Love Me Forever Read online

  “Then, as if he regretted having spoken too freely, the Cardinal added,

  “‘But I do have the greatest faith in the Comte Cagliostro. He is the one who is inspired. His mysteries are, of course, beyond the comprehension of the ordinary people he comes into contact with’.”

  “And what did you say to that?” Isabella asked.

  “I was not prepared to reopen the question, so I merely bowed. But I came away from The Palace with the conviction that Cagliostro has hypnotised the Cardinal against his better nature. He believes in the charlatan’s magic powers, but I am sure that in his heart he realises that if they are indeed magic they certainly come from no Divine source.”

  “Then if the Cardinal has not taken Amé, who has?” Hugo queried.

  “I think I can answer that question,” the Duke replied. “She has been kidnapped on the instructions of the Duc de Chartres.”

  “Good Heavens! But why should he do such a thing?” Isabella exclaimed.

  “I have learned many things about Chartres during the night,” the Duke replied, “and at the moment it is difficult for me to sort out the information and the impressions I have received. But of one thing I am convinced, the Duc has set in motion an avalanche so tremendous and so overpowering that eventually he himself will be destroyed by it.”

  “Stop talking in riddles, Sebastian,” Isabella commanded impatiently, “and tell us what you mean.”

  “I only wish I could put it all into adequate words. First of all the Cardinal gave me the idea when, having convinced me that he at any rate was not guilty of abducting Amé, he said, ‘have you or Miss Court an enemy in Paris?’

  “There was something in the way he spoke that made me sure that he suspected someone and instantly I thought of Chartres. If I have an enemy in France, I supposed it must be he. He could not have been pleased at the way I managed to escape from his Château.”

  “But still to kidnap a young girl is a very drastic revenge,” Hugo pointed out.

  “I agree,” the Duke replied, “and yet it fits in with other things that we have heard and not only about him but of his followers. I learned from the people I have spoken to tonight that the Duc himself is only a cloak for the activities of a large number of men and women far more dangerous and ruthless than he is ever likely to be.

  The Duke paused for a moment to cough and then resumed,

  “He is a vain, self-satisfied pompous egotist, but those who do shelter in the shadows of his wealth and position have what he will never have in a million years, brains. Twisted, crafty and scheming they have the intelligence to plot and carry out their plans however diabolical they may be. It is these people who are the real danger to our France for they are really concerned not with a petty vendetta waged between a Royal Duc and an unpopular Queen, but with the destruction and disruption of law and order over the whole country.”

  “But what can Amé have to do with all this?” Isabella asked in bewilderment.

  “She is the latest favourite in Paris, accepted at the Court, smiled on by the Queen, a name which has been on everyone’s lips and above all things, my Ward.”

  The Duke paused. Two footmen came into the room with a variety of hot dishes. He helped himself, took another glass of wine and waited until the servants had left the room before he continued,

  “What I was saying is, of course, at the moment only supposition. I have nothing to go on, not a single fact to corroborate such a statement, and yet I am convinced that the truth of the matter is this. The Duc de Chartres was annoyed that I had slipped out of his cleverly conceived little snare. He spoke against me, he said things to those who surrounded him which drew their attention to me and to my very popular Ward. That was all that was needed. It has been done many times before. The Duc threw the first stone, breaking the smooth surface of the water and creating a disturbance which rippled outwards in ever-widening circles.”

  “Go on,” Isabella encouraged him.

  “I can only surmise that among the other people who act on the Duc’s behalf, someone had the idea of kidnapping Amé. Chartres may know about it or he may not, but she has been spirited away and if she is in the power of those I suspect, then I can only pray that death comes to her quickly.”

  The Duke’s voice throbbed on the words.

  There was a horrified silence and then Isabella put up her hands to her eyes. Hugo suddenly thumped the table with his clenched fist.

  “Good God, Sebastian! What are you implying? How can you sit there and say such things?”

  The Duke pushed aside his plate, rose to his feet and walked across the room to the window. For a moment he stood there with his back to them and looking out on the sunlit garden.

  “After I left the Cardinal last night,” he said, “I went to the Palais Royal. I tried to see the Duc, but he was not in Paris. He had gone to the country having left, they then informed me, the day before yesterday, so he had certainly not taken Amé with him.

  “It was then that the idea came to me to learn what I could of what went on both in the Palais Royal and in the poor parts of Paris from which it gains so much support. I spent the rest of the night learning what Hell must be like. Yes, Hell, Hugo, and I speak the words in no theoretical way.

  “I have been into the back of the bookshops where the lampoons are sold. I have talked with men who make a trade out of libel, whose living depends on how much they can defame their betters. I have sat with those who dip their pens in filth to make a drawing, I have spoken with ruffians whose job it is to distribute leaflets, pamphlets and lampoons.

  “I went into the houses of ill-fame that the Duc has set up in the Palais Royal. I learned things from the women there that, experienced as I thought I was in vice, left me gasping. Then when the Palais Royal could tell me no more, I went out into the streets. I can only tell you one thing, that Paris is corrupt beyond anything I or, I believe, anyone else in my position has ever imagined.”

  “And still you could not find Amé?” Isabella said, speaking through her tears.

  “No, I could not find Amé, but no one seemed to be at all surprised that she or anyone else should have disappeared. Crime is a commonplace in Paris and it is merely a question of price.”

  “But, Sebastian, we must find her. You cannot give up like this!”

  “Give up?” It was the Duke’s turn to be surprised. “I promise you, Isabella, I have no intention of giving up the search for Amé. If it takes me the whole of my life, I shall continue to look for her until I can punish those who are responsible for her disappearance.”

  “That poor child,” whispered Isabella. “I have thought of her being made to suffer, being hurt, frightened and in pain and oh, Sebastian, she loves you so much!”

  The Duke’s lips tightened as if she had struck him suddenly on a tender spot.

  “She loves you to distraction,” Isabella went on. “And you, Sebastian, do you care for her at all?”

  The Duke did not answer and after a moment Isabella continued,

  “I don’t think that I can bear it if she must love you as she does and you are without feeling for her. Hers is such a selfless perfect love, Sebastian! Last night, I thought to myself, if only we could find her, we could all leave at once for England. You could be married there and there would be no more danger for Amé from the Cardinal or from anyone else.”

  Still the Duke did not speak and Isabella, rising from the table, walked across the room to stand by him,

  “Tell me, Sebastian,” she pleaded, “please tell me that you care for Amé.”

  And then before the Duke could reply, before he even turned his head to look at Isabella or respond to the hand she had laid beseechingly upon his arm, the door of the breakfast room opened.

  It was Hugo who saw Amé first!

  He saw her standing in the doorway, her dress crumpled, dirty and torn, her hair lying in tangled disarray on her shoulders, but her eyes were alight with happiness and her lips were parted in an ecstasy that was almost
inexpressible.

  Then, as Hugo tried to gasp her name and the words seemed to stick in his throat, the Duke turned, not to look at Isabella but towards the door and Amé, with a cry that seemed to echo round the room and brought tears starting to Isabella’s eyes, ran across the room and flung herself into his arms.

  “Oh, Monseigneur! Monseigneur!” she cried, her voice vibrating with joy. “I am back, I am here ‒ and I thought I should ‒ never see you again.”

  She hid her face against his shoulder and his arms went round her, one hand stroking the tumbled glory of her curls.

  “Amé, you are safe! Oh, my love!” Isabella exclaimed. “Thank God for that, thank God!”

  She went pale as though she was suddenly feeling faint and then, almost before she herself realised that she needed support, Hugo’s arm was around her, helping her to a chair.

  “You are all right, Amé?” the Duke asked.

  His voice was low and calm, yet Hugo caught a glimpse of the expression in his eyes and was amazed by the tenderness he could see there.

  “Yes, I am all right, Monseigneur.”

  Amé raised her face to his. She still clung to him and his arms still held her.

  “I was afraid, desperately afraid, I thought I would never escape and that, when I was dead, you would believe the lie that they wished you to believe of me.”

  “What have they done to you? Where have you been?” Isabella asked.

  But it would seem that neither the Duke nor Amé heard. They were looking into each other’s faces and the radiant almost unbearable happiness in Amé’s seemed in some extraordinary way to be reflected in the Duke’s.

  “I thought of you, Monseigneur,” Amé said. “I wanted to be brave like you. I knew you would be ashamed of me if I snivelled and cried and pleaded for mercy, so I was silent, but inside me I was afraid with a terrible agony of fear, which made me want to scream and scream and do everything one should never do. It was only by remembering you and by thinking of your bravery that I managed not to disgrace myself.”

  “You are unhurt?” the Duke asked quickly.

  “Nothing is wrong with me now I have been able to come back to you,” Amé replied.

  The words seemed to die away on her lips. There was really no need for them. Their eyes were saying to each other all that needed to be said.

  Her heart was beating against his and his arms held her. There was nothing else that mattered in the whole world. Everything else was forgotten, her fears, the danger she had been in, her appearance, Isabella and Hugo staring at her.

  There was just the sunshine, more dazzling and more golden than it had ever been before and a glory that seemed to envelop both Amé and the Duke as if it came from another world.

  For a long moment they stood spellbound while time stood still and they were alone in Eternity, a man and woman joined by the greatest power in Heaven or Earth, the power of love.

  And then Isabella’s voice recalled them to their senses.

  “Your gown, Amé!” she exclaimed, seeing it for the first time. “What have you done to it and where on earth have you been? It is filthy and I suggest that you let me take you upstairs and change into something more comfortable.”

  “Let us hear first where she has been,” Hugo said, but Isabella shook her head.

  “The child is exhausted. Let her change and have something to eat and then she can talk.”

  Amé drew herself very slowly from the Duke’s arms.

  “I have so much to tell you, madame,” she said, looking towards Isabella, “and you too, M’sieur Hugo, but if I could first have something to eat I would be grateful, for I had nothing all yesterday save a piece of bread and to tell the truth I am extremely hungry.”

  “Nothing to eat!” echoed Isabella. “My poor love. Then, of course, you must eat first, your dress can wait, although I swear it is so filthy that it will ruin the chair.”

  Amé sat down at the table and though she had said she was hungry she found it hard to swallow anything save just a few mouthfuls of omelette and to take a sip or two of coffee.

  Her eyes kept wandering towards the Duke’s and he sat there staring at her, silent and bemused.

  Hugo, glancing from one to the other, then realised that the question that Isabella had put to the Duke just before Amé’s return was answered without his having to put it into words.

  When at length Amé put down her cup, Isabella said,

  “It is no use, I am too consumed by curiosity to bear it any longer. You must tell us what has happened to you or I declare I shall have the vapours for the strain is too great for me.”

  Amé laughed.

  “I thought that you wished me to change first and talk afterwards,” she said and then, as Isabella started to reply, she added quickly, “but no, madame, I am but teasing. I thought perhaps you might have been anxious about me.

  “Anxious!” Isabella exclaimed. “It is hardly the word, my love. I have been tortured all night with thoughts of you. While Sebastian has been out walking the streets. Why, he only returned a few minutes ago.”

  “Is that true?” Amé asked the Duke.

  “Yes, it is true,” he replied.

  “Then you might have found me. How wonderful if you had!”

  “Never mind,” he replied, “you have come home on your own. Now, please tell us what has occurred.”

  Sitting there at the table, Amé began her story.

  She told them how she had been tricked by the gentleman in the gardens at the Trianon, how she had been carried off in the coach by François and another man. She told them about little Jean and Renée and how finally François had come home to declare that she was to be killed that night and her body found floating in the Seine clutching the vile lampoon of herself.

  At first when Amé began to talk, Isabella had given exclamations of horror then, as she proceeded, none of her three listeners said anything. They only stared at her as she told what had happened and, when she reached the point where she learnt that she was to be murdered there was utter and complete silence.

  “I thought I was supposed to commit suicide because I was so shocked at what the lampoon suggested,” Amé said. “Then I understood it was because I was afraid of being exposed.”

  “It’s damnable, outrageous and beyond everything,” Hugo muttered beneath his breath.

  “It was then, when I knew that I was to die,” Amé went on, “that I became really afraid. It was all the more horrible because François and Renée spoke of it as such a commonplace occurrence. They might have been discussing the disposal of a dead cat. I was just nothing to them. I was just somebody who François had received orders about and those orders he was determined to carry out to the letter.

  “I wanted to shriek and cry, to go on my knees and beg him to spare me. Yet, even if I had, I knew that it would have done no good – I was nothing in his life. I was just something unwanted that had to be got rid of as one might throw away ‒ a piece of rubbish.

  “I managed to sit silent and then François stretched his arms and yawned.

  ‘I am going to bed,’ he said.

  Renée jerked her head in my direction.

  ‘What about her?’ she asked. ‘Just before dawn,’ François replied and climbed up the ladder. I heard him fling himself down on the floor and after a moment Renée blew out the candle and followed him. I wanted to call out to her then, to beg her to save me. Even as the words came to my lips I realised how hopeless they were. I was left alone downstairs save for the rats which came out of their holes and scampered about the floor – I could even feel them jumping over my feet. I have always been afraid of rats, but the first time it did not seem to matter – they would be there tomorrow night and I should be dead.

  “When I had contemplated death at the Convent, it always seemed to be a wonderful glorious thing. The nuns always spoke of death as if in dying the doors were opened into a fuller and more glorious life. I thought I would never be afraid to die. The nuns when t
hey were dead had always looked peaceful and very beautiful. I had never felt afraid as some of the other novices were when we went to see their bodies laid out in the Chapel.

  ‘“When I come to die, I shall be happy and at peace like they are,’ I had thought to myself very often. Now I was not peaceful and happy. I wanted to live. I wanted to see you again, Monseigneur. I could not bear to think that you would know nothing of what had happened to me save that my body, distorted and horrible, would be brought to you from the waters of the Seine.”

  Amé put out her hand as she spoke and the Duke’s fingers closed over hers.

  For a moment they looked at each other and then Amé went on,

  “I think for a little while I was paralysed with the fear of what was going to happen to me and then at last I found myself praying. We had been told so often at the Convent that we should never pray for ourselves unless it was for help and guidance and ‒ the grace to do the right thing.

  “I prayed then, not to be rescued, not to be saved, but that I should do the right thing when the moment came, that I should die proudly and decently. I prayed for a long time – how long I just do not know – for hours perhaps, then suddenly I heard a sound. I thought it was the rats, but then I realised it was footsteps coming down the ladder, footsteps coming across the floor to me.

  “I wanted to scream and because I was afraid of doing so I put my hands over my mouth to prevent myself from being a coward. The footsteps came nearer. I knew then that the moment had come. In another second I would feel François’ big coarse hands on my neck – ‘Jesus, have mercy,’ I prayed.

  “I must have spoken the words out loud, for someone shushed me into a silence.

  “It was Renée. Her hand was groping for my ankle. As she found it, I then heard the click of the key. Very gently she opened the lock and took it from my ankle. I heard her setting it down on the floor, then her fingers sought mine, pulling me to my feet. We tiptoed across the floor.

  “The boards creaked and the rats scuttled at our approach. There was no other sound. We crept to the door. She opened it carefully and I felt the night air on my cheeks.