He tapped his long walking-stick on the parquetry foyer floor impatiently as the second couple of "Andrew and Susannah" exited and got into the coach, which headed east, whip cracking.
"Now for you and your lady, Captain Lewrie," Sir Pulteney said hurriedly, cocking his head and ears as the rattle of a third carriage could be heard. "Calm as does it. Show serenity and unwitting blandness to the guards at the porte. They'll have orders to report your passing… all of them will. After they allow you to leave the environs of Paris, which I expect they will, for any attempt in the city would be too incriminating, let your coachees proceed at their normal pace. You'll be using the Argenteuil gate, so you must say that you will be taking ship at Le Havre. We Will catch you up on the Pontoise road, before your coach crosses the river Oise, where we shall put into play other measures to throw the authorities off your scent. Now be on your way, quickly! Go with God, and we shall see you shortly!"
Lewrie heaved a deep breath and picked up his valises whilst Sir Pulteney shrugged out of his elegant suit coat, tossed his hat to the sideboard table, and whipped out a white porter's apron, to play a servant's role to carry the rest of their luggage to the coach that was, that very instant, drawing rein right by the doors. Lady Imogene gave Caroline a fond, assuring hug, then shooed her out to join Alan, with a last instruction to smile and be gay. "You are going home to England, n'est-ce pas?"
Once inside the coach, though, and under way, Caroline pressed her hands together and shut her eyes as if in prayer, looking wan and pale, whilst Lewrie fussed and shifted on the leather seat beside her, to rearrange his coat and waist-coat, trying to get comfortable.
"Alan…," Caroline muttered in a fretful, conspiratorial whisper, "will they really let us pass, not snatch us out? Or murder us in one of the poorer stews? We've seen them, passing through. Crime is surely rampant in them… unremarkable!"
"Still too public," Lewrie decided, patting her knee. "Casus belli… or bellum? Plumb's right about that, at least. It'd mean war, even if they put me on trial as a spy and slung me into prison. From what Bonaparte said to us t'other day, it sounds as if things're tetchy enough already. As Plumb says, their best chance'11 be out in the countryside."
Seeing how fretful Caroline still seemed, he took her hand and gave her an encouraging squeeze. An instant later, and she turned to lay her head on his shoulder, silently demanding to be held, no matter if the sight of one of his former lovers had put her off intimacy the last few days. Nigh sixteen years of marriage-no one could call it "wedded bliss," exactly- counted for something, he supposed.
"We never should have come to France!" she fiercely muttered on his coat lapel, and he could feel her body shudder at the brink of hot tears of remorse. "I'm sorry I ever…!"
"Oh, tosh, m'girl," Lewrie calmly objected, though his own guts and heart were about to do a brisk canter. He kissed her forehead and muttered into her hair. "It was half my idea, d'ye recall? And… if ye dismiss this little problem, hadn't we a grand time? Well, fairly a good time, in the main?"
Her answer was a tearful snort and a closer snuggling.
"Mean t'say, it's been me, traipsin' halfway round the world, havin' all the adventures," he cajoled, "and gettin' paid main-well by King George for it, too. You haven't had a whiff o' danger since you whipped Harry Embleton with yer reins… or came nigh t'shootin' Calico Jack Finney's 'nutmegs' off when he burst in on ye and Sewallis when he was a baby. We get back t'England with our scalps, why… we could dine out on this for years!"
Caroline uttered another snort, this one tinged with amusement. Lewrie gently tilted her face up to his and kissed her for reassurance, though, to his surprise, that kiss quickly turned to a warm and musky one of passion.
"That's my darlin' lass," Lewrie told her, grinning. "Here now… ever do it in a carriage?" he added, to jolly her further.
She punched him in the ribs, almost hard enough to hurt, but… she smiled at last; she laughed, even in "gallows humour," and said, "And I suppose that you have? Don't answer! Your lewd suggestion is clue enough to your past, you… wretch."
"Well, later perhaps…," Lewrie allowed with an easy chuckle.
"Uhm, Alan…," Caroline said, snuggling up to him. "Do you imagine that Sir Pulteney is that capable? Mean t'say, he seems as if he's done this sort of thing before, he seems to have the connexions, but… might he be in league with the French, too? Are we to be his victims? His wife's French-Lady Imogene was a famous actress during the Terror, and she'd have known a lot of the brutal revolutionaries, and… "
"Don't think we've anything t'fear on that score, Caroline," Lewrie quickly dismissed. "At first, I took him for a 'Captain Sharp' who plays on unwary travellers, lookin' t'skin us broke, but… look at all they've spent on us. Suppers? Theatre? And if he meant to lay hands on our goods we sent off to Calais, then that'd be a damned bad trade. No, all these matchin' coaches and horse teams, the clothes the Plumbs came up with at the drop of a hat, and people who somewhat resemble us at short notice? Puttin' themselves to as much risk as us if they're exposed? No, I'm beginnin' t'think he's the genuine article… even if he is daft as bats half the time. We get home, we could look him up in Debrett's… see if he's authentic."
The coach began to slow, and Lewrie turned his attention to the environs as they drew up into a line of dray waggons, coaches, and farm carts at the Porte d'Argenteuil.
During the Reign of Terror, under the hideously mis-named Committee for Public Safety, then even later under the Directory of Five, France had become a suspicious police state, fearful of counter-revolutionaries and spies, of saboteurs and each other. Paris, and the great cities, had closed and barricaded their medieval gates completely at night, and only the market carts that fetched fresh produce from the countryside were let out. Travellers not known to locals were instantly suspect, and soldiers of the Garde Nationale or Police Nationale inspected every basket or valise for contraband, bombs, smuggled weapons, or coded messages.
Even now, in the autumn of 1802, the city gates were manned by policemen or soldiers, though passage was usually much easier, even for foreigners, and thorough questionings and searches were a thing of the past. At least Lewrie hoped!
"Buck up, now, Caroline," he told her. "It's time to play the snooty English tourists. Bland, serene, stupid… "
A Garde Nationale soldier with a musket slung on his shoulder, a sabre-briquet on his hip, and a cockaded shako tipped far back atop his head, rapped on the left-hand coach door, demanding papers.
Lewrie handed them over in a languid, limply bored hand through the lowered window, and the guard, a Sergeant by the tassel hung from one shoulder, moved his stubby pipe from one corner of his mouth to the other, tugged at a corner of his impressively long and thick mustachios, and gave out a grunt. He looked up, locking eyes with Lewrie for a second, then peered into the coach to assure himself that it contained only the two people declared by their laisser-passers.
"Anglais, m'sieur?" he gruffly asked.
"Oui," Lewrie replied.
"Et vous retournez en Angleterre?"
"Retourn… yes, we're going home," Lewrie replied pretending even poorer command of French. "Back to Jolly Old England, what? Mean t'say… oui."