Free The Chateau on the Lake by Charlotte Betts Page B

ask for anything that will make you more comfortable.’
    He dismisses our thanks with a wave of his hand and leaves us to follow the housekeeper upstairs.
    Sophie’s room adjoins my own and Madame Guillet casts a sharp-eyed glance around to check that all is in order. Ewers of hot water are steaming on the dressing table and snowy white towels warm by the fire.
    ‘Please use the bell if there is anything you require.’ The housekeeper closes the door behind her and I strip off my travel-stained clothes, wash and fall into bed.
    The sheets, of exquisitely fine linen, are indeed not only clean but lavender-scented. I fall into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Chapter 8
     
    I awake during the night to hear Sophie coughing. The fire has died down to glowing coals. Padding barefoot across the soft rug, I open the door to the next room.
    ‘Sophie?’ I whisper.
    She mutters something I can’t understand and her forehead is very hot. I curl up beside her on the bed in case she needs me but when dawn comes I creep back into my own room.
    I awake when a maid brings in fresh hot water. A fire already crackles in the marble chimneypiece.
    ‘Good morning, Mademoiselle. Shall I open the shutters and bring you some chocolate?’
    Later, in spite of a continuing headache, I’m miraculously fortified by a cup of chocolate and a freshly laundered dress. I knock on Sophie’s door and hear her feeble response. When I go in I see that perspiration beads her forehead as she’s caught up in a paroxysm of coughing.
    I prop her against the pillows and help her to sip water. ‘Sophie, you need a doctor.’
    ‘I don’t want to be any trouble…’
    ‘You’ll cause even more trouble if you don’t get better soon.’
    I go out into the corridor and look over the balustrade into the cavernous hall below. I creep down the curving staircase and tiptoe across the black and white marble. Hesitating, I turn the handle of the salon door and start when I hear a voice behind me.
    ‘Good morning, Mademoiselle Moreau. I trust you slept well?’ Monsieur d’Aubery is freshly shaven and lightly scented with lemon verbena.
    ‘I’m worried about Sophie,’ I say, coming straight to the point. ‘The chill has settled on her chest and she should see a doctor.’
    ‘Then I shall send for Dubois,’ he says. ‘He is the family doctor and we can trust him.’
    I return to sit beside Sophie, whose breathing is laboured. Nothing I do eases her discomfort so I greet the arrival of Dr Dubois with relief. A jovial man with shrewd grey eyes, he questions Sophie patiently while he takes her pulse and listens to her chest.
    ‘We’ll soon have you right again, Madame Levesque,’ he says. ‘I’ll send round the apothecary’s boy with some bronchial mixture.’ He snaps his bag closed, bows to Sophie and nods to me before leaving the room.
    Soon after, I slip away from her bedside and follow him. The door to the library is open and I stop in the action of raising a hand to knock on the door when I hear the deep tones of Dr Dubois.
    ‘The king has his appointment with Madame Guillotine at ten o’clock tomorrow morning in the Place de la Révolution,’ he says. ‘They’ll bring him from the Temple prison and parade him through the streets.’
    ‘So soon, Armand? Is there no prospect of a reprieve?’ asks Monsieur d’Aubery.
    ‘Unlikely. And afterwards there is no going back.’
    ‘There will be bloodshed while the different revolutionary factions fight for control. I fear for everyone, from the highest aristocrat in his château to the paupers scrabbling for crumbs in the gutter.’
    ‘History will be made tomorrow,’ says Dr Dubois.
    Suddenly the door opens. I step back, my hand still raised to knock. ‘I beg your pardon,’ I stammer. ‘I came to ask if I could fetch Sophie’s medicine from the apothecary, to save time?’
    ‘Certainly not!’ says Monsieur d’Aubery. ‘The streets of Paris are no place for a lady at present.’
    ‘You