On My Lady's Honor (Secrets of the Musketeers Book 1) Page 9

  In that same instant she was wide awake. She sat bolt upright in the bed and clutched his arm with a bruising grip. “How?”

  He stroked her hair with his free hand – her beautiful dark brown curls that he loved to bury his face in, breathing deeply of the perfume of her soul. The how was not important at a time like this. “Just remember that I love you forever. You are my one true soul mate and I will love you until the waves stop crashing on the sand and the sun ceases to rise in the morning sky.”

  The voice of the King cut through his avowal. “How quaint, Monsieur le Comte. I see you have the soul of a poet.”

  Henrietta groaned softly and buried her face in her hands. “I’m sorry, my love,” she whispered in the Comte de Guiche’s ear. “I have ruined you.”

  The King pulled back the curtains around the bed. “My dear sister-in-law,” he said, and he gave a grimace that tried to pass as a smile. “I see that you were not altogether honest with me, or else you have been cruelly toying with the Comte’s heart. The Comte swears he loves you until the end of the world, but I vividly recollect you telling me a few short weeks ago that you cleaved to your husband and that the Comte de Guiche meant nothing to you.”

  Henrietta looked at him with abject misery and guilt writ large over her face, but said nothing.

  “Monsieur le Comte, I am most displeased with you,” the King continued. “I had heard an idle rumor that you were cuckolding my brother by foutering his wife, but I had discounted it as a vile slander. What courtier, I thought to myself, would sink that low?”

  The Comte looked the King straight in the eye. “I love Madame Henrietta better than her husband ever could.”

  “The charges laid against you, treasonous intercourse with the King’s brother’s wife, were so serious that I thought it politic to investigate the rumor myself. Unfortunately,” and King Louis gave a loud sigh of satisfaction, quite at odds with his words, “I have proven them true instead.

  “What will I do with you now, Monsiuer le Comte?” Henrietta felt the King’s beady eyes on her as he spoke. “A ruinous fine for corrupting my sister-in-law? An oubliette in the Bastille for the rest of your natural days? Or a torturous death for treason?”

  Henrietta squeezed the Comte’s hand under the bedclothes. How much she regretted now falling in love with him. Had she not loved him, he would have been safe from the malice of the King.

  The King gave an unpleasant smile, looking from one to the other with a gaze of malignant satisfaction. “Enjoy the rest of your night,” he said, as he let the curtain fall. “It will be the last night you ever spend together.”

  As soon as the door closed behind him, Henrietta sprang out of bed. “You must leave at once,” she said to the Comte, thrusting his clothes into his hands. “He will take some minutes to rouse the guards and send them to arrest you. You must be on your horse by then and on your way out of Paris. Once you are out of his sight, hidden away in the provinces, he will forget about you.”

  “You must come with me,” the Comte said, pulling on his breeches. “I will not leave you behind.”

  Henrietta shook her head. “I cannot run from here. King Louis will take it as an insult to the royal family of France from the royal family of England. In his anger, he might even declare war on my brother, King Charles II of England. I cannot be the cause of war between England and France.”

  He stopped in the middle of putting on his boots. “The King will punish you if you do not come with me.”

  “He cannot harm me. My husband will protect me from the King’s anger.”

  He shook his head. “Monsieur is weak. I do not like to leave you here in the mercy of the King.”

  She helped him on with his riding jacket. “You are wasting precious minutes. Even now the guards may be on their way to arrest you. If ever you loved me, be off with you right away. I would die if you were caught.”

  He grabbed his hat in one hand and his riding crop in the other. “I leave my heart behind with you.”

  She wiped away a tear. “You take my heart with you wherever you go. Now be on your way. I would never forgive myself if you came to harm through loving me.”

  Still he hesitated. “Call me if you have need of me, and I will come to your side, though a thousand Kings stood in my way.”

  She crushed him to her in one last desperate embrace before pushing him out the door. “Fare thee well, my love. Forgive me.”

  Sophie’s head felt as though it was about to split in two the next morning as she staggered off to the barracks with her two new companions. Courtney looked as seedy as she felt: her face was pale and tinged with green and big purple hollows ringed her eyes. Sophie was glad she could not see her own face – she was quite sure it would be bad enough to scare crows and make pregnant women miscarry from fright. She was not sure how she managed even to stay upright.

  Miriame was disgustingly chirpy, despite having swallowed three times what either Sophie or Courtney had managed. She had no sympathy for either of them. “You can’t even hold your liquor like a woman, let alone like a man or a soldier,” was her disparaging comment as Sophie turned aside for the second time to be violently ill by the side of the road.

  Sophie could only groan in response as she rinsed her mouth with water from her flask, and spat it out again. If anything, her stomach felt worse than her head. Her head only hurt – and as a soldier she was used to dealing with pain. With every step she took, her stomach felt as though she were on board a tiny boat in the middle of a raging storm. All she wanted to do was lie down and die to stop the sick feeling in her stomach from completely overwhelming her.

  She got no sympathy from Lamotte either, when she staggered on to the grounds for her lesson, late for the first time ever.

  He was singularly unimpressed with her condition. “A good soldier never drinks so much in the eve that he cannot fight in the morn,” he said, his voice dry, as she stumbled into the courtyard, pain shooting through her head with every beat of her heart and her stomach still heaving. His brows were knitted together in a look of disgust.

  She did not even try to justify herself in his eyes. She had no will left to do so. Thank the Lord he thought she was a man, and didn’t know her true sex. Drunkenness in a man was tolerable – barely – as long he did not make a habit of it, or cause trouble when he was in his cups. Drunkenness in a woman though, she thought to herself with a giggle that made her stomach heave again, was another matter entirely. Lamotte would no doubt be disgusted unto death were he to know. It was the best reason yet for him never to find out that she was not Gerard.

  She was having a hard time keeping up the charade this morning. She could not even concentrate on her lesson with more than the outermost edges of her mind. She was in no state to leap or thrust to meet Lamotte’s blade. The most she could manage was to stand in the dust, parrying the blows he aimed at her as best she could. Even then, her arm felt like it was made of lead and she winced with shooting pains in her head at the harsh metallic ringing made by their clashing blades.

  After a few minutes of coaxing her to greater effort, he threw his sword down on the ground with disgust. “Be off with you,” he growled. “You are wasting my time and your own.”

  Sophie sheathed her sword gladly and sank down on her heels, willing herself not to vomit up the bile in her throat in front of him. She had already given him more than enough of a disgust for her. She felt so sick that she wished she could die – if only death would take away her pain and nausea. She looked up at Lamotte’s clear countenance with envy in her heart. “You were not drinking last night, then?”

  He gave a wry smile that twisted up the corners of his mouth but did not reach his eyes. “You spoiled my evening. After your brawling in the tavern last night, no one was able to drink anymore.”

  “Drinking is bad for you anyway,” she said moralistically, forgetting for the moment what had put her into the sorry state she was in now.

  “Yes – drinking to excess,” he sai
d pointedly, “tends to make one a little slow the next day.”

  She felt herself blush. He was right - she ought to take her own words to heart.

  He had not been drinking last night and had not the excuse that he was too tipsy to fight alongside her – so why had he not come to her aid? She had a vivid recollection of Lamotte standing by, watching her struggle and refusing to lift a finger to rescue her. “I know you saw me beg for your aid yester night. Why did you not help me?”

  “Musketeers do not waste their skill brawling in taverns.” His eyes were cold and gray. She shivered as he looked straight through her. “No Musketeer should be brainless enough to start a brawl that he is not prepared to see through to the end. By himself. I will not always be around to see you out of every foolish scrape you get yourself into. Even when I am around, I may not choose to aid you. You may as well learn that lesson sooner rather than later, in a place where your foolishness will mean only a beating, and not your death.”

  She rested her head in her hands, keeping it as still as she could to stop the pounding in her brain. “You would see a woman abused, then, and not go to her aid?”

  He made a dismissive noise. “She was no innocent maid, but a sluttish serving girl in a tavern. Why should you rush to her side?”

  Sophie felt her gorge rise up in her throat. How easily he had labeled the woman as unworthy of his protection. Were not Musketeers supposed to protect the weak and prevent injustice wherever they found it, regardless of whether the victim was a Queen or a lowly serving maid in a tavern? “She was a woman and so worthy of our protection.”

  “She worked in a tavern. What else could she expect but to be treated that way?”

  She was growing angry now. “Women have to eat, just the same as men. Or would you rather she starved on the streets? Would you help her then, or would you consider her equally unworthy of your protection? Is your honor so meager and uncharitable that you only protect wealthy virgins?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “There are other ways to earn a crust than spreading your legs for every soldier in the barracks. Still, she would have come to no lasting harm in his hands. Henri is a brutal bastard, but he would’ve paid her well enough. She would have had nothing to complain about.”

  She was almost too angry to speak, and far too angry to hold her tongue. “You think a handful of pennies would make amends for being abused in such a way? You are a fool with no feeling. Have you no imagination to put yourself in that poor woman’s place for a moment and to feel what she might feel?”

  He picked his sword up off the ground and weighed it in his hand with a threatening air. “I do not care for being called a fool.”

  Sophie’s temper was still too riled for caution. “If you are not a fool, then you must be a vile, whoremongering bastard. Take your pick.”

  She saw a blur of motion and the tip of his sword was suddenly at her breast. “That was not a wise thing to say.”

  She felt too ill to defend herself. She did not even attempt to rise or even reach for her sword. “Not wise, maybe,” she readily admitted. “Honest, but not wise.”

  The tip of his sword pressed sharply against her breastbone. “Those are fighting words.”

  For the first time, Sophie was glad of the wrappings around her chest. The thick cloth cushioned her from the point of his sword, preventing his blade from breaking her skin. “Go away,” she said wearily, lifting her aching head from her hands. Why did men always take offense at the slightest insult and want to cross swords over it? She could not have so much as a simple disagreement with a man without him wanting to slit her throat for it. Men needed to learn to save their energies for battles that were worth fighting. She was running out of patience with the lot of them. “I’ll fight you tomorrow if you insist. I am too sick to fight this morning.”

  He did not move his sword. “Musketeers do not always have the luxury of choosing when to fight.”

  She looked at him with disdain. “Attack me now if you insist, though it would be the work of a braver and more honorable man to wait until I could defend myself.”

  He looked at her with growing disbelief. “Are you calling me a coward? Again?”

  “If the hat fits…” she muttered under her breath.

  His face grew tight with rage. “Damn you, I am no coward,” he said in a voice of scarcely controlled fury. “I will whip you tomorrow until you beg for mercy. But to last you until then, I think you deserve a taste of your own medicine.” With a quick flick of his sword, he ripped the front of Sophie’s shirt in two.

  His blade had caught some of her bindings. With a feeling of horror, Sophie watched the linen rags she kept wrapped around her chest start to unravel. If they came undone any further, her breasts – and her secret - would be exposed for all the world to see. All she had achieved would be wasted in the work of a moment. She would be utterly ruined.

  With a strength born of desperation, she sprang to her feet, clutching the two pieces of her shirt together in one hand and her sword in the other. “Damn you, damn you, damn you,” she shouted, driving him off with a sudden fury that caught him completely by surprise.

  The effort of standing up so suddenly and moving so quickly was too much for her badly hung over body to cope with. Her stomach protested violently at the movement, her eyes grew misty, and her head began to swim. After fewer than half a dozen steps, she collapsed to the ground, retching violently into the dust.

  He ran to her side, his anger dissolving into concern as she made no move to get up again. “Gerard?”

  She lay motionless on the ground, exhausted. She could not move. Her only thought was to get away from the barracks somehow and hide in her tiny room until she was better. She would never touch a drop of wine again. She closed her eyes to block out the pain. “Go away,” she whispered.

  He grunted with annoyance as he crouched in the dirt beside her. “Gerard, you are more trouble than you are worth. You insult me, and then refuse to fight. Then when I goad you just a little, you attack me as if all the furies in Hell had taken possession of you. You deserve for me to leave you here for crows to peck out your eyes.”

  She could not wish for anything more. “Leave me alone. I do not need your help. I will wait until JeanPaul comes looking for me. He will help me.”

  He ignored her complaints. With a fluid motion, he picked her up in his arms as if she were a baby. “Where do you lodge?”

  She struggled briefly, but the effort only caused her head to swim with pain until she was too dizzy to think. “Put me down,” she croaked, when her head had stopped pounding enough for her to speak.

  He wrinkled his nose at the mess she was in, but he did not drop her. “Where do you lodge?” he repeated.

  It seems he would rescue her whether she would or no. “With the Widow Poussin in the Rue de Fosset.”

  His hands were gentle as he cradled her head to stop it from jolting around with every step he took, and his arms holding her were strong and held her safe.

  She shifted a little in his grasp to make herself more comfortable, resigned to being carried home like a child. Once she was safe inside her lodgings, she would barricade her in her bed and sleep the pain and nausea away. Her secret would be safe there.

  Lamotte picked his friend up with a less than gentle touch, only just resisting the temptation to fling him over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes. The only thing stopping him was the fear that the boy would puke all the way down the back of his jerkin and over his favorite leather breeches and well-shined boots.

  Did the boy have a death wish that he insulted him so at every turn without rhyme nor reason to it? Twice now the boy had called him a coward and lived unscathed to tell the tale. No other man could boast of that.

  The lad in his arms was more fragile than he looked – he must have been starved by the plague for he weighed scarcely more than a feather. His legs were slim and his arms positively puny, but his hips were wider than most men’s would be. For all his lightn
ess, the boy had a surprisingly broad, well-muscled chest.

  He looked a little more closely at his burden, and he felt his whole world turn over. It was no young man he was carrying – he would wager his life on that. He would swear on the Bible that he held a woman in his arms, and no man at all.

  He shifted his burden a little, feeling the round softness of her hips under his hands. No man could have such curves there.

  A woman, dressed as a Musketeer, masquerading as his friend.

  Gerard had a twin sister, Sophie. She had supposedly died in the plague that had swept over the south of France, destroying half the human souls in the path of its relentless fury. Out of his whole family, Gerard had been the sole survivor.

  He looked down at the girl he was carrying in his arms, so like his friend in every feature. He had no doubt about it. Gerard’s twin sister, Sophie, had not died. The woman in his arms had to be Sophie - and the woman to whom he was betrothed.

  How unlike she was to her portrait! In her picture she had seemed all sweetness and light, all softness and welcoming love. How far removed her appearance was from reality. She was as beautiful as he had imagined, if not more so, even despite the purple rings of exhaustion under her eyes and the green tinge of sickness to her face. Her look of sweetness had been replaced by a hardness that he had never seen before in woman’s face. Either the portrait had lied from the beginning, or in becoming a soldier, she had become less of a woman.

  However much of her sweet softness she had lost, he was still betrothed to her and he would not break his word. This brawling, fighting woman, who had the temerity to call him a coward, must needs be his wife.

  Her eyes were shut, puckered against the light. No sign of a whisker marred the softness of her skin. He marveled that he had never noticed it before. Few of his fellows were such dandies that they shaved every day, but even they could never rival this young woman’s complexion. He touched her chin gently with the tip of his finger. Only a woman or a child could possibly have such smooth, soft cheeks.