Love Me Forever. Barbara Cartland
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“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.
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?”
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