosen was Tobias Reed, an old friend of mine.” Charles flushed guiltily, unable to meet Sinclair's stern gaze. "So I persuaded Toby to let me bring the message instead."

  Sinclair scowled. "You could get both yourself and your friend in deep trouble. This was not the wisest course of action, Chuff."

  "Wise be damned! II had to see you again before you disappear to parts unknown." He glanced up, coaxing, "Come now, Sinclair. You can't be angry with me."

  With that pleading look on his face, Charles reminded Sinclair of nothing so much as a wistful puppy. Would his brother never mature?

  "Hand over the message," Sinclair said wearily.

  Charles brightened. Reaching inside his waistcoat, he drew forth a sealed, slightly damp square of parchment. "You're to burn it after you read it."

  "No!" Sinclair arched his brows in mock astonishment. "I thought I was supposed to publish it in the Times."

  Charles made a face and tossed the letter at him. "Sorry. I forgot you're not exactly a greenhorn at all of this."

  Sinclair caught the letter and broke the wax seal. The message was in code, of course.

  "Excuse me for a moment," he murmured to his brother. Sinclair strode over to the desk. Tumbling his coat, hat, and most of the papers aside, he finally located a quill, a half-dried pot of ink, and a blank sheet of vellum. Drawing up a chair, he began to decode the message. It was not a simple code, but Sinclair had worked with this particular one enough that he was able to accomplish his task with reasonable swiftness.

  Darlington's letter began with a word of congratulations to Sinclair for having successfully insinuated himself into Merchant's group. Many French èmigres had fled to England during the Reign of Terror, most of them royalists dreaming and plotting to restore the French monarchy. But none of these French royalists were so well organized and so well funded as Merchant's Society for the Preservation of Ancient Relics. The British army, bearing no fondness for Napoleon, applauded Merchant's efforts to overturn the Corsican upstart's government.

  At least, the army had done so until recently. Evidence from British spies operating in Paris revealed that one or more of Merchant's little band, possibly Merchant himself, was really working for Bonaparte.

  Under the guise of being a royalist plotter, this counteragent was drawing maps of the English coastline and fortifications, passing the information back to Napoleon for use in a possible invasion. It was Sinclair's task to expose Bonaparte's spy and put a halt to these activities, an assignment which Sinclair understood well enough. There was no need for Darlington to elaborate further upon it. Consequently, the rest of the colonel's message was brief.

  "Eliminate the name Feydeau from your list. Now beyond suspicion. The man died last week in a coaching accident.

  Sinclair paused in his decoding to reach for his umbrella. H
e unscrewed the top and then slipped a scroll of paper from inside the hollowed-out bone handle. Unrolling the parchment, Sinclair read down the list of names and brief notes he had jotted about the agents known to work for Merchant. Laurent Coterin had already been scratched out. After dipping his quill into the ink, Sinclair put a line through the name of Simon Feydeau.

  With two of the eight names thus eliminated, it made Sinclair's task that much easier. Thoughtfully stroking his chin, Sinclair studied the ones remaining. Baptiste Renois, Paulette Beauvais. Marcellus Crecy-Sinclair could form no conjectures about these people, for he had yet to meet any of them.

  Victor Merchant—here, Sinclair had the advantage of one meeting and some sketchy background information. Merchant, once known as the Baron de Nerac, had fled France shortly after the execution of the late Louis XVI. He had arrived in England, possessing scarcely more than the shirt on his back, and yet in the intervening years, Merchant had somehow acquired seemingly limitless funds with which to finance the activities of his society.

  Funds that could be coming from Bonaparte, Sinclair thought. Yet if Merchant was the counteragent, someone else had to be doing the actual spying for him, for Merchant rarely strayed far from his townhouse in London.

  Reserving any further judgment on Merchant, Sinclair moved to the next name on the list: Quentin Crawley. Well, Quentin certainly traveled about enough to qualify. But a smile tugged at Sinclair's lips. He did not often trust merely his intuition, but he would be astonished if Crawley turned out to be the one he sought. As Mrs. Varens had pointed out, Quentin very much enjoyed ‘playing spy,’ but to involve himself in any real danger, the precarious position of being a counteragent-Sinclair doubted that Crawley possessed the steady nerves such a deception would require.

  On the other hand, Sinclair thought, his gaze resting on the last name, there was Isabelle Varens herself, cool, sophisticated, obviously intelligent. Sinclair did not doubt that Isabelle had the courage to take such a risk. One didn't earn a sobriquet like Avenging Angel from one's peers for being a timid soul. And Isabelle traveled freely on both sides of the channel. She had balked at the notion of working with Sinclair, declaring her intention of telling Merchant he must make other arrangements. That, of course, Sinclair did not intend to let happen. Isabelle could have been genuinely angry about the kiss, or she could have a more sinister motive. It would not be easy for her to contact Napoleon with Sinclair tagging after her. Thus far, of all the names on the list, she seemed most likely to be Bonaparte's spy. Sinclair dipped his quill pen into the ink-pot and underscored her name with a thick line, only to frown and follow it up with a question mark.

  He kept remembering how soft and enticing she had felt in his arms, how warm and sweet her lips. Yet he had had no business attempting to kiss her. He felt almost grateful that she had slapped him, bringing him to his senses. He knew some men might consider seduction a good method for gaining information, but Sinclair had his own code. He did not bed women in order to learn their secrets and then betray them.

  In truth, he had not been thinking of information at all when he had held Isabelle, only the flaring of his own desire. That disturbed Sinclair more than anything else. He was no saint by any means. He had a keen appreciation for beautiful women, but he had always known how to check his passions until the appropriate place and time. What was it about Isabelle Varens that overrode his natural caution? Beautiful, she certainly was, but he had known many beautiful women before. Perhaps it was Isabelle's more elusive qualities. An aura of mystery seemed to cling to her, her fine sculpted features touched by a deep sadness even when she smiled.

  When he had asked about her husband, he had seen the haunted expression in her eyes, as though some specter from her past had risen to torment her. Sinclair rarely felt protective impulses toward women, but he had had an astonishing urge to cradle Isabelle Varens against him, lay all her ghosts to rest.

  A loud clatter from the region of the fireplace disrupted his wandering thoughts. Startled, he glanced up, having all but forgotten his brother's presence in the room. Charles, in the act of removing his boots, had accidently kicked up against the fire irons.

  "Sorry," Charles muttered. "Are you nearly finished, Sinclair?"

  "Another minute or two," Sinclair said with a grimace. Chuff never could sit still for more than five minutes at a time.

  Sinclair set the list aside and dragged his attention back to Colonel Darlington's letter.

  “This will be your last contact with headquarters. All further information will be provided to you by our agent in Paris. From this time on, I advise no further communication with your family, especially your father.”

  A wry chuckle escaped Sinclair.

  Charles was warming his stockinged feet by the fire. But he paused to peer round the side of his chair at Sinclair. "I never knew old Darlington was given to cracking jests."

  "An unintentional one," Sinclair said. "He tells me not to communicate with Father. Apparently he doesn't heed the gossip in the officers' mess or he would know that the general and I have not been communicating for years."

  Charles looked unhappy and cleared his throat. "You know, Sinclair, that if there was any message you wished to send him, I have a few days' leave coming. I will be seeing Father. . . ." Charles's words trailed off and he seemed to be holding his breath, awaiting Sinclair's reply.

  An unendearing image of General Daniel Carr rose to Sinclair's mind—a ramrod-stiff bearing, steel-gray hair, and cold green eyes. A handsome man despite his advancing years, Daniel Carr’s features were so rigid, he might well have been an effigy carved from stone. Sometimes, when glancing into a mirror, Sinclair wondered if he would look like his father in thirty years' time. The thought scared all hell out of him.

  "You can give the general a message for me," he said. "Tell him I've changed my name to Carrington, that he can stop worrying that I will drag the illustrious name of Carr into the gutters."

  Charles heaved a disappointed sigh. "I suppose I cannot blame you for your attitude. Father was completely unfair. He despises intelligence work, yet he never hesitates to use the information spies provide when drawing up battle plans."

  "Spying is a necessary evil," Sinclair said, imitating his father's gruff, stentorian tones. "But dirty work, not fit for a gentleman. Let someone else's son do it!" Sinclair concluded his impersonation by banging his fist upon the desk. Shrugging his shoulders, he forced a laugh. He had given over trying to please his father a long time ago. The old man had been outraged when he discovered Sinclair had traded his cavalry commission to become part of army intelligence. General Carr had used his considerable influence to get the appointment canceled. Sinclair had retaliated by resigning from the army altogether, thus becoming the first Carr male in five generations who would not go to his grave wearing regimentals. He continued to work for the army as a civilian spy and had not spoken to or seen his father since. That had been over five years ago.

  Sinclair blocked his father out of his thoughts except for the times such as this, when Charles made a feeble attempt to effect a reconciliation.

  "The general is not such a bad old fellow," Charles ventured. "He has always treated me quite decently."

  Sinclair rocked back in his chair, regarding his guileless younger brother with an amused smile.

  "That is because you always do exactly what he wants, Chuff."

  Charles stiffened defensively. "But I like being in the cavalry."

  "I am glad that you do." Sinclair spared his brother's feelings, although sorely tempted to point out that Charles would have liked whatever the old man told him to like. Sinclair was fond of his younger brother, but he knew that Charles was weak-willed, easily led just like Sinclair's mother and two sisters.

  "I will admit the general can be a proper martinet when crossed," Charles continued. "But you've always defied him ever since I can remember. I often wondered how you dared."

  "My philosophy has been the same with Father as it is wi
th the rest of the world. You can do what everyone else thinks you should and be miserable. Or you can please yourself and let them all curse you. Then someday when you're an old man, at least you're not likely to have regrets about the way you've lived your life."

  Charles looked troubled. "And don't you ever have any regrets, Sinclair?"

  It was a strangely perceptive question to come from Chuff, almost too perceptive. Sinclair got abruptly to his feet, dismissing the question with a laugh.

  "I'm not an old man yet, even though I know I must seem like a graybeard to you. Ask me your question again twenty years hence."

  He crossed the room, scooped up his brother's boots, and thrust them at Charles. "Get these back on. I assume you came here by stage. I want to make sure you are on the next one going out before Darlington finds out about this outrageous stunt you and your friend Tobias have pulled."

  Reluctantly Charles took the boots and began to struggle into them. "Aye, I shouldn't like to land Toby in the suds. He's a good fellow."

  But obviously not possessed of the secretive nature required for intelligence work, Sinclair thought.

  "I expect Darlington will ask Toby if there was any return message," Charles said.

  "Have Toby tell the colonel that when I have anything to report, I will send it through the usual channels." Sinclair laid pointed emphasis on the last words. "He can also say that I have met the Varens woman."

  Something in Sinclair's tone of voice must have alerted Charles, for he glanced up sharply, red-faced from his exertion in donning the boots.

  "Oho! A woman is it? Up to mischief again, I daresay."

  "My dear Chuff." Sinclair regarded his brother with wearied patience. "Where do you come by this notion that I carry every female that I meet off to my bed?"

  "Because you do. At least, all the pretty ones."

  Sinclair grimaced. Charles would be astonished to learn that over half of the conquests attributed to Sinclair were the result of barracks-room gossip and Sinclair's own boastful attitude as a youth. Sinclair admitted to a certain amount of flirtation with the ladies, because he had discovered that flirting always kept affairs from drawing too near the heart. Becoming too serious about any relationship was one more set of shackles Sinclair had managed to avoid.