Love Me Forever Read online

  “You don’t pray!” Amé’s astonishment was obviously quite genuine and unfeigned. “But why?” and then before he could answer she added, “but, of course, that is a silly question, if you don’t pray, it is because you do not realise how much it can help you.”

  “You are sure of that?” the Duke questioned with a sudden twist of his lips.

  Amé looked at him in perplexity.

  “I am very very sure of it,” she stated, “but perhaps that is because I know nothing of the world. Outside the Convent to pray may be more difficult.”

  “It is,” the Duke said briefly.

  Still Amé looked perplexed and then abruptly, as if he was almost ashamed of his own sentimentality, the Duke suggested,

  “Go on praying. Don’t be influenced by anything or anybody who persuades you against it.”

  He turned from the bedroom and crossed the sitting room to the door. His hand was on the latch when he heard Amé’s footsteps on the floor behind him.

  “I shall pray for you always, Your Grace,” she said without the least trace of self-consciousness.

  “Thank you,” the Duke replied in all gravity, “and now let’s descend and see if your prayers have been answered and we can discover some Heaven-sent way of escape.”

  He was sneering at himself, although Amé did not know it for having been beguiled into a moment of unwarranted softness because he had seen a lovely child at prayer.

  But Amé seemed unperturbed at his words, she merely smiled confidently and then, as the door opened and a footman was waiting outside, she slipped behind the Duke and followed him downstairs at a respectful distance.

  The meal that followed was long-drawn-out and elaborate. Course succeeded course, dishes of great rarity vied with each other to tempt the palate and there were wines of fine bouquet to bestir the blood.

  When at length what was nothing less than a feast was over, the party withdrew onto the balcony of the salon, where they were served with coffee and with many and varied liqueurs.

  They had dined in the Banqueting Hall where the Duke was amused to note that they were served with a pomp and grandeur far more Royal than anything he had seen at Buckingham Palace or in the past at Versailles. A powdered footman, wearing the Orleans livery with its heraldic fleurs-de-lis embossed on their gold buttons, stood behind every chair. Others carried in the magnificent crested dishes of solid gold.

  The crystal goblets from which the guests drank were engraved with gold, the tablecloth was embroidered with gold thread and everywhere there was an exhibition of wealth and beauty, luxury and opulence that was amazing to contemplate.

  And the Duke saw, as he watched, managing to eat sparingly despite the abundance of the repast, that part of the danger from the Duc de Chartres came from the fact that he had, and there was no doubt about it, a grandiose idea of his own omnipotence.

  His father, Philippe le Gros, the fourth Duc, was not yet dead, but lived with his mistress in retirement at Bagnolet, where he hunted in spite of being enormously fat and often falling off his horse. He loved gambling better than conversation and had a horror of anything serious. He had not even been perturbed by the behaviour of his wife, the beautiful Louise-Henriette de Bourbon-Conte who died when she was only twenty-three. The doctors said the cause of her death was consumption, but everyone else knew it was due to debauchery.

  Philippe had been the child of his parents’ first passionate and unrestrained affection. In fact the eagerness of their amorous behaviour was so uncontrolled that the Duchesse de Tollard remarked that they had at last discovered the method of making marriage indecent.

  There was a striking family resemblance in all the Orleans line. Father to son there was the same heavy figure, the same over-sexed temperament, the same love of war and pleasure, the same debauchery, gout and apoplexy.

  With such a heritage Philippe Duc de Chartres was not prepared to find life dull. He went up in a balloon, he went down into a mine, he made Horse Racing popular, he took as a mistress the Governess of his children and his gambling and extravagance brought him to the verge of bankruptcy.

  It was then that he had a shrewd and brilliant idea. He had been living in his father’s Palace in Paris, now he developed and then commercialised the courtyard and the gardens of the Palais Royal into a colossal centre of gambling and prostitution. This ambitious speculation was a great financial success. It took some years to complete and there was a considerable amount of opposition, but when it was finished the Duc de Chartres became, overnight as it were, the richest man in the Kingdom of France.

  The conversation at déjeuner was witty, yet at times a bitter malice underlay the most trivial remarks. The Duc de Chartres and his guests were at pains, the Duke noted, to avoid speaking directly of the Queen, but there was a poisoned fang behind the most innocuous words.

  They related scandals at Court, they chattered as people always will of their friends and people they know and yet the Duke noted that the blackest stories, the nastiest anecdotes and the most unpleasant innuendoes were always related about those at Versailles who were in close association with King Louis and Marie Antoinette.

  The insidious poison was all the more deadly because the people who spread it were themselves amusing, clever and not without charm.

  One of the women present, who had been introduced as Mlle. Lavoul had, the Duke now suspected, been singled out for his delectation. She certainly made it obvious where her interests lay and had his attention not been directed by more important matters he might have enjoyed or even been amused by the very undisguised way that she set out to captivate him.

  She certainly was very attractive, with dark hair that was in almost startling contrast to the whiteness of her skin and strange green eyes that slanted a little at the corners and gave her almost an Oriental appearance. Her figure was exquisite and her dress was cut low in the bodice so that the laces and ribbons with which it was decorated revealed rather than concealed her charms.

  Mlle. Lavoul was at the Duke’s side throughout the whole of the afternoon. Once or twice he thought he caught a glance of unhappiness on Amé’s face, but it was impossible for him to pay her any attention or to look more often than was necessary in her direction.

  On the pretext of sending her to his room for a handkerchief the Duke managed to dismiss her early in the evening but when he went upstairs to change before dinner a strange valet was in attendance and the Duke was unable to have any private conversation with her.

  The Duke’s coach always carried a small trunk in case the Berlins with his other baggage were delayed. This was fortunate for he could change into more elaborate clothes than those which he had worn for travelling. Amé, on the other hand, was forced to wear the same velvet suit that she had assumed that morning in the inn at Chantilly. The trunk that she had obtained from Adrian Court had gone with the other baggage and by now would have arrived in Paris.

  She wondered what would happen when the staff with the luggage arrived at the Duke’s mansion and there was no sign of their Master. The Duke, as it happened, was wondering the same thing but he knew that it was unlikely that Hugo would make any commotion about his nonappearance, that was one of the penalties one must pay for being erratic and changing one’s plans easily and for resenting what he called, ‘an unnecessary fuss’.

  A charming smile, a glance from a pair of dark eyes had tempted him very often to postpone a departure or to delay an arrival. Once on his way back from racing at Newmarket a face at a coach window had led him from the highway along many twisting lanes and strange unfrequented paths.

  She had been a most charming widow at whose house he then had rested for three days while Hugo waited anxiously and sent postilions in every direction in search of him. He had cursed his cousin then for being an interfering busybody and he now knew that he must pay for this folly. When he did not arrive in Paris, Hugo would do nothing, at least not for a long time.

  He considered the valet who was undressing him, a voluble
, excitable little Genoese with, as the Duc had boasted, a genius for tying a cravat. There was, the Duke decided, not the slightest chance, of persuading him to any disloyalty to his Master. He thought him wonderful and extolled his praises all the time he was dressing the Duke’s hair.

  “I have often said, Your Grace, that if my Master were the King of France things would be very different from what they are today. The people are hungry. It’s no use sayin’ that they are not and the taxes!” The little man raised his hands in horror. “And all to pay for diamonds for an Austrian throat and a lot of shepherds and shepherdesses at the Petit Trianon. The money that is spent there! They say one might as well try to fill the Seine with gold as to stem the extravagance of Her Majesty!”

  It was gossip of the worst kind, the type that the Duke was sure was being spread all over Paris and yet he wisely made no attempt to check the valet. Best to note what was being said and to learn all he could.

  “It is not only at the Trianon that Her Majesty spends fortune after fortune,” the valet continued. “There is Madame Rose Bertin, for instance, she receives millions of francs a year. It is not everyone who admires the costumes she creates either. All Paris is laughing at her latest designs. Her Majesty chose a gown from her only last month and when she showed it to the King he said, ‘Pah! It be the colour of a flea’. But was Madame disconcerted? Not she! She seized on the idea and now all Paris is clamouring to be dressed in the hue that the King himself has baptised.

  “She has launched the ultra-fashionable tones of ‘flea’s thigh’, ‘flea’s belly’, ‘sick flea’, ‘young flea’ and even ‘decrepit flea’. It makes one laugh, Your Grace, to see what fools people can be.

  “But you may be sure, because people laugh, that nothing is cheaper. In fact such notoriety merely makes Madame Bertin’s bills jump higher! And who pays? The people!”

  When the Duke was ready, he called Amé from the sitting room where she was waiting and together they descended the staircase to the hall.

  They were halfway down and had reached a place where the staircase divided and where for a moment, though they could be seen by the menservants waiting below, they could not be overheard, when Amé’s voice arrested the Duke.

  “Wait Your Grace,” she said softly, “the buckle of your shoe is undone.”

  The Duke stopped and, raising his foot, set it on the step of the stairs down which he had just descended. Amé knelt to attend to it. There was nothing wrong, as he knew. But, as her fingers fumbled with the buckle, she said,

  “Mlle Lavoul has spoken to me of a secret passage down which she would have you visit her. She asked me to tell you that you can have the key should you wish and to say nothing to the Duc.”

  “Get the key,” the Duke said briefly and, not daring to say more, continued on his way to the salon.

  It seemed both to the Duke and to Amé as if the evening would never end. The Duke was well aware that wine was being pressed on him lavishly. He was aware too that Mlle. Lavoul was not finding it difficult to make herself as pleasant as she had obviously been commanded to do.

  As they sat at cards, he could feel her white shoulder pressing gently against his coat sleeve and he was conscious of the exotic fragrance of her scent and the invitation in her eyes as she glanced up at him.

  At the same time he could see the smile on the Duc de Chartres’s red face and the way his thick fingers rubbed themselves together as if in satisfaction.

  And yet while Mlle Lavoul beguiled him, while her shoulder was soft and her teeth against her lower lip very provocative, the Duke was well aware that never for one moment were they left entirely alone.

  Their host was always with them or else the members of the party were at their side. It was intentional, he was sure of that and, as he thought of what Amé had indicated to him on the stairs, his spirits rose.

  It was very like a woman not to play the game as was expected of her and if he could obtain access to Mademoiselle Lavoul’s room, he might also find an exit from the Château.

  It was two o’clock in the morning when finally their cards were finished and a general movement was made to go to bed. The Duc himself escorted his distinguished guest to his suite.

  There were stalwart young footmen on duty in the corridors, late though it was, and the Duke could not forbear to say as he reached the door of his apartments,

  “You take no chances, I notice.”

  The Duc grasped the inference and gave a little laugh.

  “You must appreciate my pertinacity, my dear Melyncourt.”

  “I do, I assure you,” the Duke replied.

  They bowed to each other and then, as the Duke moved forward into the sitting room, he heard the door close behind him and the unmistakable sound of a key turn in the lock.

  “Bonne nuit, mon cher,” came the Duc’s mocking voice from outside.

  Then there was the sound of footsteps walking away down the corridor, but only the footsteps of the Duc. The footmen would be on duty all night, the Duke was sure of that. He waited a moment and then went towards Amé’s bedroom. He had sent her to bed three hours earlier with a sharply-spoken command and the snap of his fingers.

  “You are considerate of your page,” Mlle Lavoul had said softly.

  “Those who work for me would not always say so,” the Duke replied, “but the boy is a cousin of mine and I promised his mother I would treat him lightly. A mistake, I think, boys should be hardened.”

  “But not girls surely?” Mlle Lavoul had asked. “Or women?”

  “No, indeed,” the Duke said, playing the game because he was certain that it was expected of him. “Girls should be cosseted and protected. Women too. For where would we men be without their gentle influence, their sweetness and, of course, their generosity?”

  There was a meaning in his words, which Mlle Lavoul understood and then, as he had expected, he saw her glance quickly at their host before her eyes dropped before his and her mouth pouted petulantly.

  “It is not always possible,” she whispered.

  He could barely hear the words and he was sure that they were inaudible to anyone else at the table.

  “Everything is possible for those who dare the impossible,” the Duke said and he saw the glint in her eye and felt the sudden soft pressure of her shoulder once again against his arm.

  Amé had gone to bed, but he knew that he must wake her to hear what else she had to tell him. He rapped softly on the door of her room, but there was no answer. He opened the door and saw that her bed was empty and had not been slept in.

  He wheeled round, beset by a sudden anxiety. What had happened to her?

  Then, at the far end of the sitting room, he saw what had escaped him when he entered through the door. The fire was burning low, there was only a flicker from the great logs that earlier in the evening had been bright with dancing flames. There was a heavy bearskin on the floor before the fire and, lying on it, still in her velvet suit, her face pillowed against her hands, was Amé.

  She was curled up like a child and her face in repose was very young. Her lashes were long and dark against her cheeks. The Duke knelt down on one knee and then, as he reached out to touch her shoulder, he saw that she had been crying.

  There was no mistaking the tears on her cheeks or the fact that her breath came in uneven little gulps.

  There was a handkerchief by her side, crumpled and wet and for a moment he knelt there staring down at her before he touched her shoulder. She woke up slowly and for a minute her eyes stared up at him, drowsy with sleep and then she smiled.

  “I was dreaming about ‒ you,” she admitted.

  “It is time you were in bed,” the Duke replied, “but first, tell me about the secret passage.”

  Then she was alert, sitting up to rub the sleep from her eyes like a tired child.

  “It is very late,” she said at length, glancing at the diamond and china clock over the mantelpiece. “Too late for you to go now.”

  “Mlle Lavoul has
just gone to her room,” the Duke replied. “What did she say to you?”

  “She said – ” Amé began and then broke off. “But why should I tell you? She wanted you to go to her so that you can make love to her. I am not so stupid that I don’t know that and I do not wish you to go. She is not evil and bad like the Duc, but she is vain and stupid. You could not love anyone like that.”

  “I don’t love her,” the Duke insisted, “but if through her we can escape, then she is for this moment of the utmost import. Now tell me what she said.”

  But Amé still hesitated.

  “I command you,” the Duke nearly shouted.

  She glanced up at him and saw the resolution in his face and a look of severity she had not seen before. Her face became very white and then, gripping her fingers together, she spoke.

  “Mlle Lavoul spoke to me this afternoon. It was when the Duc was showing you his snuffboxes. She was obviously afraid of being overheard for she spoke very softly. ‘Tell your Master,’ she said, ‘that, if he wishes to see me alone, he must come to my room tonight. It will not be easy for reasons that he will understand later but there is, although few know it, a secret passage.’

  “Tonight, when the ladies moved into the salon after dinner, she told me to carry her wrap. She drew me on one side and asked if I had spoken to you about the secret passage. I told her that I had.

  “He will come?” she asked and I nodded.

  “‘He will find the door behind the bed in his bedchamber,’ she whispered. ‘Here is the key, it fits into the rose on the carving of the sixth panel from the floor. At the foot of the stairs he will find himself in a sitting room, which opens directly into my bedroom. Tell him not to make a sound.’

  “She could say no more for one of the other ladies was approaching. She dropped her handkerchief and, as I gave it back to her, she pressed the key into my hand.”

  Amé rose to her feet and drew a little gold key from her pocket and held it towards the Duke. As she did so, she did not look at him and he knew that tears were gathering again in her eyes.

  “There is just a chance that this may show us a way out,” he said.