Love Me Forever Read online

  “Lud! what a crush!” Isabella gasped. “I am exhausted.”

  “It was wonderful, wonderful!” Amé exclaimed.

  “You were a great success, child,” Isabella said, “and, although I ought to be jealous of you, I am not.”

  “Why should you be jealous of me?” Amé asked her wonderingly.

  “Because for the first time in my life I was accompanied by a woman who had more beaux than I had,” Isabella answered. “I think I must be getting old, because I did not mind. That is an extraordinary thing, isn’t it, Sebastian?”

  “Why should you mind?” Amé asked before he could speak. “They were only a lot of silly boys. I wanted to dance with Monseigneur, but he would not dance with me.”

  “I am too old for dancing,” said the Duke. “Silly boys, as you call them, are far more suitable for your age. How did you like the first unattached gentlemen you have ever met?”

  “I thought most of them very stupid,” Amé replied. “They said such silly things. The King’s brother, the Comte d’Artois, kept saying that my eyes were like stars. Can you imagine such a silly thing to say? Stars have points and my eyes are round!”

  “Did you tell him that?” Isabella enquired.

  “Yes. He said I was being unkind. He said a lot of other stupid things.”

  Isabella began to laugh.

  “She said that to the Comte d’Artois! Oh, Sebastian! I wish I could have seen his face! Why, he fancies himself as the biggest ladykiller in Paris.”

  “I thought he was ridiculous,” Amé went on. “I don’t like boys.”

  “Boys, indeed! The Comte d’Artois is twenty-seven and you are eighteen, that is usually considered a very suitable difference in age.”

  “Suitable for what?” Amé enquired.

  “Marriage, of course,” Isabella replied.

  She was not prepared for the expression of alarm that came over Amé’s face. There was a touch of fear in it and impulsively the girl turned to the Duke.

  “You don’t mean – You don’t think – ” she began.

  He understood the stammered words before she could formulate the sentence.

  “No, of course not,” he replied quietly. “No one shall arrange a marriage for you. In England it is different. People there marry because they are in love, not, as in France, because it is a suitable match.”

  Amé gave a little sigh.

  “I was just afraid for the moment. Lady Isabella is so very kind and I am so grateful to her, but she does things so quickly that I was half-afraid for the moment she might marry me off before I was aware of it. Mais vraiment, if it comes to that, I would rather return to the Convent than marry one of those idiotic boys!”

  “Sebastian, will you please not encourage the child to have contempt for the Nobility of France!” Isabella said, trying to speak severely while she was laughing.

  “I have a respect for no one but my own Monseigneur,” Amé answered. “I saw so many people look at him with admiration and I heard one woman say, ‘my dear, there is a man! I wish I was not too old’.”

  “Amé paused a moment.

  “What did she mean, ‘too old’?” she asked. “Was it that she was too old to marry you?”

  Isabella gave a little giggle, but the Duke said gravely,

  “That was what she meant. It was a compliment, I think.”

  “Of course it was a compliment,” Amé replied. “You should have heard her tone when she said, ‘there is a man.’ I wanted to agree with her. I wanted to tell her just how wonderful you are.”

  “You have a very inflated idea of me, I am afraid,” the Duke said. “You must talk to Hugo, he will do his best to disillusion you.”

  “Monsieur Hugo is very grave. He takes things too seriously, but all the same he is très gentil. Always he appears very quiet and very cold, but inside he burns fiercely as if with fire.”

  “Good gracious! How do you know that?” Isabella asked.

  “Because although he is quiet, he has a big heart, he feels everything very deeply. I am sure of that.”

  “What do you think of Cardinal de Rohan?” the Duke asked.

  He felt Amé shrink against him and for a moment she did not answer his question.

  When she did, it was in a low voice, quite unlike the gay laughing tones she had been speaking in before.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “The Cardinal belongs to the Church and always I have thought of him and of all other Priests as being Holy and saintly and living very near to God. Father Pierre is like that. He is not a Cardinal, he is only a Priest, and yet one knows that every breath he draws and every thought he has is good. The Mother Prioress once said to us that eyes are the windows of the soul and one can look at Father Pierre and know that his soul is as pure and gentle as that of a little child. But the Cardinal is different. There is something about him that made me shiver. It was not only that I was afraid for myself. It was something else. He is a man who does not seem to know God.”

  “A very good character study,” the Duke remarked. “Tell me, Amé, how do you know all this?”

  In reply Amé shrugged her shoulders.

  “I don’t know. Perhaps I am wrong. I hope so. But I know the Duc de Chartres is evil, just as I know that other people, like Monsieur Hugo, are kind and good and would harm no one.”

  “Upon my word, this is like going to a fortune-teller,” Isabella exclaimed. “I would never dare to ask you what you thought of me. I would be much too frightened that I should hear something uncomplimentary.”

  “But why should you, madame? I love you. You have been so kind.”

  “But you would not say that I was good?” Isabella persisted.

  Amé hesitated.

  “Not good as Father Pierre is good but, what is the word you use in English, warm-hearted. Yet you are lonely. Always you are seeking something that you cannot find.”

  “But that is ridiculous – ” Isabella started to say and then stopped. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I think and, madame, you must forgive me if I say something that may not be to your liking, I think that you seek something always. Perhaps it is love, perhaps it is someone to love you – I don’t know. Perhaps really it is that you yourself would be happier if you loved one person very very much.”

  “Well, ’pon my word!” Isabella exclaimed.

  The Duke noticed that she did not contradict Amé’s assertion and that for the rest of the drive she sat silent in the corner of the coach.

  They reached home feeling stiff and very tired. Though it was so late, a number of footmen were waiting in the hall of the big mansion and the candles were still burning in the chandeliers.

  “A glass of wine before we go to bed,” the Duke suggested. “It will keep out the effects of the night air.”

  He led the way into the small salon. It was an attractive room, decorated in grey with panels of silver.

  A footman came hurrying with a tray of drinks. On a side table there were many things to eat, which Amé sampled, while Isabella declared that she was too tired to swallow a crumb.

  “A successful evening, I think,” the Duke said. “One thing is reassuring, the Cardinal has no idea of what Amé looks like.”

  “He would hardly be looking for his escaped novice at Versailles,” Isabella observed.

  “I am not so sure,” the Duke replied. “Stranger things have happened. What I really want to find out is why it should be of such personal importance to him that Amé should be returned to the Convent.”

  “I wish we could tell him in some way that he had spoken to the girl he is seeking and hardly given her more than a second glance,” Isabella said. “But actually, if he had seen her before, he would find it hard to recognise her. Amé certainly looks very different with powdered hair.”

  “Everyone said I looked very nice,” Amé said, turning with a piece of chicken in her hand, “did you think I looked nice, Your Grace?” she asked, speaking directly to the Duke. “Were yo
u proud of me?”

  There was something almost wistful in the question and for a moment he hesitated before he replied,

  “Have you not had enough compliments for tonight? The Comte d’Artois told you that your eyes were like stars.”

  “And another stupid young man said that my mouth was like a rose and my ears like shells. They were all absurd and I thought they talked a lot of rubbish. Please, I want to know what you think.”

  “And if I told you I was proud of you, what then?” the Duke smiled.

  “I think,” Amé said with a little catch in her voice, “I think I should kiss your hand, Your Grace, because, you see, I too am very proud – of you.”

  She bent her head as she spoke and laid her lips on the back of his hand and then with a little sigh which was wholly one of contentment she laid her cheek for a moment against the Duke’s arm.

  “It was all very wonderful,” she said, “but only because you were there.”

  Isabella rose to her feet from the chair where she had been reclining.

  “I told you, Sebastian, that you had made me into a Dowager,” she said, “and now you are making me into a gooseberry as well.”

  “A gooseberry!”

  Amé’s eyes were wide with astonishment.

  “Yes, a gooseberry,” Isabella snapped. “If you don’t understand what that means I had better explain it. It means someone who feels de trop, a third person who is left out in the cold when two people get on very well together without anyone else being present.”

  “Now, Isabella, this is unnecessary – ” the Duke began.

  But Isabella’s lips pouted angrily and her eyes were flashing with the intensity of her feelings.

  “It is all very well for you to speak of Amé as a child, Sebastian, but she is eighteen and she is a woman and she should learn to behave like one. She should learn that one does not make love openly as she does to a man who has taken upon himself the responsibility of Guardian!”

  “But I am not making love to the Duke,” Amé protested, her face paling a little.

  “Of course you are,” Isabella scoffed. “What else do you think you are doing or saying when you behave in such a manner towards him? It is not correct, it is not proper that you should go on like that.”

  “But, madame, I did not mean ‒ to do wrong,” Amé stammered. “It is just that I love Monseigneur ‒ so very very much.”

  Her eyes swam with tears and suddenly they overflowed and ran down her cheeks.

  With a little sob that seemed to come from the very depths of her being she turned and ran from the room.

  The door closed behind her and Isabella looked at the Duke with consternation on her face.

  “Oh, dear, I did not mean to upset the child,” she exclaimed. “I must go and say that I am sorry. She is so absurdly sensitive and it is true, Sebastian, she loves you to distraction.”

  “It is, I agree, quite ridiculous,” the Duke said. “I thought tonight, when she met men of her own age she would realise that I am much too old and too dull for such misplaced affection.”

  “She is so gentle and sweet and now I have been unkind to her. It is your fault, Sebastian. You should not be so devastatingly attractive.”

  “My dear, what attracts you to me is my title and well I know it. Amé was right, Isabella, you are looking for someone to love and you have not yet found him.”

  “And suppose I never do fall in love?” Isabella asked, suddenly serious.

  “Then I don’t think either of us would be content with second best.”

  There was something in his tone that made Isabella raise her eyes to his.

  “Are you – are you falling in love, Sebastian?” she asked.

  He turned away from her and his voice was harsh as he replied,

  “I may be old, Isabella, but I am not yet senile.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Isabella came slowly into the library where Hugo Waltham was dealing with a large pile of accounts.

  She carried in her hands a number of invitation cards which her eyes were scanning as she entered.

  She smiled as Hugo rose and waved him to his seat. She was looking very lovely this morning. She had not yet made her toilette and wore a muslin wrap trimmed with Venetian lace. Her hair, instead of being dressed in an elaborate fashion, was loose and unpowdered, its golden curls caught with a deep blue ribbon that echoed the ribbons at her waist.

  She seated herself by the window and the sunshine turned her hair into an aureole of living gold and her eyes, when she lifted them to Hugo’s face, were as bright and gay as the sunbeams glittering almost blindingly on the silver inkpot before him.

  “There is no doubt about Amé’s success!” Isabella exclaimed. “Look at these invitations! There is not a house in Paris that has not opened its doors to her. The Duchesse de Duras is giving a special party for us all next week and the Princesse de Lamballe a masque. When I remember how stiff and difficult these ladies can be, I want to laugh.”

  “It merely makes me nervous,” Hugo replied. “If they find out, Sebastian will never be forgiven.”

  Isabella gave a little shrug of her shoulders.

  “And that would obviously not perturb him very much.”

  “A year or so ago I would have agreed with you, maybe even a month ago, but he seems to have changed.”

  Isabella gave him a quick .glance.

  “I thought the same thing, but believed it to be my imagination.”

  “I don’t think we are imagining it,” Hugo replied. “There is definitely a change in him. He is more serious and very much more correct.”

  Isabella put down the invitation cards, cupped her chin in her hand and stared out into the garden.

  “You know, Hugo, I would not be surprised if we have not all changed a little.”

  “All of us?” he enquired.

  Isabella nodded.

  “I for one feel different. Oh, ’tis hard to explain just what I mean and it is something I could not say to Sebastian. He would merely smile cynically at me and then I should feel stupid. But I can say it to you. It is, I believe, Amé’s influence on us all.”

  “In what way?” Hugo asked.

  “That is what is so hard to put into words and yet perhaps I am close to it when I say that she brings out the best in everyone she comes into contact with. If you had told me a few weeks ago that I should be chaperoning a girl in whom Sebastian was interested, I should have imagined you were crazed. And yet, try as I may, I cannot be jealous of Amé. It seems ridiculous and yet that is the truth.”

  “There is no reason why you should be jealous of her. She is in love with Sebastian. That is obvious for anyone to see, but what his feelings are for her I personally have no idea.”

  “Nor I and yet we both admit he has changed. But that is not the point. I am young, I am beautiful and yet here I am chaperoning and playing second fiddle to a child younger than myself and infinitely lovelier.”

  “That is not true,” Hugo began, but Isabella put up her hand to check the words that rose to his lips.

  “There is no need to be gallant, Hugo. We have known each other for long enough. I was a sensation in London and I know the signs only too well. Amé is the sensation of Paris. She is, if you like, the reigning toast!”

  “I don’t like that expression,” Hugo remarked almost angrily.

  Isabella raised her eyebrows.

  “It offends you?”

  “Exceedingly. I have never thought it any compliment that a woman’s name should be bandied about by drunken fops in the Clubs of St. James’s or that her beauty should be extolled in the coffee houses or at the gaming tables.”

  There was so much fierceness in his tone that Isabella stared at him in amusement. But she did not speak and after a moment Hugo said in a humble voice,

  “You must forgive me if I do sound impertinent. My feelings are not of the slightest interest to you nor should you be bothered with them.”

  “Your feelings do
interest me,” Isabella replied. “I had no idea I had incurred your displeasure.”

  “You must forgive me, I should not have spoken.”

  “Why not?” Isabella enquired. “We are old friends, you and I. We have known each other ever since you first came to Melyn. I was staying there the night that you arrived. I remember how warmly we complimented the Duke on his choice of a secretary. Your predecessor had been an absolute horror.”

  “And the chance was that I could not be much worse,” Hugo remarked and his voice was bitter.

  “I did not say that,” Isabella said quickly. “We liked you for yourself. I have always been very fond of you and now, to my amazement, I find that you are harbouring against me these unkind criticisms. If I am the toast of drunken fops, it is not my fault.”

  “No?”

  Isabella’s eyes fell before the direct question.

  “Well, not entirely. I will be frank and admit that I enjoyed being talked about, in scandalising all those who sat in judgement on me. They were so smug, so prudish and ready to find evil where none existed.”

  Hugo rose to his feet and walked to the fireplace.

  “I have never believed you capable of anything intrinsically wrong. What I have regretted has been the misuse that you have put your talents to and the lack of interest you have shown in your brain.”

  “Lud, have I got one?” Isabella exclaimed.

  “You had,” Hugo assured her gravely. “Do you remember our discussions at Melyn the first year we met?”

  “I was much younger at the time,” Isabella said hastily. “I was eager to show off my learning, but I soon learnt in London that the last thing required of a woman is for her to be clever. Men flee from her side as though she had contracted the plague!”

  “That is true and yet I have always thought it a pity,” Hugo sighed.

  “You would prefer me to sit and talk Greek mythology with you rather than lead a cotillon at Devonshire House?” Isabella enquired.

  “Greek mythology might have been preferable and even more desirable than driving your own tandem to Sevenoaks and winning a race for a thousand guineas.”