Marrying the Musketeer (22 page)

“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, but 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?

Courtney shook her head in disbelief.
 
Only Sophie, with her foolish faith in the honesty of men and Kings, could possibly ask such a question.
 
She herself had no doubts.
 
What man would raise his hand to save a woman when a wrong was done to her?
 
Women had no recourse against the villainy of men but in the faithfulness of their fellow women.

“Justice ranks higher with me than obedience,” Courtney said at last when she could no longer bear Sophie’s agonizing with any semblance of patience.
 
“I will break a vow to any man, be him the King himself, a thousand times over before I will go against my conscience and do a woman an injustice when it is in my power to right her wrong.”
 

Besides, she thought, Henrietta Anne is imprisoned in the Bastille, the same prison where her father was kept captive.
 
She had a selfish motive in wanting the Duchesse to be rescued.
 
Did she once know how to break in through those prison walls – and have at least a plan of how to get out again - her father would soon be free.
 

Once he was free again, they would flee France with what remained her the jewels her father had left her.
 
England or Spain would be sure to shelter a couple of fugitives from the King of France’s justice.
 
Once she was out of France, she would be free from the tormenting presence of Pierre de Tournay and his sorrows forever...

“To England, then,” Sophie said, breaking into her reverie.

“To England,” she agreed.
 
She was beginning to feel the danger of spending too much time in Pierre’s company.
 
It was just as well he had left Paris on some secret business.
 
While he was out of her reach, she may as well occupy herself in a productive fashion.
 
An adventure such as this would be good for her soul.
 
She would use it to do what little good she could, and to fortify her resolve to take revenge on her enemies.

Miriame looked at Sophie with a calculating air.
 
“Your new husband will not mind your sudden yen for English air?
 
Most wedded men would surely take it amiss were their wife to disappear on the sudden.”

Sophie sniffed.
 
“The Count has threatened to drag me back to Paris if I should go.
 
He is on guard duty tonight, so we shall have to leave before he returns home.
 
I shall endeavor to put him off the scent, but if I am not successful, we shall have to fight our way through him.”

Courtney gave a delighted laugh.
 
Fighting like a demon was the only thing she would miss about being a man.
 
As a woman she was expected to be sweet and gentle and make war, if she had to wage war, only with sharp words that couldn’t harm a flea.
 
As a man, she could chop off her enemies’ heads, could she but get to them.

She had not let her rage free for some weeks and she was feeling the lack of it.
 
She hoped she had not lost the art of channeling her anger into her sword arm.
 
“I have been spoiling for a good fight for some days now.
 
I will look forward to seeing him try.”

She was not so sanguine when her turn to fight finally came.

They had been on the road for three days, racing for Calais before their pursuers, sent after them by the King himself, could catch them.
 
True to Sophie’s prediction, her new husband had come after the three of them to try to stop them from reaching England.
 
He and a couple of other ruffians had bailed them up in the inn they had spent the previous night.
 
Miriame had held off their pursuers for some precious moments to allow Sophie and Courtney time to escape, but there had been no time to saddle their horses before they had to ride off.

Courtney swore as her mare stepped into yet another rut in the road and jolted her unmercifully from side to side.
 
She did not like horses at the best of times.
 
Racing for her life, bareback, with a backside and thighs aching like fire from days and nights of hard riding already, was absolutely not the best of times.
 
At times like this, she positively detested every horse in the world.

Adventure, she thought sourly, was overrated.
 
If it weren’t for the thought of her father lying in prison, as miserable and alone as the Duchesse, she would put up at the nearest inn and forget about her quest.

She was almost glad when their pursuers came into view again.
 
Only two of them were left.
 
Miriame must have taken care of the third – she didn’t want to think of how.
 
She knew she had held Sophie up – Sophie could ride faster bareback than she herself dared to do with a saddle and bridle and everything else designed to keep her on the back of the horse and the horse going in the right direction.
 
She had fallen off twice already today and her backside had the bruises to prove it.
 
She didn’t feel like falling off a third time, but she knew she ought to at least make the offer.
 

She kicked her horse up to a reluctant trot, her bones protesting at each jolt.
 
“Shall we try to outrun them?”
 
She tried to sound eager rather than reluctant, though heaven knows how much she hoped Sophie would refuse her.

To her immense relief, Sophie shook her head.
 
“We will never make it.
 
We’ll have to stand and fight.”

Fight?
 
Sophie was daft enough when she wanted to be.
 
She could barely stay on the back of her horse to ride it.
 
She doubted she could even draw her sword, let alone wield it, and keep her precarious balance.
 
“Ride on,” she called to Sophie.
 
“Ride as fast as your horse can carry you.
 
I can hold the two of them off here for long enough to get you well away.
 
You’ll be faster without me.”

Sophie shook her head.
 
“My mission is not as important as the life of my friend.
 
I will not leave you behind.”

Courtney grinned at her friend’s obstinate stupidity.
 
Could Sophie not see that she was positively longing to be left behind?
 
“Don’t be foolish.
 
My buttocks ache so badly that I cannot ride on this damned beast any longer.
 
I will never make it all the way to Calais.
 
With me alongside you, you will be caught for sure.
 
Without me, you stand a chance of getting there.
 
The least I can do for you is hold them off for long enough to get you safe away.”

Sophie looked searchingly into her face, as if to ascertain the truth of her words.
 
What she saw must have convinced her of the truth of her words, for she gave a brief nod.
 
“Take care of yourself.”

Courtney wheeled around to face their pursuers as Sophie put her spurs to her horse and raced off through the trees.
 
Slowly, so as not to disturb her balance, she drew her sword and waved it around her head in what she hoped was a ferocious fashion.
 
Maybe she would be able to scare them off with a faint show of her famed Berserker fury.
 
With any luck they would not find out that her wild Berserker fury could only be relied on when she had both feet planted firmly on the ground.

Her luck was running low.
 
Her two pursuers did not scare easily.
 
The foremost of them drew his own sword and pulled his horse back so that its wicked hooves beat the air in front of him.

Her own mount was spooked by this display of horse fury.
 
It reared up in its turn.
 
She wrapped her free hand around her horse’s mane and held on for dear life, but she had only one hand to grip with and she could not keep her seat.
 
With an unceremonious wail, she slid off the rump of her horse and smacked the ground with a thud.

She twisted her arm under her as she fell.
 
She heard rather than felt it snap as she landed on top of it.
 
Moments later, a searing pain shot through her arm, blinding her so that she could no longer see.

Her arm was broken – she knew it without even looking at it.
 
She was of no use to anyone with a broken arm.
 
She could neither ride nor fight.

She shut her eyes in an effort to block out the pain that threatened to bring tears to her eyes and overwhelm the remnants of her courage.
 
Her part in this mad adventure was over.
 
Sophie would have to finish it as best as she could on her own.
 

Were she to get out of this encounter alive, she would hie herself off to the country as fast as she could go.
 
There, in the presence of her beloved son, she would concentrate on healing herself.
 
The sooner she healed herself, the sooner she could bid farewell to this painful farce.
 
Only when she was well again in both mind and body and she could concentrate on the justice that she sought, would she return to her duties as a Musketeer.
 
Then, Heaven have pity on Pierre de Tournay’s soul, for she would have no pity on him in this world.

Pierre de Tournay stood with ill-concealed impatience waiting for the young merchant to finish with his customer and attend to him in his turn.
 
Finding Courtney’s half-hearted suitor, Justin Legros, had been easy enough, but getting him to talk had been well-nigh impossible.
 
He had called a dozen times at the Legros household, but each time he had been sent away with a polite excuse after another.
 
He knew that the entire family could not all be out or indisposed all the time, but short of storming the house he had no way of approaching them.
 
They were determined to avoid him and he could not make them see him against their will.