Miss Jacobson's Journey

by Carola Dunn

  With that in mind, Isaac loosened his neckcloth and laid him on his front, with his head turned sideways. On impulse he took off Hébert’s riding boots. Another impulse suggested removing them, to slow the pursuit, but that would serve to confirm the man’s suspicions. Besides, the unfortunate fellow was going to be in hot water enough if he returned to Bordeaux without prisoners. No need to make his life any more miserable.

  Leaving the room key on the night table, Isaac thankfully repaired to his own chamber.

  He took up a volume of Maimonides, but he couldn’t concentrate. As the sounds of activity in the inn gradually diminished, he found himself wondering whether he ought to have put the laudanum in the first glass of brandy. Lacking experience of drunkenness, he had misjudged the man’s condition. If Hébert woke too soon and picked up their trail, it would be his fault.

  Chapter 17

  The river mist was no more than a faint haze veiling the waxing moon, and even that they soon left behind. The rumble of wheels, clink of harness, and regular thud of hooves sounded loud in the stillness. An owl hooted close by; somewhere in the distance another answered.

  Hannah drowsed in her corner. Miriam had slept for an hour or two at the inn. She was tired, but now she felt taut as a bowstring, unable to relax. Besides, it seemed unfair to doze while out on the box Felix steered them through the night.

  “Are you sleepy, Isaac?”

  “Not really. I keep thinking perhaps I ought to have stolen Hébert’s boots.”

  “His boots! Good heavens, what happened back there? Tell me all about it. How did you manage to persuade him to drink with you in the first place?”

  “He was somewhat disgruntled to have been sent after us, quite willing to let bygones be bygones and the future take care of itself. In fact, he was drunker than I realized when I joined him. He passed out sooner than I expected. I made a mull of it, waiting too long and then the laudanum was diluted with too much brandy.”

  “Oh dear, I wondered about that after you’d gone. Hannah pointed out that the vial would only empty if the flask was tipped completely upside down. Next time I drug someone’s drink I shall try another method!”

  “It would have worked admirably if I had not poured most of a bottle of wine into the lieutenant first.” Isaac sounded cheered. Miriam hoped he had stopped blaming himself.

  “I cannot imagine how you contrived not to join him under the table. I quite expected that Felix would have to carry you out. So Hébert didn’t actually take all of the laudanum?”

  “Only about half. Will that be sufficient?”

  She frowned in thought. “Probably, in combination with a lake of alcohol, as long as no one makes a deliberate effort to wake him.”

  “I made sure of that. I hired a chamber for him and carried him to it.”

  “What a stroke of genius! I daresay he will sleep till noon. You tucked him up in bed?”

  “Well, not quite, but I made him as comfortable as I could. That’s why I took his boots off, and why I was wondering whether I ought to have run off with them.”

  “No. It would only have convinced him that we were trying to escape him. As it is, he is more likely to be grateful to you for arranging for his comfort. You have carried it off admirably.”

  “It was nothing, compared to your delivering us from durance vile yesterday.”

  “All I did was call on friends, and they would have accomplished nothing if you had not held out against Hébert’s wiles and Grignol’s intimidation.”

  “I find it in my heart to pity Hébert.” Isaac stifled a huge yawn: a long indrawn breath and a white glint of teeth as the carriage rounded a bend and moonlight fell on his face.

  “I must not keep you talking,” said Miriam remorsefully. “I shall be able to rest all day, but as soon as it grows light you will have to drive. Put your feet up and try to sleep. You can take off your boots--I promise not to steal them.”

  “I own my toes would be delighted. They have been imprisoned far longer than I was. If you are sure you don’t mind?”

  “Not at all.” She couldn’t see him, hidden once more in the impenetrable dark of moon-shadow. There was nothing for her wayward imagination to seize upon.

  Or so she tried to persuade herself as his boots thudded to the floor. Nonetheless, she was glad of the distraction when he clicked opened the little shutter and called softly to Felix.

  “How goes it?”

  “Well enough, but tediously slow. I dare not speed up. If we land in the ditch, we’ll really be in the suds.”

  “It’s a far cry from a curricle race to Brighton,” Isaac sympathized.

  “And of somewhat more importance than winning a wager,” said Felix dryly. “Go to sleep. We’re coming to a ford and I have to concentrate.”

  Isaac shut the hatch and stretched out on the seat with a low laugh. “I thought I was inventing the streams to be forded,” he said. “We are fortunate to have a competent driver. Good night, Miriam.”

  “Good night.” Listening to hooves and wheels splashing through the stream, Miriam smiled dreamily. It was hard to believe that less than a week ago Felix and Isaac had been at daggers drawn.

  The next thing she knew was the familiar jangle of bits and chains as the team was changed. She opened her eyes just enough to see that the half-moon was now low in the western sky before she drifted back into sleep. When she woke again, the sky was dawn pale and Isaac, moving stiffly, was climbing out of the carriage.

  She felt as stiff as he looked. Hannah groaned as she straightened.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “In the middle of nowhere, as far as I can see. Felix must have stopped because it’s light enough for Isaac to take over the reins. I’m going to get out and stretch my limbs.”

  “I’ll come too.”

  Miriam stepped down and helped Hannah after her. Isaac was stretching and bending. Felix stood holding the reins, looking pale and weary.

  He summoned up a smile. “Sorry to disturb you, but I’ve been driving with my eyes closed for the past half hour. I hope I haven’t taken any wrong turnings.”

  Miriam consulted the sky. “I’d say we are on course. We are still heading south, and on a reasonably respectable road.”

  “A respectable road!”

  “Most of the lanes are too narrow for two carriages to pass.”

  “Well, there would certainly have been some paint scraped had I met another vehicle in the dark.” He handed Isaac the reins. “It’s some way since I changed horses. Posting houses are few and far between so you had better stop at the next. Good luck. Just don’t try to hurry. If Hébert is behind us on horseback, he can catch up however fast we go.”

  He was so sound asleep when they reached Roquefort that Miriam didn’t wake him for a breakfast of rolls and coffee. She bought bread and some of the famous local cheese for him, then insisted that Isaac carry the smelly stuff outside until Felix wanted it. As they crawled southwards, he slept on, waking at last when Isaac stopped for luncheon. They had an unsatisfactory meal in a small village, then Felix drove on.

  They reached Pau as the sun set, having covered a good hundred miles since leaving Langon in the middle of the night. To the south, the twilit river valley roared with melted snow-waters; across the horizon stretched the ridge of the Pyrenees, a formidable barrier of peaks and saddles, stained with a rosy glow. Felix, once more at the reins, pulled up at the first respectable inn in the little town.

  The innkeeper was less than delighted to see them. He didn’t expect travellers at this time of year, he grumbled. But, yes, he could provide three chambers and a private parlour... and dinner? Of course, dinner, he agreed doubtfully.

  Too tired to search for more congenial lodgings, they went up to their rooms.

  Miriam and Hannah’s chamber was comfortable enough, and reasonably clean. Hannah declared that the sheets were damp and sent the chambermaid off to procure a warming pan.

  “And tell her to air and warm the ge
ntlemen’s beds too,” she instructed Miriam. “Laying weary bones in a damp bed is a recipe for sickness, and I for one am wearied to death just with sitting. I’m not as young as you children, to be burning the candle at both ends. I’ve half a mind to skip my dinner and go straight to bed soon as the sheets are dry.”

  “My poor Hannah.” Miriam hugged her. “You sit down here right this minute, with your feet on this footstool. I’m perfectly able to unpack what we need, and the gentlemen will not mind if I don’t change my gown for once.” She looked down with disfavour at the high-necked brown cambric travelling dress. “They are too exhausted and hungry to notice, I believe! I shall have your dinner sent up on a tray.”

  “I own I’ll be glad of a bite to eat, child. But I ought to go with you.”

  “Fustian! I shall survive one evening without a chaperon. I don’t mean to stay up late, I promise you.”

  Miriam went down and ordered a meal for Hannah. She found Felix in their private parlour, filling a glass from a carafe of wine.

  “Will you have some?” he asked in a low voice. “It’s surprisingly good for a local vintage. Jurançon, they call it.”

  Miriam accepted a glass. “Why are we whispering?”

  “The coffee room is just the other side of this wall and the window gives onto the street, so Isaac thought we ought not to speak loudly in English. He has gone to reconnoitre. He wants to be quite sure the lieutenant has not succeeded in following us.”

  “Neither of you saw anything of him on the road since we left Langon, did you?”

  “No, though it would not have been as easy to spot him as on the main highway. But I doubt he’s still after us. I believe your clever stratagem was utterly successful.” He toasted her and refilled his glass.

  Isaac came in. “No sign of Hébert so far. There is a local gendarme playing dominoes in the coffee room, though, so we had best keep quiet. The landlord is suspicious; he wanted to know what brings a party of Swiss to this out-of-the-way corner of the world.”

  “What did you tell him?” Felix asked, handing him a glass of wine.

  “That we are homesick for mountains.”

  They were all laughing when a pair of waiters came in with trays. Felix sniffed the air suspiciously, but there was only the faintest hint of garlic.

  “You must be dying of hunger,” Miriam said in French as he seated her. “You have eaten next to nothing in two days.”

  The meal set before them turned out to be scarcely calculated to assuage the pangs of hunger. The soup was pale and flavourless; the fish had spent too many days out of the river; the neck of mutton, from a sheep who had spent too many years in the mountains, was mostly bone and gristle; the whites of the leeks were missing, the greens smothered in a lumpy sauce and too tough to chew.

  Even the bread was stale. As Felix washed down several dry slices with copious draughts of Jurançon, Miriam rang the bell and complained to the waiter.

  He shrugged. “What will you, mademoiselle? The patron is not prepared for unexpected visitors and you are dining late. The best has gone to the coffee room already. Tomorrow you may order in advance and things will be better.”

  Miriam gave up and asked for more bread and cheese. Felix ordered a fresh carafe of wine.

  “It’s the only thing worth consuming,” he pointed out gloomily.

  As the level of wine in the second carafe sank, Felix’s spirits rose. Miriam began to feel a trifle concerned, but he remembered to keep his voice low even as he made her and Isaac laugh with tales of youthful pranks. A dinner of dry bread, he explained, had been a frequent nursery punishment.

  “I’m glad Hannah is not here,” said Miriam at last, “or she would be shaming me with recounting all my nursery peccadilloes.”

  “Were you a naughty child?” Isaac asked. “I cannot imagine it.”

  “The words that come to mind are `pert’, `forward’, and `saucy’.”

  “Now that I can imagine,” said Felix, grinning.

  Isaac pushed back his chair. “I’ll just go and check once more to see if Hébert has caught up with us. If he is here, we shall have to do some quick thinking. We are so close to the border, there isn’t much room for maneuver.”

  He left, and an awkward silence fell between Miriam and Felix. Alone with him, suddenly she was ill at ease. She went over to the window, parted the curtains, and peered out into the street.

  Nothing moved except a dog trotting purposefully about its own business. Moonlight illuminated the castle on its height overlooking the valley of the Gave de Pau. The little town seemed to be sleeping.

  That assumption was belied by a burst of argument from the coffee room next door, doubtless the domino players. In the quiet that followed, Miriam heard footsteps crossing the parlour, approaching her. Reflected in the window glass, Felix stopped close behind her. His breath stirred the tiny hairs on the nape of her neck.

  “Do you know how beautiful you are?” His expression was unreadable in the image on the glass.

  There was no mistaking the meaning of the hands at her slender waist, smoothing the brown cambric over the curve of her hips, rising to cup her breasts. Even as she turned to protest a shiver of excitement raced through her.

  “Felix...”

  He caught her to him. One hand in the small of her back crushed her to the hardness of his body, the other tilted her face up to his. His eyes burned like blue flames and candlelight sheened golden on his hair. His lips were warm and firm, urgent, entreating. The tip of his tongue touched the corner of her mouth, traced the shape of it.

  With a little moan, Miriam melted against him, her arms of their own accord rising to encircle his neck, to pull him down to her. His hands moved to caress her hips again.

  Behind him the door opened and closed. “Still not a sign of the lieutenant, but there are now three gendarmes in the coff...” Isaac’s voice broke off abruptly. Fists clenched he strode across the room.

  Felix released Miriam and turned to face him, his shoulders tense. Miriam wanted to faint, wanted to die, wanted to pick up her skirts and run away, but she dared not leave them. If they came to blows, if they even raised their voices, they would bring danger crashing down on all their heads.

  “How dare you!” Isaac spat out in an undertone.

  “I’ll be damned if it’s any of your business!” Felix hissed.

  “When you start making indecent advances to a woman travelling in my company...”

  “Indecent advances, the devil! All I did was...”

  They had both reverted to whispers as if afraid that anything else might too easily rise to a shout. Miriam began to feel hysterical.

  “I saw what you were doing, you drunken libertine!”

  “Bourgeois prude!”

  She decided it was time to intervene, before insults led to a challenge. The only ploy she could think of was to burst into tears, so she did. It was easy.

  Felix flung from the room. Isaac took her gently in his arms and stroked her back, murmuring soothing words.

  “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry. I’ll see that devil never has another chance to touch you. Hush now, hush.”

  She raised tear-drenched eyes to his sympathetic face and saw the sympathy become tenderness, the tenderness passion. His arms tightened around her. She felt the pounding of his heart-- and her own.

  “Miriam.” His voice was low and husky.

  He kissed the tears from her eyes, ran a trail of kisses down to the lobe of her ear. Strange sensations shook her. Her arm went around his waist, clinging to the lean strength of him. Her fingers played with crisp, dark hair that smelled faintly of sandalwood. The smooth, olive skin over one high cheekbone was irresistibly close to her mouth. She kissed him.

  He buried his face in the crook of her neck. “Miriam,” he murmured again. “Miriam.”

  Through the thin cambric his breath was hot on her throat. His mouth found the pulse there. She began to dissolve--or was she going to explode?

  Horrified
, panic-stricken, she jerked away from him.

  “How could you! Oh, how could you take advantage of me when I was distraught? Is this your revenge for nine years ago? I had thought better of you.”

  His shattered look pierced her to the quick. She spun away and ran from the room.

  Guilt kept pace with her up the stairs. Isaac was not to blame--Felix was not to blame--if they had interpreted her reactions as encouragement. She had encouraged them, both of them.

  Filled with wretchedness, she hurried to her only refuge.

  “Hannah!”

  Her abigail, her nurse, her dearest friend, was still seated by the window. She half rose in alarm as Miriam rushed into the chamber. “What is it, child? What ever is the matter?”

  Miriam dropped to the footstool. “They had a blazing row. At least, I can hardly call it that since it was carried on in whispers.” Her smile trembled.

  Hannah gave her a shrewd look. “And what was it they come to cuffs about?”

  She gazed down at her hands. “They both kissed me. I wanted to... I would have... Oh, Hannah, I think I’m in love with both of them.”

  “That’s not love, child,” said Hannah dryly, stroking her bowed head. “That’s lust. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, what you need is a husband.” She folded her unhappy nurseling to her breast and rocked her.

  Miriam knew she was right. She should never have embarked upon this adventure. She should have found a way to go home quickly and had her family find her a husband. Like a ripe plum, she was ready to fall into the hands of any determined seducer.

  She pressed her fist to her mouth to stifle a sob. Her fingers smelled of sandalwood.

  Chapter 18

  When Miriam and Hannah went down next morning, rather later than usual, Felix was in the parlour attacking a vast omelette. As Miriam entered he sprang to his feet and came towards her, looking shamefaced.