Barbara Cartland - Love Me Forever

“You saw no one,” the Priest said, “in which case there is no need for us to bother Your Grace further. We must regret if our questions have sounded in any way impertinent. We have orders from the Cardinal himself.”

“Yes, of course,” the Duke said. “I am grieved that I have not been able to be of any assistance to you.”

The two men turned towards the door and, only as they reached it, did the Priest turn back.

“I understand from the Proprietor here that one of your pages left for England this morning. Was there any particular reason for his return?”

“He was ill,” the Duke replied. “My Major Domo asked my permission to send him back, as the boy was obviously sickly. ’Tis curst inconvenient as I like always to have two pages in attendance upon me. Now I have but one, who will doubtless find the exertion of all that he has to do far too much for him. I repeat, ’tis curst inconvenient.”

“Your Grace will accept our sympathies,” the Priest said suavely.

He bowed and the door closed behind him and the Captain. For a moment the Duke did not move, then he slipped his snuffbox back into his pocket and moved to the window.

He saw them cross the courtyard, the Priest in his black robes and broad-brimmed hat, the Captain of the Guard as colourful as one of the cocks strutting about on a dung-heap.

They were out of sight in a few seconds, but the Duke still waited.

There was the sound of horses’ hoofs and a moment later there passed down the road a guard of six men in the Cardinal’s livery with the Priest perched amongst them like a black crow.

Seven men in search of one runaway girl!

A soft voice at his elbow awoke the Duke from his reverie.

“What did they say? What did they want?”

Amé was standing there, her hair powdered by the skilful hands of Dalton. It made her look, if possible, even lovelier. It showed up the clear transparency of her skin. It made her eyes glow more vividly than they had done before.

“We leave immediately,” the Duke replied sharply after a quick glance at her. “There is no time for talk. We must get away. Is the coach ready?”

“Yes, everything is ready,” Amé answered. “The baggage went downstairs some time ago and the bill has been paid. The Proprietor is wreathed in smiles and bowing himself nearly double, so his pourboire must have been a good one.”

“Come at once,” the Duke ordered.

He picked up his cloak from the chair and swung it over his shoulders.

Then he glanced at Amé who was watching him.

“You should hand me my hat and gloves,” he said correctively. “And outside be sure you help me into the coach with the right degree of deference, you never know who might be watching.”

There was something in his voice that told her that what he said was of importance. Soberly she picked up his hat and gloves and handed them to him and then followed him from the room down the passage.

The coach had drawn up at the main door of the inn, a footman in blue and silver livery held the door open. Amé sprang forward and lifted her arm so that the Duke might rest his fingers on it as slowly and with great dignity he walked up the red-carpeted steps.

Inside he seated himself on the soft seat facing the horses. The footman arranged a rug over his knees. When he was comfortable, Amé climbed the steps.

At a glance from the Duke she sat opposite him on the smaller seat. The door was closed, the coach began to move and the horses pulled out of the yard.

As they did so, the Duke bent forward a little as if to see if the postilions were following. As he glanced at them, he saw something else, a man standing in the shadow of the stable doors, a man in a black cassock and wide-brimmed hat.

The Duke said nothing to Amé but examined her more critically than he had done when she came to show herself to him as he was finishing breakfast.

‘Was her disguise good enough?’ he asked himself.

She certainly made an extremely pretty boy and yet he decided that she might pass muster, at least where there were those who were not suspicious in the first place that she might be anything else. She was the same height as Adrian Court, his clothes fitted her well and gave slightly more breadth to her shoulders.

But boys of fifteen are not as a rule very prepossessing and the Duke saw that there were undoubtedly dangers ahead in this masquerade into which he had entered because Amé had been so persuasive but about which he now had very grave doubts.

And yet the more he thought of the Cardinal, the more determined he was to outwit him. At that moment the Duke of Melyncourt was more concerned not so much with helping a forlorn young woman but in a chase in which for the first time in his life he was on the side of and in the role of the hunted.

“Tell me what those men said to you, Monseigneur ,” Amé said as they were free of the village of Chantilly and were proceeding at a good pace down a road that was bordered by thick woodland.

The Duke told her what had happened.

“The Priest was one of those who came to see me at the Convent,” Amé told him. “I saw him from the bedroom window. I have never seen the man in purple uniform before.”

“He is the Captain of the Cardinal’s Guard,” the Duke explained.

“The Cardinal!” Amé gave a little cry. “Then the Cardinal knows I have run away! How could he know that?”

“I have no idea. They must have sent a message to him last night. At what time would they be likely to find that you had gone?”

“I did not expect them to discover it till this morning,” Amé said. “There was, however, always a chance that the Mistress of the Novices would look in to see that we were safely in our rooms. That must have been it, of course. Sister Marie is very sweet, but old and rather fussy. There is a grid in every door through which the Mistress of the Novices can look and see if we are asleep. Sometimes if one is restless or awake, she will come in to bring a glass of water and say a prayer.

“Last night Sister Marie must have looked to see if I was there. Perhaps the Reverend Mother had told her to do so because she thought btat I might be worried about what had happened.”

“When she found you had gone, what would happen next?”

“Sister Marie would go at once to the Reverend Mother. Some of the other nuns might not have been so perturbed. They would think we were talking in each other’s rooms. It is forbidden after lights out, but often we disobey. Sister Marie is, as I have told you, very particular. She would have gone and told the Reverend Mother when she saw that my bed had not been slept in. Then they would all begin to look for me.”

“By ‘all’ you mean the nuns?” the Duke asked.

“Yes, of course. Some would be awakened. They would get up and look for me in the bedrooms, in the Cloisters and in the garden.”

“And when they did not find you, they would send a message to the Cardinal?”

“I don’t understand that. It would be unlike the Reverend Mother to send for the Cardinal until she had given me time to return or made every possible enquiry for herself. I cannot comprehend – mais oui !”

Amé gave a sudden exclamation.

“ Je suis imbecile ! The Priests only came yesterday. They would have stayed the night with Father Pierre in the Presbytery. Always when Priests come and we sometimes have special Priests in Lent and at Christmastime and they stay with Father Pierre.”

“Well, that explains that,” the Duke said. “The Reverend Mother told the Priests that you had disappeared. A messenger must have ridden through the night to inform the Cardinal, who sent back a bodyguard to assist in the search.”

“What I cannot understand,” Amé queried, “is why they should worry so much about me. Why does the Cardinal want me to take my vows so quickly and, if I am missing, why does it matter?”