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.”