Love Me Forever Read online

  He walked towards the bedroom door intent on finding the promised passage. And then, as he went, he heard a sob behind him, a broken sound that seemed to come from the very heart. He turned then and, walking back to where Amé stood on the .hearthrug put his hand under her chin and lifted her face up to his.

  Her eyes were swimming with tears and her lips were trembling.

  For a long moment he looked at her and then he said softly,

  “I must go to Mlle Lavoul, but I would much rather stay here with you. Does that satisfy you, you silly ridiculous child?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It was two hours later that the Duke stepped through the door of the secret passage behind the bed and, crossing the floor into the sitting room, found Amé in front of the fire.

  She was not asleep, but was sitting staring into the flames of the fire, which she had fed with many logs of wood since he had left her and, as she raised her face, he saw that she was tearless but very pale.

  It was then for perhaps the first time in his life that the Duke could not meet a woman’s eyes. Because he was uncomfortable, his voice was sharp as he said,

  “We leave at once!”

  Amé started to her feet and a little colour came into her cheeks.

  “We can get away – you are sure of it?”

  “Luck is on our side, we can get away,” the Duke replied.

  He stood for a moment pensive, his fingers busy with his snuffbox.

  “At first I suspected a trap,” she said, “but I believe Mlle Lavoul spoke the truth when she told me that the Duc does not know of the secret passage I have just used.”

  “Then why should she know of it?” Amé enquired.

  “Apparently she is the Goddaughter of Madame de Montesson, the morganatic wife of the Duc d’Orleans, the Duc de Chartres’s father. In the past the reigning Duc used these rooms which, belonging to the old part of the Château, are by tradition the Master’s suite. His mistress or wife, whoever was paramount in his affections at the moment, used the more elaborate bedrooms on the ground floor, the State Rooms that are now occupied by our host and his friends.

  “The secret passage, as you can well imagine, proved very useful in those days. Mlle Lavoul is somewhat piqued at the moment with the Duc. She has been his favourite for nearly a year, but was replaced last month by Madame de Buffon, an unknown and somewhat inferior actress from the Comédie Francaise.”

  “Then she will help us escape?” Amé asked.

  The Duke shook his head.

  “No, my dear, I don’t trust her as far as that. She is still enamoured with our host, but she was paying off some old scores in being unfaithful to a man who no longer cares about her fidelity.”

  The Duke spoke in a cynical voice, which many of his associates would have said was habitual of him. It was only when he saw Amé’s eyes, wide and enquiring, and fixed on him that he added,

  “But I should not be talking to you like this. For one thing, you will not understand.”

  “I understand only too well,” Amé said softly. “Mlle Lavoul found you very attractive. I could see it in her face, in her eyes and in the way she bent towards you when you sat at cards together.”

  “Women are usually intrigued by a man who is not interested in them,” the Duke related.

  “Yet now she believes you are interested,” Amé said. “Was she very charming?”

  The Duke turned aside with a sound that was perilously like an oath, looked for his cloak, which he flung round his shoulders and put a purse of money and several other valuables into the pocket of his evening coat. When he came back into the sitting room, Amé was standing where he had left her.

  “Are you ready?” he enquired.

  She started at the sound of his voice. It seemed that she was lost in a reverie.

  “Yes, I am ready,” she said, looking round a little helplessly.

  The Duke sensed her unhappiness but preferred to ignore it. He glanced round the room to see that nothing was forgotten then, putting his hand on Amé’s shoulder, spoke in a low voice,

  “This is the course we must adopt,” he said. “We will go down the secret passage, it brings us to a sitting room, which leads directly to Mlle Lavoul’s bedroom. I believe by now she will be asleep, but we must cross the room very quietly. I have already taken the precaution of opening the window. There is a drop of about six feet into the rose garden.

  “We must move as silently as possible and above all we must not speak, people hear voices far more easily than they hear movements. I will drop you down first, you can hold on to my hands and lower yourself as gently and as quietly as possible. When I join you, we will cross the garden and gain the sanctuary of the woods on the far side of it. Do you understand?”

  Amé nodded.

  “There was no one on guard in the passage outside the sitting room, but it is only just out of sight of the stairs and in the hall there are footmen. We must be very careful.”

  “Yes, of course. And if they catch us, what then, Your Grace?”

  The Duke’s lips tightened for a moment.

  “Then we shall be put in an invidious and extremely humiliating position,” he said. “Although the Duc de Chartres keeps up the pretence that we are his guests, we know in fact that we are his prisoners. To have to admit, even between ourselves, that we are at enmity would be a mistake and extremely undiplomatic. The Duc was a success in England, the Prince of Wales honoured him with his friendship. There must, if possible, be no open breach between the Duc de Chartres and myself, an English visitor to Paris.”

  “We must be very careful,” Amé said, but her voice was low and her eyes were dark with misery.

  The Duke looked down into her face.

  “When we get away from here, we will forget this visit and everything about it.”

  He knew at once by the change in her expression and the sudden parting of her lips that she understood what he was trying to convey to her. His hand was still on her shoulder and she turned suddenly and kissed his wrist.

  He felt the softness of her lips and then abruptly, as if he was ashamed rather than angry, he turned towards the bedroom door.

  It was close and very dark in the secret passage. The Duke closed the door into the bedchamber behind them. Although the bed was drawn forward a little into the room, he hoped that it would not look suspicious on the following morning. The passage that was of use to them might also be of use to other fugitives in the future.

  The dust on the steps muffled the sound of their feet and, when finally the steps came to an end, they were up against a panelled wall lying directly ahead of them. It took the Duke a moment to find the spring.

  When he did so, there was a slight click and the door was released, worked by the same method as the one in the bedchamber. He pushed it open barely an inch at first.

  The sitting room was in darkness, but the curtains were drawn back from one of the windows. The moon was already on the wane but it was bright enough to illuminate the open window through which they could see the garden below.

  On tiptoe Amé and the Duke crossed the carpeted floor. There was a faint fragrance of an exotic scent, which Amé remembered as being the same as that with which Mlle Lavoul had perfumed herself. There was no sound behind the closed door that led from the sitting room into the bedroom.

  Neither Amé nor the Duke even glanced towards it and yet both were conscious of the woman who lay in a deep satisfied sleep behind the carved and gilded doors.

  Without speaking one word the Duke sat on the edge of the windowsill and held out his hands to Amé. She was aware of his muscular strength as very gently he lowered her until she was hanging only a few feet from the ground. Then he released his hold on her and she fell with a little thud onto the flowerbed.

  The ground was soft, she picked herself up quickly and stood aside waiting for the Duke, who lowered himself cautiously, intent on making the least possible sound. He dropped.

  In an instant his hand was ben
eath Amé’s elbow and they were moving swiftly across the garden. This was the real moment of danger when they were in sight of the house. It took them two minutes or so to cross the garden and then with a sigh of relief Amé realised that they were in the shadow of the trees.

  It was almost dark in the woods, the trees were thick above their heads and what moonlight remained could hardly percolate through the leafy branches. There was a narrow bridlepath to the left of them and as soon as they were on it the Duke set off at a good pace.

  They had gone perhaps a hundred yards before Amé spoke.

  “Do you think anyone saw us?”

  “If one of the guards had seen us, he would have sounded the alarm or we should have felt bullets chasing us by now,” the Duke replied.

  “Where does this lead us?” she enquired a moment later, a little breathlessly, for they were moving fast and she was finding difficulty in keeping up with the Duke’s long stride.

  “I have not the slightest idea,” the Duke replied, “but I hope it is in the direction of Paris.”

  We cannot walk to Paris!” Amé exclaimed.

  “If we can find nothing to convey us, we shall have to,” the Duke answered.

  The wood seemed enormous, but still they pressed on. There were a number of bridlepaths crossing and recrossing each other and after a time Amé lost all sense of direction, whereas the Duke seemed confident and seldom faltered or hesitated.

  They had been walking for nearly half an hour and in silence because Amé was too breathless to speak, when finally the wood began to thin and they could see ahead of them the lightening sky as the first pale fingers of the dawn dispersed the darkness of the night.

  The Duke pushed on. Their feet rustled occasionally in the dry leaves but otherwise they made little sound as they moved on moss or sand strewn with pine needles. The birds were beginning to sing in the bushes, there was a soft cooing from the boughs above and the flutter of wings. In this moment of the earth’s awakening there was excitement as well as beauty and Amé longed to stop, look and listen.

  But she knew that this was not the moment for anything save the necessity of escape.

  Nevertheless she was conscious of tiring. The Duke was hard to keep up with and, although she was doing her best, she felt that soon she would have to ask for a slight respite.

  Suddenly he stopped abruptly.

  She felt his hand on her arm and she glanced up at his face. He was staring ahead of them, listening. As she looked at him, she too heard a sound. It was the sound of voices.

  At the same time she smelt smoke.

  Still holding Amé’s arm and in silence the Duke proceeded cautiously for a few steps and then through the trees they saw whence the sound of voices came. There was a big clearing and in it were a number of bright colourful vehicles with big wheels that Amé recognised immediately.

  Seated round the fire, on which something was cooking in a big iron pot, were a number of gypsies.

  Amé had seen them often enough when they came to the Convent to beg for alms or to sell the baskets and brushes that they made so skilfully. The Mother Prioress was always kind to the gypsies and sometimes, to please her, more than because they were persuaded by what she said, they would enter the Chapel and kneel awkwardly while the nuns prayed. But they would never consent to have their children baptised, however much the Mother Prioress pleaded with them.

  The gypsies were, as a whole, Amé knew quite well, decent people. They went from Province to Province, from country to country and though there were many who decried them as thieves and robbers, they were in the main law-abiding and their robbery consisted of nothing more violent than the pilfering of a few chickens and the snaring of some Nobleman’s game.

  “Gypsies!” said the Duke in a low voice.

  “They will not harm us,” Amé told him in a whisper. “I can speak a little of their language. Shall we ask for their help?”

  The Duke looked at the painted vehicles and beyond them to where the horses were grazing on the short tufts of grass beneath the trees.

  “If we could buy two horses from them, nothing could be better,” he suggested.

  “I will ask them,” Amé replied.

  “Cannot I do that?” he enquired.

  “They speak a mixture of German, Latin and Hungarian as a rule,” Amé replied. “I tried to learn their language at one time and wrote down many of the words, but it was such a strange mixture. The Mother Prioress said it is the oldest language in the world and many of their words are Egyptian. I think, however, I can make them understand, but I doubt if you could.”

  “Well, try,” the Duke said. “I shall greet them and then you can do the interpreting for me.”

  She smiled at him and then without further delay they stepped forward. Coming from the shadow of the trees, they must have looked very strange in the pale faint light of the early morning.

  The Duke was wearing the same deep blue velvet coat embroidered with silver that he had worn for dinner the night before, his travelling cloak was lined with red and clasped with a great sapphire and diamond buckle, which glittered in the firelight.

  Amé, in her elaborate suit of black velvet with silver buttons, might have stepped from an illustration in a book of Fairytales. And there was no doubt at all that their appearance was both extraordinary and astonishing to the company assembled round the fire.

  Dozens of dark gypsy eyes regarded them intently but nobody spoke and for a moment even the cries of the children, who had been proclaiming their hunger were stilled. The Duke drew nearer to the fire. He stood regarding the assembled company and then with a graceful bow swept his hat from his head.

  “Greetings, my friends,” he said in French and turned to Amé.

  “My Master wishes me to speak for him,” she said in a soft clear voice. “I think I can speak a little of your tongue.”

  There was a murmur and then a murmur of approval and there were smiles on several old swarthy faces as they listened.

  There was one in the company who was obviously not a gypsy. He was seated in the place of honour next to the man who was clearly the leader or head of this particular group. Fair-skinned and fair-haired he was a very large strange-looking individual, robed in an expensive if vulgar cloak trimmed with bearskin and wearing a coat of gaudy red satin adorned with brass buttons.

  The Duke wondered who he might be and saw that he was listening intently to Amé. And then he realised that the chief gypsy was speaking and in a language that he could not in any way understand.

  It seemed that Amé also had a little difficulty in following what was being said for several words were repeated over and over again. It was obvious that she questioned them and then replied, until finally it seemed that the gypsy and she had come to an understanding.

  “He asks six thousand francs for two horses,” she said at length to the Duke and speaking in English. “It is too much and I have told him so. But he says he does not want to part with his horses. I am afraid he will not go lower. I told him that our coach had broken down and we were anxious to get to Paris immediately, but he senses that there is something unusual afoot.”

  “We will pay what he asks,” the Duke said briefly, “but ask him first to show us the horses.”

  Amé translated the request and the gypsy, obviously delighted with the deal, led them to where the horses were grazing. The first two he offered the Duke refused firmly. The gypsy understood a few French words, the Duke a few German, but the language of those who love animals is universal.

  The two men were soon making themselves understood. They felt the horses’ fetlocks, they looked in the animals’ mouths and, though the Duke appeared to be getting the better of the bargain, the gypsy was laughing.

  “The Nobleman knows what he is talking about,” he said to Amé. “He is clever, this one. It would be hard to get the better of him.”

  “I will take this horse and that,” the Duke said at length, pointing to a piebald mare and a spirited you
ng chestnut, who pawed the ground at the sound of his voice as if already eager to be off.

  “Mais non! Monsieur must understand they are my best. I cannot let them go for so little.”

  There was no need for Amé to translate this sentence. The Duke understood almost before the words came from the gypsy’s mouth.

  The bargaining began.

  “Nine thousand.”

  “Six thousand and fifty.”

  “Eight thousand.”

  “Seven thousand.”

  The gypsy capitulated.

  The Duke drew the money from his purse and counted the gold into the gypsy’s hand. It was then, as the deal was completed, that there came a voice from beside him.

  “I would speak to you, Mein Herr.”

  The voice was guttural and unmistakably German. The strange man whom the Duke had noticed sitting by the fire was standing beside them.

  “What is it?” the Duke enquired with a preoccupied air as he replaced his purse in his pocket.

  “You are an actor?”

  “No, I am not,” the Duke replied.

  “This boy here who calls you ‘Master’, what is he?”

  The Duke glanced at the German as if he would be offensive and then decided that it was perhaps wiser to be polite.

  “He is my page,” he said briefly.

  He turned his back as he spoke and paid attention to the gypsies, who were fashioning bridles for the horses out of lengths of rope.

  “Your page!” the German repeated. “That is good, he is not your son?”

  The Duke did not even deign to reply to him.

  “No, I am not his son,” Amé said. “He is my Master and I am his page.”

  The German stood staring at her for a moment. He was not a prepossessing sight with twenty-four hours’ growth of beard on his pale cheeks. There were smears of mascara round his eyes and marks of greasepaint on his forehead and the remains of rouge on his square cheekbones.

  Amé was wondering what sort of role he played when, as if he sensed her thoughts, he said,

  “I am Hermann Gloeber, the great Gloeber. You have heard of me?”