On My Lady's Honor (Secrets of the Musketeers Book 1) Page 13

  “I have plenty of dresses you can wear,” Courtney offered. She scurried to the corner of her chamber where a large wardrobe stood half hidden by a heavy velvet curtain. Opening it with a flourish, she riffled through the brightly colored silks hanging inside. “I loved them so much that I could not bring myself to part with them all when I came to Paris to be a soldier. It is lucky I did so. You could not possibly be so disrespectful to God and the Church as to get married in breeches. Just imagine what your parents would think if they knew.”

  She held up a dress of sparkling emerald green with lace dripping from the sleeves, lovingly stroking with silk with her glance. “Try this one on. It is still quite fashionable and would suit your complexion very well. Besides, the lace is real Brussels lace. That never goes out of style.”

  Sophie sent up a quick prayer of thanks to the Lord for her friends. They had saved her twice now. She owed them a debt she would not forget in a hurry.

  She kicked off her boots and breeches and unwound the bindings from her breasts. She hadn’t worn a dress in so long that she had forgotten what it felt like to have the feeling of luscious, smooth silk slip over her body.

  She was shorter than Courtney and several inches of silk pooled at her feet. “It’s a bit too long,” she said doubtfully. “I would ruin the hem in the mud.” Wealthy though they had been, her father had not approved of dressing her too fine. He had spent his savings on fitting out Gerard as a Musketeer and on improving their estate, and had dressed her and her mother in wool and cottons. Silk gowns were reserved for special celebrations – and even then they were plain gowns without a speck of lace or ribbon to be seen. She had never had a dress half so fine before as the one that Courtney was so casually offering her.

  “I can shorten it for you in an hour,” Courtney offered. “Musketeer that I am, I haven’t forgotten how to sew.”

  “And a little tight in the bodice.”

  Courtney inspected the seams. “That can’t be helped. There’s no spare fabric to let out for you. Besides, it makes you look every inch a woman.”

  Miriame’s eyes were round and wide at the sight of such finery. She touched the green silk with reverential fingertips. “I’ve never worn a dress this beautiful in my life.”

  Courtney went back to the wardrobe and picked out another dress – this one a deep crimson dress with gold trimmings around the neck and sleeves. “This would suit your dark hair,” she said, and she tossed it at Miriame. “Try it on.”

  Miriame struggled into it with a few muttered curses. “I feel all trussed up like a goose ready for the oven,” she complained, as she turned this way and that in front of the looking glass.

  Sophie could only stare in amazement at her friend. The crimson dress turned her from a striking-looking young man into a woman of quite exotic dark beauty. “You look beautiful.”

  Courtney had chosen a yellow dress for herself. “This was used to be my favorite,” she said, as she deftly did up the buttons that ran the length of her back. “I wore it on the happiest day of my life.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “Before I realized what heartless bastards men are.”

  Sophie felt like a goose among swans – a plain brown homespun mouse next to a couple of exotic creatures from another world, but the magnificent silk of her dress and the presence of her friends gave her some comfort. “Come to the church with me tomorrow,” she pleaded. “Be my attendants so I will not be quite alone.”

  “Oh, to feel like a woman again,” Courtney said, picking up her skirts and doing a little dance in her stockinged feet. “I am so sick of pretending to be a man. I despise filthy men and their even filthier clothes. Soldiers have to wear the most uninspiring clothes in creation. If I could wear my favorite dress into battle, I’m sure I would fight the harder for it. The man who muddied this dress would die a thousand deaths.”

  Miriame craned her neck over her shoulder to look at the back of the dress. “If this is what feeling like a woman feels like, I’d rather stay a soldier, thanks very much. It’s much more practical.” All the same, she didn’t move away from the glass.

  “Forget that you’re soldiers for the morrow,” Sophie begged, “and come to my wedding. I shall need some friendly faces to get me through. Lamotte would not like me to have an escort of Musketeers, but he could not quibble over an escort of women. Besides, nobody will recognize you in a silk dress.”

  Courtney’s face creased in indecision. “As a woman, I knew more than a few people in Paris. I would not like to be recognized by anyone. Besides, I have business that ought to take me out of Paris tomorrow.”

  “I suppose I can be a woman for one day,” Miriame said, smoothing the silk over her hips with covetous hands. “It might be the only chance I ever get to wear a dress worth this much.”

  “We shall be three women, not three soldiers. None of our comrades will know us.”

  “Ah, damn it,” Courtney said, and she banged her hand on the wardrobe door with the finality of decision. “I shall be there for you. Every woman deserves a proper wedding day.”

  Lamotte stood at the door of the church, waiting for his bride. He felt little other than a decided impatience to get it all over and done with. His honor demanded that he marry the wench. He was sure he could like her well enough, did she but douse a little of her martial spirit. He certainly lusted after her body as a man should lust after his wife. He had no doubt but that once she had accepted him as her lord and master, they would eventually find a measure of sexual satisfaction with each other. He might never find true love and happiness in her arms, but he must needs be content with what he had and forbear from pining for what he could never realize.

  A hackney coach stopped a little way down the lane and three female figures alighted, stepping carefully through the mud of the street in their high patterns. He glanced at them briefly before turning his head away again. Where the devil was Sophie? Did she think to keep him waiting all day?

  “Monsieur le Comte?”

  He turned his head back again with a snap.

  His mouth fell open in shock to see Sophie, with her soft brown hair in ringlets about her face and looking like a dream in a dress of a rich green, holding out her hand to him. “You are rather lacking in gallantry, Monsieur le Comte, to ignore us so pointedly.”

  He blinked his eyes once or twice to make sure that he was not seeing visions that were not really there. “I did not know it was you. You look… different.”

  “I am the same Sophie Delamanse I always was – only in a dress.”

  He could not get over how feminine and fragile she looked – how unlike a soldier. He had an overpowering urge to take her in his arms and hold her close, to protect her from the world outside. “It suits you.”

  She gestured first to one and then to the other of the women accompanying her. “My friends, Mademoiselle Ruthgard and Mademoiselle Dardagny. They have come to see me wed.”

  One of them dropped into a graceful curtsey and the other nodded her head awkwardly at the introduction.

  He bowed perfunctorily to them both, but his eyes were captivated by Sophie. His wife-to-be was beautiful – truly beautiful. He had not though that a dress could make so much difference. In her gown of emerald green, her blue eyes shining, she was the woman he had dreamed of marrying. She was the Sophie he had always imagined her to be.

  He held out his arm to her, still in a daze. “I cannot imagine anything I would rather do than marry you.”

  He nodded to the priest, who stood waiting on the steps at the door of the church. “Here is my bride.”

  The priest cleared his throat and started to read. Lamotte stood facing his soon-to-be wife, her cold hands clasped in his own. He waited impatiently for the priest to reach the crucial part of the ceremony. He didn’t trust Sophie not to run off before the words that could tie them together as man and wife were finally spoken.

  Finally the priest asked the question he had been waiting to hear.

  “I do.” He spoke the
words loudly and clear, surprised to find that he meant them with all his heart. He wanted to proclaim his marriage to the whole world. Sophie was his wife now and he was glad of it.

  “I do.” Her voice was soft and clear but her eyes were troubled. He smiled at her to put her at ease but she did not smile back.

  He bent his head in the symbolic kiss that would seal their union. Her breath was as sweet and fresh and smelled faintly of mint. He wished he were not on the steps of the church and could kiss her thoroughly instead of merely pecking her chastely on her closed lips.

  She gave no outward reaction to his kiss, but there was a telltale flush on her cheeks when he lifted his head again. Maybe his wife was not as immune to him as she made herself out to be.

  She was his wife and he had promised to seduce her into his bed. He was looking forward to this night – their wedding night. He would tempt her palate with sweet dainties and her body with sweet caresses until she melted into his arms. If kind words and gentle kisses could woo her, she would be his wife in earnest by the morrow.

  Sophie stood outside the King’s apartments, her legs apart and her arms crossed over her chest. Her emerald green wedding dress was safely packed away in Courtney’s wardrobe with all the others, as if it had never taken part in such a momentous occasion. She was back to boots and breeches as if she had never left off wearing them.

  This was hardly the way she had envisaged spending her wedding night when she was a young girl, still dreaming of her neighbor Jean-Luc’s brown curls and steady hand with the bow. Then she had dreamed of her new husband’s kisses and caresses and longed for him to make her a real woman.

  Lamotte had not been pleased when she had cut short the repast he had arranged for her in their apartments. She herself had been sorry to leave the candied fruits and spiced jellies that he had brought in for her, but duty called. She was a Musketeer – and the King must be guarded even on her wedding night.

  Guard duty was a good reason to escape the apartments she shared with Lamotte. He was too big and overpowering and he made her feel uneasy. Now that they were married, he made her more uncomfortable than ever. She could not have borne spending her wedding night in an uneasy silence, eating a splendid wedding feast with a heavy spirit and tiptoeing around the big hulk of a man who was now her husband in the eyes of man and yet would never be her husband in the eyes of God.

  The angles of his face had sat in shadow while the bronzed muscles of his arms had gleamed in the dim candlelight. He looked like a Viking of old as he sat cross-legged in front of the dainties on the low table, inviting her to partake of their wedding feast– a strong and proud warrior who owed his allegiance to nobody.

  She would rather guard the King a thousand time over than be subjected to the temptation she had sworn to avoid.

  Miriame lounged at her feet, a hip flask in her hand. “I dunno why we have to guard the King anyway,” she grumbled, tipping the hip flask upside down and watching the last drop drip onto the dusty floor. “Who are we supposed to guard him from anyway? Discarded mistresses with poison in their eyes? He’d have enough of them for sure. Rumor is that he’s slept with every damn scullery maid in the palace, not to mention most of the Queen’s ladies as well.”

  Sophie shrugged her shoulders. “His enemies, whoever they might be.”

  “Why should he have enemies? Everyone loves him. He’s the King. The sun rises and sets in his glorious majesty.” She spat on the ground beside her and ground the spittle into the dust with her heel. “That’s what I think about Kings.”

  The door in front of the creaked open a little ways and Sophie glared down at her friend. “Be quiet, you fool, if you want to keep you head joined on to your neck,” she hissed. “Someone’s coming.”

  A little page boy poked his head around the door. “The King wants to see one of you,” he squeaked.

  Miriame stayed where she was. “Tell the King he can go piss in the wind for---”

  Sophie kicked her - hard. “Tell the King that I am coming right away,” she said, hurriedly, to cover up Miriame’s insolence as best she could. “In fact, I’ll come along with you and tell him myself.”

  She heaved a sigh of relief as the door shut behind them. Miriame had a hearty disrespect for authority and no sense of self-preservation. Sometimes it felt dangerous to be her friend.

  The King was seated in a tall-backed chair at a desk with his back to her, his quill pen scratching away as he wrote busily on the paper in front of him.

  She swept a low back at his back, ending up on one knee. “Gerard Delamanse at your service, Sire.”

  He ignored her.

  She waited on one knee for some minutes as the King scratched away, hoping she would not overbalance with a thud but not liking to get to her feet again without his permission. Finally he laid his pen down on the desk, sprinkled sand over the paper to dry the ink, shook it off again.

  With a hand that seemed to shake slightly, he folded the paper in two, dropped a blob of red wax on it from a candle on the desk to seal it, and pressed the imprint of his ring into the seal.

  He turned around and handed the letter to Sophie without a word.

  She took it as she knelt, and waited for further instructions.

  The King ran his hand through his hair. He looked older than she had imagined, Sophie thought to herself. He was hardly a young man anymore. His complexion was almost gray in its paleness, and his forehead was creased with a frown. “The duties of a King are not always pleasant,” he said, addressing Sophie with an abstract air, “but they are duties none the less. One cannot shirk what one must do simply because the doing of it revolts the soul.”

  He fell silent again.

  Sophie felt that some response seemed to be called for. “No, Sire.”

  The King gave himself a shake. “I do not like what I have to do, but I must do it regardless. Musketeer, you must arrest me a traitor and take the criminal to the Bastille. The lettre-de-cachet I have given you is for the Governor of the Bastille. Give both the letter and the prisoner into his hands and his hands only. Take your fellow guard with you for safety in the streets. Whatever you do, you must guard the prisoner well - kill the traitor if you must, but do not allow an escape. Take care that none else may know of this.”

  She was to be entrusted with an important and secret mission for the King. Her heart leaped with excitement. What a perfect chance had landed in her lap to win honor for the name of her brother. She would destroy his enemies down to the very last one. She would not fail the trust her monarch had placed in her. “Yes, Sire.”

  He turned to his pageboy. “Go with the Musketeer and show him where the traitor resides.” He looked down at her with a cold eye. “Do not make a noise. The Comte de Guiche is already fled beyond my reach. I will not allow another bird to escape the noose I have prepared. If the prisoner escapes, your life will pay the forfeit of your carelessness.”

  She was happy to serve him with her life. “Yes, Sire.”

  Without another word, he waved her away.

  Sophie roused a reluctant Miriame with the toe of her boot and the two of them followed the pageboy through the maze of winding corridors. Sophie’s heart pounded in her breast. She was about to arrest a dangerous traitor to the crown and must guard him with her life. Maybe he would put up a struggle and she would have to subdue him by force. She was not afraid. With God and the King of France on her side, she would be sure to conquer him.

  The pageboy stopped outside a carved wooden door. “She sleeps in there.”

  Sophie stopped dead. “She?” She was prepared to give her life in the service of the King, fighting his enemies in a desperate battle to the death. She had not been prepared for the traitor to be a woman.

  The pageboy nodded.

  “Who is it?”

  The pageboy turned his head to make sure there was nobody hiding in the shadows who might hear him. “Madame Henrietta, the sister of the English King.”

  Suddenly she thought sh
e understood the reason for her mission. She could hardly bear to be the means of punishing a woman for her loyalty to those she rightly loved. What would a woman not do for the love of a brother, Sophie thought to herself with a heavy heart as she reached out to knock on the door. Even treason.

  The pageboy stayed her hand. “Shush,” he whispered. “I have a key.” He unlocked the door, pushed it open and melted back into the shadows.

  Sophie tucked the letter into the inside of her jacket and the two of them shuffled their feet at the door, unsure of what to do next.

  “I hope the King pays us a good bonus for doing his dirty work for him,” Miriame grumbled in a low whisper. “I don’t like arresting sleeping women for nothing.”

  “Do you think of nothing but your own profit?” Sophie hissed back at her. “The woman is a traitor and must be dealt with.” With a heart full of determination, mixed in equal amounts with trepidation, she squared her shoulders and marched in.

  The first chamber was empty. Sophie gave a cursory glance over the rich furnishings and made for the connecting door on the other side.

  A young woman with disheveled curls peeping out from under her nightcap was sitting in the bed, a shawl around her shoulders. She looked at the naked sword in Sophie’s hand. “You have come to murder me?” she asked in a voice that did not waver at all.

  Sophie shook her head. She had to admire the traitor’s courage in the face of death. “I have orders from the King to take you to the Bastille.”

  The other woman sighed. “It is the same thing. Please, will you allow me to get dressed before you take me away?”

  Sophie examined the room with a careful eye. There was no obvious exit other than the door by which she had just entered. “I shall wait in the antechamber for you while you dress. Go quickly.”