Notwithstanding that, she could not write in cipher, for her aunt and uncle would not know the key to it. She could but choose her words with purpose, hoping they would look between the cheerful lines and see the desperation that had driven her to write them.
I pray you do not tell my brother, she included, taking the contrite tone of a child who had been warned against a course of action and who’d acted anyway and viewed that rash decision with regret; although her aunt and uncle would of course know that was not the truth of what had happened—for he will be justly disappointed.
She kept her obligation to her brother and Sir Redmond and did not give any details of her traveling companions; did not even tell their number. All she wrote was:
I am told that at Lyon we will be finished with our journey, and I will be most content to stay and wait for your arrival.
But wait where? she wondered. Lyon was a large place, and although the merchant, having been there many times before, had obliged her by describing several of the major sights he thought she should not miss, she still had no idea where she would be lodged, or what the nearest church might be where she could seek to make confession to a priest and beg protection.
For a moment Mary hesitated, sifting in her memory through the places that the merchant had described, and then she dipped her quill in ink again and carried on:
I understand there is a great cathedral at Lyon, named for Saint John the Baptist. I intend to make my way there and petition for assistance from the priests, who will, I trust, be able to direct you where I may be found.
There, she thought. That should suffice. Her page was nearly full now, and she closed her letter simply.
You will find me greatly changed and none the better for my travels, I do fear, but not so changed that I am yet prevented from remaining your most faithful and sincerely loving niece,
She signed her name and tore the page with great care from her journal. Then she folded it and sealed it and addressed it and secreted it between the pages of her journal while she finished her long entry for that day and evening.
There the letter stayed all through the night, till the next morning when she rose a little earlier than was her custom, and with the excuse of taking Frisque out for his necessary business, went downstairs alone.
She had observed the mother and her daughters wakened early, and this morning Mary was in hopes of finding some brief chance of speaking to the younger daughter and of asking her in private, as a favor, if she’d carry Mary’s letter with her own and post it when they reached Lyon.
There’d be small opportunity for Mary, once they’d reached that place, to post a letter—she was not even certain she would have the chance to seize this one small moment on her own this morning—but the younger sister had a most romantic nature, and if she believed that she was helping Mary keep a secret correspondence with the mythical Chevalier de Vilbray, she might agree to take the letter.
Mary had her story all arranged: how the chevalier had declared his love, and begged that she should write to him, and told her to address her letters to another name so their affair could be kept private, and had warned her to on no account expose them to her “brother,” lest he disapprove. She’d made the story pretty in her mind with several flourishes, but in the end she did not get to tell it after all, because the younger daughter was already occupied.
“Good morning,” was the greeting that she brightly gave to Mary. She was sitting at a table in the little public salon of the coaching inn, a pewter cup of chocolate set before her with a plate of toasted bread, both pushed aside to make room for a dainty silver watch that lay in several pieces on the weathered wooden tabletop. The largest piece, to Mary’s great surprise, was firmly held within the strong efficient fingers of the Scotsman. Sitting in the chair beside the youngest of the daughters, with her mother and her sister looking on from their position on the sofa by the hearth, he was calmly and methodically assembling the pieces of the watch with the assistance of a small-edged knife, and aided by the light of a tall candle.
He did not rise, as would a gentleman, when Mary took a step into the room, although the women from their seats paid her the customary honors with their gracious nods and greetings.
“You were quite right,” the younger daughter said. “Señor Montero is not fierce at all. He’s very kind. The pin of Maman’s equipage broke on the stairs this morning and her watch was dropped, and truly she was desolate, but as you see he’s offered to restore it.”
Mary did not wear an equipage—that partly useful, partly ornamental bit of jewelry for the waist, with chains that held a whole array of trinkets: little jars of smelling salts, and sewing scissors, and, as often was the case, a watch. This one seemed far too tiny for MacPherson’s fingers, but he deftly set the pieces back in place and with a final turning of his knife, clicked shut the glass and gave the watch a final wind and fastened both the key and watch again onto their chains and passed them to the younger daughter, who replied in Spanish with what sounded like effusive thanks and in her turn presented the repaired equipage to her mother, saying, “There, you see? It is as Mademoiselle Robillard assured us: señor Montero is a man of many talents.”
“Indeed he is,” her mother granted, in a tone that was not ready to forgive him all, “though he does keep those talents hidden well behind that most unpleasant face of his.”
“Maman!” The younger daughter shot a glance towards MacPherson but he’d missed their whole exchange and was now sitting back and stretching out his shoulders slightly as though sitting working on the watch had left them stiff. The knife, Mary noticed, had already disappeared. To where, she knew not; although she was starting to think if he turned out his pockets they’d be full of nothing but blades, some more deadly than others.