Page 104 of The Avenging Angel and the Spy
Their eyes met, fired with the steel of a shared determination to settle accounts with the treacherous nobleman, their thoughts as ever marching the same. Sinclair smiled and Belle felt some of the ice begin to melt between them.
“And after that, Angel—” he began softly.
“Isabelle.” An anxious voice called out from the interior of the carriage. With a sinking heart, Belle realized that Jean-Claude must have awakened to find her gone.
She tried to ignore the call for the moment. Blowing on her hands, she waited for Sinclair to continue.
But he had already stiffened, saying, “You had best go back to the carriage, Belle. You are getting cold.”
She started to protest, but Sinclair strode back to help Baptiste with the restless horses. Belle had little choice but to return to the coach.
Sinclair was aware of Baptiste’s shrewd stare as he rejoined the little Frenchman. “I can manage the horses,” Baptiste said. “Perhaps you ought to warm yourself awhile inside the coach.”
“It is a little too cramped in there to suit me,” Sinclair replied tersely.
Baptiste looked at him and shook his head. “Young imbecile. You should not be leaving Belle alone so much with Monsieur le Comte.”
“I don’t see that as my concern.” Sinclair compressed his lips, hoping Baptiste would take the hint that he did not wish to discuss the situation. But Baptiste never took hints.
“You must not take this attitude,mon ami,” he scolded. “A rival, even a paltry one, but adds spice to the romance. What sort of love is this you bear my Isabelle if it is not worth the fighting for?”
“Isabelle is not a bone. I don’t propose to snarl over her like a dog. The lady is free to make her own choice.”
“Bah, you English.” Baptiste snorted with disgust. “What cold fish you are!”
Stamping about to keep warm, the little man reminded Sinclair of some sort of surly gnome who had strayed too far from his forest lair. Sinclair was sorry to quarrel with the old man, but at least his annoyance caused Baptiste to drop a subject Sinclair found increasingly more painful.
Within the confines of the coach, Belle huddled beneath a fur lap robe, restlessly drumming her fingers against the window. She wished that Crecy’s men would come, so that they could be on their way. Even more so, she wished Jean-Claude had remained asleep. The wait was making him nervous, though he strove to hide it. The comte was not formed for this sort of intrigue.
“I never thought to say it,” he admitted ruefully, “but I shall be glad to be back in England. I have missed Jean-Jacques.”
When she made no comment, he added, “It should be a relief to you as well, to at least reach the warmth of an inn and be able to change into one of your frocks.”
From the first, Jean-Claude had not appeared comfortable with her in her masculine garb. Some streak of perversity in her made her say, “I rather like being in breeches. It gives one a great deal of freedom, which I believe you men don’t quiteappreciate. You should try struggling along beneath a pair of skirts sometime.”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Belle had to choke back a laugh, imagining what sort of ribald riposte she would have elicited from Sinclair. Jean-Claude merely looked shocked. She had forgotten how much she had always had to mind her tongue in his presence. After so many years she feared it was too late to get back in the habit again.
“You never told me how you came to be connected with this band of intriguers,” he said.
“It is a long, tiresome story.” One that she had no desire to relate to Jean-Claude.
Reaching across to her, he squeezed her hand. “You have been leading a life all these years the horrors of which I cannot begin to comprehend. It is all my fault. I abandoned you. I?—”
“Please, Jean-Claude,” she cut him short. “Let us make an end to all this harboring of guilt and blame on both our parts. Nothing was forced upon me. I lived my life as I chose to do so.”
She faltered over her own words, a little stunned herself as to what she was saying. Yes, it was true, she realized with a jolt. Jean-Claude had left her a tidy sum of money. She could have returned to England, sought out a more respectable sort of existence then, if it had ever been what she truly wanted.
Jean-Claude raised her hand to his lips. “I ask no questions about your past, Isabelle. I have learned something from this fiasco. It is only the future that matters. I can no longer offer you a grand estate, but I do possess a most comfortable manor house. And who can say? One day I may still return to Egremont. I have not given up hope.”
He seized both of her hands in a quiet, firm clasp. “I want you to come back to me, be my wife again, the mother to my son.”
Belle studied his earnest face in the moonlight filtering past the window, those solemn features she had so long held dear. Heoffered her everything that she thought she had ever wanted, the security of a home, his love, even his child, the last being perhaps the most precious gift of all.
Yet she felt herself drawing away from him, even though she knew this gray-eyed man would ever hold some small corner of her heart, the place where memories were kept, bittersweet like faded roses pressed between the leaves of a book. His image already wavered before her eyes, replaced by another, a midnight-haired rogue with a warm smile, green eyes vivid with love, laughter, life. Set beside Sinclair, Jean-Claude paled, becoming naught but a gentle ghost from her past.
She disengaged her hands, letting him down as easily as she could. “I thank you for your offer, Jean-Claude. You cannot know how happy it makes me to know you have forgiven me at last. But we both know that I cannot possibly accept.”
A soft cry of protest escaped him, but she continued. “You will realize this yourself if you search your heart. We were always ill-suited. Perhaps we might have remained happy if the Revolution had not disrupted our lives. But it did. We cannot pretend otherwise. It is useless to say that the intervening years do not matter, for we know that is not true.”
