Rendezvous (9781301288946) Read Free

doing little to hide
the fact he felt just as frightened, just as lost as his mother and
sister.
    Damn Laurent Coterin to hell, Belle
thought. Although she and the late chevalier had both worked for
the same network of royalist agents, Coterin had been an amateur, a
hopelessly incompetent spy. He had been arrested on suspicion of
intercepting Napoleon's dispatches, and easily convicted because
Laurent had put his notes in the old Julius Caesar code, a cipher
so simple a child could break it. The chevalier had crowned his
folly by getting himself shot in a botched escape attempt from
prison. But in Belle's eyes Coterin's most unpardonable sin had
been implicating his innocent family in his activities, while never
making any provision for their safety in the event of his being
discovered.
    "Is the sun in your eyes,
mademoiselle?"
    Belle was startled out of her
reflections by Phillipe's voice. "I beg your pardon?"
    "You scowled so just a moment ago. I
thought the sun might be bothering you. I could draw the shades if
you wish."
    "By all means. If you want to announce
to the world we have something to hide."
    "Oh. Of course not." The young man gave
her a rueful smile. "How clever you are, mademoiselle, to think of
such small details."
    It was one of the reasons she was still
alive, Belle thought. But she merely returned Phillipe's smile and
lapsed into silence. Despite the rough sway of the carriage, Madame
Coterin and her daughter managed to drift into a sleep borne of
exhaustion.
    Their journey, which had begun when
Belle had met them with the coach in the Rouvray Forest outside of
Paris three days ago, had been an arduous one, though not as
eventful as Belle had anticipated. They had only been stopped once
and that by Sergeant Lefranc. But the apprehension of being
overtaken had been in itself nerve-racking, that and the additional
distress caused by one of the carriage poles snapping outside of
Rouen. But soon, Belle prayed, very soon she would bring this
mission to a successful conclusion.
    Unable to relax, Belle stared out the
window at the gentle monotony of the Norman country-side, the flat
meadows dotted with cows, here and there the gray stone of a
farmhouse or an apple orchard, the trees laden with ripening fruit.
No grand, breathtaking vista, and yet the scene was somehow more
satisfying with its aura of peace, of normalcy. She watched the sun
setting behind a wheat field recently harvested. As the fiery orb
bathed the sky in a glow of rose and gold, a rare sense of
tranquility stole over Belle.
    She would have liked to have clung to
the feeling, but was disturbed all too soon. The leather seat
creaked as Phillipe shifted and cleared his throat. Reluctantly she
dragged her gaze from the window and realized the young man was
staring at her, likely had been doing so for some time.
    The last rays of the sun caught the
shine of his beardless face, the brightness of his eyes. Was he
regarding her perhaps a shade too tenderly? Belle had caught such
an expression on his face more than once, but she kept hoping that
she only imagined what it portended.
    When she caught him staring, the boy
averted his eyes. He coughed again. "I was wondering,
mademoiselle-“
    "Yes?" Belle's tone was not
encouraging.
    "Well . . ." Phillipe swallowed. "I was
wondering. How did a lady like you became involved in this
dangerous work? Indeed, I envy you. Such an exciting life you must
lead."
    "Too exciting sometimes," Belle said,
eager to evade any questions about her past.
    "Your friend Baptiste in Paris says you
are the best royalist agent working in France today. He said that
during the Terror, you helped so many aristocrats hide and escape,
it is no longer safe for you to enter the city."
    Belle made no comment, but she tensed.
She had indeed once come close to losing her life in Paris. If she
closed her eyes, she could easily conjure up chilling images of her
confinement in the Conciergerie, the walls of that dread prison
enfolding her like a