A Lady Betrayed (Secrets of the Musketeers Book 2) Page 11

He shook his head as if to shake off his black thoughts, but they would not leave him that easily. She could still see them, lying like a dark shadow over his brow. “You are to join the Musketeers?”

  “Of course. I am out of place amongst my own – I have no head for being a merchant and would rather fight a man than strike a bargain with him. Who would not wish to become a Musketeer? Are you not the flower of French manhood, the very fount of all that is honorable and pure?”

  He bared his teeth in the parody of a grin. “Hold on to your innocent illusions, Master William Ruthgard. Hold on to your illusions for as long as you may. You will find out the truth soon enough.”

  She was shaking when she left him, shaking so badly that she could barely stand upright on her legs. They did not even feel like her legs anymore – they felt like ill-fitting appendages she had borrowed but had not quite learned how to use properly yet.

  She had seen him again. She had seen Pierre de Tournay – her faithless lover and the father of her child - with her own eyes. God had not struck him down with a lightning bolt for his betrayal of her. He had not been felled by the plague or cursed with suppurating boils that eat out his wicked tongue from the roots. No, he was the same Pierre she had always known – as handsome as sin and as fair-mouthed as the devil himself.

  She had seen him once now. It would be easier the second time, and easier again each time after that. Soon the sight of him would mean nothing at all to her. She would meet him with as much indifference as she had once regarded every one of her suitors. In time, she would forget the sweet taste of his kisses and the touch of his hands on her body. In time, she would forget she had ever known him from head to toe more intimately than she had known any other man. She would only remember her desire for revenge.

  She hardly knew how she made her way back to her apartments. Her feet carried her there of their own volition – her mind was too confused to give them any direction. It was too full of Pierre to think of anything so mundane as the way home.

  She dropped into bed as soon as she returned and hugged the blankets around her to ward off the sudden chill that had struck her to the marrow. She had seen Pierre and she yet lived. That was a good start.

  Justice on Pierre de Tournay was only a small part of her plan, though – she must not forget that. She must first find a way to rescue her father. Not to mention the other Frenchman, George Charent, who had also helped to imprison her father. His crime was not as dreadful as Pierre’s, but a crime it was nonetheless and deserving of punishment. He had at least not cloaked his intentions under the guise of love, but he was still guilty. She would surely find a way to serve justice on him, as well.

  Pierre did not know how he made it through the rest of the day. He went through the motions as if he were half-dead: his body obeyed the commands he gave to it, but it could do no more than that. There was no will or meaning in his actions. He felt like a golem, a dead body brought back to seeming life but with the spark of his soul quenched for ever. He could not think that he would ever feel human again.

  He had seen a ghost today - the ghost of his beloved Courtney – and it had shaken him to his marrow. For a hellish, heavenly moment he had thought he had seen Courtney herself, but that had proved a mirage. He had seen her spirit sent to torment him, but not her body.

  She looked out at him through the eyes of her cousin, William Ruthgard. Young William was much the same height as his cousin and had the same slender build. His hair was shorter as befitted a man, but it was the same color of wheaten gold as his beloved’s. He could not be much older than his Courtney had been, either. His voice was light for a man’s and his cheeks were still as smooth and clear as a boy’s, giving the lie to the short moustache he sported on his upper lip. Were it not for that moustache, he would almost swear he was looking at his own beloved’s face.

  He had thought never to see her again and, though his soul revolted against the necessity, had tried to resign himself to living without her. God had played a nasty trick on him by bringing her cousin into his life – though to be sure it was less than he deserved for his treatment of her. Her cousin was as like to her as two peas in a pod. With William Ruthgard in his company, never would he forget his love. Never would he forget for a moment the way he had betrayed her. Never would he forget for a moment the weight of guilt that he carried around with him inside his heart for that same betrayal.

  William Ruthgard was the curse that he must live with, day after day. William was the hair shirt he must wear – the act of will that kept him perpetually in mind of his sin and his penance.

  When dusk finally fell, he strode back to his apartments, his head on fire with a new sense of guilt. Fate had found a new way to torment him with the presence of William, against which he had no recourse and could not fight.

  He had thought endlessly about Mademoiselle Ruthgard in the last year since he had tiptoed away from her in the middle of the night on a mission of betrayal. He had imagined her a thousand times married to Justin Legros or some other fat Flemish merchant, her belly swollen with a child, living in peace and contentment, having forgotten any momentary pangs he had ever caused her. True her father was disgraced and sent to the Bastille, and much of his wealth was confiscate to the Crown, but Courtney was woman enough to attract a husband without reputation or fortune. Her beauty and her sweetness would be more dowry than she needed to find a place in the world. Heaven knows, her loveliness would have been enough for him. Younger son that he was, he would have wed her though she was penniless.

  The thought of Courtney forsaking him for another and forgetting her love for him was anguish enough for him to bear. Courtney should be his by rights. He loved her and only and she had loved him in return. She had sworn she would be his and his alone and they had sealed their vow by consummating their union. The thought of another man’s hands on his Courtney, on his promised wife, was worse than a red hot poker gouging out his eyeballs. Though he had been faithless to her and was forsworn, he could not bear that she could forget the love they had shared so easily. He would not think that he had meant so little to her.

  If what William had said was true, the situation was far worse than he had ever imagined. Little as he liked to think of Courtney belonging to another man, the thought of her alone and friendless, cold and even hungry, working her fingers to the bone in a menial situation, maybe even selling her body for bread to eat, was far worse.

  He strode into his meager apartments and flung himself down on his narrow truckle bed. The little he had he would gladly share with her, would she but have him.

  Would she but have him. That was the sticking point. There was no use in regretting the past. It was too late for him. He had had to choose between duty to his King and love for his mistress and he had chosen duty. Though he had regretted his choice fifty times a day ever since that fateful moment, he could not now turn back the clock and chose a different path.

  Courtney was not married, but forsaken and alone. Her reputation was gone. Her father was gone. Her father’s money was gone. She had nothing to live on and nowhere to go. Even her own family had cast her off as callously as they would a street beggar – and all for the crime of loving him. She was living in miserable poverty, no doubt, thanks to him. He had thought that the pain of her wedding another man was bad enough, but the thought of her alone and unwed was far, far worse.

  Not a single Flemish merchant would take her to wife? He shook his head as he kicked off his boots. Were they blind or just plain foolish? Could they not see that the worth of a woman such as Courtney was not found in her bags full of gold, but in the gold of her hair? Could they not put aside her father’s disgrace to love and cherish her for what she was in herself – all sweetness and innocence and love?

  Somehow or other he would find her out and discover where she had run to ground. He would not be the cause of more pain and suffering to her. He had broken her heart, he would not break her body as well.

  As soon as he could arrange it, he
would seek out and find her, whatever it took and however long it took him. Surely some of her old companions in Lyons would know where she was and how to find her. He had been faithful to the King for long enough. He would take some leave from soldiering and spend every spare moment of his life in the search for her. He would not give up until he had found her.

  Could she ever be brought to forgive him, he would wed her in an instant and spend the rest of his life trying to make her happy. She deserved no less from him.

  If she would not have him, he would beggar himself to make sure she was not in want. He owed her that much.

  She was his responsibility. He had shirked his duties to her for long enough. He would not shirk them any longer, but embrace them with all his heart.

  Courtney’s luck was running high the next morning when she arrived at the barracks and was paired with Charent to test her swordplay. She had not thought to come across him with such ease, or to be handed on a plate such a golden opportunity to test out his weaknesses. Now that the first shock of seeing Pierre was over, she could concentrate with all her mind on her enemies. Seeing Charent brought nothing to her but a sense of hatred – hatred for him and for what he had done to her and her father. She would feed on that hatred and use it to destroy him.

  She breathed in and out deeply, focusing on the hatred that had sustained her for so many months until she could feel a white-hot kernel of rage inside her. The white handkerchief dropped – the signal for the practice to begin.

  Deliberately, she drew on the rage inside her. She could see nothing but the sword arm of her opponent, she could hear nothing but the harsh rasp of his breath, she could smell nothing but the rank stench of the sweat on his body. She bit her tongue and tasted the sweet, sickly blood that dribbled into her mouth. She wanted blood. More blood. The blood of her enemies. Tighter and tighter she focused her mind and body, drawing deeper and deeper on her rage and anger until, with an inarticulate roar of rage, she attacked.

  Her anger made her strong. Her hatred made her vicious.

  Charent, expecting the polite sword passes of a beginner to the art, more like a dance than a duel, fell back under the onslaught of her battering rage.

  Harder and harder she pressed him, wielding her sword with both hands to give her blows more power, raining down blow after blow on his sword arm, not letting up the pressure for a single instant, wearing him down with the sheer force of her blows.

  His back was against the wall. His eyes were wide with fear, with the knowledge that she could kill him where he stood and he would be powerless to stop her. She aimed a blow at his heart, but he parried it with a weakening arm. Triumphing in her coming victory, she threw back her head with an exultant cry. She could almost taste the sweetness of his blood in her mouth. She lifted her sword to strike him through the heart.

  A fierce grip on her shoulder diverted her attention before she could let her sword fall. She turned to face her assailant, ready to strike him down for interfering in her battle, and came face to face with Captain D’Artagnan. The look on his face made her come to her senses and sobered her from the battle fury that had consumed her soul.

  “Musketeers do not kill each other on the practice field,” he said, his voice calm but his grasp on her shoulder not slackening for an instant. “They save their fiercest blows for their enemies and do not waste them on their comrades. Put up your sword.”

  She looked back at Charent. His eyes still carried the grim knowledge of how close he had come to death by her hands. He glared back at her with a hatred that nearly matched her own – the hatred of an enemy who has been temporarily vanquished, but not defeated. There would be time and enough to kill him another day. Besides her fiercest quarrel was not with him, but with Pierre de Tournay. She would do nothing that would jeopardize the realization of her revenge. She put up her sword.

  She would take care from now on not to let her rage carry her away. She would rein in her hatred, her hunger and her thirst for justice. She would not lose herself in a practice battle again. She would keep command of herself, control herself, until she fought to kill in earnest.

  “No finesse, but the enthusiasm of a Berserker,” was D’Artagnan’s verdict on her performance as they sat in the mess hall at noon over a tankard of ale. “I would have no fear of death if you were at my side in battle.”

  She raised her tankard at him in a salute. Indeed, she felt like one of those fabled Scandinavian warriors of old who fought like demons possessed and knew no fear, carving through their opponents in a orgy of blood lust and drunk on the squandered lives of their enemies. Expecting a grim rebuke from her Captain for getting so carried away, she was more than content with such a verdict.

  Her reputation as a Berserker carried quickly over the entire barracks. Other young recruits turned out to watch her fight, battering her opponents into the ground with brute force rather than skill. Even some of the older soldiers watched her – though none of them as intently or with as much hatred as Charent. Never again did she let herself go as she had when she fought with him. She kept the white-hot spark of rage in her soul banked, drawing on only enough of it to make her sword arm strong and her blows fierce. She did not let herself become intoxicated with the rage of battle and fight to kill.

  With each blow that she struck, with each opponent that she fought, she felt her desire for justice grow stronger. The seed of hatred inside her grew hotter than ever until it was in danger of overpowering her soul.

  At every turn, Pierre de Tournay sought her out, eager to speak with her, yet tormented to his soul to be in her company. She suffered his presence gladly, letting it feed her determination to visit justice on his head.

  “You are nothing like your cousin,” he said to her one day as she walked off the practice field, sweating with exertion after battering yet another opponent into the ground with the sheer strength of her determination. “Your cousin was sweet-tempered and gentle. Her favorite pastime was to feed squirrels in the grounds of the churchyard. She would never hurt a fly.”

  She had to grin at the irony of his words. “My cousin is no saint. Who knows what she would do if she felt the need of it. I’d wager she could flay half the soldiers in the barracks if she had a mind to it.”

  He shook his head emphatically. “Mademoiselle Ruthgard is no soldier. I could not even imagine her with a sword in her hand, standing staunchly in the lists as you do each day. She could not strike a blow in anger. She is so tender-hearted she would faint at the sight of blood.”

  She brushed the dirt from her hands on to her breeches and put her sword back in its scabbard. Was it really her that he was talking about? Had her true nature been so little apparent when he had first courted her? Had he not seen her true colors under the silks and satins that she wore. Or had his treachery left a mark on her soul that had changed her for all time?

  Whatever the reason for it, Pierre had made the fatal mistake of underestimating his enemy. She felt no need to enlighten him. He would be all the easier to destroy as he sat at his ease, never suspecting that his enemy was so close to him, readying her venom for the mortal strike. Men were such fools – such blind, deluded fools. “She is a woman, Pierre,” was all she said. “For all the sweet softness they may seem to possess, women make the most deadly enemies of all.”

  He shook his head. “Not your cousin.”

  She shrugged. He did not deserve even that much of a warning. More fool him if he could not see her for what she truly was – and arm himself against her. She had armed herself against him and was merely biding her time until she could strike. “Come, will you drink with me in the tavern this evening?”

  The tavern was crowded with soldiers of all shapes and sizes, many of them Musketeers of their own company. She downed a tankard of ale in morose silence, hating the man who sat at the table with her drinking as if he had not a care in the world. She stared at his breastbone with icy eyes. She wanted to kill him now – to run a sword right through his faithless heart. I
f her father was free and her son had never been born, she would do so without hesitation and damn the consequences. But her son needed his mother, and her father was not yet free…

  Above the general hubbub of the inn she heard the shriek of a woman in distress. A serving maid was being held down against her will by a huge oaf in uniform as he pawed at her breasts. As she watched, a young Musketeer rushed to the woman’s defense, taking on the bigger soldier, though he was twice his size.

  How unusual it was, she thought with a cynical sneer, to see a soldier use his sword to protect a mere woman. He must be too young and naive to know any better.

  The young Musketeer was being hard pressed and no one came to his defense. She felt the rage that she had kept bottled up inside her suddenly boil over. She was spoiling for a fight. She may as well vent some of her rage on some of those who well deserved it.

  Without a word to Pierre she jumped into the fray, careless of her own safety in her delight to at last be striking a blow against her enemies. She would rescue the young fool with his odd notions of gallantry and take the edge off her own anger in the process.

  Her sword whistling around her head in a vicious song of destruction, she made her way to the young Musketeer’s side. He glanced at her with relief before turning back to his attackers. “Follow me,” she said, clearing a path for them along the wall, aiming for a door in the wall she had seen the landlady go in an out of several times that evening. “We’ll go out the back way, though the kitchen.”

  She cursed with fury when they popped through the door, slammed it behind them, and found themselves not in the kitchen, but in a storeroom.

  A small, dark Musketeer was on his hands and knees, grubbing up onions in the corner. She spat at him as the filthy thief he was. He was the one who should by rights be locked away in the Bastille, not her innocent father. Still, seeing as they had to fight their way out again, three swords would be better than two – even the sword of a filthy thief.