A Desperate Fortune (21 page)

Which meant that later on that evening, I began to worry for her when I reached the entry that began:

We find ourselves again in danger…

Let them move along the heath, bright as the sun-shine before a storm…

—Macpherson, “Fingal,” Book One

En route to Saulieu, in Le Morvan

February 17, 1732

The diligence was crowded. There had only been the seven of them yesterday, when they’d departed Fontainebleau at first light and so entered into Burgundy, to dine within the ancient walls of Sens and carry on along a mostly level road that kept within a valley and crossed rivers on the way to the old city of Auxerre. There they had stopped the night, and Madame Roy, revived a little by their easy day of travel, had slept soundly and been well enough to come to early Mass at the Cathedral of Saint-Étienne while they’d waited for the horses to be harnessed to the diligence. They had been joined this morning at Auxerre by three men who had journeyed down from Paris by the
coche
d’eau
, or “water coach,” that traveled by the river Seine.

The new additions to their number made a motley trio: one a merchant with a most impressive wig and fine lace cuffs and an unfortunate dependency on snuff that made him sneeze at frequent intervals. He brought with him a servant who, poor fellow, was consigned to ride outside within the partly sheltered box that hung upon the front end of the coach, protected somewhat from the wind but still at the full mercy of the snow that swirled around them as the coachman strapped himself into his jackboots on the rearmost nearside horse, took the long whip and all the reins into his hands, and started out just as the sun came up, at seven.

The third man was an Englishman, quite young and lean of limb and featured rather like a ferret. Mary thought he grew more ferret-like, in fact, the more he spoke. He knew no French beyond “hello” and “please” and “thank you,” and those spoken in a rude indifferent accent, but discovering the merchant and the elder of the frilly sisters spoke some part of English he proceeded to regale them with his stories, little knowing that at least four other persons in the diligence were listening and understanding all.

He seemed to hold his English ways to be the best, comparing what he’d seen and done in France since his arrival some few months ago to what he held superior in London. Paris streets were, by his reckoning, too narrow and too dangerous and lacking in the footways he so prized in London streets. The city of Auxerre, where they’d just spent the night, was dirty and had nothing to commend it in his view, nor to remark upon, despite the fact that Mary in the short time she had spent there had admired the cathedral and a Benedictine monastery and a stately clock tower that showed the movements of the sun and moon.

The merchant for a time chose to debate him in his views, until they fixed upon a shared dislike of Spanish foreign policy, which then occupied them for some time.

The elder sister, during this discussion, sent several apprehensive glances at the Scotsman, sitting as he’d sat the day before, in stoic silence, before finally she felt moved to tell the other men, “Señor Montero is from Spain.”

The Englishman broke off and asked, “Is he indeed?” He looked with newfound interest at MacPherson. “Well then, sir, not meaning to offend, I’m sure. Your country and my own have long been foes, but we need not be.” And he held his hand outstretched.

MacPherson’s cold gaze slanted down to view that hand a moment before lifting to regard the Englishman impassively, but otherwise he did not move.

The elder sister coughed into the briefly awkward silence and explained, “Señor Montero speaks no English.”

“Does he not?” The Englishman withdrew his hand, but in a sharpish movement that alarmed Frisque, so the little dog laid back his ears and gave a warning growl, a thing that Mary had not ever seen him do before.

She soothed him with a brief word and a rumple of his ears, but she was inwardly quite pleased to know he did not like the Englishman. By dinnertime, she had decided she did not much like him, either.

It was obvious he’d set himself to charm the elder sister, but he did not do it honorably. Through the meal he touched her arm and bodice most improperly and made it seem by accident, and while they waited to reboard the diligence he moved to stand quite close to her as though to shield her from the weather, but his hand roved then as well and Mary saw him do it. For her part the elder sister, plainly flattered, was not trying to discourage him, but when they took their seats again the mother made both daughters sit with her beside Mr. MacPherson, reckoning the Spanish devil better than the English one.

Madame Roy, who’d been suffering again upon the very hilly roads they’d been traversing since Auxerre, looked none too pleased to see the Englishman sit beside Mary, but she could do no more than give Mary a faint warning glance before she turned her head again into the corner of the diligence and closed her eyes. An hour later, she had gone so pale that Mary felt compelled to take her hand and hold it reassuringly.

It seemed her fellow travelers, now warm and full from dinner and lulled by the constant rocking of the diligence and rumbling of its wheels, were all asleep. She’d been surprised to see the Scotsman, sitting just across from her, lean back and close his eyes as well, for he had seemed to her a force of nature that did not need things so commonplace as sleep. And yet he slept. His features stayed as unforgiving and his mouth as grim as when he was awake, his body resting yet not resting, with his fine hands curled to partly open fists upon his thighs.

She was so absorbed in studying him that she did not notice that the Englishman beside her was awake until he bent to open the small wooden foot stove at their feet to touch a twist of paper to the embers glowing in the metal pot within, so he could light his pipe.

Madame Roy stirred and moaned and Mary knew she could not let him smoke, or else the older woman would be made to feel yet sicker, but there was no one awake for her to call upon to serve as a translator. It was risky, Mary knew, to speak in English, but the needs of Madame Roy outweighed the need for caution in this instance, and she was accustomed to pretending to be that which she was not, so she affected a much thicker accent than was purely necessary, seeming to have but a little knowledge of the English language.

“Please,” she told him, “not to smoke.”

The Englishman, still bending forward, turned in some surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

“Not to smoke,” she tried again, and motioned to the corner. “Madame Roy is ill.”

“I see. All right, then.” Letting down the pierced lid of the foot stove, he sat upright and looked down at her with speculation in his eyes.

The Scotsman’s eyes had opened, too, and Mary felt his brief regard before his eyelids closed again and he appeared asleep.

The Englishman remarked, “I did not know you spoke my language.”

Mary shrugged. “I speak it but a little.”

“No, indeed you speak it well.” He wore the smile that sought to charm, although to her it had a predatory edge that left her cold.

He was perhaps five years her senior, still a young man yet he had acquired that air of subtle boredom that marked men of some experience. His likely had been gained through self-indulgence and debauchery, she thought, since he had none of the appearance of a man of wealth or industry. He wore the proper sort of clothes, the proper shoes, the proper wig, and yet they did not sit upon him well. Nor did his smile: it failed to touch his eyes, which always seemed to try to see a step ahead of where he was, and so stayed ever watchful, almost sly.

The diligence lurched suddenly. The Englishman put one hand on her leg, as if by accident, then drew it quickly back again as Frisque began to growl.

“That’s quite a watchdog you have there, mademoiselle.”

She stroked Frisque’s head to quiet him. “I do not know this word.”

“A dog who guards you.”

“Ah. Yes, he is good.”

“I have a dog at home in London,” said the man, “that would I fear eat this small one for breakfast.”

Mary forced a smile and said, “I do not understand,” because she did not want to talk to him.

Their conversation had awoken the French merchant who sat on the Englishman’s far side, and he now stirred and yawned and said in English, “I am much surprised, monsieur, that you do not go back to London, since you find so little here to please you.”

That remark, made drily and in jest, produced a broad smile from the Englishman, who looking Mary up and down deliberately, said, “There are
some
things in France that please me.” Turning in his seat to face the merchant, he went on, “Besides, I cannot leave your country yet, while I stand set to make my fortune.”

That did rouse the merchant’s interest. “How is that?”

“I seek a fugitive.” He slipped his unsmoked pipe into the pocket of his coat. “A man my Parliament would gladly hang, if they could get their hands on him, and for whose capture they have offered a reward that I intend to claim.”

“And he is here in France, this fugitive?”

“He is. His name is Thomson,” said the Englishman. “John Thomson.”

Mary’s feet were by the foot stove yet she felt a sudden rush of cold that settled in her marrow, and her hand upon the dog’s soft head fell still.

The Scotsman kept his eyes closed but she noticed his right hand had moved a little up his thigh so it was covered by a loose fold of his horseman’s coat. Her own hand had grown tighter in its grip on Madame Roy’s, until the older woman squeezed her hand by way of reassurance. Mary breathed, and tried to go on breathing normally.

“He’s been in France,” the Englishman went on, still speaking to the merchant, “since October last past, when he fled from London with a fortune of his own—five hundred thousand pounds, they reckon, robbed from the investors of the Charitable Corporation, some of whom were driven since to bankruptcy and suicide.”

The merchant clucked his tongue. “For shame.”

“Indeed. Though I admit I cannot curse him altogether, for his crime provides me with the means to line my pockets, as you see.”

“And do you know where he is now?”

“He
was
in Paris,” said the Englishman. “I had a friend there by the name of Erskine who was sure he knew the place. Well then, come in with me, says I to Erskine, and we can divide the profits, but the fool did tell me no, he’d put his trust in the police, whom he had plans to bribe. Good luck, says I, for I have contacts of my own who tell me Thomson has left Paris and has headed south. And I am on his trail.” He settled back against his seat with satisfaction, and remarked, “It is no different, really, than a common hunt, and I have hunted nearly every quarry you can name.”

“Ah, yes?” The merchant showed a quickened interest that revealed they’d hit upon another thing in common. “What do you most like to hunt, monsieur? The fox? The bear?”

“The boar, I think, does make a worthy adversary.”

For nearly half an hour after that the two men traded stories of their hunting prowess, while the others slumbered on or seemed to, leaving Mary sadly isolated in her disappointment at discovering that Thomson was no better than a criminal.

She looked at him with different eyes, as though the light by which she viewed him had been changed forever and she could see nothing but the parts that lay in shadow. Frisque sensed her change of mood and licked her hand but she was not to be consoled. She’d had too many disappointments lately, Mary thought. Too many people who had played her false and let her down.

She felt the prick of foolish tears and let her own eyes close to hold them back so nobody would see them fall…but even as her lashes drifted shut she saw the Scotsman’s eyes had opened once again, and he was watching her.

* * *

At supper at Saulieu they heard the howling of the wolves from deep within the forests of the Morvan, and their landlord told them how in wintertime, as it was now, the starved wolves sometimes ventured from their lairs to lie in wait for passing travelers. When Frisque demanded Mary take him outside after supper, she kept close beside the door and kept her eyes turned to the forest that lay dark beyond the city walls, where still the wolves howled eerily. The moon was entering its final quarter and the stars were half-obscured by clouds that moved by stealth and seemed to drive the wind before them, for it stung at Mary’s frozen cheeks and burned her eyes.

She smelled the pipe smoke first. She stiffened, for she did not wish to see Mr. MacPherson, nor yet any of the people who had brought her into such a business. Loyalty to king and country she could understand, although the king and country she was being asked to bear allegiance to were ones she scarce could call her own. Yet theft was theft, and there could be no honor in the robbing of the innocent, no matter how well cloaked it was in patriotic purpose. She had cast her lot with criminals, and Thomson had this morning stood at Mass beside her and received the Host and he had done it as though his soul was pure white as the snow that Frisque was turning round and round upon this moment. It was, Mary thought, a hard thing to forgive.

She had kept silent for the most part since they’d stopped here, and declined an invitation by the elder of the daughters to repeat their play at cards, and over supper she had spoken only when directly spoken to, and risen when it was polite to do so and retreated to her room, and would have been there still had not Frisque now demanded to come out.

The pipe smoke swirled its scent again from somewhere close behind her, and she braced herself and turned prepared to face Mr. MacPherson. But it wasn’t him at all.

It was the Englishman.

His name was Stevens. Mary wondered what he would have thought to know the fugitive he hunted had been sitting to his right hand all through supper, and had passed him salt and bread.

He said, “You’re brave to come outside, mademoiselle, after the tales we heard at supper.”

Mary drew the warm hood of her cloak about her face and lied to him. “I do not understand.” Perhaps, she thought, if she repeated that enough he’d let her be.

“The wolves.” He came another step until he stood beside her, looking out where she was looking. “I have hunted wolf before. It is a most diverting sport, yet dangerous.”