A Powerful Little Love

Chapter 4

                  

The opulence and grandeur of the Louvre palace was lost on Amorette Du Guillory.  Despite having never stayed there before and knowing that she should rightly have been in awe of the whole wondrous city pof Paris, her heart was not in it.  As she lay in bed early the next morning, her stomach was in knots.  Seeing her half-sister after such a long time was somewhat bitter-sweet.  After everything that Ann had put her through Amorette couldn't help but feel that their reunion was only going to bring about more turmoil.  To have Athos there in that moment had also been strange.  If he hadn't prevented her from attacking Ann, Amorette was certain the two women would have fought like cat and dog on the floor.  Though dresses may have been torn and hair pulled Amorette could not really believe that Ann would have seriously intended to harm her though.  After all, they were half-sisters and Amorette would one day inherit the large fortune that her father had amassed if she managed to outlive him.  Their mother had been unable to provide for her bastard child in her will due to her consummated marriage, but she had managed to find a loop-hole in that when Lord Percy did die; Amorette could pass on an inheritance to her half-sister. 

She felt Athos' pain now just as keenly as she had the night before.  How horrific it must have been to have both women in the same room; to be thrust back into their family's squabbles when Amorette was sure that he wanted nothing more than to be as far from Ann as possible.  For a while Amorette had known of her sister's botched execution and had heard rumours of her seductive romps in England with countless noblemen, leading her to take Lord De Winter's name as her own after she fled his younger brother's bed.  This information had been drip fed though, and Amorette had known that there would be far much more to each and every story that she was told, but she had not expected to find her in Paris of all places, so close to where everything had gone wrong for her. 

There was something within Amorette though that was glad to see her sister alive and well.  There was a ferocity to her sister that could not be denied by anyone and Amorette admired that in her.  She had always applauded strong women and Ann was no exception.  Their own mother had been weak, baring a child out of wedlock and falling from one dangerous affair to another before eventually meeting and marrying the infamous Lord Percy Barclay.  Amorette's uncle had not approved of the match and had strongly advised against it, but to no avail.  The marriage went ahead and the Cometess De La Feuillette endured a terrible and frightening union before her untimely death.  Their mother had been weak, hoping from man to man in the hope of finding someone to love her.  The Cometess would have gone to any lengths just to feel a little love from Lord Percy and had done so on numerous occasions.  Amorette remembered it all very well and had suffered for it.  Her mother had not been strong enough to do the right thing and walk away from a man who was violent and cruel to his only daughter.  Ann was in complete confliction to the Cometess.  Everything that she did was for money and power and Amorette would never condone her methods or behaviour, but she could not see her sister as weak.  Living in a wholly man's world Ann had carved a name and a life for herself by usurping the money and position of others. 

Amorette supposed that she did somewhat share her sister's tenacity but in a radically different form.  Her mother desired love and her sister wealth and favour; Amorette believed herself to be somewhere between the two.  Amorette had seen how the jangling of large amounts of gold in the pockets of her father and sister had been their own corruption, and she knew first hand that love wasn't necessarily enough to redeem a person no matter how much of it they had to give.  Amorette was never 'in favour' as her sister had so aptly put it, and technically she was also never out of it.  She sat somewhere resolutely between the two and saw it as a blessing.  Every member of the nobility knew someone who had been in favour one week, and the next they met a grisly end with the help of the executioners block or what would come to be known as le guillotine. Even though she was not a regular at court Amorette was well aware how quickly favour could shift and diminish.  She was not without connections though.  Her name was well known and influential and Amorette continued to uphold alliances with French and English politicians and nobility alike.  Such allegiances were acquired because of her reputation as a good person and enabled her to be extremely well informed where others thought her unwitting.