A Lady Betrayed (Secrets of the Musketeers Book 2) Page 9

  She looked at herself critically in the glass. She still looked far too like a woman to pass easily as a man, or even as a youth. “Get the shears,” she asked Suzanne. “You will have to cut off my hair.”

  Suzanne’s face was a picture of horror at the suggestion. “Not your hair…”

  She wanted to cry herself at the thought of losing her long blonde tresses, but she refused to give her enemies even that small satisfaction. Pierre would still love her even though her hair was unfashionably short. “There is no help for it. Besides, it will soon grow again.”

  She shut her eyes as Suzanne lopped off her hair, lock by lock, until it swung free above her shoulders. She did not ever want to open her eyes again to see her butchered hair staring at her from the looking glass.

  She held out her hand. “My hat, please,” she said to Suzanne. Her eyes still closed, she took the hat and clapped it on her head.

  The transformation it effected was worth the sacrifice of her hair. She looked passably like a man now – a slightly effeminate man to be sure, but definitely a man. She stroked the skin between her mouth and nose. If only her cheeks and chin were not so smooth and hairless she would look more realistically male. “I could wish for a moustache,” she muttered to her reflection.

  Suzanne gave a sudden squeak. “I can make you a moustache, Mademoiselle.”

  Her maidservant evidently had hidden depths she had not yet discovered. “You can?”

  “My father made perukes of all kinds in his shop. That’s how I learned to dress hair as well as I do.. When I was still a child, I worked in the shop with him and he taught me enough that I can fashion a moustache for you out of the hair we have just cut off.”

  In a scant hour, the moustache was ready and glued to her top lip. It itched abominably, but it perfected her disguise. She looked just like a stout-hearted young man. She could travel to Lyons in safety and sell her emeralds herself for a fair price – and take the opportunity to make discrete inquiries to see if Pierre had returned yet as he had promised. She did not want him to be frantically searching Lyons for her, wondering and worrying where she had disappeared to.

  Her false moustache looked very little the worse for wear the following morning. It needed just a small ruffle and it looked as good as new. Suzanne’s father had evidently taught her well.

  With a tip of her hat she rode off on the fine blooded mare that Monsieur Legros had lent her, the pouch of emeralds concealed in her shirt against her skin.

  Without the donkey to slow her down, she traveled quickly, arriving in Lyons at midday. She went straight to Monsieur Legros’s warehouse. He was the biggest trader in Lyons and would give her a fair enough price for her goods. Besides, it was well known that he was an intimate of her father’s. If Pierre had arrived by now, he would surely have visited Monsieur Legros in his search for her.

  She was on the point of striking a satisfactory bargain for her bag of emeralds with the factor, and about to broach the subject of whether any stray French Musketeers had been spotted hanging around the warehouse in the last day or so, when Justin Legros stepped in to the small chamber where they had the jewels spread out on a tall workbench in front of them.

  The factor doffed his hat. “Good day, Monsieur Legros.” He indicated Courtney with a wave of his bejeweled fingers. “This is Monsieur Lafayette from Rheims, come to sell us some emeralds.”

  Courtney tilted her wide-brimmed hat so that it shaded more of her face. “Good day,” she growled in a low voice, hoping her old friend would saunter out again as quickly as he had sauntered in.

  Justin cast a seasoned eye over the emeralds on the workbench. “They are top quality. May I ask where they came from?”

  Courtney wanted only to leave before she was recognized. She did not want anyone, not even Justin, to know that she still had some emeralds to sell – that she was not a pauper. “You may ask, but I may not answer.”

  He gave her an easy grin. “I would be interested in obtaining more, if you could get your hands on them.”

  “Maybe I can.”

  He was not put off by her rudeness. “Maybe we could walk over to the tavern over the way and sup together while we discuss the possibility?”

  Courtney opened her mouth to refuse when Justin, under pretext of getting a closer look at the emeralds, leaned into her ear and whispered, “You had better accept my offer, Mademoiselle Courtney Ruthgard. I have certain matters to discuss with you.”

  She could feel the blood rush from her face and she gripped the workbench tightly with white knuckles to stop herself from falling over. “I would be delighted to sup with you, Monsieur,” she said in as steady a voice as she could muster. Just as delighted as she would be to sup with the Devil himself. How had Justin penetrated her disguise so easily? What would he do to her now that he had found her out? Her father’s fate had made her wary as a fox. She could not trust anyone at all – not even her oldest, closest friends.

  The tavern keeper showed them into a private room, gave them a couple of tankards of ale and a huge platter of food and left them alone.

  Courtney’s stomach growled with hunger as she reached out for a leg of chicken. If Justin was going to betray her, she would at least eat first. She would go to her death with a full stomach.

  Justin sat back with his customary indolence and watched her eat. “You almost had me fooled in that getup of yours.”

  She swallowed down her mouthful and blotted the grease off her mouth with her napkin. What was done could not now be undone. She would hold her cards close to her chest until she knew what his intentions were. “What gave me away?”

  “The horse. Father said he had given it to you. When I saw it in the yard outside, I knew that you would not be far away.”

  “Now that you know who I am, what now? Will you betray me to my father’s enemies? Tell the King that Monsieur Ruthgard still has a few emeralds hidden away for his daughter so his soldiers may come and confiscate those, too?”

  He looked full of sorrow at her words. “I am your friend, Courtney. I would never betray you.”

  “Then what do you want from me?”

  “I am offering to marry you.”

  Courtney choked on a mouthful of chicken. She wasn’t sure that she had heard right. “You want to what?”

  “You are in trouble and in need of help. Your father is in prison and you are all alone – your house and lands confiscated, your father’s wealth in the hands of the King. I have little time for most women, but I am as fond of you as if you were my sister. If you married me, you would be wealthy again and the King’s minions would never be able to touch you.”

  “But why should you want to marry me? You do not love me.”

  He gave a half-hearted grin. “It is not purely a selfless offer, I must confess. I am not as fond of women as a man should be, if you understand me rightly. You would be as useful to me as ever I could be to you. A wife is a convenient cover for one such as me...”

  She shook her head. It seemed a lifetime ago that she had considered accepting Justin’s hand in marriage. Now that she had met Pierre, she could never marry anyone else – not even as a pure matter of convenience. “I thank you for your offer, but I cannot accept it. My father saved those few emeralds for me – I am not penniless---”

  He broke in on her refusal, not letting her finish what she had to say. “Do not turn me down right away, Courtney. Please, listen to what I have to say before you decide.”

  She did not like the tone of his voice. He sounded as though the words he was about to say were too heavy in their evil for him to bear. She shook off her fanciful imaginings. Now was no time to be seeing bogeymen where none existed. “Speak away, Justin, but I must warn you that whatever you say, you will not change my mind.”

  Justin shifted uneasily in his seat, took a mouthful of ale and wiped the foam off his top lip before he spoke. “I know you asked my father to watch for a Frenchman, Pierre de Tournay.”

  That name caught her a
ttention as no other could. She swallowed her mouthful convulsively. “What of him? Has he returned?”

  He shrugged uncomfortably. “He is still in Paris, for aught I know. Long may he stay there. He is not welcome in Lyons.”

  “Why not? What has he done?” She wanted to shake the words out of him, but he would not be hurried.

  He set the tankard in front of him with a look of determination on his face. “Messieurs de Tournay and Charent were sent from Paris at the bidding of the King to investigate your father. They were charged with finding the evidence needed to convict him of theft from the crown.”

  She felt as though the walls of trust she had built around herself and her lover were crumbling into the dust, felled by the force of those few, few words. “Pierre was sent to ruin my father?” She shook her head. She could not, would not, believe it. “What makes you think so?”

  He looked at her with a sorrowful gaze, sad to be giving her such tidings. “The day your father was arrested they were heard in the street, openly talking of it.”

  She did not want his pity. She wanted him only to take back the dreadful words he had spoken. “I cannot believe it. There must be some mistake.”

  He reached over the table and clasped her hand in his. “You must believe it. It is God’s own truth.”

  She pulled her hand out of his and got heavily to her feet. “I shall go to Pierre and ask him myself. I shall never believe it until I hear it from his own lips.”

  He put his hand on one shoulder and gently forced her down again. “Wait. There is more.”

  He had made her doubt her lover. There could be nothing worse than what he had already told her. She hugged her arms around herself, wishing she need not hear him, but knowing that she must. “What more can there be?”

  Justin’s eyes were troubled when he spoke. “Charent was heard to boast that never had his job been so easy for him, and that Monsieur Ruthgard’s daughter had made it so.”

  A prickle of evil skittered down her spine and settled deep in her belly. Her legs felt strangely liquid. She knew she would fall right to the floor if she tried to get up again. She was trapped in her chair, no escape possible. “What does he mean by that?”

  “He said…” Justin bit his tongue and fell silent.

  She had to know the truth – the whole truth, though it killed her. “He said what?” Her voice sounded cold and strange even to her own ears.

  “He said you got them the keys to your father’s study where the papers were found.”

  The food she had just eaten was churning over in her belly. She put her hand over her mouth to stop herself from being sick. “What else did he say?”

  Justin shrugged uneasily. “I told him that I cared not a whit for his lies and I would marry you anyway. I told him that poor as you were, you still had friends who would look after you.”

  His defense of her only made her feel sicker. “What else did he say.”

  He put his head in his hands. “I cannot tell you any more.”

  “Tell me.” Her voice came out as harsh as the croak of a raven.

  He did not lift his head. His words were muffled as he spoke. “He laughed that you whored for the King’s soldiers for a few pretty words – and delivered your father into their hands for the price of a kiss.”

  Her blood all rushed out of her head. She could not talk. She could not think. Pierre had betrayed her.

  She could not even breathe any more. With a gasp she put her hand to her throat, and keeled over in a dead faint.

  She found a likely lad from the village and paid him a king’s ransom to take a letter to Paris for her and deliver it into the hands of Monsieur de Tournay, a Musketeer in the King’s Guard, and no one else, with the promise to double his wages if he brought back a reply within the fortnight. Each day she watched for him, hoping against hope that he would bring her back good tidings.

  On the sixteenth day he returned, travel-sore and weary. She hurried out into the yard. “Did you deliver my letter?” she demanded.

  The lad bowed his head in exhaustion. “Yes, Madame, I delivered it.”

  She held out her hand, hope burgeoning in her breast once more. “Give me the reply.”

  He shook his head. “There was no reply.”

  “You lost it on the way?” Her voice rose dangerously high. She would flay the lad alive if his carelessness had caused him to lose her precious letter. How could he lose it when it was worth her life and more to her?

  The boy shook his head again. “Nay, Madame. He would not write me one.” His voice was aggrieved. “I waited for three days outside his lodgings, begging him for a reply, even just one word, but he would not hear me. He shut the door in my face and would not listen to my pleas. So I came home without one.”

  Her legs would no longer hold her. She tottered and almost fell onto the dust of the yard, at the last moment grabbing a fence post to hold herself upright. All that Justin had said was true. Pierre was faithless and untrue. She had given her heart and honor to a scoundrel and he had broken them into pieces and thrown them away.

  “Madame? Are you unwell?” The boy’s voice came hesitant as if he feared to intrude on her sorrow.

  She drew a gold coin from the purse inside her skirts and tossed it to him. He caught it with the dexterity of a juggler. She did not begrudge him the gold - he had done his best and earned his fee. He was not to blame that her lover was a knave and a villain who had betrayed and abandoned her. She waved him away. “Leave me now.” She could not bear his pity or his concern. Solitude with the shattered pieces of her soul was all she craved now.

  Never again would all be well with her.

  She was sick in the days that followed – sick unto death. She could not hold her food down, but retched up all she ate and drank until her stomach was dry.

  The time for her monthly bleeding came and went twice, and then three times, and she did not bleed.

  Her lover, Pierre de Tournay, had given her the ultimate blow. He had betrayed her father and abandoned her in her time of need. He had destroyed her happiness for ever.

  She may as well just lie down and never get up again. She may as well just die right here and now, before her father found out her sins and died of shame. She was lost forever.

  Her lover had made her with child.

  In the months that followed, Courtney nearly did die. She gave up all will to live. She sat in a darkened room, eating a tiny amount of whatever food the cook brought to her. She did not read. She did not sew. She did not even speak. She did nothing but sit in silence, waiting for death to come and claim her.

  Weeks passed and still Courtney sat, her soul in a torment of despair, unable to bestir herself. Suzanne remonstrated with her, but to no avail. She had no will to do aught else. The cook sent her such dainties as she knew how to prepare – bowls of fresh milk, soft custards and sweets, but Courtney’s appetite was not to be tempted. She ate only enough to keep her body and soul together – and not even that. Slowly but surely she began to wither away.

  Then one morning, as she lay in bed gazing unseeingly at a pattern of black mould spots on the ceiling of her bedchamber, her untouched breakfast beside her, she felt a tiny flutter in her stomach.

  It was so soft and gentle and passed away so suddenly that she could not be sure whether she had only imagined it. She put her hands to her stomach and held her breath to see if it would come again. There it was, another fluttering, as if she had a butterfly trapped inside her.

  For the first time in weeks she felt a spark of interest leap up in her breast. Her child was moving. She had a child growing inside her. Pierre’s child.

  She wanted this child. She did not know where that thought had suddenly sprung from, but once she had thought it, she could not unthink it again. She wanted Pierre’s child.

  Her lover was gone from her now, but he had left a part of him behind. She would cherish that part he had left with her.

  She sat up in bed and looked thoughtfully at the
breakfast tray beside her. Her child would need sustenance. She could not starve it as she had starved herself. She would eat for her baby’s sake, even if not for her own.

  The fresh milk was warm and creamy, and the bread rolls were crusty on the outside and soft and buttery on the inside. She tucked into her food with new-found enthusiasm, savoring the flavor of every mouthful. Such good, wholesome country food would make her child grow strong.

  She rose weakly from her bed, donning a pair of thick fur slippers and wrapping a thick velvet gown around her to keep off the chill of early winter. The fire in her room was banked low and gave off little heat. Her breath turned to mist in the chill air of her chamber.

  A light scattering of snow lay on the ground outside. She wanted to be outside in the fresh air, in the snow and the wind.

  First of all, though, she wanted a bath. She pulled her mother’s silver hairbrush through her hair, grimacing at the oily, lank locks that hung limply on her shoulders. Never before had she let herself fall into such slatternly ways. Her father would be disgusted with her if he were to see her now. She would bathe, wash her hair and ask Suzanne to dress it for her. Then she would walk in the fields amidst the snow, her boots crunching through the icy top layer of the shallow snow drifts and think what she would do now.

  Suzanne was delighted to see her out of bed and acting like her old self again. Together the pair of them wrestled a small copper tub into the kitchen and heated up pots of water on the stove until there was enough warm water for a shallow bath.

  A long soak later, Courtney sat in front of the fire drying her hair. She had washed away more then the grime of her body – she felt as though the dirt on her soul was starting to lift, too. Her spirits were lighter than they had been for many many weeks. What was more - she wanted to live again.

  The child in her womb was her blessing, not her curse. It had given her a new meaning to her existence. She was to be a mother soon. She must live for her child now, not just for herself.

  The wind was cold on her ungloved hands. Courtney drew in great lungfuls of icy air, feeling as though she had not breathed properly for weeks. She stomped through the fields close to the house, her legs feeling strangely weak from lack of use. She forced herself to carry on. She needed to be strong for her baby’s sake.