Page 69 of The Avenging Angel and the Spy
“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 theothers being vacant. The only others present were two elderly gentlemen playing atjeu des baguesat 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. “Quellecatastrophe! 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.”
