Marrying the Musketeer (15 page)

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 attention 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.