Roger frowned. "Your mention of Her Majesty recalls me to my duty to her. By averaging sixty miles a day I had hoped to deliver her despatch to the Grand Duke somewhere about the middle of the month, but my prospects of being able to do so now seem far from good."
"As you infer that you would have ridden all the way, I take it you meant to go via Lyons, Chambery and Turin?"
"Yes, since 'tis May, and the passage of the Alps now open."
"Yet had it been earlier in the year you would have had no choice but to go down to Marseilles, and take ship from there across the gulf to Leghorn. Now that it will prove impossible to ride, are you still set upon taking the Alpine route?"
"Why, yes; for it is normally the quicker at this time of year whether one goes on horseback or in a post-chaise. What now perturbs me is that it may be some days before the chirurgeon permits me to resume my journey; and that even when he does I may find the jolting of a fast post-chaise so painful to my leg that I shall be able to bear it only for short stages."
Isabella gave him a thoughtful look. "It was just that of which I was thinking. If during your convalescence you are reduced to going in short stages anyway, you would travel far more comfortably in a well-sprung coach."
Suddenly Roger saw the way her mind was working. If he went via the Alps, as he had intended, their ways would part at Moulins, only a good day's journey further south. She wanted him to change his route so that she could keep him with her all the way to Marseilles. Next moment she disclosed her thought:
"Even when the chirurgeon pronounces you fit to proceed, your wounds will require careful dressing for some days. Alone on the road to Italy you will be dependent for that on the unskilled ministrations of slatternly inn servants; whereas if you come with me in my coach we can look after you properly."
Roger's brain was now revolving at high speed. Crippled as he was there would probably be little difference in the time it took him to reach Florence whether he went by land or sea. But the latter involved certain highly perturbing possibilities. He now had little doubt that from their first meeting in the forest of Fontainebleau Isabella d'Aranda had fallen in love with him. He was not in love with her, but he knew what propinquity could do to a man like himself who was easily attracted to pretty women. His heart was not made of the stuff to withstand for long the lure of being with her day after day for long hours in the close confinement of a coach. He knew that he would become more and more intrigued by her subtle charm until he gave way to the temptation to make love to her. And from that it might be but a short step to falling in love with her himself.
Such a development could end only in the misery of a painful parting at Marseilles, followed perhaps by months of hopeless longings. It would be far kinder to her to let her go on alone while her feeling for him had so little to feed upon that it could soon be forgotten. And the caution he had inherited from his Scottish mother warned him that to do so would also save him from putting himself in a situation that he might later bitterly regret.
"I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your thought for me, Senorita," he said, after only a moment's hesitation. "But I fear I must decline your offer. 'Tis true that when I set out again I may have to go carefully for the first few days, but after that I should be able to stand up to longer stages."
Her dark brows drew together. "Yet you said yourself that you counted the safe delivery of Her Majesty's letter of paramount importance, and speed only a secondary consideration."
"Indeed I did. But what of it?"
"You seem to have forgotten that you are no longer in a state to defend yourself, and are unlikely to be so for some time to come."
"That is so, but now that I am well clear of Paris, why should I fear attack?"
Isabella's brown eyes widened. "Surely, Monsieur, you realize that de Roubec, having seen you come to my rescue, may now think.."
"De Roubec I" exclaimed Roger, starting up, then falling back at the sudden twinge his foot and arm gave him. "Do you mean that he was among the men who attacked your coach?"
"Why, yes. He was one of those who pulled the Senora Poeblar from it. I recognized him despite his mask. Moreover, he got away unharmed by you, for 'twas his horse that Pedro shot in the buttocks."
"I thought them ordinary highwaymen intent on robbery. But why, in Heaven's name, should de Roubec set upon you ?"
She shrugged. "The Queen's enemies knew about that letter; they knew also that I am her friend and was about to proceed to Naples, from whence it would have been easy to send it by a safe hand up to Florence. What could be more natural than that she should entrust it to me?"
"I wonder, now, that she did not adopt that course."
‘We talked of it, but decided that it was so obvious as to invite certain danger. In fact, at my suggestion we adopted the plan of using my departure as a red herring to cover your own. Her Majesty provided me with an escort of a half-troop of Monsieur d'Esterhazy's hussars, thus openly inferring that I was carrying something of special importance. They could not be spared to accompany me further than Pouilly, but their presence assured me against attack for the first four days of my journey. We hoped that by then the enemy would have abandoned any hope of securing the letter; and in the meantime, while his interest had been concentrated upon myself, you would be clear of all danger, a hundred or more miles to the south."
" 'Twas an admirable ruse," Roger commented. "But I am much perturbed to learn.."
"Aye; yet it was brought to naught by de Roubec's following me further than we expected, and your arrival on the scene," she interrupted. "For though you failed to recognize him he will certainly have recognized you."
"Even so, as far as we know, he has never had any cause to suspect that I was the bearer of the letter. On the contrary in fact, as otherwise instead of attacking your coach he would have attacked me."
Isabella made a gesture of impatience. "But do you not see that last night's affray has altered everything? Since de Roubec remained uninjured 'tis certain that he will now be spying on us. Should he see you leave me, and on reaching Moulins turn east, taking the direct route to Italy, he is sure to think that I, fearing another attack from him, have passed the despatch on to you; and that you have agreed to take it to Florence for me."
"That certainly is a possibility," Roger agreed, and even as he made the half-hearted attempt to temporize he knew that it was one that he could not afford to ignore. It was highly probable that de Roubec would reason that way; and if he were in the Due d'Orleans' pay he would have plenty of money; so, although his original gang of bullies had been wounded and dispersed, he would be able to hire others in some low tavern of Nevers.
Leaning towards Roger, Isabella swiftly followed up her advantage. "From Nevers onward I intend to hire two armed guards to accompany the coach on each further stage, so with my own three men and ourselves with our pistols we should form a party sufficiently formidable to frighten off attack. But if you set out alone in a post-chaise and are held up, once you have fired off your two pistols what hope would you have ?"
"Plaguey little, I fear," Roger was forced to admit.
"Then, Monsieur, I beg you to listen to reason. The safe conveyance of Her Majesty's letter is the thing that matters above all else, and you cannot deny that there will be less danger of its falling into her enemies' hands if you accept the protection I can offer you."
Roger had done his best to evade a situation of which he feared the outcome both for her and for himself; but he now felt that he was cornered, so he gave in gracefully, and replied: