A Desperate Fortune

by Susanna Kearsley

  “Yes.”

  Luc gave a nod, and remarkably I saw the curve of his smile.

  “What?” I asked.

  “It’s a terrible plan.” He came closer. “No, really, you need to revise it. I’ll help you.” He kissed me—just lightly, but there in the dark of the cavern-like passage his touch left me buried in feelings.

  I still tried to argue, “I can’t change.”

  He rested his forehead on mine. “You don’t have to. Simple math. You only have to change the value of one variable to affect the outcome of the whole equation.”

  My efforts to focus on logic were hampered by feeling his hands at the small of my back. “And you’re trying to tell me that you’re that one variable?”

  “Well, of all the men you’ve known before, were any of them me?”

  His logic made me smile a little. “No.”

  “Then I’m the variable.” Lowering his mouth to mine, he set about convincing me, and did a thorough job of it. I wanted to believe.

  He said, “You never need to change for me.” His breath was warm against my cheek. My hair. My neck. “You understand? You never need to change.”

  It seemed he somehow needed a reply, but since I didn’t have the focus or the energy to form a proper sentence, I just answered with, “OK.”

  I felt him smile against my skin and he pressed closer to my body in the darkness and I really didn’t notice much beyond that till his mobile rang to tell us it was time to pick up Noah.

  We had lunch at a café somewhere—I didn’t notice much about that, either—and we took our time in getting back, so when they dropped me at the front of the Maison des Marronniers the lights in some of the château’s front windows had already been switched on against the fall of twilight.

  Luc got out and came around to get the door for me, and bent to kiss me one more time with warmth, and touched my arm the way that people sometimes did when they were being reassuring. Then he turned his head and gave a nod to someone on the terrace and in English said, “Good evening.”

  Which alone should have prepared me.

  But it still surprised me when I turned and saw my cousin standing on the top step.

  She returned my hug as tightly as I gave it, and explained when I asked why she hadn’t told me she was coming, “Well, I wanted to surprise you. I appear to have succeeded.”

  She was watching Luc’s car trundle off around the circle of the drive.

  “Now what, exactly, Sara darling,” Jacqui asked, “was that?”

  * * *

  I saved myself from what I knew would probably have been a very long and disapproving lecture by distracting Jacqui with the pages I’d transcribed of Mary’s diary.

  After supper, Jacqui brought the pages from my workroom to the salon, poured a glass of wine, and curled into the sofa near the fireplace. “This,” she said to me, “is fabulous.”

  I felt a swell of pride. “You think he’ll like it, then?”

  “Who?”

  “Alistair. Who else?”

  She finished with another page and laid it facedown on the growing pile beside her. “Yes, of course he’ll like it. This is really so much better than the mundane sort of stuff he was expecting. I mean, honestly. This reads just like a—”

  “—thriller. Yes, you’ve said.”

  My words seemed to intrigue Claudine, who came in from the dining room to join us, switching on another table lamp as she passed by to take her own seat at the sofa’s other end. She’d brought a glass of wine with her as well, and set it down now as she touched the stack of pages overturned between herself and Jacqui. “May I?”

  “Have you not read it yet? Then yes, please do,” my cousin said. “It’s fascinating.”

  While the two of them were reading, I let my thoughts drift backward happily to Luc and what he’d said to me this afternoon, and how he’d held me. How he’d kissed me.

  “Ooo,” said Jacqui. “I’ve got chills.”

  I roused myself. “From which part?”

  “Mr. Stevens.”

  “Has he just begun to travel with them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then wait,” I told her. “It gets better.”

  For another several minutes I heard nothing but the clinking noises from the kitchen as Denise washed dishes. I’d have helped her, but the times when I had offered she had firmly told me no, then made me coffee so I’d sit and keep her company, and since I hadn’t seen my cousin in nearly a fortnight I decided I had better keep her company instead.

  Claudine said, “Your diarist—Mary? She seems quite intrigued by this Mr. MacPherson.”

  My cousin said, “I’m quite intrigued by this Mr. MacPherson.” She grinned. “The allure of the Scotsman, and all that.”

  Claudine pointed out Mr. Thomson was also a Scot. “But she doesn’t describe him in such detailed language. I can’t picture Thomson at all in my mind, but I know ‘Mr. M—’ has fine hands and blue eyes and blond hair with some red in it.”

  “Yes,” Jacqui said, “she does like his hands, doesn’t she? Listen here: ‘For all I’ve never seen him wearing gloves, he keeps his hands as neat and clean as any gentleman’s.’ And later on she writes: ‘He did repair the broken watch with a dexterity that might befit a goldsmith, which I would not have believed had I not stood and watched him do it.’” Smiling, she remarked to Claudine, “So his hands are clean and dexterous.”

  “These are both good things.” Claudine was smiling too, which led me to believe I’d missed some joke that had been obvious to them.

  But Jacqui never let me stay outside the circle very long, and for my benefit she added, “He would be a very interesting lover.”

  Then I understood. I told her, “If he let you live.”

  “Well, yes, there is that.”

  “Anyhow,” I said, “I don’t think Alistair will care much whether Mary Dundas likes MacPherson’s hands, and I don’t think her stories will be useful to his research either, but there’s still a lot of detail coming out about the fraud, and—”

  Jacqui interrupted with, “Oh yes, her stories. Darling, why didn’t you tell me about those? They’re rather wonderful. A couple more and they would make a lovely little book all on their own. In fact, I know the perfect illustrator…she did Bridget Cooper’s books.” She had her tablet out already, taking notes and planning things. She told Claudine, “We ought to sit down soon and get the rights all sorted.”

  “Rights?”

  “Yes. This diary is much more than just a simple source of research, don’t you realize? It’s a very special thing. Not only is it going to give Alistair one amazing book—and I’d be very surprised if we don’t manage to get a television deal out of it for him—but it’s the whole package: intrigue, adventure, money, betrayal. It’s got the dramatic potential to make a good film, or a miniseries. And then there are the fairy tales.” She had the vibrant, lit-from-the-inside look that I knew meant she was honestly excited by a project, and it made me feel a little proud my work had helped her feel that way. She told Claudine, “The diary’s yours, you own it, so apart from whatever Alistair ends up making from his book, we need to make sure you get proper payment, too.”

  Claudine sat back. “I don’t want money.”

  To my ears it sounded as if she had placed an emphasis on that last word, as if she wanted something, just not money. But I often got things wrong.

  “Well, want it or not,” Jacqui said, “you’ll be making some, once the transcription is finished.” She looked at me. “How much is left?”

  “Eighty-three and a half pages. I’ve finished ninety-two, and there’s a half a page still on my desk that I worked on this morning before I went out, but I haven’t had time yet to enter it into the computer, so it’s not with those,” I said, giving a nod to the papers both she and Claudine had been re
ading. “But all they’ve been doing is traveling south from Lyon for a couple of days in their carriage, and so far they haven’t had any real problems apart from a stubborn lead horse.”

  Jacqui curled deeper into the cushions and leaned on the arm of the sofa. “Well, Mary still wants to be careful,” she said. She was looking directly at me. “If she’d asked my advice, I’d have told her that going around with strange men—even ones with nice hands and good hair—only leads you to trouble.”

  Chapter 29

  Within that wood he has placed his chiefs; beware of the wood of death.

  —Macpherson, “Fingal,” Book Three

  Valence

  February 25, 1732

  The woman was trying to push him away.

  Mary saw what was happening almost as soon as she noticed the man and the young woman close by the stable door, hidden by shadows. At first she’d believed they’d been stealing a moment of private affection, but now she could see that the woman was trying to push him away, to get free of his hold, and the man wasn’t letting her loose.

  Perhaps it was only in jest. Couples played, sometimes. She’d seen Aunt Magdalene try to recover a letter from Uncle Jacques’s hands, and their struggle had ended in laughter. Perhaps this would, too. But she couldn’t help feeling concern.

  It was dark in the courtyard. They’d chosen this inn—the Saint-Jacques—for its being outside the walls of Valence, since that city was one of the staging points for any journey on this route by land or by water. They would have gone by it completely, but being unable to go past the city without changing horses regardless, and given that they were in want of a night’s rest, MacPherson had judged this to be an acceptable compromise. And being cautious he’d ordered the coachman to slow to a walk for the final leagues so they would make their approach to Valence under cover of darkness. It helped that tonight was the night of the new moon—a good night for hunted things.

  Save for the glittering hard winter stars and the glow of a pierced lantern hung on a hook just within the wide door of the stable, there was little light to be seen beyond what could squeeze out through the thin jagged cracks in the inn’s tightly fastened black shutters.

  The coachman was busy unhitching the horses with Thomson’s assistance while Madame Roy stayed in the coach with Frisque nestled beside her, but Mary, impatient for air, had already stepped out.

  “Have a care,” Thomson warned when she stumbled against a loose stone in the yard. He was speaking in English. They all were now, having assumed new identities with the new traveling papers provided for them in Lyon.

  “An Englishman!” Thomson at first had exclaimed when he’d seen their new papers, while they’d been awaiting their coach and its driver. “I fear that I’ll not be convincing.” Yet Mary, observing him since, had decided he was at least as accomplished as she was at changing his skin. He’d adapted his accent to hide any trace of inflection that marked him as Scottish, and did it so perfectly Mary’s own accent seemed rustic beside it, although their new names and relationship kept that from being a problem.

  Mrs. Foster had said, “If they found you in Paris, they’ll know you were posing as brother and sister and that you made yourselves out to be French. And that’s how you stayed on your journey to me, did you not? Which is why you’re now changed to be husband and wife.”

  Madame Roy had not liked that arrangement at all, until Thomson had promised her he would not take it so far as to share Mary’s chamber, and that they could all carry on as before, only Madame Roy was Mrs. Grant now, and Thomson and Mary were Mr. and Mrs. Symonds, and keeping on in his role as a servant, MacPherson was now Mr. Jarvis.

  He made, to be sure, an unusual servant. The more Mary saw him with Thomson, the greater her wonder that anyone watching the two men together would ever count Thomson the master. MacPherson stood straighter and strode with more confidence, and Thomson looked to him always and followed his lead, yet whenever they came to an inn or an alehouse, the people they met were accepting of what they were told, treating Thomson with all the regard of a gentleman, leaving MacPherson to fend for himself. Which appeared to be what he preferred.

  For the whole of their journey from Lyon, not once had MacPherson sat with them inside the coach, riding beside them instead on a series of horses he’d hired and replaced when they’d stopped to change theirs. Mary reckoned the horses he’d used must have been fair exhausted at finishing each leg of travel, from carrying not only his weight but that of his swords and his gun case. The cleverness of its design had grown clear when he’d first strapped it onto the side of his saddle: with the top half of the cylinder removed and secured behind, the now-modified traveling case made a boot into which the long rifled gun could slide and remain there at rest, close to hand if he needed it. So far, to Mary’s relief, he’d not needed it. But he remained ever watchful.

  When he had signaled the coach to turn in at the yard of the inn here, he hadn’t turned with them. Instead he had made a complete circuit of the inn, making sure all was in order, and now with a clopping of hooves his horse drew alongside them. MacPherson dismounted and ran one hand over the horse’s damp withers before he began to unfasten the straps of his gun case.

  Thomson remarked, “I could do with a cup of spiced wine. I am feeling the cold in my bones tonight.”

  The man by the stable door had begun kissing the woman so boldly their coachman called over in French and reminded the man there were two ladies present and he would be well advised to take his woman indoors, or at least to the relative privacy of an unoccupied stall, whereupon the man called back in very bad French with a thick English accent that he and the woman were only enjoying themselves and the coachman should mind his own business.

  MacPherson, at the hard exchange of voices, briefly glanced from one man to the other before lowering his gaze to the last strap and fitting the top once again to his gun case, but Thomson, affronted, stepped into the fray.

  “Come now, sir. Are you English?” he asked, in that language. “If so, then you ought to have manners much better than those you display.”

  The man by the stable door turned so the light from the lantern nearby showed the shape of his features. “Indeed I am English, and sir, you are well met. I meant no offense.” Evidently the scant light allowed him to take note of Thomson’s superior clothes, because he touched his hat brim respectfully. “I’ve been a long time on the road and I trust you won’t blame me for taking a kiss where it’s willingly offered.”

  Which answer apparently satisfied Thomson, who having received his apology nodded acknowledgment of it and started to head for the door of the inn.

  But Mr. MacPherson asked curtly, “And is it?”

  The man replied, “Is it what?”

  “Willingly offered.”

  A person who’d never encountered MacPherson might well have believed from his tone that he cared not what answer was given. But Mary had heard how he’d spoken in Paris mere moments before he had killed, and without even seeing his face she could tell he was now in a mood that was dangerous.

  Having not had her experience—nor, it seemed, any great instinct for caution—the stranger allowed his own voice to grow heated. “Of course it is. Haven’t you eyes in your head?”

  Having finished securing the long gun and slinging the case on his shoulder, MacPherson turned round. The light from the lone lantern hanging within the wide door of the stable could not reach the place where he stood.

  Thomson had retraced his steps and sought now to undo what he’d started. “Come, Jarvis,” he said to the Scotsman. “The woman in truth does look willing enough, and I must get my own wife indoors and to bed. Let us not interfere with another man’s pleasure.”

  MacPherson ignored him, and in the same tone as before told the stranger, “I’d hear it from her, and not you.”

  The woman had, during this interchange, kept her fac
e turned from them, either in shame or from modesty. That she was local was plain from her clothes and the style of her headdress. MacPherson now called upon Mary, and said, “Mrs. Symonds, you speak French. Ask her.”

  Mary, having no experience with such a situation, was not certain what to ask, but she decided upon, “Are you with this man by choice, madam?”

  The woman shook her head, her answer coming faintly: “No.”

  MacPherson, needing no translation, said to Mary, “Tell her she can go.”

  This Mary did, and the woman pushed free of the man, who this time offered no resistance but stepped back, his hands withdrawn and partly raised as if to prove his harmlessness. As the woman hurried from the stable yard, the stranger complained to MacPherson, “Now look what you’ve done, man. You’ve spoiled my night’s fun.” Dropping one hand to his sword hilt, he said coldly, “Let me return you the favor.”

  The coachman cried out and fell heavily as something moved in the darkness behind them, and at the same moment the man by the stable door came at them too.

  Mary did not know if there were two men or twenty attacking.

  MacPherson had laid hold of Thomson’s coat and all but thrown him clear into the coach, and the quick flashes of silver and steel in his hands after that told her he’d drawn his sword and the deadly long dagger, by which time she’d dropped to the ground and gone under the coach, her heart pounding in panic.

  The scuffle that followed, with harsh breaths and curses and blades clanging hard against blades in a frenzied and disordered way, started Frisque barking madly. The horses, half-hitched to their harness still, sidestepped and snorted and got in the way while the horse that MacPherson had ridden shied nervously farther away from the fight.

  Mary, lying as tightly pressed into the earth as she could, had a view of the lighted door to the stables, and when the men passed between it and the coach she tried hard to make sense of the shifting confusion of legs. From the shape of his boots, cast in silhouette, she knew which ones were MacPherson’s, and so she could see he had one man before him and one to the side, though it seemed to her he was the one doing all the advancing. And when the first sword fell, it wasn’t his own.