Page 44

“I don’t.” Sinclair sighed. “But the waiter appeared so proud to be able to offer it, how could I disappoint the poor fellow?”

Offering him a half-amused smile, Belle glanced about the garden which boasted no more than five tables, all of the others being vacant.

The only others present were two elderly gentlemen playing at jeu des bagues at the opposite end of the garden.

She decided she might just risk a glance at the note from Bonaparte.

Breaking the seal, she scanned the contents. The opening amused her somewhat.

“Since the night of the reception, your beauty fills my memory. My thoughts have been only of you.”

This was yet another side to the blunt Corsican soldier. Who would imagine he could be such a romantic. It was the sort of infatuated nonsense she might have expected to have received from a boy like Phillipe Coterin, But as she scanned farther down the page, her smile faded,

“Damn!” she said.

Sinclair paused in the act of raising the flagon to his lips. “What’s amiss?”

By way of answer she simply handed the note to him.

“The white curves of your soft, sweet—” Sinclair began to read aloud.

“Not that,” she interrupted sharply. “Read the closing paragraph.”

Belle could tell when Sinclair had found the crucial part, for one of his eyebrows jutted upward.

“Well, what is it?” Baptiste cried. “Or do you both mean to slay me with this suspense?”

“Bonaparte has canceled his supper with Belle,” Sinclair said. “He leaves Paris within the week for an extended tour of the provinces.”

“ Nom de Dieu !” Baptiste exclaimed. He shook his head. “ Quelle catastrophe ! Why, once he is out of Paris on a ceremonial tour, there will be no getting near the man. He will constantly be surrounded by his entourage and adoring crowds.”

Belle bit ruefully down upon her lip. “I know.”

“And so the note is his farewell?” Baptiste asked. “He makes no further mention of seeing you again, mon ange ?”

“Not at an intimate supper. But by way of consolation, he offers a discreet meeting in one of the boxes at the Theatre Odeon to attend the current performance.”

“Ah, but of course.” Baptiste nodded. “The general is most fond of drama. He often attends incognito.”

“It doesn’t matters if he comes disguised as a Turk,” Sinclair said. “I would defy anyone to arrange the abduction of a man from so public a place as a theater.”

He tossed the note down upon the table. “So that’s the end of that.”

An unexpected modicum of relief had been mingling with Belle’s disappointment. But Sinclair’s almost cheerful acceptance of their failure acted strangely upon her.

“What do you mean—the end?” she demanded.

“I mean that you cannot go any further with this scheme, which was absurd from the start.”

Although she acknowledged the situation as hopeless herself, Sinclair’s complacent dismissal of the mission, all the work and planning she had poured into it, irritated her.

Of course, he had never been very enthusiastic about the assignment, she recalled.

She was not the only one to remark the fact.

Lazare had said something very similar only this morning.

Of a sudden some of Lazare’s other comments came back to her, seeming to whisper in her ear, seep through her like subtle poison. He has a habit of disappearing, our Monsieur Carrington. Where does he go each day?

Belle turned over in her mind things about Sinclair that had always disturbed her: his knowledge about Feydeau, his conversation with the strange man at the review, most of all his evasion of any questions regarding his past. Could it be that- No, Belle refused to consider the possibility that the man who loved her so tenderly each night could be plotting against her.

Sinclair must have other less sinister reasons for rejoicing that the plot must be abandoned.

He had oft teased her about her ambition to use the money from this mission to retire from the business to Derbyshire.

Perhaps some of his teasing had been in earnest, fathered by a secret wish to keep her working with him.

Perhaps he was glad that she would not now be paid.

Or his relief could be stemming from some arrogant male notion of protecting her, a lack of faith in her ability to see the abduction to a successful conclusion.

Whatever the reason for his resistance, it stirred her stubborn pride to life.

“The assignment has become more difficult,” she said, “but I still do not find it impossible.”

Sinclair cast her a look, part indulgence, part impatience. “Belle, give it up. You have done your best, doing all that Merchant could require. I would be the first to tell him so.”

“I am not worried about Merchant,” she snapped. “But when I am hired to do a job, I finish it.”

“Just as you did in the affair with Coterin?” he reminded her with a skeptical smile.

Belle bristled. “That was different.” In that instance she had chosen to deviate from her task, but she would be damned if she would be forced to give up by simply a lack of daring and resolve.

“You were reluctant from the start,” she accused Sinclair. “If you didn’t wish to take any risks, I don’t know why?—”

“Risk,” Sinclair snorted. “This would be suicide.”

“All I have to say is that if you are going to change your mind, it would be better if you had not accepted in the first place.”

“I beg you, mes enfants , no quarrels,” Baptiste said. “You are throwing those poor gentlemen off their game.”

Belle was startled to realize that she and Sinclair had been raising their voices loudly enough to attract attention.

One of the elderly men at the other end of the garden paused in the act of tossing his ring to frown at her.

Sinclair subsided, but Belle could not let the matter rest. She said in low but forceful tones, “I trust you will remember, Mr. Carrington, I am the one in charge. I will say when the mission is called off.”

“If you can develop a sensible plan, I will follow you anywhere, Angel.” Sinclair drank the rest of his beer, looking so smugly confident that she couldn’t, Belle had a strong desire to break her coffee cup over his head.

As though to prevent further argument, he got up and deliberately strolled across the garden to watch the old men at their game. It did not take long before he was invited to join in, the elderly Parisians showing him how to toss the wooden rings, laughing indulgently at his efforts.

Belle could tell from the flash of Sinclair’s smile that he was not merely staying away from the table to be spiteful, but genuinely enjoying himself with the same gusto with which he smoked those horrid cigars and ate his peppermints.

“He has the joie de vivre , that one,” Baptiste commented. “He could well have been a Frenchman.”

It was an enormous compliment coming from Baptiste. But Belle recognized that her friend was right. Sinclair did have that vitality, that zest for life she felt lacking in herself. It was one of the things that made him so undeniably attractive.

“He is also a man of good sense,” Baptiste added.

Belle glanced sharply at her old friend. “Does that mean you agree with him that the mission must be abandoned?”

Baptiste frowned into his empty glass. “ Oui , at the risk of also angering you, I fear that I must. Monsieur Carrington takes the logical view?—”

“Logic has nothing to do with it,” Belle said scornfully.

“I believe Sinclair is merely having one of his misplaced gallant urges, the feeling that he somehow needs to protect me. Well, I have been doing rather nicely without him for a good many years. I think I can decide what chances I should take.”

“Except that you would not be the only one taking the risk.” This gentle reminder and the grave look that accompanied it brought a flush to Belle’s cheeks.

“You are right. Forgive me, Baptiste. I did not think. Indeed, I would not blame you for wanting no more to do with this scheme.”

“It was not myself so much I speak for as the others.” Baptiste shrugged. “What have I left to lose—my life? I have never been much afraid to die as long as I can be laid to rest here in my Paris. I am no longer such a young man.”

He became suddenly pensive. “As the oldest in my family, I always imagined I would be the first to go, my bier borne aloft on the shoulders of my strong brothers with love and all honor. I never thought that I should be the one to survive.”

The light that shone from those ageless brown eyes dimmed as he continued to muse, “Artur, he died by the guillotine for being too free with his opinions, Francois, murdered, his only sin deciding to be a priest instead of a fan maker, Odeon fell before the cannonfire with the army in the Alps, and Gervaise perished of the fever on General Bonaparte’s glorious Egyptian campaign. ”

He groped for his handkerchief and dabbed unashamedly at his eyes. “All I want now is peace.”

Belle reached out to cover his hand with her own. “And you shall have it, my friend, perhaps if Sinclair and I did go away now and leave Bonaparte alone. I cannot help but notice some of the sense of order, of well-being the man has brought back to Paris.”

“That he has. The schools and churches are open again. We have a new code of laws. But peace?” Baptiste shook his head.

“This Bonaparte, he is to France like the false spring of this day, a warm flooding of light you know cannot last for long. You saw him with his army today. He is not a man to be content with just playing soldier. Napoleon Bonaparte may bring France many gifts, but peace will never be one of them.”

Brushing the last of the moisture from his eyes, Baptiste blew his nose loudly. “ Non , I am still with you, mon ange . Perhaps we must surrender our plans for now. But there will come another day.”

Shoving back his chair, he said, “For now, I have been away from my fans for too long.”

Belle tried to protest, “For shame. And to think you were scolding me earlier for wanting to work upon such a fine day.”