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Thus it was that Jay and Lisette travelled in the coach without the benefit of a third person. Determined not to be contentious, they talked intermittently about safe subjects, like their childhood, their likes and dislikes, and when they ran out of things to say and ask, sat side by side in companionable silence.
The first sign that the journey would not be easy was their failure to find replacement horses. They were obliged to continue with the animals they had, which slowed them to a walking pace with frequent stops to rest. It gave the travellers the opportunity to observe the countryside. Everywhere was run down: plaster was falling off the buildings, window frames needed painting and often the glass was missing. The fields were overgrown and the cattle skinny. Most of the men they saw wore cut-off trousers, striped waistcoats and threadbare coats, earning them the name of sans culottes, and the women were in skirts and ragged shawls. Almost all wore the red caps of the Revolution. There were some more prosperous, who rode horses or travelled in carriages, whipping up their horses to pass the slow-moving coach, spattering it with mud.
Sam drove past several inns where they could have stopped for the night, saying they were hovels and he would find somewhere better. Jay, who would happily have stopped had he been alone, agreed to go on for Lisette’s sake. She had long since ceased to chatter and was asleep with her head lolling on his shoulder. She needed a bed, not a flea pit.
It was very late when Sam drew up in the yard of what had once been a substantial posting inn in Amiens and jumped down to open the door for them. ‘I’m afraid this will have to do,’ he said. ‘The horses are done for and we cannot keep going all night. I’ll go in and bespeak beds.’
Jay roused Lisette. ‘Wake up, Lisette. We have stopped.’
She opened her eyes, mortified to realise that she was in Jay’s arms again. So much for aloofness; it was impossible with this man. She sat up. ‘Where are we?’
‘Amiens, still over a hundred kilometres from Paris. We need food and drink and somewhere to sleep.’
Sam returned followed by the innkeeper. He was enormously fat, the first fat man they had seen since leaving Calais. ‘Bonsoir, monsieur, madame,’ he said, rubbing his hands in his sacking apron while endeavouring to bow to them. ‘We have a room all ready for you. Your servant will have to share with others, I am afraid.’
‘But…’ Jay began, then stopped. How could he explain that Lisette was not his wife without compromising her? His conversation with Sam about mistresses came back to him. Lisette was not mistress material. How he wished he had not agreed to bring her, but he had and now he had to deal with the consequences. ‘Thank you,’ he said, leaving the coach and turning to help Lisette down. She was still drowsy and had not heard the conversation. ‘Come, my dear, you will soon be comfortable,’ he said in French and then murmured in English, ‘Trust me.’
They were escorted indoors and up to a bedchamber with much bowing and scraping and a promise that food and drink and washing water would be brought up to them. Sam took their portmanteaux and put them on a table at the foot of the big four-poster bed and went to leave them. ‘I will meet you downstairs in the parlour in ten minutes,’ Jay told him.
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
As soon as he had gone Jay turned to Lisette. She was sitting on the bed, her hands in her lap. ‘They have brought your bag in here,’ she said dully.
‘Yes. I am sorry, Lisette, there has been a misunderstanding.’
‘There certainly has. When I begged to come with you, I did not mean this. And if you think…’
‘I don’t. Nothing was further from my thoughts. The innkeeper misunderstood.’
‘You were quick enough to take advantage.’
‘Only of the room, madam, not of you.’
‘Oh.’
‘I am going downstairs. I suggest you go to bed.’
He left her to go in search of Sam, who was enjoying a bowl of onion soup in the deserted dining room. ‘What did You tell the innkeeper about us?’
‘Only that we required rooms. You know my French. He must have jumped to the wrong conclusion.’
‘And left me in a fix. I shall have to explain she is not my wife and ask for another room…’
‘There isn’t one. I’m sharing with four others. Do you want to make a sixth?’
‘So you expect me to share a room with Miss Giradet, do you?’
Sam grinned. ‘Why not? What you do with it is your affair.’
‘Anyone but you would have been knocked down for his impertinence,’ Jay said. ‘Be thankful I need you to drive the carriage or you would be on your way back.’
