Page 97 of The Avenging Angel and the Spy
The comte stood immobile, staring off into the lights, seeming oblivious to the storm erupting around him.
“Who was the fellow shooting at?” someone demanded.
Lazare’s voice unmistakably shouted out. “Look in the box. It’s Bonaparte. That actor plotted to kill Bonaparte.”
Astonishment rippled through the crowd, swelling to outrage. As Sinclair drew nearer, there was no way Belle could make her voice heard above the crowd. She only hoped that somehow Sinclair would understand her silent plea for him to help Jean-Claude.
Sinclair pulled up short; the understanding that had ever existed between them did not fail her. When the first man made an effort to lay hands upon the comte, Sinclair felled the one howling for vengeance with his fist.
Before any more of the audience could gain the stage, Sinclair yanked at Jean-Claude, thrusting the dazed man through one of the trapdoors in the floor of the stage and disappearing after him.
Belle judged that she could not linger herself to see more. Bonaparte appeared calm, watching the proceedings withalmost an air of detachment. She backed toward the door of the box, preparing to bolt.
At that moment, the door was flung open. By her prearranged cue, two guards appeared, one of them saying, “Citoyen Consul. We were alerted you were in the theater. A riot has begun. We have come to escort you to safety.”
But one glance at the men’s faces was enough to tell Belle that these were indeed the real guards and not Crecy’s agents. Still, she prepared to bluff it out.
“There has been as assassination attempt,” she said. “You must get the first consul away at once.”
But when she tried to move past the guards to the freedom of the corridor beyond, she heard Bonaparte say in a level voice, “Detain that woman.”
Glancing back at him she feigned a look of surprise. “I fear I don’t understand.”
“You understand perfectly well, Isabelle Varens,” he said coldly. “You are under arrest.”
Eighteen
The heavy wooden door closed upon Belle, finality in the dull slam. Beyond the iron grill of the door’s narrow window, the turnkey disappeared with his torch, leaving her in darkness, that ageless darkness that had ever been so much a part of the Conciergerie. Behind the thick stonework no light penetrated, no sound of life carried from the nearby quay, not even the rush of the Seine. The proximity of the river caused the prison walls to drip with moisture, as though weeping with the tears of countless other unfortunates who had inhabited the cell before her.
Belle wrapped her arms tightly about herself, trying to still the lashings of panic as she found herself thrust back into the prison that had haunted so many of her dreams. Only this time her eyes were wide open and the darkness would not lift. This time the dawn would not find her, To have escaped this stronghold once had been a miracle. To beg such a favor a second time was more than the fates would allow.
The silence of her cell pressed down upon her until she fancied she could hear the echoes of the past, all those who had gone from here to meet their deaths. The queen Marie Antoinette, the bloody tyrant Robespierre himself, and a hostof others, the innocent, the not so innocent. Impossible that so many tormented souls could pass through this place and not leave some whisperings of their existence behind. The thought sent a chill coursing through her.
She bit down upon her fist to stem her terror. To give way to it would be to allow Lazare to triumph. This is what Lazare had planned for her all along, this descent down into the world of her nightmares. She knew not where Lazare was, in hell, she hoped. But she would never accord him the satisfaction of finding that he had broken Isabelle Varens.
Belle groped her way across the brick floor until she located the cell’s wooden bench. She sank upon up it, closing her eyes. The darkness was just the same, but at least it was of her choosing.
She would force herself to be calm, to think of anything but this dread place which had once been the very heart of the Revolution’s terror. She concentrated instead upon her rage against Lazare and all his twisted schemes.
How clearly she now understood what he had been trying to do, but the plan struck her as incredible. To prey upon Jean-Claude, persuade him to assassinate Bonaparte, while Lazare waited calmly for Belle, in her ignorance, to make all the arrangements which would enable Lazare to carry out his bizarre plot. With Bonaparte collapsing dead at her feet, she would have had to flee, but how could she have left Jean-Claude? They both would have been arrested. As in her nightmares, she would have had to watch him die.
A madman’s fantasy and yet Lazare had nearly pulled it off. He had been thwarted by two things—that core of nobility in Jean-Claude’s nature which rendered him incapable of murder. And the other obstacle: Sinclair. Belle experienced a rush of gratitude when she thought of his timely arrival at the theater.
Somehow she was certain Sinclair had gotten Jean-Claude safely away. Surely Baptiste also had no difficulty slipping out of the theater amidst the chaos. These beliefs afforded her some measure of comfort, her only comfort.
She prayed that they would realize there was no way to help her and would try nothing foolish. She must count on Sinclair. He was ever a practical man. No matter what he felt for her, he would recognize that any rescue attempt was hopeless.
Such thoughts only tugged at the despair she fought to keep at bay. She clung to her anger, cursing Lazare, but even more so Merchant. Lazare, at least, bore the excuse of being half-mad, but Victor had betrayed her, plotting the assassination with Lazare behind her back, ordering her removal and Sinclair’s cold-blooded fashion. When she returned to England?—
A harsh laugh escaped her. When she returned to England, she mocked herself. She could not be deluded on that score. Bonaparte had known her name. Somehow he had discovered who she was. Part of Lazare’s plot had succeeded. She would be the one held responsible for planning the assassination attempt. She could expect no mercy.
Shivering, she stretched out on the bench. The bell mounted between the arches many floors above her rang seldom these days to announce that the tumbril was ready. But she did not doubt but that the peal would sound again soon. Exhaustion crept over her, threatening to steal away her strength and her courage. Sweet heaven, she dared not sleep.
Not here. If any place in Paris had ever been formed to entertain nightmares, it was the Conciergerie. She whispered the name of the one man who had been able to hold those hideous dreams at bay. “Sinclair.”
Her need of him no longer frightened her, no longer shamed her. She sought his image in the darkness, the memory of hisvoice, his eyes, his caress, his arms embracing her, the fire of his kiss driving out the cold.
Only by holding fast to the recollection of every tender moment they had shared could she at last permit herself to relax, drifting into a deep dreamless sleep.
