A Lady Betrayed (Secrets of the Musketeers Book 2) Page 13

  “Utter horse shit.” His face looked pained. “I have more cause than most to know it.”

  She thought for a long moment before she decided to tell him a version of the truth. “I joined on a whim, I suppose you might say. My father left me more than enough money to set myself up in a business did I choose to follow in his footsteps and become a merchant, but I have no need to earn a living and no present calling to trade. I prefer to fight my enemies in the open rather than cheat them behind their back in the dark.”

  His face clouded over with the remembrance of an old pain. “What man worth his salt wouldn’t rather fight his enemies openly, but that is a luxury that few I know can boast of. You are happy in the King’s Guard?”

  What was happiness? She did not know that she would ever find out what it really was. Happiness to her had once meant a state of blissful ignorance, unknowing and unsuspecting of the evil that there was in the world. Now she knew what the world was really like and what men would do to their fellows without a qualm, was happiness even a possibility any more? “I am content enough that my whim has brought me here. I am content to remain for now, fighting against the enemies of France. Whether I shall always be content to be a Musketeer is another matter...”

  He snorted. “Fighting against the enemies of the King of France more like it. The two are not always one and the same.”

  She sensed an unhappiness in him that she might be well be able to turn to her advantage if she played her cards right. He was not the man she had once thought him to be, but she needed to know what kind of man he was in truth. She needed to discover his strengths and his weaknesses. Once she knew where he was vulnerable, she would know how best to lay her plan of attack. “I gather you are not as content as I to be a Musketeer?”

  He gave a bitter laugh. “Content to be a Musketeer? You may as well ask me if I am content to be the worst kind of rogue that crawls in the dark though the muck and slime of human villainy.”

  She had to find out more about his distaste for his present life – and what had caused his change of heart. When she had first met him, he had seemed so proud of his uniform and the status it conferred on him. He had taken his loyalty to his King seriously enough to ruin her life and imprison her father for it. “You have a low opinion of us Musketeers, it would seem - yourself included,” she ventured.

  He sat back in his chair, his face cast into deeper shadow by the brim of his hat. “I did not always have such a low opinion of soldiers. Once I, too, was full of hope and idealism of making the world a safer place to live in – before I realized that a soldier’s life is but to revenge the petty squabbles of those greater than he is.”

  Maybe it had been the destruction of her father that had tipped the balance in Pierre’s mind against the Musketeers after all. “Which petty squabbles are these of which you talk?”

  “The King mislikes a man for his birthplace or his lineage or something equally inconsequential. What does he do? He uses his soldiers, his fine Musketeers, as spies to dig up what evidence he can to convict this innocent man on a technicality of the law. That is why I despise us all.”

  She wondered even more if he had been referring to her own father. The facts of the case were suspiciously alike. Still, save asking him directly and thus betraying her knowledge of his part in the affair, she would not know for sure. “Why do you remain a Musketeer, then, if you despise your calling?”

  She had thought the question a simple matter, but he seemed to think it absurd. “I am the third son of a count. My father’s wealth, such as it was, was all held in his land, and all the land is entailed on my older brother. There was nothing left for the rest of us. We had to make our own way in the world.”

  She still did not get what he was trying to say. “There are other ways to earn a living other than being a Musketeer.” She knew a thousand young men who would never think of going for a soldier.

  “My second brother went into the church and is the Abbot of a large and wealthy monastery. He has done well enough for a second son, though his way is not mine. I have no calling for the Church. What else can I do but go a soldiering?”

  He had overlooked what seemed to her the obvious solution for a younger son in his situation. “You could have become a merchant and earned your living that way.”

  The look he gave her was supercilious in the extreme. “My family is descended from Kings of France. We do not dirty our hands or pollute our bloodlines by going into trade.”

  She shrugged her shoulders, refusing to rise to the bait. What did she care if he looked down on her and her people? He was nothing to her any more but an enemy on whom she would be revenged one day. “The more fool you if you would rather ‘crawl through the muck and slime of human villainy’ than earn an honest living by the sweat of your brow.”

  He had the grace to look somewhat ashamed of his outburst of snobbery. “Besides, I have no idea how to be a merchant. I have no money to stock a shop and no idea what I would do with it even if I had the wherewithal to try.”

  She would not have thought he could be so ignorant of her world. After all, he knew enough about it to have her father arrested and thrown into the King’s dungeon. “It’s easy enough. Buy low, sell high, and don’t cheat any customers who might come back to you a second time. Saving an old customer is easier than gaining a new one.”

  He shrugged with an easy gesture. “Merchanting must be in your blood. You make it sound so easy.”

  What did he think was so difficult about it? As long as you could read and cipher well enough and didn’t put too much trust in your fellow man, you would get along. Trusting people too much had led to her father’s downfall. “It is easy. There is no magic to making money as a merchant. It is easier work than soldiering, if you have a mind to it. It’s a wonder more younger sons don’t take to it.”

  He sat quiet for a moment, pondering her words. “I do not fear the hard work in soldiering, but I have no stomach for it any more.”

  She looked and him and waited, knowing that he would fill the silence eventually. He would give her the clue she needed to decipher what he wanted.

  He drank deeply of his ale. “I loved your cousin,” he said at last. She could have sworn that she saw him wipe a tear from his eye, but the smoky darkness of the tavern meant she was not quite sure.

  She did not want to hear of his love for her. What use was such a pale weak love as he had once felt for her? It had not been strong enough to keep him by her side. She would not fall for his foolish words ever again. They were devoid of honesty and meaning. It was too late. Too late. “You’ll get over her soon enough, I’ll warrant. Pretty women are as common as pins. No doubt the horrible thought of polluting your bloodlines with a woman from the merchant classes will help you to put her from your mind.” She could not keep all the cynicism and bitterness she felt out of her voice.

  He did not like her tone. With an evil glare at her, he let his hand drift to the handle of his sword. “Your cousin, Mademoiselle Ruthgard, was not common. She was more than pretty – she was beautiful enough to take your breath away and sweeter than the finest sugar cane. She did not look like a vulgar merchant’s daughter – or act like one, either. Mademoiselle Ruthgard was an angel - and better bred than most of the women at court. I will not allow any man, especially not you who should know better, to say a word against her.”

  She could hardly believe the sad irony of his words. Her false lover was singing her praises and defending her honor to her very face? She never thought she would live to see the day. She did not know whether to laugh or cry. “Why did you not wed her then, if she is all that you say?” Despite her hatred of him and her determination to be revenged on him, she was curious to hear his answer.

  He put his elbows on the table and stared morosely into his ale as if he would find the answer to his troubles at the bottom of his mug. “It is not that simple.”

  She was glad to know that he had not walked away from her without a scratch. She was glad to
see that his heart ached for what he had done to her. He deserved to ache for it. She wanted to make him regret the day he had abandoned her. “Why not?” she asked, with a veneer of careless ignorance. “If you love a woman, then marry her if you have the inclination and can do so. If you cannot, then find some other woman to replace her in your heart. It does neither of you any good for you to moon over her in secret.”

  He was silent for a while as he stared into the bottom of his ale. “I loved your cousin well,” he said at last, his voice low with sorrow. “I love her still. I will never love another woman after loving her, but I doubt I can ever marry her. I have wronged her too greatly for her ever to forgive me.”

  She lifted up one eyebrow. So he had a conscience after all, did he? ‘Twas a pity that his conscience was so late in making itself felt. Better he had let his conscience stop him before he had taken her virginity and ruined her father instead of tormenting himself with guilt after the fact. None of his guilty pangs would free her father or mend her broken heart - or stop her from taking her revenge on him for all the trouble he had caused her. “Why did you wrong her, if you love her so well?” She would like to hear him explain that away, if he could.

  He was silent for a long time, vouchsafing her no answer. She did not expect a reply. What answer could he possibly to give to such a question that would not incriminate him more than it would excuse him?

  From the tavern kitchen came the clutter of pots and pans and an aroma of rich roast beef. Courtney surprised herself by starting to feel hungry. She must be recovering from her night of drinking.

  “I hate the King.” His words were so soft she nearly did not hear them.

  “I beg your pardon?” Had he, a trusted member of the King’s Guard, openly confessed to a hatred that was at best impolitic and at worst could land him on the executioner’s block for treason?

  “I hate the King.” The words were low, but they carried a force behind them that showed how much and how deeply they were meant. “I hate being his soldier. He does not deserve my service.”

  “He does not?”

  He gave a bitter laugh. “On second thoughts, maybe he does deserve it. After all, he is no worse than I am. He asked of me things I should not do. Out of fear of losing my place in the Guards and having to return home to my family disgraced and penniless to beg my bread from my elder brother, I did them, though I knew I ought not. Which of us is the greater scoundrel? The King, who asks me to do evil, or me, who performs that evil?”

  She did not want to feel any sympathy for him. He did not deserve her pity. “So, leave his service, then. Find another man to serve - one who will not ask evil of you.”

  He gave a bitter laugh. “Where could I find such a man? What King would be better to serve than my own? Even if I could find such a mythical beast as a good King, would even accept my service now? No – The King of France deserves to sow what he has reaped – he deserves the service of a scoundrel who hates him and would run him through the body with the point of his sword if he had but a single chance to do so. I will serve the man who corrupted my soul and may the Devil run off with his all the sooner.”

  “And my cousin? Should you not right the wrong you have done to her if it is in your power to do so?”

  He shook his head as if it pained him too much to think about it. “I will if I can, with all my heart, but I fear I have nothing to offer your cousin that would not poison her to accept.”

  Courtney sat in her apartments buffing her fingernails with a soft cloth. Though she was now a soldier, she was not about to let her nails grow raggedy and unkempt like a common trull. Once her soldiering duties were over, she would return at last to her life as a woman. She needed to keep herself in practice for that happy day.

  Besides, Pierre had always admired her hands. She wanted to keep them beautiful for him…

  She pinched herself on the back of the hand for her traitorous thoughts. Pierre would never notice her hands again. He was nothing to her now. Nothing at all. It would be wise of her to remember that and keep her mind focused on her goal – freedom for her father and revenge on the man who had betrayed them both.

  She would not dwell on his sorrow for the harm he had caused her. She would not dwell on the look of settled sadness that lay permanently on his brow. She would not pity him and she would not love him.

  There was a knock on her door and she heard her landlady bustle to answer it. Surely it would not be Pierre. She had never invited him to her lodgings. Though she needed to find out where his vulnerabilities lay, she knew only too well where her own lay to risk having him in her apartments. She was not confident enough in her own strength to test herself yet. She would keep to dealing with him as a man, on neutral ground. There was less danger in that for her.

  Besides, Pierre had left on a mysterious journey some days ago and she doubted he was back yet. He had been more close-mouthed than usual about where he was going – saying only that he needed some weeks to take care of business in the south. He had traveled light, with only his horse and some food packed in his saddle bags. Despite his lack of preparation, he talked as though he would not be back for some time.

  She wondered what his business was. Ever since he had announced that he was leaving, he had been imbued with a new excitement and hope that gave an extra sparkle to his eyes. The cloud of despair had lifted off him and he had been more than ever like the carefree man she had fallen in love with all those many months ago.

  She heard a couple of pairs of feet tramp up the stairs, the sound of their boots muffled on the carpet runner. Not Pierre, then, returned early from his travels. Were he ever to come, he would come alone, she was certain of it. She chided herself for the unreasonable disappointment she felt that it was not him.

  For sure it was her new found friends – Musketeers and women like herself – that she had met in the tavern the other night. Her head still ached with the memory of the wine they had drunk that night to celebrate their finding of each other. The three of them had spent much of their off-duty time together since then, all of them grateful for the chance to let down their guard in each other’s company without fear of giving away the secret of their sex. She had never realized how much the friendship of other women had meant to her until she was deprived of it by living as a soldier.

  She and Miriame had even attended the wedding of Sophie and yet another Musketeer, the Comte de Lamotte, just the other day. She smiled with the remembrance. How good it had felt to wear a dress again just for that afternoon, to feel like a proper woman again, instead of like a counterfeit male.

  How she had loved to feel the swish of silk around her legs, and the luxurious softness of silk stockings tied around her thighs. She had even gone so far as to curl her hair with painstaking attention – not to mention a couple of fingers scorched on the hot curling papers - just for the occasion.

  She still did not trust the Comte any more than she trusted any other faithless forsworn male, but he was easy on the eyes, and Sophie seemed content enough with her lot in marriage.

  She was glad that her friend had found some measure of happiness in her life. She only hoped that Sophie’s taste of it was not as ill-founded or as fleeting as hers had been, and that it did not leave her with such a bitter aftertaste as her own had done.

  Sophie Delamanse, or rather Sophie Lamotte as she was now, was the first in the door, her face alight with some mission or other. Courtney bit back a groan. She had quickly pegged Sophie as the sort of woman and soldier who would stop at nothing to do what she felt was right. She was not sure, however, that Sophie was always wise in her choice as to what was right and what was not.

  Miriame Dardagny, the onion thief and all round scoundrel, followed behind her with the look of someone who has been dragged in against her will.

  “Fellow Musketeers,” Courtney said with a self-conscious grin as they entered. Somehow it seemed wrong to call them by their feminine names when they were all kilted up with swords and breeches, bu
t neither could she call them by their male names either. She would simply have to call them ‘comrade’ until she thought of something better. “Come in and make yourselves at home. Shall I send for some wine?”

  Sophie shuddered and shook her head. “No thank you. I haven’t come to drink more of your wine, but rather to ask your advice.”

  Miriame flung herself on a floor cushion and started to pare her fingernails with a knife, dropping the parings carelessly onto the rug in front of her.

  Courtney shuddered at the sight. With her nasty habits, Miriame may just as well have been born a man instead of just dressing as one. With some effort, she turned her attention away from Miriame and on to Sophie, who was telling her tale with an earnest face and an urgent manner.

  The King of France, Courtney quickly gleaned, had imprisoned Henrietta Anne, the Duchess of Orleans, and the wife of his own brother, Philippe, the Duc of Orleans. The King protested that she had plotted against him with her own brother, King Charles II of England, and had arrested her for treason.

  Her husband, Monsieur le Duc, had a much different view of the affair. He swore that the King had imprisoned Henrietta Anne because she would not succumb to his amorous advances. If the King could not have her, he said, then he would make sure that no one else would either.

  Sophie knew that the lady had indeed been taken to the Bastille – she had arrested her and taken her there herself, not knowing whom her prisoner had been. She had thought she was arresting a dangerous criminal on the direct orders of the King himself. To find out that she may have taken an innocent woman to unjustifiable imprisonment instead tormented her tender conscience.

  Monsieur le Duc had begged Sophie’s aid to rescue his wife from the prison she had been cast into. He had begged her to travel to England and tell the English King of the danger that faced his sister. The English King would have the power to do what he could not do himself – and save her.

  What she should do and where did her duty lie? Sophie was asking them both. Did it lie with serving the King as she had sworn to do when she had taken up arms as a Musketeer? Or did it lie in following her conscience and disobeying the King she had vowed to serve?