Page 76 of The Avenging Angel and the Spy
The playbill plastered over there on the wall of the quay was a prime example. The Dutiful Wife—likely an overdone drama about a virtuous and doubtless patriotic French lady wrongly suspected by her husband. After he ends by killing her, he would discover the truth and be so remorseful. And the playbill promised the lead role would be enacted by none other than the renowned Monsieur Georges Carribout.
And, God help the theater owner, Belle thought with scorn, if for any reason the said Monsieur Georges failed to appear. Sheknew these emotionally charged Frenchmen. Their fury that day at the Bastille would be as nothing if denied their favorite actor. Likely there would be a riot and the theater would be thrown into a state of utter confusion?—
Belle broke off, catching her breath. A state of utter confusion. The words triggered something in her mind, an idea, a daring idea that seemed to burst inside her head like the shattering of a skyrocket.
Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t notice Sinclair coming up behind her until he touched her lightly on the shoulder. With a startled gasp, she spun around.
“Belle?” He frowned, staring down at her. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.” He peered at her more closely. “Are you all right?”
Well might he ask that. Belle knew that she was trembling, but with excitement.
“Yes, I am,” she breathed. “You see, I know how we can abduct Bonaparte.”
Beyond the gauzycurtain of Belle’s bedchamber window, the sun set over Paris, stippling the sky with rose, mauve, and gold, the colors bleeding together like an artist’s canvas left in the rain.
Yet as he stood moodily near the window, Sinclair remained impervious to the sun’s glorious display, only aware of the shadows lengthening between him and Belle.
She sat at her dressing table, rearranging the bottles of lotion, hair ornaments, and other toiletry articles as though she could find no pattern of order that suited her.
Both of them had lapsed into a discontented silence. They had been arguing for the better part of the afternoon over Belle’s newest plot for the abduction. Yet Sinclair sensed that it was not in truth Bonaparte who fueled this quarrel, but rather anothersolemn gentleman whose name each of them was reluctant to mention.
“Your plan will never work, Belle,” Sinclair muttered for about the tenth time.
“How can you be so all-fired certain?” She snatched up a brush from her dresser, venting her frustration upon the soft tangle of her curls. “It is no more risky than the old plan, and you appeared willing enough to go along with that.”
“That one had some chance of success. This one is pure madness.”
Belle slammed the brush down. She drew in a steadying breath before she spoke in a voice almost too taut with control. “I will present my plan to the others, see what they think, but I am sure they will agree with me. If you are still so strongly opposed after hearing what they have to say, why, then, you are free to go. I don’t need you.”
“I am fully aware of that,” Sinclair said in flat tones, yet still not able to disguise some of the pain her words dealt him.
She glanced around at him quickly, some of her anger appearing to dissolve. Heaving a deep sigh, she pushed herself away from the table. “I am sorry, Sinclair. I did not mean that.”
She crossed the room to his side. After a moment’s hesitation she placed her palms lightly against the flat of his chest. A smile crooked her lips. “It is only that you can be so damnably stubborn, Mr. Carrington.”
“So can you, Mrs. Carrington.” Although he half-returned her smile, he forced himself to remain unyielding beneath her touch. “I thought you had agreed to abandon this impossible task. I wish I knew what really happened to make you almost desperate to go through with it again.”
“I told you. I saw that playbill. It gave me the idea to?—”
“I wonder.” Sinclair regarded her through narrowed eyes. “Or did it have more to do with something he said to you today?”
He could feel the sudden tension in the soft hands that rested against his chest.
“I suppose,” he said bitterly, “you will tell me it is none of my concern what Varens wanted of you.”
Her hands fell away from him. She took a step back. “He wanted nothing. Only to apologize for his behavior at the reception—that is all.”
“Was it? I feared that perhaps the noble idiot finally realized what he had thrown away when he let you go.”
Her indignant glance should have stopped him, but he had gone through far too many agonies of jealousy and suspicion while waiting for Belle’s return. He feared if he did not release some of it, he would explode.
“Perhaps Varens is the reason for your sudden eagerness to make your plan work at all costs. You are no longer thinking of a little cottage in Dorsetshire, are you, Belle? Maybe it has occurred to you that with Bonaparte gone, Varens might get his estates back and you could be his countess again. And you expect me to risk my neck to help you.”
Her throat constricted. “I don’t expect anything from you—ever again.” Whipping away from him, she strode to the door that connected their bedchambers and yanked it open. “I think you had better go.”
“Right.” He marched toward the door, but when he reached the threshold, he hesitated. He glanced down at Belle, her face so pale, the set of her jaw so obdurate, yet the misery roiling in her eyes matched the turmoil he felt in his own soul.
Ever cool in his relations with women, he was not accustomed to these gnawing feelings of anger, the suspicion that he was behaving like an ass.
