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Six

D awn broke over the channel, the pearly-white light strewing the water with diamond-like sparkles.

The waves lapped against the dockside, gently rocking the Good Lady Nell.

Thick ropes creaked as the packet boat tugged against the moorings, as though the ship itself were eager for the journey to begin.

Even at this early hour the sailors had long been awake, scrambling about amongst the riggings, readying the single-masted ship to catch the tide.

The mail for the continent had already been stowed on board as one lone passenger made his way up the gangplank.

His face muffled in the depths of a woolen scarf, his flowing white-blond hair all but hidden beneath a red Phrygian cap, Etienne Lazare attracted little notice or comment from any of the busy seamen.

Sheltered from the stiff sea breeze, standing near a silk warehouse, Sinclair and Belle watched Lazare’s progress to the ship.

Sinclair stuffed his hands into the pockets of his greatcoat. Brief as his acquaintance with Lazare was, the mere sight of the Frenchman inspired Sinclair to ball his hands into fists.

“Lazare appears to be taking no chances of being left behind,” he grumbled.

“Perhaps if we are fortunate enough, he will fall overboard.” Although Belle’s voice was light, Sinclair did not miss a certain tightening of her mouth. Her face was shadowed beneath the brim of her straw bonnet as she studied the distant form of Lazare

“Why, Angel?” Sinclair demanded. “You clearly despise the man, so why did you agree to let him come?” It was a question he had been seeking an answer for ever since her initial outburst that night outside Mal du Coeur when she had blurted out that she had been the one to shoot off Lazare’s ear and scar his face.

But Belle had refused to discuss the incident any further. For the past ten days they had seen little of each other, both too busy preparing for the journey to France for Sinclair to pursue the matter. But now that Lazare had crossed their path again, Sinclair felt he had to have some answers.

As always, Belle evaded the question. “Lazare has his uses,” she said. “No one knows the streets of Paris better than he does, not even Baptiste.”

Sinclair stepped in front of her, partly to shield her from the brisk wind that was causing her to belt her pelisse more snugly about her and partly to force her to look at him.

“That won’t do,” he said. “I think it is time you were a little more forthcoming with me about our friend Lazare.”

“The quarrel between Lazare and me is personal. I told you before, it doesn’t concern you, Mr. Carrington.”

Belle tried to edge past him, but Sinclair closed in, all but backing her against the wall of the warehouse. He leaned one hand against the rough planking, using the length of his arm as a barrier to her escape.

“It concerns me a great deal, Angel.” Sinclair watched Belle stiffen, the soft angles of her face turning hard.

She was not the sort of woman to respond to demands or to being bullied.

He infused a coaxing, almost playful note into his voice.

“After all, I am rather attached to both of my ears. I wouldn’t want to offend you in the same manner Lazare did, whatever that was.

” Sinclair allowed his eyes to rove suggestively over the outline of her lips down to the full curve of her breasts.

A flickering of Belle’s lashes told him that she was not unresponsive to the boldness of his gaze.

“If I was ever tempted to shoot at you, Mr. Carrington,” she said tartly, “I would aim much lower than your ears.”

As Sinclair chuckled, she thrust his arm aside, breaking past him. But she had taken only a few paces along the wharf when he caught hold of her arm.

“You might have a little pity on me, Isabelle. As a new member of your society, it is only natural I am curious about you and Lazare. Small wonder poor King Louis still languishes in exile if all you royalists persist in shooting each other instead of?—”

“I told you I am no royalist. And as for Lazare—” Belle gave a derisive laugh.

She spun about to face Sinclair, her hands on her hips.

“He was once a sans-culotte, the more radical group of the revolutionaries. I daresay he cheered more loudly than any when Louis XVI was beheaded. According to Lazare, only the working class in Paris deserved to be left alive.”

Sinclair frowned in confusion. “Then what the deuce is he doing working for Merchant?”

“Lazare claims to have seen the error of his ways, to now be a loyal monarchist. He likely thinks he has fooled Merchant, but I doubt if he has. Victor is far too shrewd for that. But they both hate Napoleon, the difference being Victor would replace the Corsican with a Bourbon king, Lazare with anarchy.”

Belle added thoughtfully, “It will be interesting to see what happens when Victor and Lazare cease to be of use to each other.”

Sinclair pinched the bridge of his nose as though the information she had given him was too much to assimilate.

“It’s enough to give one a headache,” he complained.

“This gets more confusing all the time, like reading a book with too many of the pages gone.” He leveled a stare at her. “Some of which I think you hold.”

So he was back to that again, probing into her own past concerning Lazare.

Belle clamped her mouth shut. She hated questions regarding her own life.

She had told Sinclair that at the outset.

If Sinclair was going to be her partner, he would have to learn to tolerate her reticence, just as she was learning to put up with his infernal habit of calling her Angel.

Yet in this matter of Lazare, perhaps she was merely being stubborn. Belle exuded a weary sigh. Sinclair did have a right to know the whole tale, especially if he was going to be working with Lazare. He ought to be warned how dangerous Lazare could be.

As though he sensed her yielding, Sinclair remained patiently silent, stroking back the strands of night-dark hair the wind whipped across his eyes.

Belle stared at a flock of sea gulls wheeling overhead, their strident cries breaking the quiet morning air, but she charted not so much their course as the course of a memory, a memory like too many others she possessed, painful, better forgotten.

“Two years ago Lazare and I were on a mission together,” she began at last. “It was a simple enough assignment, to gain information on French troops, where they would be likely to strike next against the allied forces.”

Belle shook her head dolefully, rubbing her arms. “But the expedition seemed ill-fated from the first. I took sick soon after we were set ashore in France. I became feverish, almost delirious. Lazare should have just left me, went on himself. But he insisted on nursing me back to health. I should have died but for his care.”

“The man strikes me as being a most unlikely nurse.” Sinclair only echoed what Belle had thought herself at the time. She struggled to account for Lazare’s unexpectedly noble behavior.

“I seemed to hold a strange fascination for him. The streak of cruelty in him was not as strong as his vanity in those days. He was very conscious of his looks, and in me, I believe, he thought he had at last found a fitting mate.”

“Him and you?” Sinclair growled. “It’s enough to make my flesh crawl just thinking about the possibility. So he took care of you until you recovered. Then what happened?”

“We went on with the mission. It went well enough until we were surprised by two soldiers and forced to take them captive. They were both so young.” Belle closed her eyes briefly and could again envision the two lads, peasant farm boys in their ragged, ill-fitting uniforms, doubtlessly farther from home than they had ever been in their lives and so scared.

She opened her eyes and continued briskly, “We had them well trussed up, hidden in a ditch by the roadside. We would have been long gone before anyone found them. I saw no need to silence them permanently, but Lazare did not agree. He kept sharpening that damned knife and eyeing their throats. He used to be a knife grinder by profession. He would stroke that blade of his the way most men caress a woman.”

Sinclair looked sickened. “Good God! The two soldiers. Lazare didn’t?—”

“No, he didn’t, but only because I drew out my pistol and threatened him.

Lazare tried to take the weapon away from me, and somehow it went off.

” Belle caught her breath. It was as though she could yet see Lazare clutching the side of his head, the blood gushing between his fingers, and she could still hear his screams, his horrible inhuman screams.

Belle became aware that Sinclair was grasping her hands.

Her fingers felt cold even encased in kid gloves, but Sinclair’s warm strength penetrated the thin leather, dispelling the chill that coursed through her.

Lazare’s screams faded to become nothing more than the cries of the gulls circling the pier.

“Somehow I got Lazare away from there,” she concluded, “and found him a doctor. There was no possibility of saving his ear. Indeed it was a miracle he lived at all, considering the severity of his wound, the powder burns to his face.” Wearily she shook her head.

“I felt so guilty. I never meant to shoot him. I only wanted to stop him.”

“The only thing you should be sorry for is not having had better aim. You should have killed that blackguard, Angel.”

Belle glanced up at Sinclair, startled by the vehemence of his words.

“There is nothing more dangerous than a wounded jackal. When Lazare looks at you-.” Sinclair’s jaw tensed. “You should never have agreed to his presence on this mission.”

“Perhaps not.” Sinclair told her nothing that she had not repeated over and over to herself this past week. “But he did save my life once, and considering how badly he was injured by my hand, I fear Lazare is right. I do, at least, owe him another chance.”