Unpinning her braids, she vigorously brushed her hair until it fell in a rippling russet cloak about her shoulders. Ringlets tonight? No, too much trouble for those odious, unappreciative wretches.
Just a few careless curls falling across her white brow and wisping about her ears.
Hannah returned with the green gown and, after some persuasion, donned her black bombazine. Together they headed for the coffee room. Miriam had just set foot on the bottom step when she noticed a slight figure in a top hat entering the hall. He took off his hat, revealing hair as red as her own.
“Herr Rothschild!” Hannah exclaimed.
“Hush, he may not want his name known.”
“What’s he doing here? Something’s gone wrong, I feel it in my bones. May God save us from misfortune!”
Jakob Rothschild had seen them. A look of vexation crossed his youthful face, so brief that Miriam wondered whether she had imagined it. He came to meet them, bowed, and said blandly, “Good evening, Fräulein.”
“Good evening, sir. I did not expect to encounter you here. Is something amiss?” She gathered an impression that his mind was working swiftly.
“I hope not. I followed to make sure that all goes well.”
“That depends on what you mean by well.” Now was the moment to tell him she wanted nothing more to do with his scheme.
“I fear you were given little opportunity to consider. Perhaps the venture is too difficult, or you cannot reach an accord with your companions?”
Miriam guessed that he was deliberately challenging her. She was sure of it, yet she couldn’t resist the challenge. “Do not trouble yourself, mein Herr. I am quite capable of accomplishing what you ask of me.”
Hannah moaned.
Jakob inclined his head. “I am glad to have my judgement of you confirmed, gnädige Fräulein.”
With a reckless feeling that she had burned her boats, Miriam asked gaily, “Will you dine with us?”
“Thank you, I have already dined. Do not let me keep you from your dinner. It remains only for me to wish you bon voyage, and my most hearty thanks.” He bowed over her hand and stood aside.
Continuing towards the coffee room, Miriam suddenly frowned. How had he known that they would spend the night at the Grand Cerf? She glanced back, but he was talking to the innkeeper and it did not seem worthwhile to interrupt.
The coffee room was crowded and clamorous. A red-faced waiter rushed up and escorted them to a table in a far corner, where Felix already waited, his back to the wall. He was wearing a dark blue coat that, while displaying his broad shoulders to advantage, was loose enough to don without assistance. His shirtpoints were of moderate height, his neckcloth tied in a simple knot without a stickpin. Altogether, only his golden hair, ice-blue eyes, and powerful frame seemed likely to draw attention.
Miriam noted that several young ladies were eyeing him with appreciation. Their faces fell as she joined him.
He half rose and bowed slightly but made no effort to seat her. She took the chair opposite him, and Hannah diffidently sat down beside her. Felix raised supercilious eyebrows but said nothing.
The noise in the coffee room was more than loud enough to cover a quiet conversation. Miriam resolved to induce him to talk. If she mentioned Jakob Rothschild’s arrival, he would make some unpleasant remark about devious Jewish moneylenders, and besides, what she really wanted was to smooth relations between him and Isaac. Perhaps they would never be friends, but they ought to stop sniping and learn to appreciate each other’s good points.
“Isaac learned to drive very quickly, did he not?” she opened. “Of course, he was taught by an expert.”
His eyes narrowed appraisingly, as if he expected a trap, and he rejected her compliment. “I daresay the English aristocracy has an inbred skill with horses, as do Jews with money-making.”
“And with languages?”
His cheeks reddened. “I read French and understand a little. I’ve never had occasion to speak it.” He returned to the attack. “If Isaac had been in a narrow lane, or driving a sporting rig with a team of blooded fifteen-mile-an-hour tits, he’d have gone off the road a dozen times.”
“Only once, surely!” Her dry comment surprised him into what she chose to regard as the beginning of a smile, though it was in truth no more than the merest twitch of the lips. “It seems to me,” she went on, “that no one would begin to learn to drive with a valuable, high-bred team. Indeed, how many who have never driven even a single horse start with four-in-hand?”
“He did well enough,” Felix conceded curtly.
Satisfied for the moment, Miriam asked, “Is he coming down? I’m famished.” Too late she recalled a precept from her schooldays: a lady never admits to anything so vulgar as an appetite. Once again, his lordship had an excuse to turn up his noble nose at her.
Amazingly, he seemed unaware of her faux pas. “I’m hungry too,” he said, sounding almost human. “He may have fallen asleep. If he’s not down in a few minutes I’ll send someone to fetch him. In the meantime, will you be so good as to order a bottle of claret?”
Miriam graciously forbore to point out that she would also be the one who had to send someone after Isaac.
In fact, Isaac had already descended the stairs. Earlier, on entering the Grand Cerf, he had been too tired to notice the whereabouts of the coffee room, and now there was a sudden dearth of servants in the hall. He glanced around to find his bearings.
In a dark corner, scarcely lit by the oil lamps hanging on the walls, he saw two men, one short and slight, the other tending to plumpness. Jakob Rothschild and his brother Kalmann! As Nathan’s courier Isaac had met Kalmann on several occasions in various French, Dutch and German ports. What the devil were those young schemers doing here?
Striding towards them, he saw Jakob pass a package to Kalmann, who hurriedly stowed it in the pocket of his greatcoat. Then Jakob noticed Isaac’s approach and laid his hand on his brother’s arm.
“Has something gone wrong?” Isaac demanded. “Are we suspected?”
“I just came to make sure everything is running smoothly,” Jakob assured him.
“And Kalmann?”
The brothers exchanged glances. “We’ve decided he is to ride ahead to Spain, to make arrangements to smuggle the gold past the French lines. You will meet him...” he looked questioningly at Kalmann.
“At Pamplona, just the other side of the Pyrenees.” A thoughtful frown crossed Kalmann’s youthful face with its long side-whiskers. “I shall wait for you by the cathedral at noon every day from the tenth of April--no, the ninth is the first day of Passover.”
“You cannot waste eight days observing Passover!” said Jakob impatiently. “Even Father would agree that this business is too important.” He turned to Isaac. “For a week from the tenth he will be in Pamplona. Can you be there by then?”
“I think so. I’ve learned to drive the coach,” said Isaac with pardonable pride. “But it might be best to allow longer than a week.”
“Kalmann will be needed elsewhere. He will make arrangements for someone to contact you if you turn up after that.”
“If,” thought Isaac. After the seventeenth of April the Rothschilds would presume that their plan had gone awry. They would take their losses and concoct some other way to smuggle gold to Wellington. He had no doubt that they’d do their best to rescue their employee and his companions, but whether they would succeed was another matter. “I cannot believe it is right to take a woman with us on what may prove a dangerous journey,” he exclaimed.
“I spoke to the Fräulein a few minutes ago, and she is willing.”
“We don’t need her. My French is good enough to get by.”
“And your Spanish? No, the language is only a part of it. The presence of a woman in the party will help to divert suspicion. Standing here talking, on the other hand, can only draw suspicion. We must go.”
Isaac looked round. Two waiters were carrying loaded trays from the kitchen down the hall to the coffee room, and the landlord was greeting some newly arrived guests. No one appeared to be taking any notice of the three men in the shadows. He turned back. Jakob and Kalmann had silently vanished.
A thousand doubts assailed him as he made his way to the coffee room. Jakob’s explanations had holes big enough to drive a coach and four through. His employers were known for the cunning complexity of their plans, and he was sure he was embroiled in a far more tangled intrigue than they had informed him of. Not that he could do anything about it. Having undertaken to deliver the gold to Wellington, he would endeavour to carry out his obligation.
He only hoped that the Rothschilds’ machinations were up to their usual brilliant standards.
His qualms must be kept from the others, he decided. No purpose would be served by alarming them. There they were, at the far end of the crowded room, a bottle of wine on the table between them, talking to each other with apparent amity. Isaac frowned. They must be speaking English, foolhardy to say the least!
Starting across the room he changed his mind. Amid the clamour of voices and clatter of knives and forks, plates and glasses, anything less than a shout was indistinguishable from the general hubbub.
Felix caught sight of him and said something to Miriam. She turned and smiled at him. For the first time since that unforgettable day nine years ago, he saw her without a hat. The lamplight drew fiery gleams from her coronet of braids and teasing clusters of curls, and lent an air of mystery to her lustrous brown eyes. Her mouth was all too inviting.
He returned her smile. Let bygones be bygones, he advised himself.
That advice didn’t apply to Felix, of course. Felix had never caused any specific injury for which he could be forgiven. He simply epitomized a type Isaac loathed.
As he sat down beside Felix, diagonally across from Miriam, Isaac addressed her in Yiddish. “I hope I have not kept you waiting. If you are as hungry as I am, you must be cursing me.”
She laughed. “How did you guess? We were about to send for you.”
“God forbid my mistress should utter a curse,” said the abigail, shocked. “May you live long, sir, and in good health.”
“I thank you for your good wishes, Miss...?”
“Greenbaum, sir,” she said coyly. “Hannah Greenbaum.”
“Miss Greenbaum.” He noticed that Miriam was pleased with his politeness to her maid. No doubt his high-and-mighty lordship had objected to her presence at their table.
A waiter dashed up and set before each of them an earthenware bowl of appetizingly fragrant onion soup topped with toasted cheese.
“Oh dear.” Miriam also spoke in Yiddish. “I forgot about the cheese. The soup is certainly made with beef stock, so it is milk and meat in one dish. I did try to order dishes that are not too obviously
treif,
though the kitchens cannot possibly be kosher, of course. And then there was English taste to be taken into account, too.”
“As far as I’m concerned, this smells like heaven,” Isaac assured her, picking up his spoon. “I discovered long since that if I tried to eat only kosher food while travelling on business I’d starve.” He tasted the soup. “Delicious.”
She sighed in relief, but curiosity was uppermost in her voice when she asked, “Did you once strictly observe
kashrut?
I thought you were a puritanical follower of every last commandment of Halakah, not just the dietary laws.”
So she had recalled that dreadful occasion! “I was--but you were swift to draw conclusions about me from a very brief glimpse,” he said dryly.
She looked stricken, her pale cheeks flushing. “I...I’m sorry. I behaved unforgivably. I have learned not to judge by first impressions, I promise you.”
“Not unforgivably, understandably. We were both too young to think of marriage, and we’d not have suited. Let us forget it.”
Her suddenly elated expression made Felix, glumly consuming his soup in silence, raise his eyebrows again. Isaac didn’t explain. He grinned at her, glad to feel the weight of his long-held resentment rolling off his shoulders.
And she really had done her best to avoid treif for his sake, he realized, as the rest of the meal was served. She couldn’t have guessed that one of the roasted chickens would arrive stuffed with oysters, the other with pork sausage. Delicious, both of them.
Chapter 6
“Drat,” said Miriam, settling onto the berline’s comfortable seat, “I was looking forward to this morning. I was hoping that with a bit of encouragement Felix would turn out to be human after all.”
“It’s just as well his lordship’s going to sit up there on the box for a bit,” Hannah disagreed. “I wouldn’t be surprised but what Mr. Cohen’s forgot how to drive, tired as he was last night. ‘Sides, I daresay they’ll both be taking a turn inside for it looks like rain to me.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” Unlike the weather, Miriam brightened. “And I’m sure Isaac will soon be capable of driving by himself. That will give Felix one reason the less for counting himself so superior.”
“He don’t think himself superior when you and Mr. Cohen’s chattering away in French or Yiddish. I been watching his face, and if you ask me the poor lad feels like a child as is left out of a game.”
“Oh dear, yes, he must feel sadly isolated. I know, I have a famous idea! I shall teach him to speak French as we go along. He claims to have some knowledge already.”
“That’d be right kindly of you, Miss Miriam, and God will bless you for it.”
“You praise me too highly. I was thinking that it may well come in very useful for all of us sooner or later if he can speak something other than English, and teaching him will help to pass the time. I do hope it rains.”
The heavens obliged. Before they reached Orléans a light drizzle began to fall, and when they stopped there to change horses Felix appeared at the carriage door.
“May I join you? There is no sense in both of us getting wet.”
“Of course,” said Miriam with a smile, ignoring his moroseness. “I take it Isaac has passed the test?”
“I wouldn’t trust him in a country lane, or city traffic, but Orléans appears to be little larger than an English village.”