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  The Duke nodded to his cousin and Hugo pulled the bell, a butler answered the summons and was told to send the Duke’s valet, Dalton, to him immediately.

  “I declare you attract adventures to you by some subtle method that is unknown to ordinary folk,” Isabella declared. “I drove rapidly from Calais to Paris without any incident, save that my maid complained bitterly of indigestion from eating shellfish at our first halt.”

  “I also had no adventure other than an argument as to gross over-charging at an inn,” Hugo agreed. “You are quite right, it must be that Sebastian attracts the unusual and exciting. But unfortunately he appears to have made two enemies now and two very powerful ones.”

  “It will be impossible, I think, for the Duc to pursue his prey now I have escaped from the trap,” the Duke said. “With the Cardinal things are a bit different, but I credit even he will find it hard to make an open attack on somebody under my protection. That is why I am anxious for Amé to appear in public as my Ward. He may suspect many things about her, but he has to prove them.”

  “Yes, it is a clever plan,” Isabella agreed, “but secrecy is – ”

  She stopped as the door opened and Dalton stood there.

  A neat, dapper little man with greying hair and a permanent expression of anxiety on his face, he was, as the Duke had said on many previous occasions, always to be relied on in a tight corner.

  “Good afternoon, Dalton,” the Duke began.

  “It’s thankful I be to see Your Grace,” Dalton replied. “I was fair worried out of my mind when we arrived here last night and found that Your Grace’s coach was not ahead of us as we had anticipated.”

  “I am safe and sound,” the Duke smiled. “Is Mam’selle Amé upstairs? I told them in the hall to tell you that she had arrived.”

  “I was just talking with the young lady, Your Grace,” Dalton answered. “I had unpacked Master Adrian’s box for her, but there is little enough in it.”

  “Mam’selle will not be requiring Master Adrian’s clothes,” the Duke said. “Say as little as you can in the household. Explain, if indeed you must, that Mam’selle donned boy’s clothes to escape from an unfortunate predicament in which we found ourselves. In the meantime have a bedroom prepared for the Lady Isabella. She is coming here to stay. I will make all arrangements as regards Mam’selle.”

  “Very good, Your Grace.”

  Dalton’s voice was stolid and his expression did not change as he listened to the Duke’s orders.

  “If it is convenient,” the Duke went on, “ask Mam’selle Amé to come down here now to speak to me.”

  “Very good, Your Grace.”

  Dalton withdrew.

  “You are very peremptory, Sebastian,” Isabella pouted. “I suppose you expect me to lend this strange female my own clothes until such time as she can buy some for herself.”

  “Until such time as you can furnish her with a complete wardrobe,” the Duke asserted.

  “Do you really mean that?” Isabella asked, her eyes sparkling. “The child has nothing except a velvet suit belonging Adrian Court, a tiresome weakly boy, Hugo, whom you should never have inflicted on me.”

  “You engaged him yourself,” Hugo pointed out. “I knew at first sight of him that he had not the stamina for a job such as yours.”

  “I can well dispense with a page,” the Duke remarked.

  “You should have a black one,” Isabella suggested, “they are most decorative.”

  “Don’t you think that I have taken on quite enough responsibilities for the moment?” the Duke asked with a faint smile.

  “I shall be able to answer that question better in a few moments.” Isabella replied. “I cannot help but feel, Sebastian, that you are hiding something from us. I am torn at the moment between a desire that this Convent wench should be gauche and unattractive and so my reluctance to chaperone anyone who is not likely to be a success. I think you are right to challenge the autocracy of the Cardinal. Equally it is vastly inconvenient to me personally.”

  Isabella gave a little dainty yawn as she spoke, but her eyes were bright and curious and both the Duke and Hugo were well aware that she was excited at the turn of events. Impetuous and ready to rush off at a tangent and warm-hearted to a fault, Isabella Berrington loved nothing so much as the unexpected.

  In this case the Duke had not for one moment anticipated that she would refuse his request. The only thing that worried him, knowing Isabella’s idée fixée concerning himself, was what she would say when she saw Amé and then, as if in answer to his unspoken question, there came a little knock at the door.

  Without thinking who it might be, Hugo called out,

  “Entrez!”

  The door opened and Amé came in.

  She had taken off her velvet suit and had found among Adrian’s clothes a dressing gown of heavy green satin with a quilted collar and cuffs of a paler hue. When Dalton brought her the Duke’s message, she hurriedly slipped it on and with bare feet ran happily down the stairs to obey his summons.

  She had been brushing her hair, clearing it of the last remnants of powder, most of which had been blown away by the wind. Free of its confining ribbon, it tumbled over her shoulders in glorious disarray, the deep red texture of it alive with golden lights and soft waves, framing her face in which her eyes, vividly blue, sought out the Duke as she entered the room and seemed to light up with an undeniable happiness at the sight of him,.

  She ran across the room, not even glancing in her hurry at Isabella or Hugo.

  “You sent for me, Your Grace?”

  She seemed very small and very young, yet there was something in her face that told both the watchers that her heart beat with an emotion that was by no means childish.

  The Duke took her hand in his.

  “Amé, I wish to present you to my cousins,” he said in a tone that contrived to be heavily paternal. “This gentleman is Hugo Waltham, of whom you have heard me speaking.”

  Ame dropped a curtesy.

  “And this,” the Duke continued, “is Lady Isabella Berrington who is coming here today to chaperone you.”

  Amé turned towards Isabella only to find that lady sitting up on the sofa, stiff-backed and with something uncomfortably like hostility warring with curiosity in her face.

  “Oh, will you do that, madame?” Amé asked her impulsively, dropping a curtsey and taking a few steps forward to stand beside Isabella’s chair. “But I must warn you before you decide that it may make trouble for you. The Cardinal is very powerful and the Priests who came to tell me that I must take my vows immediately frightened me. When I saw them again when I was hiding in the inn they seemed to me like birds of prey. If you are afraid, then you must not get mixed up in my affairs. Already I am troubled for Monseigneur, but he is so brave, so wonderfully gallantly brave, that he says he does not mind.”

  Amé paused, her voice breathless.

  The Duke noticed with amusement that Isabella had been instantly and completely captivated. Amé could not have chosen a better way to enlist her sympathy than to warn her against the danger. All her life within the limited circle in which she moved Isabella had contrived to live dangerously.

  Here indeed was something which was entirely after her own heart, a real adventure with a spice of danger and Isabella would not have refused it for all the riches of the Orient.

  She looked at Amé and, rising slowly to her feet, said,

  “Curse you, Sebastian, the child is lovely. I am jealous, blue-devilled with jealousy, but I am not afraid of the Cardinal or anyone else for that matter.”

  She put out both her hands towards Amé.

  “You will surprise Paris more than anything they have seen for a long time,” she said, “but first we have to find some clothes. Beautiful clothes, sensational clothes. It is going to cost Sebastian a small fortune.”

  Instantly Amé turned towards the Duke.

  “You are sure that you can afford it, Monseigneur?” she asked simply.

 
Isabella gave a shriek of laughter.

  “Afford it? Why the man’s a Croesus! You were clever enough, my dear, to find yourself a millionaire when you climbed over the wall of the Convent.”

  “I was thinking,” Amé said in her soft low voice, “how fortunate I have been. It might have been someone very horrid, someone from whom I would have had to defend myself with my own dagger, but instead it was Monseigneur.”

  There was no need for her to say anything more, it was obvious to those who listened just what she felt and the way her voice dropped on the last word was as if she spoke of something Holy, something so miraculous that she could hardly bear to put it into words.

  Across her head Isabella met the Duke’s eyes. There was mischief and mockery in hers and then to her surprise she encountered something she had never seen in her cousin’s expression before. Could it possibly have been a look of pleading? She was not certain as she put her arm round Amé’s shoulders.

  “Come, my love, we have a lot to do, you and I. I will send for my own clothes and then we will go out shopping. But the couturiers must come here and the hairdresser and Madame Rose Bertin herself, for no one else has exactly the same taste, though to be sure, no one else dares to be quite so expensive!”

  They had almost reached the door when Amé turned and, moving from beneath Isabella’s arm, ran back to the Duke’s side.

  “When may I come down to see you again?” she asked urgently. “You will not go away from the house without seeing me?”

  “You shall know all my movements,” the Duke replied. “But my cousin is right, before we can do anything else, you must be correctly dressed.”

  He glanced down at Amé’s little bare feet as he spoke, her toes pink against the gay, rose-garlanded pattern of the Aubusson carpet and then he looked again at the whiteness of her neck rising from the soft folds of Adrian Court’s dressing gown.

  Amé gave a little laugh.

  You are right, Your Grace,” she agreed without the least embarrassment in her tones. “I can scarcely go to Court like this, can I?”

  Then she flashed him a smile, ran across the room again and with exquisite manners held open the door for Isabella to precede her. One last glance for the Duke and then she was gone and the door was closed.

  “Really, Sebastian, I think you are exceeding all bounds of sensibility!” Hugo exclaimed.

  The Duke looked at him in surprise.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I say. Are you demented that you should undertake such a thing as this and at this moment?”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” the Duke rebuked him sharply.

  “Yes, you do,” Hugo replied. “You forget that before you came here you confided in me the real reason for your visit. I promised to help you and already I have made many arrangements which should be of assistance in one way or another. Tonight you dine with the Comte de Vergennes, Minister of Foreign Affairs. Tomorrow there is a ball at Versailles you are invited to. The next day you will have a private audience with the Count de Creutz, the Swedish Minister. These are but a few of the arrangements I have made. There are many more to follow. How can you give your time and concentration and above all your ingenuity to such things when you are playing with fire and defying the Cardinal de Rohan?”

  “Do you suggest that I leave Amé to her own resources?” the Duke asked him drily.

  “Not in the least,” Hugo replied. “If you are interested in this child, which is obvious, you can send her back to England. She will be safe enough there and she can remain at Melyn until you return and decide what is best for her future.”

  The Duke sighed.

  “You are a very sensible fellow, Hugo, and very prosaic without one spark of imagination in your make-up.”

  “If it needs imagination to be side-tracked from a really serious mission into an intrigue which can only do you harm and, unless I am mistaken, very little good to anyone else, then I am unimaginative,” Hugo retorted. “But please, Sebastian, consider well before you start on this wild escapade. Amé is certainly very pretty, which to my mind is all the more reason for you refusing to be embroiled in her affairs. Suppose, as you anticipated yourself in the first few minutes of your encounter with her, that you are accused of abducting a nun from a French Convent? Suppose, as is very probable, that she is a special protégée of the Cardinal? What will be said?

  Hr paused before continuing,

  “You own a great and honoured name, your position at Court carries with it great responsibilities which cannot be ignored, you are also, as only you and I know, the trusted Emissary of the Prime Minister. Forget all this nonsense, Sebastian, Send the girl to England and concentrate on what is of real importance.”

  “My dear, sensible steady Hugo, how right you are and yet how little I intend to listen to you! I have so often told you that your efforts to control and confine me within the narrow limits of what it is best to do are doomed to failure. I have often called you ‘my conscience’, but on this occasion, as on many others, I do not intend to listen to you.”

  “That is a pity,” Hugo said drily, “for I fancy your conscience, if it could still be heard, would have a great deal to say on this matter. Do you really think that it will do Amé any good for her to be presented to the world by you, Sebastian? You force me to speak plainly. You are not the right protector, Guardian or whatever you prefer to call yourself for an innocent girl. You have lived your life fully. It has been your own life and you have been perfectly at liberty to do so, but you are a man with a formidable reputation where women are concerned.”

  “Well, what of it?” the Duke asked defiantly.

  Hugo crossed to the mantelpiece and stood for a moment staring down into the grate. Then, as if he made up his mind to be courageous, he said slowly,

  “I don’t like to say things unless I am absolutely certain they are true but, I believe that child to be in love with you.”

  The Duke laughed.

  “My dear Hugo, but, of course, she has been in my company since the night before last. I am the first man with whom she has ever been alone and the first unattached and eligible man she has ever seen. She fell in love with me within the first ten minutes of our acquaintance. What else could be expected?”

  “And you?” Hugo asked.

  “The question is impertinent, but because I am fond of you, I will give you an answer. I have never been in love with anyone. No that is not true. Years ago, when I was young and silly, I fell in love with a very lovely woman. She failed me. Sufficient to say I discovered that the worship and adoration I had for her were entirely and absolutely misplaced. I swore then that I would never love again. Women have been my playthings, a way of spending an enjoyable half-hour and a means of forgetting the more serious difficulties and problems that beset all men. You need not be afraid, Hugo. I shall not fall in love with a foundling from an obscure French Convent nor, if it is troubling you, shall I seduce an innocent girl who has sought my protection.”

  “Then why are you doing this?” Hugo asked.

  The Duke shrugged his shoulders.

  “I think Amé is the only person who could answer that question,” he replied. A smile flickered across his lips. “Indeed, she was very persistent.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Cardinal de Rohan yawned as he sat at ease in his coach.

  “It is taking us an unconscionable time to get to Versailles tonight,” he remarked to his companion and secretary, Monsieur Ramon de Carbonnières.

  “It is always the same, Your Eminence,” Monsieur Ramon replied. “I have remarked a dozen times that the road should be widened.”

  There was a cry from outside and then the Cardinal’s coach lurched perilously as the coachman pulled the horses to one side to allow the passage of another travelling at what appeared to be breakneck speed.

  “Nom de Dieu!” Monsieur Ramon exclaimed. “Who can be passing us in such a perilous fashion?”

  The Cardinal leaned
forward.

  In the light of the lanterns it was possible to catch a fleeting glimpse of postilions and outriders liveried in blue and silver and a coach of such exquisite lines that it made all other coaches look heavy and overloaded.

  “It is that Englishman, the Duke of Melyncourt,” the Cardinal replied. “Who else would drive at such a pace?”

  “He must be mad,” Monsieur Ramon remarked. “I swear my shoulder is bruised from being thrown about in such an uncomfortable fashion.”

  “Not mad, merely impatient,” the Cardinal said, “and perhaps, one never knows, not quite so stupid as the rest of his race.”

  There was something in the tone of the Prince’s voice that arrested his companion’s attention from the contemplation of his own sufferings.

  “What makes Your Eminence say that?” he asked.

  “Just an idea I have,” the Cardinal replied enigmatically.

  His coach was now proceeding much more comfortably for it had regained the centre of the road. But the Cardinal’s face was still dark as they journeyed on towards the Royal Palace. He was never in a good mood when journeying to Versailles for his presence there was in many ways an act of bravado.

  As Grand Almoner of France he could not be excluded from any official Levée, but the Queen would not speak to him and Her Majesty’s dislike was obvious to all.

  A man of finer sensibilities would not have persisted in his pursuit of a woman, Queen though she might be, who openly admitted her detestation. But the Cardinal, who had great vanity, no common sense and less wisdom, was determined to woo her with the mule-like obstinacy of those who believe in their own infallibility. His appeals, pleadings, letters and emissaries had so far remained unanswered, but he still hoped and still had faith that his charms and much-exploited virility would soften her heart.

  However he would not have been human had he not felt depressed and on edge at the ordeal that lay before him. And, as he sat clipping the edge of his fingernails against his teeth, his companion lapsed into silence knowing only too well the reason for his Master’s preoccupation.