Page 106 of The Avenging Angel and the Spy
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 tensed form. Jean-Claude stepped in front of her. “Machére, 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.
Twenty
Belle remained calm in the hours following Baptiste’s death. Too calm, Sinclair feared. Crecy’s men arrived, and she had her friend wrapped in a cloak and laid inside the carriage, while making arrangements to have him transported back to the city he had so loved for his burial.
Lazare appeared all but forgotten, his cursing and sobbing finally ceased. One of Crecy’s servants inquired what Belle wanted done with the miscreant. She spared Lazare only a cursory glance, saying, “See him delivered to the gates of the Tuileries, with a note—A gift for the first consul, Napoleon Bonaparte. Receive one Etienne Lazare, the man who sought your life. With the compliments of the Avenging Angel.”
She never seemed to hear the way Lazare damned her to hell or his continued blustering threats of vengeance as she mounted her horse and rode away.
Sinclair had feared that Belle might have insisted on risking the return, to escort Baptiste to the city herself. But she remained content to linger amongst the straggling trees on the fringe of the Rouvray Forest, watching Crecy’s men drive the coach to the distant gates of the city.
If Belle had desired to go back into Paris, Sinclair would have found her a way. But when he asked her, she only said, “No, it is not necessary. Crecy will know what to do. Baptiste and I have ever said our farewells here at the edge of the forest.”
Shading his eyes, Sinclair could just see the coach joining the procession of other carts awaiting admittance to the gates as dawn broke over Paris, tinting the city with hues of rose and gold. Then he, Belle, and Jean-Claude whipped their horses about, heading for the road that would take them to the coast.
Belle waxed silent most of the journey, lost in thought, her eyes dulled with sadness. She withdrew from Varens as much as from himself, Sinclair noted. It would have given him pain to see her turning to Jean-Claude, but Sinclair would have felt relieved to see Belle seek comfort of somebody, rather than retreat behind a wall of grief.
They caught the packet boat on the eve of the following day. Sinclair expected Belle to retire to the cabin, fighting off her customary bout of seasickness. Yet she did not seem to notice the white-capped waves as the boat rocked along the surface of the channel.
