She had never seen a diligence. Her uncle, who had journeyed in one, had described it as appearing very like a coach, but being longer and in all dimensions larger, and the vehicle before them now was definitely that. It looked, by torchlight in the darkness of the early morning, very large. The huge heavy wheels at the rear were her own height, and even the smaller and more nimble front wheels were sturdily built. Besides the central closed compartment, which looked fully long enough to carry several passengers, there was another partly open box set at the front, protected by a leather curtain, and on top was seating for a handful more, though given the extremes of weather those who traveled outside would have had to be of hardy constitution. At the back end of the diligence a great curved covered basket held the luggage of the passengers, and at the front stood seven horses waiting with impatience in their harness, the postilion’s large black jackboots strapped in place upon the nearside mare who flicked her tail and twitched an ear to Mary as though waiting for the order to be off.
Thomson, beside her, adjusted his hold on the deal-box he’d carried the whole way across from the rooms they had waited the day in. Much like the portmanteaus, it had appeared from the back room with no explanation, though Thomson had instantly taken control of it and ever since had been loath to let go of its handles. It wasn’t a large box—her uncle had used one quite like it to hold all his papers—but Thomson had guarded it closely enough Mary guessed it contained something he deemed of value.
She watched as the Scotsman returned with his sure, easy stride in the company of a much shorter and older man who helped consign both the portmanteaus into the basket. She noticed, though, Mr. MacPherson chose not to relinquish control of the third leather cylinder strapped to his back, nor his swords, but conveyed them himself to the netting assigned for that purpose. Then turning, he motioned the others to come.
Mary looked at the diligence, and at the horses, and felt a small stab of misgiving. MacPherson’s three-cornered hat blocked out the glare of the torchlight and cast a black shadow that hid his eyes, but she was no less aware of his steady regard as she turned to face Thomson and covered her worries with petulance.
“Is it permitted,” she said in a tight voice, “to ask where you’re taking me?”
“Certainly,” he said, remembering this time to answer her as she had spoken, in French. “We are bound for Lyon.”
Lyon. Mary’s heart dipped. It was such a long way to travel, so far from the dream of her bright life in Paris, the dream that beckoned to her all these years from the hazy horizon.
And yet…it was thinking about that horizon that helped her to muster some courage. The mare stamped hard upon the cobbles, breathing steam into the frosty early morning air, and Mary lifted a hand to the hood of her fur-lined cloak, gathering it closely round her face to hide her features.
Mistress Jamieson, she told herself, would not have felt afraid. She would have welcomed the adventure, turned her face towards the wider sky and never looked behind.
So Mary tried to do the same. She took the gallant hand that Thomson offered her and stepped as lightly as she could into the waiting diligence and took her seat with perfect nonchalance. She tried to keep her gaze fixed forward, only forward, taking on the poise of Mistress Jamieson as though it were another cloak that made her fears invisible.
But as the massive public coach began to lurch and roll along the cobbles, Mary couldn’t help herself. She turned her head, against all her intentions, and looked back. The lights of Paris seemed already to have dimmed and lost their promise. And the wider sky ahead of them looked very dark indeed.
Chapter 18
The incandescent blue of twilight had already started its descent, and all along the row of little Christmas Village chalets on the Champs-Élysées strings of beautiful white lights were coming on, as though they wanted to illuminate our way. The slight curve of my visor turned those little lights to stars, and their reflections swiftly chased across the sleek black surface of Luc’s helmet as he briefly glanced to see the way was clear before he changed lanes. Holding tight to him, I tried to look where he was looking, at the Arc de Triomphe rising brightly in its floodlights just ahead of us, but my eyes kept returning to those fairy lights that draped the white chalets. I couldn’t help it.
There was something in their beauty and the rhythm of their passing that was making me feel warm inside, and happy—though the happiness, I knew, had been a steady growing thing inside me all the afternoon. I knew the source of it. I’d felt this way before, although I hadn’t felt it with such strength in years, this feeling of attraction and anticipation; liking someone. There had been a time, before I’d learned how to contain it and control it, when this feeling would have frightened me because I would have feared that it would end, and I’d be hurt. But now, the certain knowledge all relationships would end, and I could choose the time to end them, left me free to just enjoy the rich sensations that I felt when one began.
At the moment, here with Luc, with the Ducati roaring underneath us and the cold air rushing past and all the little lights like stars around us, it felt very much like flying.
It was really, I assured myself, the perfect situation. I would only be in Chatou for another month at most, and then my work with Mary’s diary would be done and I’d be gone, which made a neat and perfect end date for a romance, if I did choose to indulge in one. Apart from which, Luc seemed to understand the time I needed for my work, and with his son and his ex-wife already here to keep him company, he didn’t seem to be the kind of man who’d place demands on me, or try to hold me back when it was time for me to leave. He’d likely only shrug and smile and say “OK,” the way he did to everything.