“The King has given strict orders that in future no one will ride from The Palace except accompanied not only by a gentleman armed with a sword but also by two grooms. The next victim may not be so lucky.”
“But I understand that the men who – who captured me will be put to death.”
“Others will come and take their place,” the Duc answered. “Sometimes I think that we are trying to push back an encroaching tide with no other weapons but our bare hands.”
There was a cynicism in his voice which was very unlike the passionate fanaticism of the Duchesse.
“But you cannot believe these men to be right,” Sheena queried.
“What is right and what is wrong?” the Duc asked quizzically. “Have you not found that a puzzling question since you came to the Court of France?”
Sheena looked at him in surprise, astonished that he should have guessed so correctly her perplexities or have known how difficult she was finding it to form a clear and honest opinion of anything and anybody.
To her amazement the Duc bent forward and laid his hand on hers. At the touch of his long fingers she was suddenly very still, feeling as if she could not move and could not even breathe.
“Go away,” he now said to her harshly. “Go back to Scotland before you are spoilt and disillusioned. You came here so positive and so sure of yourself and your loyalty. If you stay here much longer, you will be bewildered, unhappy and perhaps, who knows as cynical as I am myself.”
His lips curled derisively at the last words and then he rose to his feet.
“Go away, little Sheena,” he repeated. “That is my advice to you. There are things here in The Palace that I cannot explain and you are too young to understand. But, if you take my advice, you will follow your letter as quickly as possible.”
“My letter?” Sheena questioned.
“I have sent it to your father. It is assigned byto someone sure and trustworthy. He will get it.”
“Thank you,” Sheena said and then added quickly lest she should find it hard to say, “I have not thanked you properly. You have not let me tell you how grateful I am for coming when you did and for saving me – from – d-death.”
There was an expression on the Duc’s face that she did not understand.
“Perhaps I heard you calling for me,” he said unexpectedly and then, before she could recover from her bewilderment, he had gone from the room.
She was so surprised that she turned to look at the door that had closed behind him.
What did he mean by that? For indeed she had not called him. Not one word had passed her lips.
Deep in her heart something stirred.
It was not really a memory but something much less explicable and more obscure. It was a re-echo perhaps of something she had felt and that at the time had not been able to put into words.
What was it? She could not explain it to herself.
Then quite suddenly, like a light coming through the window, she knew that all through the terror and horror and fear she had experienced she had known that she was not going to die.
She had known unmistakably and yet absolutely that she would live and be saved.
And she had known, although until this very moment she had not been sure of it, that the person who would save her from the stake would be the Duc.
CHAPTER TEN
Sheena walked quickly towards Mary Stuart’s Apartments, hurrying as if every moment was precious and she had no time to spare.
She had been doing the same thing all day long. Hurrying, bustling and pretending that she was too engaged even to have time to greet the Courtiers she passed in the passages.
But in reality she was running away from herself, from her thoughts and from the feeling that sooner or later she had to analyse her own emotions and discover the truth.
She reached the young Queen’s Apartments and found that the antechamber was empty and the door into the salon ajar.
Through it she heard voices.
Mary Stuart’s, high, excited and musical and another voice, a man’s.
She paused, thinking that perhaps she was intruding and wondering whether she should knock and enter or wait until whoever was engaged with the Queen came out.
“Don’t be cross with me, Your Eminence,” she heard Mary Stuart say. “You must not forget I am growing up.”
“I have not forgotten it,” came the quiet deep voice of Cardinal de Guise. “But growing up carries new responsibilities, new duties and new commitments.”
“I am not as old as all that.”
Sheena could almost see the sidelong glance under her long eyelashes that Mary Stuart would give the Cardinal as she spoke.
He did not reply and after a moment she went on,
“I am so happy here in France. Everyone is so kind to me and now, as well as my fiancé, I have beaux, many beaux. Has Your Eminence not noticed it?”
“I have indeed,” the Cardinal replied. “It is right that your Majesty should be admired. But I should not be doing my duty as your Confessor if I did not warn you that to play with men’s hearts is also to play with fire.”
“And yet like a fire it is warming and exciting,” Mary Stuart answered. “I like men, Your Eminence. I like them around me. I like to talk with them and I like to see the admiration in their eyes and to know that I have power over them.”
“Your Majesty is so very frank, but what you say gives me thought for deep anxiety,” the Cardinal replied. “It is a woman’s privilege to desire admiration, but like a strong liquor one must not drink too deeply from the cup but must sip it sparingly.”
“But I do not wish to be cautious, careful and old!” Mary Stuart exclaimed. “Although I may be growing up, I still want to be young, I want to enjoy life and I want to savour every moment of it.”
There was a pause and Sheena guessed that the Cardinal was looking at the young Queen in perplexity.
Then he said quietly,
“You have many fond and devoted women in your entourage. So may I suggest that you cultivate their friendship and perhaps learn from them to be a little more discreet and a little more careful on whom you bestow your affections?”
“Women are bores!”
There was a note of defiance in Mary Stuart’s voice now and Sheena guessed that her red mouth was drooping a little as it was wont to do when anyone crossed her wishes.
“Not all women,” the Cardinal said with a touch of amusement in his voice. “Surely you have a great deal in common with little Mistress McCraggan, who has recently arrived from your own country?”
Mary Stuart gave a little laugh.
“Sheena is just what your Eminence would call ‘a really nice girl’,” she said. “But, as for having much in common, tell me where our interests can meet? She talks always of Scotland, a barren cold and poverty-stricken land from all I have learned of it. I love France. I want to live here at Court. I want one day to be your Queen.”
Sheena put her fingers to her mouth to stifle a little exclamation of horror. What would her father and the Elders think, she wondered, if they could hear their Queen speaking in such a manner?
“And what of England?” she heard the Cardinal enquire.
“I wish too, of course, to be Queen of England,” Mary Stuart replied. “A Triple Crown! It would be the first time in history that a woman had reigned over three countries at the same time. But your Eminence must know that it is not women who will place me on the Throne, but men, men who will fight for me, men who if necessary will be prepared to die for me.”
Sheena could bear no more.
She thought of the men who had died, the men who were fighting at that very moment, believing their cause to be just and ready to suffer untold hardships that their rightful Queen should return to Scotland and reign over them.
She slipped through the empty antechamber and back into the passage. She knew in that moment that the mission she had been sent on was an utter and complete failure.
She had known wi
thout being told that Mary Stuart was not interested in the stories that she had related of heroism and loyalty, of patriotism and devotion.
But she had refused to face the truth and, when the young Queen had changed the subject and talked instead of her gowns and jewels, of the party that had been given the night before and the ball they were to attend later in the week, Sheena had tried to excuse her.
‘She is so young,’ she told herself. ‘She is like a child dazzled by glittering toys and not really aware of the deep potentialities of life.’
The conversation she had just overheard had not been that of a child but of a woman and indeed a woman who knew what she wanted and intended to get it.
Oh, Scotland! Scotland! Her heart went out towards her country, wondering miserably what the future might hold, wondering how she could ever convey to those who had sent her even a suspicion of the truth.
Without her realising it, she had walked along the passage to the top of the great staircase leading down the centre of The Palace, which branched out from the landing. For a moment she stood there looking down and saw in the hall two figures apparently in deep conversation.
At first, intent on her own thoughts, she did not recognise them, then with a little start she realised that the man with his back to the stairs was the Duc and, looking up at him, her head thrown back in an appealing gesture, was the Comtesse René de Pouguet.
The Comtesse was looking her most attractive in the somewhat bold and brazen style she affected and the long diamond earrings glittering in her ears sparkled and swayed against her white neck. She was obviously saying something with great earnestness and then, as Sheena watched, she put out her hand and laid it affectionately on the Duc’s arm, pressing herself momentarily against him as if in that simple gesture she surrendered her whole body to him.
Sheena felt a sudden strange emotion within her breast.
It was almost a pain, as if someone had suddenly stuck a dagger into her heart.
For a moment she stared down at the Duc and the Comtesse and then she turned and ran on winged feet to her own bedchamber.
She burst in and, finding that the room was now mercifully empty, closed it behind her and turned the key in the lock. Then she leaned against the door panting, her breath coming quickly between her lips and not only from the exertion of running.
For a few seconds she stood there until with a cry that came from the very depths of her being she ran across the room to fling herself headlong face downwards on her bed.
Now she recognised and faced the pain that seemed to rend her almost as if it tore her in two. She lay feeling and suffering in an agony that was beyond tears.
It was jealousy.
She had to face the truth and admit it without hypocrisy and prevarication.
Jealousy, which seemed like an evil snake twining itself around her.
Jealousy because she loved him!
She had known it, she thought, since the moment he had come to her rescue, as she had stood, bound to the stake half-naked and flames licking her feet.
She had known it as he had covered her with his cloak and lifted her close in his arms.
She had known it through the tempest of her tears and in that feeling of utter security and peace as she had ridden home across his saddle.
Perhaps, she thought now, she had known it even before that and known it in the sudden feeling of awareness that had come pulsatingly into her throat at the very sight of him.
She had thought it was hatred, but she knew now it was a far deeper emotion, a feeling of awareness when a woman is half-frightened and half-fascinated by the man who is to be her Master.
‘I love him!’
She whispered the words to herself and knew the very hopelessness of them. Had she not seen the fury and anger in his face the other night when he had shaken her just like a child and then kissed her roughly and cruelly with a fire burning fiercely in his eyes?
He had no affection for her. She exasperated and annoyed him and he despised her as time after time he had had to rescue her from some unpleasant situation.
Sheena squirmed with humiliation and thought of how the Duc had found the Marquis kissing her in the shadows of the arbour. She remembered again the curl of his lips when she had come running, dishevelled, from the garden and Comte Gustave de Cloude had followed carrying her shawl.
She remembered the scorn in his voice as she had entered the inn at Brest that blustery day when she had first set foot in France.
She loved him!
It was crazy, ridiculous, impossible, fantastic. And yet it was undeniable. There was no mistaking the arrow that had pierced her as she saw the familiarity with which the Comtesse placed her hand on his arm and the sudden movement of her body towards his.
They were lovers! Sheena was sure of it and yet her whole being cried out in a plea that it might not be so.
She rose suddenly from the bed where she had flung herself.
“I must go back to Scotland,” she said aloud. “There is nothing left for me here. I will go back home and do my best to persuade them that all is well and that Mary Stuart is worthy of their dreams and aspirations.”
She knew it was a hard almost impossible task she set herself and yet, she thought, never would she be instrumental in taking from any man the ideals that he lived by and for which he was prepared to die. Let the Scots go on believing that Mary Stuart cared for them as they cared for her. She would pray that they might never be disillusioned.
There was an expression of stern resolution on Sheena’s face as she went to the escritoire and sat down.
She picked up her quill and unrolled a piece of parchment.
She would write to her father, she decided, telling him that it was very imperative that she returned home immediately. She must at least prepare him for her sudden arrival. Then having dispatched the letter she would go to the coast and hope that she would find a ship in which she could beg a passage.
As she thought about it, she had a sudden yearning for the strength and resilience of the mountains, for the crystal clearness and cleanliness of the burns, for the feeling of the cold sharp wind from the North Sea on her face and the smell of heather in her nostrils.
Too long she had been soft and too long she had lingered in a Court that appeared to be concerned only with trivialities, jousts and tournaments, with balls, routs and masques and all the things which made up the daily programme of amusement for those who must have their senses continually titillated with new sensations.
‘I must go home,’ Sheena whispered and then knew with sudden anguish that when she went she would leave her heart behind.
There would never be anyone else in her life, she thought. She knew that instinctively.
Ever since she was a child she had dreamed about the man she would one day find and whom she would love with her whole heart and her whole being. She had not imagined him to be in the very least like the Duc. But now she saw that somehow the Duc had taken all the attributes that she had given to the hero of her dreams and had made them his.
She closed her eyes and thought that his handsome tired cynical face would be engraved in her memory so that every man she looked at would appear to be him.
And no other man would have anything to give her nor would there be anything that she could give him because he was not the Duc.
She raised her hands and with the tips of her fingers touched her mouth. He had kissed her. That was something to remember even though the kiss was now but bitter ashes.
If only once he could have kissed her gently, a kiss of friendship or even kindliness, she might have died happy. But instead his kiss had been like a sword, fierce, brutal and cruel, it had left her trembling with a strange flame awake within herself that she knew now was love.
‘Love is gentle and kind.’
She could hear herself repeating the phrase as a schoolchild.
It was untrue. Love was cruel and hard and ruthless! A flame which consumed her far more piti
lessly than those that had been lit at her feet by the Reformers.
‘I love him! I love him!’
She threw aside her quill and walked restlessly around the room, her silk skirts rustling as she moved across the carpet. She felt as if she walked with naked feet on a bed of thorns.
‘I love him! I love him!’
All the day Sheena kept to her bedchamber writing the letter to her father and struggling to compose one to the King and another to Mary Stuart in which she thanked them for their hospitality and regretted that unavoidable circumstances forced her to return home.
Maggie came to the door and knocked, but she sent her away.
“I have a headache, Maggie, and I want to be alone,” she said and heard the old maid depart grumblingly and offended that she was not admitted.
Once or twice Sheena went to the window to throw wide the casement and then rest her cheeks against the diamond panes. She looked out on the quiet sunlit garden and knew that a battle was taking place within her soul so that for her there was no peace, only war and chaos.
‘I love him!’
The sun was sinking when she said it for the thousandth time and realised that her eyes were still dry because she dared not cry at the thought of leaving him behind.
At last, when the shadows were beginning to lengthen, she pulled the bell and summoned Maggie.
“We are leaving for Scotland tomorrow morning,” she said. “Will you pack my things?”
She saw Maggie’s expression of surprise and added,
“Leave behind all the gowns that I have been given. They will be of no use to me when I return.”
“Going to Scotland!” Maggie expostulated. “Is it bad news you’ve received then?”
“Yes, bad news,” Sheena said slowly, thinking that nothing could hurt more than all the anguish and the loneliness within her.
“I’ll do as you say.” Maggie said, “and ’tis ever so glad I shall be to be seein’ a decent and civilised country again and be talkin’ with decent and civilised folk.”
She was longing to gossip, Sheena knew that, but she turned aside, knowing she could not bear at this moment to hear one of Maggie’s juicy bits of scandal, which she had heard from the other servants.
The Hidden Evil Page 15
