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Jacques.”
    Jacques seemed to have taken a fancy to Barbary’s company. Gentlemen frequently took such fancies, a point of great contention during her tempestuous marriage, but had not Barbary sworn off all further dealings with the opposite sex? And Jacques was not the sort of individual with whom she might wish to have dealings even had she not made a vow. Gracious, but his teeth were white and strong. Easy enough to imagine them gripping a knife, or tearing animal flesh from its bones.
    “Alors!” he said, and took an impatient step toward her. Barbary drew back her little foot and kicked him smartly in the shin. Jacques cursed and grasped his wounded leg. Barbary ducked around his bulk and beat a hasty retreat.
     

Chapter Three
     
    Barbary kept to her small room during the remainder of her stay in Calais, which was mercifully brief, although not brief enough to prevent the discovery that she shared her chamber with assorted species of insect life, as a result of which she abandoned her bed to sleep upright in a battered chair. It was hardly the most pleasant of experiences, but still preferable to risking a further encounter with the villainous-looking, poetry-quoting Jacques. Had the man not been so threatening, he would have been absurd.
    Jacques was not in evidence as Barbary left the inn, and she considered it the happiest of omens that Tibble was no longer green. Without mishap they handed their luggage to the conductor who was responsible for its safety as well as their own. The public diligence carried three passengers outside in front, three in back traveling backward, and seven or eight inside. It was drawn by four horses, one ridden by the postilion in his enormous leather boots and his old-fashioned wig, the other three harnessed abreast in front of him.
    The vehicle was already crowded. Barbary and Tibble had the last seats. Barbary was seated across from a prosperous-looking middle-aged gentleman and his companion, a plump expensively dressed female with startlingly yellow hair. The gentleman was perusing a pamphlet, the Etat des Pastes Generaux; the lady was sucking on a lemon drop—or so Barbary concluded from the contortions of her face.
    The postilion cracked his whip. The diligence lumbered forward in a manner reminiscent of a snail. At a speed of four miles an hour it would take two days to reach their destination. Paris! Barbary could not help but be excited by the prospect of visiting the French capital, despite the unhappy circumstances that took her there. She leaned forward to look at Tibble, who was seated at the far end of the opposite seat. Impossible to carry on a conversation with someone who had his eyes closed. Barbary had no intention of passing two days in silence. She looked at the plump yellow-haired woman across from her. “I beg your pardon, but are you English?” she asked.
    “As English as Old Douro himself!” said the lady cheerfully. “Mrs. Sadie Smith I am, and this is my hubby, Sam. Quite the go, ain’t he? A proper jessamy. I know what you’re thinking! Me, I’m an old ewe dressed lamb-fashion. But I feel like a girl again, I do, thanks to Sam.” She winked. “You may have guessed we’re on our honeymoon.”
    Mr. Smith looked apologetic. “You’ll excuse the missus, ma’am. Her tongue flaps twelve score to the dozen, but she don’t mean anything by it. Sadie, you shouldn’t run on so.”
    “Keep your breath to cool your porridge!” retorted Mrs. Smith genially, around a lemon drop. “Miss here don’t mind. As for us being English, it was a fairly safe assumption.  By the end of April Paris had twelve thousand British visitors, and heaven alone knows how many there are by now.”
    Mrs. Smith was quite correct in assuming Barbary didn’t mind her chatter. Here, unlike Tibble, was someone who shared her enthusiasm about France. “Do you know Paris, ma’am?”
    “Sadie! You must call me Sadie.” Mrs. Smith offered Barbary a lemon drop, which she