'Come, come, my child,' he said indulgently. 'You really must not worry. The cardinal is a churchman. He is not going to attack Bonaparte, you know. I don't see that it can do any harm if I tell you that he is going to Moscow, where there is a great task awaiting him if by any chance the Corsican ogre should get that far. But you may be sure he will be stopped long before that… Dear me, what a nervous little thing you are. Wait here, I am going to find you a drop more champagne.'
But she clung to him firmly, having no desire to fall once more into the same sparkling snare as at Le Butard.
'No, please, don't go! You are very kind. You make me feel much better. See, I am quite all right now. Not nearly so frightened.' She smiled at him, hoping inwardly that her smile was as seductive as she meant it to be. At all events, he sat down again promptly.
'Really? You are not so worried now?'
'Not nearly. Forgive me. I am a little foolish about him, I know, but I owe him my life, you see. He was the one who found me in my parents' house after it had been sacked by the revolutionaries, who hid me under his cloak and carried me to England at the risk of his own life. He is all the family I have.'
'But—your husband?'
Marianne did not hesitate. 'The prince died last year,' she declared boldly. 'He had property in Greece and also in Constantinople. That was the reason I made this long journey. You see, I am not the guilty creature you imagined.'
'I have already told you I was a fool. And so you are a widow? So young, so beautiful—and all alone!'
He moved a little closer and Marianne, who was already feeling slightly uneasy thinking that she had perhaps led him on a little too much, made haste to change the subject.
'That is enough about me. It isn't really very interesting. Do you know, I never even found out what lucky chance it was that brought my dear cardinal here? Was he expecting me? He must have second sight if that was so.'
'No. Your meeting was one of those accidents that come about God alone knows how. The cardinal only arrived here two days before yourself. He came from St. Petersburg with important news for me.'
'From St. Petersburg? News from the tsar, then? Is it true what they say of him?'
'What do they say?'
'That he is as handsome as a Greek god! Altogether charming and attractive.'
'Quite true,' said the duke, with a note in his voice that set Marianne's teeth on edge. 'He is the most remarkable man I have ever met. Men ought to kiss the ground he walks on. He is the crowned archangel who will save us all from Bonaparte…'
He had turned his head away and was gazing up to heaven as though expecting this Muscovite archangel of his to descend with flapping wings. At the same time he embarked on a panegyric of Alexander I, who was clearly his great hero, which Marianne found tedious in the extreme. She was beginning to think it must be growing very late and she had found out very little. Jason's fate, in particular, had not even been mentioned.
She let him run on for a little longer and then, when he paused for breath, she murmured quickly: 'A remarkable man, indeed! But I begin to fear I am trespassing on Your Excellency's time. Surely it must be very late?'
'Late? Not in the least—besides, we've the whole night ahead of us. No, no, I'll not hear of it! Very soon now, tomorrow probably, I shall be leaving myself to take the tsar some reinforcements in the shape of the regiments I've mustered here. This is the last evening of peace I shall have for a long time to come. Don't shorten it for me!'
'Very well. But aren't you forgetting, Your Excellency, that I came here with a favor to ask you?'
He was so close that she could feel him stiffen and draw away. She guessed that she had brought him back to earth a little too abruptly for his liking. But she decided that if he had a mind to forget his promise she would bring him to the point once and for all, even at the risk of putting him in an ill humor.
'A favor?' he said irritably. 'What then? Ah, yes—that American privateer. Almost certainly a spy, a spy in the pay of Bonaparte. Can't think what he could be doing here otherwise.'
'You don't often find spies going about with a brig of that size, Your Excellency. It would be a rather obvious way of entering a country, surely? Up to now, Mr. Beaufort's business has been chiefly in the wine trade. As to being in the service of Bonaparte'—Lord, this was going badly!—'I can assure you he is nothing of the sort. It is not long since he saw the inside of a Paris prison—and the convict barracks at Brest as well!'
Richelieu said nothing. He had got to his feet and was pacing agitatedly up and down the little terrace, his arms folded across his chest and his fingers plucking at the folds of lace about his throat. Marianne watched him anxiously, thinking what a strange character he was. His reactions were wholly unpredictable and the least thing seemed to catch his nerves on the raw.
As abruptly as Napoleon himself could have done, he came to a sudden halt in front of her and shot out: 'This man? What is he to you? Your lover?'
Marianne took a deep breath and forced herself to keep calm. She could see that he was studying her face closely. He was evidently expecting her to lose her temper, to make one of those calculated outbursts of indignation that came so easily to women in love and deceived nobody. Easily, she sidestepped the trap and leaned back in her seat, laughing gently.
'That is not very imaginative of you, Your Excellency. Do you think there is only one reason that a woman might wish to help a man when he's in trouble?'
'Of course not. But this Mr. Beaufort is not your brother, is he? And you have undertaken a long and dangerous voyage to come and plead for him.'
'Long and dangerous? Crossing the Black Sea? Really, my lord Duke, let us be serious.' She stood up suddenly, her face growing very serious indeed, and said austerely: 'I have known Jason Beaufort a very long time. The first time I met him was at my aunt's house, Selton Hall, where he was a guest, received there as he was everywhere in England. He was acquainted there with the Prince of Wales. To me, he is a very dear friend, as I said, a childhood friend.'
'A childhood friend? You swear it?'
She heard the quiver of jealousy, bitter and desperate, in his voice and knew that if she wanted to save Jason it was necessary to convince him. With the faintest shrug of her lovely shoulders, she murmured in a tone of gentle raillery: 'Why, of course I swear. But, although I hesitate to say it, my lord Duke, surely you are behaving a little like a jealous husband—rather than a friend whom I have known only a short time, but to whom I had looked for more gentleness and understanding… for more affection, even, considering the old ties between us…'
He was staring at her intently, breathing rather hard, as though trying to read to the bottom of the green eyes, as deep and compelling as the sea. Gradually, Marianne felt something yield and relax in him.
'Come,' he said at last, taking her by the hand and hurrying her quickly inside.
She followed him through the little yellow salon where the candles were already guttering, across a wide landing tiled in black marble and into a huge office, lit only by a nightlight on the desk. The long blue velvet curtains were tightly drawn and the room felt as close and dark as a tomb.
Still holding her hand, the duke went straight to the writing table, which was littered with papers and a heap of green leatherbound dispatch boxes. There he released her at last. Not even pausing to sit down, he opened a drawer and took out a large sheet of paper stamped with the double-headed eagle and already covered with writing. A space had been left blank. He filled it in, added a few more words and signed with a nervous scrawl.
Marianne had managed to read some of it over his shoulder, and her heart beat faster as she realized that it was an order for the release of Jason and his men. But then, while Richelieu was hunting for sealing wax and melting it at the candle, her eyes wandered over the remainder of the desk and paused for a moment on a partially folded document. She was not able to read more than a few words, but what she read struck her so forcibly that it was all she could do not to put out her hand and pick it up.
Meanwhile, the duke had finished writing. He reread the order quickly and then handed it to Marianne.
'There. You have only to give that to the commander of the citadel and your childhood friend will be instantly restored to you, along with those who were captured with him.'
Flushed with happiness, Marianne took the precious paper and slipped it into a pocket cunningly hidden in a fold of her skirt.
'I am deeply grateful,' she said, much moved. 'But—may I ask if this includes the restitution of the
