Read The Ruby Talisman for Free Online

Amelie? Did she marry the horrid, old Chevalier – or did she escape? Did Amelie really face danger and adventure on her way to England? Who helped her? I wish I could have a life of adventure and excitement instead of my own boring, miserable life...
    In another room, two hundred and thirty years and half a world away, Amelie fell asleep in her velvet hung, four-poster bed, wearing the ruby pendant that had belonged to her mother. Her mind tumbled with frustration and anger.
    I hate the Chevalier. I hate Tante Beatrice. I don’t want to marry an old man. Oh how I wish someone would come and take me away from all this.
    Amelie cried herself to sleep. She could see no way out of her dreadful situation.
    ***
    Tilly slowly emerged from sleep. Her eyes fluttered open. She closed them again. She must still be dreaming that she was sleeping in a big four-poster bed with plum velvet drapes, next to a girl with long black hair tousled on the feather pillows, who was wearing a white, long-sleeved nightdress...
    Tilly’s eyes flew open again and she gasped, sitting bolt upright. She was no longer in Auntie Kara’s tiny attic bedroom in Annandale. She was in a strange dark chamber, in a strange bed, next to ... Amelie-Mathilde-Louise de Montjoyeuse!
    The loud gasp and sudden movement woke her companion, whose eyes widened in alarm. Amelie opened her mouth to scream.
    ‘No, no,’ Tilly begged, reaching out to Amelie. ‘Don’t scream.’
    Amelie scrambled next to her bed to find a candle and a tinderbox on the chest. With shaking hands she lit the candle and examined Tilly from the far side of the bed.
    ‘Pardon,’ Amelie replied, frowning in consternation. ‘Je ne comprends pas? Qui êtes vous?’
    Amelie rattled off a dozen questions in French. Tilly couldn’t understand more than a few words. She suddenly wished she had paid more attention in French lessons.
    ‘I’m sorry I don’t understand you,’ apologised Tilly, staring at Amelie in awe. ‘I must be dreaming again.’
    She gave herself a sharp pinch on the arm. It hurt. Tilly squealed in pain and shock. The ruby pendant thudded against her chest inside her pyjama top. At the same moment, she realised that Amelie was wearing the identical ruby pendant, blazing against her snow-white nightgown.
    ‘Look,’ Tilly exclaimed, crawling across the vast bed towards Amelie. She pulled her own pendant out from its hiding place inside her pyjama top and cradled it in her palm. ‘I’m wearing your ruby!’
    ‘Mon Dieu,’ exclaimed Amelie. ‘C’est incroyable!’
    Amelie picked up her pendant and reached for Tilly’s, holding them side by side in the palm of her hand, chattering all the while in incomprehensible French.
    The pendants were obviously identical, yet subtly different. Tilly’s had a patina of age that was missing from Amelie’s pendant, and a deep-grooved scratch on the gold loop that held the pendant to the chain.
    The two ruby pendants slid together in Amelie’s palm and touched. The fire in them both leapt and flared. At that moment, something incredible happened. Suddenly Amelie’s stream of excited and voluble French shifted and changed.
    ‘Who are you? Why do you have an identical talisman? Did you come to steal mine? Tell me why I should not call the guards at once.’
    ‘I can understand you!’ cried Tilly. ‘Are you speaking French or English? I think you’re speaking French and I can understand you.’
    Amelie dropped Tilly’s pendant, which thudded heavily against Tilly’s chest. She tucked her own pendant back into its usual place.
    ‘Of course I am speaking French,’ replied Amelie, cross. ‘What else would I be speaking? What’s more, you are speaking French, too, and I can understand you quite perfectly. At least now I can...’
    The girls gazed at each other in shock. Tilly stared at Amelie wearing a fine linen nightdress, embroidered with flowers and hemmed with lace, a small cap upon her head. Amelie stared at Tilly, wearing