‘I think it would be best,’ he said at last, ‘if you permitted me to escort you back to Dover. You surely have relatives who –’
‘Why don’t you answer my questions?’
‘They will be answered. Only for the while I must appeal to you to have patience. In times of danger, patience and steadfastness are the best counsel.’
‘How dare you sermonise me. I have a right to know –’
Two men were coming towards us along the path from the cemetery gates. A four-horse coach was waiting there, but it didn’t look like a funeral coach and neither of them had the air of mourners. One was dressed in what looked like a military uniform – buff breeches and highly polished boots, jacket in royal blue, frogged with gold braid – although it was no uniform I recognised. The other appeared to be a coachman and had brought his driving whip with him. The man in black seemed too absorbed in the problem I presented to hear their heavy footsteps on the gravel path.
‘Is this man bothering you, missy?’
The hail from the man in the blue jacket was loud and cheerful, with tones of hunting fields in the shires. I thought he was probably some English traveller who had happened to be driving past. His hearty chivalry was an annoying interruption and I was preparing, as politely as could be managed, to tell him not to interfere, but there was no time. The man in black spun round.
‘You!’
‘Introduce me to the lady.’
‘I’ll see you in hell first.’
Both the words and the cold fury were so unexpected from the man in black that I just stood there, blinking and staring. Unfortunately, that gave the hearty man his chance.
‘Such language before a lady. Don’t worry, missy, you come with us and we’ll see you safe.’
He stepped forward and actually put a hand on my sleeve.
‘On no account go with him,’ the man in black shouted.
I shook off the hand. It came back instantly, more heavily.
‘Oh, but we really must insist.’
Laughter as well as hunting-field heartiness in the voice. I tried to grab my arm back, but the fingers tightened painfully.
‘Let her go at once,’ said the man in black.
He advanced towards us, apparently intent on attacking the hearty man, who must have been around thirty years younger and three or four stone heavier. It would be an unequal contest, but at least it should give me a chance to pull away and run. But the hearty man didn’t slacken his hold on my arm. He jerked his chin towards the coachman, who immediately grabbed the man in black, left arm round his windpipe like a fairground wrestler, and lifted his feet off the ground. The man fought back more effectively than I’d expected, driving the heel of his shoe hard into the coachman’s knee. The coachman howled and dropped him and the whip. The man in black got up and took a step towards us, seemingly still intent on tearing me free from the hearty man. But the coachman didn’t give him a second chance. He grabbed the man by his jacket and twirled him round. As he spun, the coachman landed a punch like a kick from a carthorse on the side of his bony temple. The man in black fell straight as a plank. He must have been unconscious before he hit the gravel path because he just lay there, eyes closed, face several shades more grey.
‘I hope you haven’t gone and killed him,’ the hearty man said to the coachman, still keeping a tight hold on my arm.
‘Let me go at once,’ I said.
I’m sure there were many more appropriate emotions I should have been feeling, but the main one was annoyance that my man should have been silenced before I extracted any answers from him. At this point, I still regarded the hearty man as a rough but well-intentioned meddler and simply wanted him to go away.
‘Oh, we can’t leave a young English lady at the mercy of ruffians in a foreign country. We’ll see you safely back to your friends.’
He assumed, I supposed, that I had a party waiting for me back in town. More to make him release his grip on my arm than anything, I accepted.
‘Well, you may take me back to the centre of town if you insist. My friends are at Quillac’s.’
I named the first hotel that came into my head.
‘Are they now? Well, let’s escort you back to them.’
He let go of my arm and bowed politely for me to go first. The coachman picked up his whip.
‘What about him?’ I said, looking down at the man in black. His eyes were still closed but the white shirt over his narrow chest was stirred by shallow breaths.
‘He’ll live. Or if he doesn’t, at least he’s in the right place.’
We walked along the path to the carriage at the gates, the hearty man almost treading on my heels, the coachman’s heavy steps close behind him. It was an expensive travelling carriage, newly lacquered, the kind of thing that a gentleman might order for a long journey on the Continent. Perhaps they’d left in a hurry because there was an oval frame with gold leaves round it painted on the door, ready for a coat of arms to go inside, but it had been left blank. The team were four powerful dark bays, finely matched. There was a boy standing at the horses’ heads dressed in gaiters and corduroy jacket, not livery. The coachman climbed up on the box at the front and the boy pulled down the steps to let us in. The hearty man gave an over-elaborate bow, suggesting I should go first.
‘You might at least introduce yourself,’ I said. In truth, I was still reluctant and wanted to gain time.
‘I apologise. Harry Trumper, at your service.’
I didn’t quite believe him. It was said like a man in a play.
‘My name is Liberty Lane.’
‘We knew that, didn’t we?’
He was talking to somebody inside the coach.
‘How?’
‘We knew your father.’
It seemed unlikely that my clever, unconventional father would have wasted time with this young squire. As for the man inside, I could only make him out in profile. It was curiosity that took me up the three steps to the inside of the coach. The man who called himself Harry Trumper followed. The boy folded up the steps, closed the door and – judging by the jolt – took up his place outside on the back. The harness clinked, the coachman said ‘hoy hoy’ to the horses, and we were away.
There was a smell about the man inside the carriage. An elderly smell of stale port wine, snuff and candlewax. My nose took exception to it even as my eyes were still trying to adapt themselves to the half-darkness. The man who called himself Harry Trumper had arranged things so that he and I were sitting side by side with our backs to the horses, the other man facing us with a whole seat to himself. As my sight cleared, I could see that he needed it. It was not
