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‘If you let me have one of your blankets, I will be quite comfortable on the floor.’
She took off the blanket she was wearing and gave it to him before retiring behind the bed curtain.
She could not sleep. He was fidgeting about on the other side of the curtain, trying to make himself comfortable, and it was a cold night; one blanket would not keep him warm. She lay there, wrestling with her conscience. He was uncomfortable because of her; he could be at home in his own bed on a soft mattress with as many blankets as he needed, if he had not offered to help her. And even if he had come to France alone, he could have had this bed to himself.
‘Jay,’ she called softly. ‘Are you awake?’
‘Yes.’
‘Come here. There is plenty of room in this bed for two.’ She opened the curtains. A shaft of moonlight from the uncurtained window showed him sitting on the floor leaning against the wall, only partially covered by the blanket. He had not undressed beyond taking off his coat, waistcoat, neckcloth and shoes. ‘Come and get warm.’
‘Do you mean it?’
‘I would not have said it otherwise.’
He came to the bed, bringing his blanket with him. If he thought he was going to sleep next to her, she disabused him of that idea by putting a bolster down the bed between them. Thus, suitably separated, with three blankets covering them, they settled down for what was left of the night.
‘No one would ever believe this,’ he murmured as he fell asleep.
Lisette watched him, knowing she had irredeemably condemned herself in his eyes. The worst of it was, she knew he did not want her, was not even tempted, and that was how it was going to be the whole time they were in France. She leaned over and gently kissed his cheek. ‘No, they wouldn’t,’ she whispered, then lay back with a sigh and closed her eyes.
Chapter Seven
The journey continued, each day the same as the one before. Day by day they looked out of the carriage windows on a landscape from which all crops, if there had ever been any, had been gathered, where the people shuffled rather than walked and often spat on the carriage as it passed, shouting, ‘À bas les aristos!’
Now and again they were able to find fresh horses and at the end of each day they ate in the dining room of whatever inn could accommodate them, sleeping in the same room, sometimes in the same bed, though more often Jay chose a chair and a footstool and woke with a stiff neck. It seemed to Lisette that this journey would never end, that they were destined to plod through France for ever, so close and yet so far apart. Superficially they had come to know each other well, but on a deeper level he was as much of an enigma as ever.
The coach was prone to breaking down and it took all Sam’s ingenuity to find tools and materials to repair it, but repair it he did, and on they went. By now Jay and Lisette had little to say to each other—both were weary and disinclined to put into words what they expected, what they hoped, would happen at the end of the journey. Pontoise had been their last night stop before entering Paris and they set off next morning knowing that for good or ill their adventure was reaching another stage.
They knew they had arrived in Paris when they were stopped by a long queue at a barrier. Rather than make another stop so near their destination, they had elected to drive through the night and were tired and grubby. Lisette longed for a bath and a comfortable bed, one in which she was not haunted by the sound of Jay fidgeting a few feet away, but here they waited while everyone was questioned and searched by armed men in makeshift uniforms. Some were let through, others taken off screaming because contraband had been found in their possession. Gradually Sam drew the coach to a stop at the pole which had been placed across the road to prevent them advancing.
Jay had his papers ready. ‘Commodore John Drymore and Mrs Drymore,’ he said. ‘British Envoy to the National Convention.’ He had been saying it all along their route and had become so used to it, the lie slipped easily from his tongue.
His papers were inspected and puzzled over for several minutes before the guard decided it would be prudent to let him through. The barrier was lifted and Sam drove the tired horses into the city. They arrived in the middle of a riot.
It was some time since Jay had been in the city and he was appalled by the change which had taken place. Once-grand mansions and palaces, standing cheek by jowl with tumbledown hovels, had been deserted by their noble occupants and were already showing signs of neglect. The streets were filthy and kennels running down their middles ran slowly with their load of detritus. Paris, which had once been beautiful, the centre of fashion and manners, had been changed into a melting pot, a noisome stew of discontent.
