Love Me Forever Read online

  In the coach that had passed them, however, the atmosphere was very different. Jumping up and down on the cushioned seat of the coach and unable to keep still, her head darting first this way and then that, was an exquisite little figure, whose excitement was only equalled by the chatter of her tongue.

  “Tiens! But is it possible that I am really en route for Versailles?” Amé asked not once but a dozen times. “It is so difficult to believe that I shall really, with my own eyes, see the King and Queen. Why, last week His Majesty was only a head on a coin.”

  The Duke laughed.

  “You will find it a remarkable likeness.”

  Amé bent forward to touch Isabella’s hand.

  “Madame, how can I ever thank you?” she said. “When I learned that it would be permissible for me to accompany you tonight to Versailles, I thought it would be impossible to be ready in time. I had no clothes, no gloves, no cloak and my hair! I never dreamed that my hair could look like this.”

  As she spoke, she put up her hands to the exquisite curls on which Leonard, the Queen’s hairdresser, had spent nearly three hours earlier in the afternoon.

  “Don’t touch it, child,” Isabella cried out, “or your gloves will be covered with powder and besides you might spoil the effect.”

  “It may look nice,” Amé said, “but I find it strangely uncomfortable to be dressed in such a fashionable manner. I dare not move my head, my shoes pinch and my waist is far too tight.”

  “Far too big, you mean,” Isabella replied, “imagine it, Sebastian, in a Convent they don’t encourage the use of corsets.”

  “We did not think of anything so worldly and so unimportant as our figures,” Amé said. “But for tonight I wish to forget the Convent and everything except that I am a femme du monde.”

  Both Isabella and the Duke laughed.

  “Indeed you are nothing of the sort,” Isabella said, “and if you don’t calm down and look more blasé, no one will think you even look like one. You must remember it is fashionable to be bored with everything.”

  “I have never been bored,” Amé replied simply, “so I don’t know how to behave as though I was.”

  “You will learn quickly enough,” Isabella smiled. “Now, don’t forget, you curtsey to everyone to whom you are presented and in the presence of the King and Queen you go down as low as you can, but holding your head straight on your shoulders.”

  “I will remember,” Amé promised. “Alors, this is such a wonderful evening, but no one, not even the King, could look as magnificent as my own Monseigneur.”

  She then turned her face up to the Duke’s as she spoke. There was so much undisguised admiration and adoration in her eyes that the Duke had to smile a little deprecatingly.

  But indeed Amé spoke the truth, the Duke always looked magnificent, but tonight he was splendid beyond words. The blue ribbon of the Garter was vivid over a coat fashioned from cloth of gold. His orders glittered and sparkled in the light of the lantern, there was a brooch of stupendous emeralds and diamonds in the lace of his cravat and similar stones fastened his exquisitely embroidered waistcoat.

  His shoes had jewelled heels and below his knee he wore the Garter itself. His snuffbox, which he carried in one hand, was ablaze with the purest blue-white diamonds and his handkerchief of the finest lawn and wide Venetian lace was faintly scented with perfume.

  Isabella, who was used to seeing him and was seldom surprised by his appearance, had for once, when she found him waiting in the salon, given an exclamation of undisguised admiration, while Amé, who had followed her into the room, had let out a cry of delight.

  “Vraiment, Your Grace, you look like a King!” she exclaimed, then realised that the Duke was examining her with a critical eye and she blushed a little beneath his scrutiny.

  Isabella had turned to look at her as well.

  “Are you pleased, Sebastian?” she asked him at some length, forgetting everything save the desire to be complimented on what had been a difficult but enjoyable task.

  To have a ball dress made within twenty-four hours, to arrange that Amé should be transformed from a lovely but unsophisticated young woman into a scintillating beauty whose equal it would be hard to find at any Court, had been an achievement of which anyone might rightly be proud. It was not only influence which had managed to keep Madame Rose Bertin’s workrooms open all night and it was not only influence that had made Leonard cancel several other appointments so that he might attend to Amé’s hair himself.

  It was because Isabella could on occasion be a driving force of activity if she set her heart on something. She had an enormous store of vitality and it was this very vitality which got her into mischief because she had not enough outlet for her energy.

  She had run around in Paris just like a whirlwind and the result was to be seen as Amé, with her eyelids drooping a little shyly and her lips curved in a tender smile, sank down before the Duke in a deep curtsey.

  Her white dress, with its full skirt and tiny squeezed-in waist, was sewn with silver spangles. There were roses at her breast and roses again underneath the hooped panniers on which her fingers rested with a grace and elegance that nobody, not even Isabella, could have taught her in the space of twenty-four hours.

  Her hair was powdered and drawn back from her forehead in a mass of curls. There were curls too resting against the white column of her throat and on the naked loveliness of her shoulders.

  She looked very young and there was something appealing in her youth and freshness that Hugo Waltham, coming into the room, felt something suspiciously like a lump in his throat as he watched her rise from her curtsey.

  “You are pleased, Sebastian?” Isabella asked again.

  “You have done well,” the Duke approved.

  “You are determined that we, as a party, shall be outstanding tonight, Sebastian,” Isabella said. “I wish I knew why it is so important. You have a reason, although you will not tell me what it is.”

  “I have never been good at revealing my secrets to anyone,” the Duke replied and strolled across the room to take a glass of champagne from a waiting footman.

  It seemed to Amé, impatient to be off, that quite a long time elapsed before finally they stepped into the waiting coach. Then the horses leapt forward and they swept down the narrow cobbled streets. Many twists and turns made their progress in the City slow so it was not until they came out onto the road to Versailles that the speed of the Duke’s team could be shown.

  There they swept past a long procession of carriages and came at length to the three-sided court where a blaze of light shining from every window and the high flambeaux showed the long stream of coaches pausing before the marble steps on which stood the Palace footmen in their splendid red and gold uniforms.

  “Pray don’t gape,” Isabella said sharply for Amé was wide-eyed and astonished as, having passed through various antechambers, they reached the Marble Court.

  There were many old acquaintances of the Duke’s among the throng. He spoke to some of them and even those who did not know him stared at his magnificent figure.

  Isabella was well aware too that she was attracting attention.

  Her gown had been made in London, but it was the equal of any worn by the French women present. Her hair had been dressed by Leonard and he completed an almost outrageous coiffure by setting amid the curls a little British frigate flying the White Ensign.

  The eyes of the guests at Versailles lighted first on the Duke and then on Isabella, but they soon perceived that there was a third person with them and on her their eyes lingered longest of all.

  There is something more valuable than jewels, more important in many ways than beauty. It is personality and there are certain people who have a personality that makes them the cynosure of all eyes whether they play on a stage or merely walk along the road with their fellow men.

  Amé commanded attention. There was something about her, small though she was, which made itself felt. This strange quality was obv
ious from the moment she entered the doors of Versailles. People asked each other quite audibly who she was.

  Those who were fortunate enough to have the Duke’s acquaintance spoke to him and then, looking at Amé, waited with the obvious intention of being presented.

  Soon after they had reached the Gallerie des Glaces where the Levée was being held, the Duke and his two ladies appeared to be holding a Reception on their own. Amé wanted to see something of the room of which she had heard but it was filled with so many people that she could only see the innumerable glittering chandeliers and get occasional glimpses of the gigantic mirrors that reflected the glittering, bejewelled and colourful throng.

  The floor was covered by two great Aubusson carpets. Across these the Duke proceeded slowly till they drew near to the fireplace.

  A stout man with many orders on his coat sat in a fine gilt chair and beside him was a woman whom Amé recognised immediately as Marie Antoinette. It was difficult to explain exactly why the Queen was so beautiful. Her features were not classical nor particularly remarkable if taken separately, but her dazzling complexion, her blue eyes and the grace and elegance of her movements somehow impressed one immediately as being in the presence of a woman lovely beyond words.

  The Duke was presented by the British Ambassador and both the King and Queen spoke to him for several minutes. Then it was Isabella’s turn and finally with her heart fluttering wildly, Amé sank in a deep curtsey.

  Marie Antoinette then looked at her with that dewy-eyed softness which conveyed to all who watched her a radiant expression of kindliness and charm.

  “We are glad to welcome you to Versailles as the Ward of the Duke of Melyncourt,” the King said a little pompously.

  “Thank you, Sire,” Amé answered.

  “Is it your first visit to Paris?” Marie Antoinette asked,

  “Yes, madame.”

  “I hope it will be a very happy one,” the Queen said graciously.

  “I thank you, madame.”

  The interview was over, someone else was announced and Amé moved on to make way.

  “He is just like the coins,” she said to the Duke in a low voice when they were out of earshot. “He is good and kind. Whatever anyone may say of the King, he is a good man.”

  “You sound very positive,” the Duke said, “and I don’t think anyone is contradicting you.”

  “I have a feeling that some people think he is not good. I don’t know why, but I am so sure of it.”

  “And the Queen? What did you think of the Queen?” the Duke asked curiously.

  Amé looked troubled.

  “Her Majesty is the loveliest person I have ever seen,” she answered him slowly. “But there is something wrong. It is like a shadow behind her and it makes me afraid for her.”

  “I cannot understand what you are trying to say,” remarked Isabella, who had been listening to them.

  “I have no real understanding of it myself,” Amé confessed. “I only know that it is there – a darkness, something – menacing. Oh!”

  She stopped suddenly and shrank a little nearer to the Duke.

  But he also had seen the same florid face with its long nose wending its way towards them.

  The Duke waited with a calm air as the Duc de Chartres drew near. There were a number of Court Officials and women of distinction crowding round, waiting their opportunity to speak with the English party which had been so graciously received by Their Majesties.

  The Duc de Chartres thrust them on one side.

  “Good evening, Melyncourt,” he said in a loud and genial voice, which could not fail to be heard by a great number of people. “It is nice to see you again. I am only sorry that the visit you paid me at my Château on the way to Paris could not have been extended.”

  The Duke opened his snuffbox.

  “A breakdown necessitated my coach leaving the highway,” he replied, but I did not anticipate that the nearest Château would house Your Highness.”

  It was an answer that no one could fail to understand and the Duc de Chartres’s expression was ugly as he said,

  “We shall meet again, Melyncourt, we shall meet again.”

  “Undoubtedly, for Paris is a small place,” the Duke replied.

  The Duc de Chartres turned on his heel and then, as he moved away through the crowd, he turned back.

  “There is an amusing lampoon about you being circulated in the boulevards tonight,” he said. “Have you seen it?”

  The Duke took a pinch of snuff.

  “I never read lampoons,” he replied in a bored voice. “Nor, for that matter, do I write them.”

  There was a little snigger from those listening to him. There were few who frequented the Court who had any sympathy with the Duc de Chartres and his vendetta against the Queen and yet in a battle of wits those who pitted themselves against him invariably came off the worse.

  The courtiers crowded round the Duke now, anxious to ingratiate themselves with a man who was not afraid to enter battle with one of the most dangerous men in France. But across the heads of the crowd the Duke had seen someone else enter the Gallérie des Glaces.

  This was a handsome imposing figure with a gallant manner and a hardly-disguised look of licentiousness as he greeted first one fair charmer and then another. His red cape stood out against the satins and laces of the ladies’ gowns.

  “Who is that?” the Duke heard someone ask behind him. It was a foreigner who spoke, a Spaniard, the Duke guessed by the accent.

  “That is His Eminence, the Cardinal de Rohan,” was the reply. “He believes in everyone and everything, save perhaps in God.”

  The Duke’s lips twisted themselves in a cynical smile. Then with Isabella on his right side and Amé close at his left, he moved towards the group surrounding the Cardinal.

  Ame felt herself trembling, her fingers were cold, she longed above all things to turn and run away down the long marble staircase into the courtyard where the coach was waiting.

  Yet, in obedience to the Duke, she made no protest as he led her relentlessly forward until, just before he reached the Cardinal’s side, he turned and spoke to the Comte de Vergennes, Minister of Foreign Affairs, with whom he had dined the previous night.

  The Comte de Vergennes, anxious to be of service, stepped forward quickly.

  “Your Eminence, the Duke of Melyncourt desires to be presented to you,” he said to the Cardinal.

  The Prince de Rohan’s smile was almost too effusive and too genial to be natural.

  “My dear Duke, this is an honour. I had heard you were in Paris and had promised myself I would call on you at the earliest opportunity. Did you have a good journey? The Channel crossing was, I hope, not rough?”

  “A little turbulent,” the Duke answered, “but we who live in England are used to such things. Will Your Eminence allow me to present my cousin, Lady Isabella Berrington, and my Ward, Miss Court? ”

  Both ladies swept into low curtsies. The Cardinal smiled at Isabella for she was a very pretty woman and then he glanced at Amé.

  “I did not know you had a Ward travelling with you,” he said to the Duke and it was obvious that he was irritated that such a detail had not been reported to him by those who made it their business to obtain every sort of information for their Master.

  “Miss Court did not travel with me,” the Duke replied.

  “You are making your début?” the Cardinal asked Amé.

  “Yes ‒ Your Eminence.”

  Despite every effort she could not help faltering a little over the words, but it was quite obvious that for the moment at any rate the Cardinal was not really interested in her. He turned to say another word to Isabella and then moved on to greet other acquaintances, among them a tall severe-looking man with a heavy hooked nose and small eyes disappearing under beetling brows.

  “Who is that?” the Duke enquired of Isabella.

  “Speaking to the Cardinal now?” she questioned. “Surely you know him? It is the Prince de Frémond
, a horrible man, although everyone adores his wife. They say that he decides the foreign policy of France. If that is so, I expect it is because the King is afraid of him. Everyone else is.”

  The Duke studied the Prince de Frémond with interest and then, before he could say any more to Isabella, they were surrounded once again by a crowd of people anxious to be charming, eager to pay first Isabella and then Amé the most extravagant and fulsome compliments.

  There was dancing later in the evening and Amé was surrounded at once by a crowd of young Noblemen eager for the privilege of partnering her.

  “You have made me into a Dowager and I hate you,” Isabella said as she came to the Duke’s side where he stood talking to various Statesmen and then, before he replied, she had gone again for she too had no lack of partners.

  It was four o’clock in the morning when finally Amé confessed that she was really tired and her feet were beginning to ache. Isabella stifled one yawn after another behind white-gloved hands. The Queen had withdrawn half an hour earlier, reluctantly and only because she knew that there must be many present who were longing to go home, but who could not leave before she had retired.

  She had managed to infuse an air of gaiety into the formality of the party because she herself seemed so happy and so unconcerned by anything but the enjoyment of the moment. When she was enjoying herself, Marie Antoinette was at her best.

  She was not lacking in character and, if she had married a man strong enough to force it into a balanced mould, she might have made an admirable Queen, but Louis was intelligent only where learning was concerned and the clumsiness of his movements and his own humble estimate of himself made him appear gauche and stupid beside the shallow glitter of his wife’s restless mind.

  At Versailles the Queen reigned supreme and when she did withdraw from the ballroom it seemed as if the lights had paled and the brilliance had gone from the glittering throng. Those who, a few minutes before, had been animated and smiling, were now tired and bored.

  There was a general movement towards the staircase, but because of the crowd it was some time before the Duke could reach his coach and Isabella and Amé could lie back comfortably against the soft cushions.