Barbara Cartland - The Hidden Evil

With only a groom in attendance the Duchesse cantered away over the cobblestones, her lovely face raised towards the sun as if she would drink in the beauty and freshness of it.

Sheena stared after her in astonishment. How could the Duchesse be up so early when she was so old and when she must have been late last night at dinner with the King? It was yet another of the puzzling things which she was finding in this strange Palace in this strange land.

Somehow she had had in her mind a picture of how wicked people behaved, drinking, making love and gambling all night and staying in bed half the day because they were too tired to rise as ordinary people had to do.

This was certainly not true of the Duchesse de Valentinois.

Sheena felt that she could not sleep again and so she dressed herself, knowing that it was far too early to leave her room. She settled herself at the small escritoire in the corner and tried to begin a letter to her father.

“I will write to you the moment I arrive,” she had promised him.

Yet what was there to say except to tell him how bad the voyage had been, how Maggie had succumbed to the waves and how there had been no one there to meet her when she had arrived at the quayside?

She put all this down on paper and then stopped. How could she go on? Was she to tell him about the Duc and how she disliked him? Was she to recount her first impressions of Madame de Valentinois? Could she possibly describe in words the look on the King’s face when the Duchesse had come into the room and it seemed as if he was suddenly lit by a light from within to become, before her very eyes, a different man altogether?

And Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland. What could she write of her?

There was the sound of more horses’ hoofs outside and Sheena, glad of the excuse, rose and went to the window. She looked down into the courtyard expecting to see the Duchesse returning, but now she saw that it was the King who was mounting a splendid black horse and there were four of his gentlemen to squire him.

“Which way did Madame La Duchesse go?” she heard him ask one of the grooms.

The man pointed out the direction and the King rode off eagerly. Another person rising early and contradicting her reasonable assumptions as to what was likely to happen in this great luxurious Palace.

Sheena went back to her desk, but she had not been there long before there was a discreet knock at the door. She opened it, wondering if it was Maggie who had come to her but found instead a page with a note on a silver salver.

She opened it and looking quickly at the signature saw that it read, Gustave de Cloude , and remembered that he was one of the young men who had escorted her from Brest to Paris.

“ I have seen you at your window ,” he wrote, “ so I know you are awake. Will you not meet me in the garden? There are many things I should like to speak to you about while the rest of The Palace is still asleep. ”

Sheena hesitated. She felt it would be indiscreet and perhaps something which would be frowned on, that she should walk in the gardens with a man she knew so slightly.

And yet at the same time she was very curious. She longed to ask questions of someone, anyone, who could answer what she wanted to know.

The small page stood there solemnly looking at her.

“Are you waiting for an answer?” she asked him.

“I am waiting here, ma’mselle , to escort you to the garden,” he replied with a little bow, which made her smile because it was such a perfect imitation of his Master’s.

She suddenly felt young and gay and the troubles and anxieties of the night seemed to fall away from her.

“I will come for a few minutes,” she said, more to herself than to him and, picking up her shawl, she slipped it over her shoulders. “Show me where the Comte is waiting.”

“I will take you to him immediately, mam’selle ,” the page promised.

They went down a twisting maze of corridors and staircases, which made Sheena think that she would never find her way to the ground floor, when suddenly they emerged not into the courtyard but into the garden itself by a side entrance that led directly onto the terrace and formal lawns where a fountain was playing.

There was no sign of anyone until the page led her down a twisting lavender-hedged path and through two cypress trees standing sentinel over a Herb Garden that was hidden from the windows of The Palace

It was then that she saw the Comte sitting on a marble seat by a small goldfish pool, the early sun shining on his polished dark head.

He sprang up eagerly at her approach and came towards her and then, taking her hand in his, he raised it to his lips.

“I hardly dared to hope that you would come,” he began in a low voice.

Sheena smiled at him.

“It was kind of you to ask me,” she said. “I was feeling lost and I think a little homesick. I wanted so much to talk to someone.”

“And I so wanted to talk to you,” he replied. “It was impossible while I was your escort with three of my friends listening to everything that we might say. But now it is different. You are so lovely. I have been able to think of nothing else since I first met you.”

The tone in his voice made Sheena feel embarrassed. She dropped her eyes, conscious that he was still holding her hand.

“Enchanting and an enchantress,” he smiled. “Come and sit and let me look at you.”

“Please, you must not pay me such compliments,” Sheena asked him.

“Why not?” he asked in genuine astonishment.

“I am not used to them,” she answered. “In Scotland no gentleman would think of saying such things on so short an acquaintance. And, besides, I have come into the garden because I want to talk to you on serious matters.”

The Comte laughed.

“How can we be serious?” he asked her. “And indeed why should we be? We are young and alone and I am very much in love.”

“Please – please – ” Sheena murmured, feeling with something like panic that she should not have left her room.

She made a movement, but now the Comte had both her hands in his and was covering them with kisses.

“You are adorable,” he said softly. “How can I talk to you when all I want to do is to tell you that you have set me on fire? I can think only of your hands, your eyes and your lips.”

He bent towards her as he spoke and now, really frightened she realised how stupid she had been to accept his invitation,

Sheena exerted all her strength and managed to free her hands from his. Then, lifting her skirts, she ran hastily back the way she had come, leaving him calling after her, her woollen shawl lying at his feet.

She ran helter-skelter down the garden between the cypress trees and across the terrace towards the door into The Palace which the page had led her through. She found it and pulled it open only to be confronted by a choice of several passages.

Wildly, half-afraid that the Comte would follow her, she turned left, only to realise after she had been running for a few seconds that she had chosen wrongly.

The passage broadened out into a wide hall. She then saw an open doorway, which she realised led into the courtyard and knew that she must retrace her steps.

She halted, but it was too late. Someone coming into the hall from the other direction saw her and crossed the polished floor to her side.

She tried to turn back. but he put a hand on her arm and prevented her.

“Mistress McCraggan! What are you doing here?” he asked.

She looked up at the Duc de Salvoire and saw his face, dark and unsmiling and with a stab of horror realised how she must look to him with her hair dishevelled, her cheeks flushed from running and her hands trembling.