by Leda Swann
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 me
rchant 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.
He would force his way into the house in a heartbeat if he thought that would help him, but it would only make matters worse. He needed Justin’s cooperation, not his antagonism. If the young merchant had truly liked Courtney even just a fraction as much as she deserved, getting even a little cooperation would be a difficult task indeed.
He had eventually given up trying to see young Justin Legros in private and had staked out his warehouse instead. Here, it was harder for Justin to pretend that he did not exist. The young merchant was canny enough not to make a scene in front of his customers, but he was obviously not pleased to be bearded in his den. He had kept him waiting most of the morning already and showed no sign of concluding his current business in a hurry.
Pierre crossed his arms over his chest and tapped his boots impatiently on the stone floor of the warehouse. He would wait all day until the evening came and longer if he had to, but his patience was growing short. He had but six weeks of leave in which to find Courtney. He had no intention of spending them all waiting in patient silence while some jumped-up young merchant ignored him with such extravagant incivility.
Justin was still rabbiting on endlessly to his customer. He gave Pierre a sideways glance out of the corner of his eye and then moved away across the floor to show his customer yet another set of damned gems.
Pierre had had enough. He strode up to the pair of them, cracking his riding whip against the leather of his boots as he walked. “Excuse me,” he said to the customer, a large, well-dressed merchant whose pale blue eyes were bulging out of his head with affronted dignity. “Pardon the interruption, but I have some urgent business to conduct with young Monsieur Legros here.”
Justin opened his mouth and started to protest at his high handedness. “Indeed, Monsieur, your business can wait until I am finished---”
Pierre hit his riding crop against his boots with a loud, menacing thwack that silenced the young fool and made the other man jump out of his skin. “My business with you can wait no longer.” He turned again to the affronted customer who was watching the exchange with great apprehension written all over his pudgy and mottled face. “If you will be so good as to excuse us...”
“Certainly, certainly. Only too h...happy to oblige,” the man stammered. He nearly tripped over his feet in his hurry to escape the conflagration that he could sense was about to explode.
Justin Legros looked faintly annoyed, but he made no further effort to stop his cowardly customer. He looked back at Pierre with a truculent gaze for a moment before bending his head to tidy away the trays of gems he had been showing. “Well? Now that you have succeeded in chasing off one of my best customers, what can I do for you?”
Pierre wanted to shake him out of his arrogance and antagonism. It was going to be as hard as he had thought to get any information out of the young man, but he had to try. The Legros were his best hope of finding out any information about Courtney. Monsieur Legros senior had been her father’s best friend and his closest colleague. No doubt the family was terrified still of being caught up in the avalanche that had swallowed Monsieur Ruthgard, but that should not make them all into cowards. They would help him find Courtney whether they wanted to or no.
He stroked his chin as he thought of how to begin. He was suddenly shy of mentioning Courtney’s name in front of her old suitor. What if her cousin William had been wrong about her single state? What if she was not lost and alone, but happily married to one of Justin’s acquaintances? For all he knew to the contrary, she could even be married to Justin himself. “I want to buy an emerald,” he said at last.
The merchant stopped his tidying and raised his eyebrows. “You what?” He looked suspicious still but Pierre at least had his attention.
“Yes, I want to buy an emerald,” Pierre repeated. “You sell them, I believe?”
The merchant folded his arms across his chest. “I can’t help you there. You might want to try across the street.” He turned his head away and Pierre thought he heard the man say, “they have fewer qualms about dealing with rogues and vagabonds.”
He was in no position to take offense at the man’s words, insulting though they were. Keeping a firm lid on his temper he merely asked, “You have no emeralds fit for a lady?”
“None that I will sell you.”
“That is indeed a pity. I was hoping you would be able to help me choose one that my promised wife would like well. You have known her for so much longer than I have...”
The merchant whirled around to face him. “I beg your pardon?”
“You have known Mademoiselle Ruthgard for so much longer than I have known her,” Pierre said, pleased with the reaction he had prodded out of the phlegmatic young man. “You would surely know what kind of emerald she prefers above any other. I have been away from her for so long that I am counting on this emerald to help me make amends for my past behavior.”
The man’s face grew purple and he clenched his fists by his sides. “Get out.”
Definitely a stronger reaction than he had expected. He stood his ground, raising an eyebrow as if he wanted an explanation for this piece of rudeness. To give him his due, the merchant was brave in his anger to try to show the door to a Musketeer of the King’s Guard. He let his hand rest on the hilt of his sword to emphasize their differences – principally that he was well armed and well versed in the art of war, and the merchant was not.
The merchant was well-nigh shaking with impotent anger. “You mock a woman I love as dearly as if she were my sister. She is no more your promised wife than she is mine. Less, in fact. I would have wed her when she was left alone and friendless. You abandoned her to her fate without a second thought. Get out. You are not welcome here.”
Pierre did not move, though he was burning with anger inside. He did not take kindly to being scolded by his inferiors. “We pledged our troth to one another and she swore she would wait for me until I returned for her. She is not the sort of woman who would break her word.”
“That was twelve months ago and more. What woman would be such a fool as to wait that long? Not Courtney Ruthgard, for sure. Especially not when she knew what shameful part you played in arresting her father.”
He found it hard to defend himself from that charge. He had been charged with finding evidence against Courtney’s father to bring him to justice, and he had found the evidence that he sought. “Monsieur Ruthgard received only what he deserved. He was a fool to think he could defraud the King of France and get away with it.”
The merchant shrugged. “I know not what Monsieur Ruthgard deserved or no, but you had no need to ruin the daughter along with her father. That was a shameful act of spite.”
He could not wait any longer to hear what he needed to know. “She did not wait for me, then, when her father was arrested?”
“She came looking for you – at this very warehouse – hoping that you would help her find some way to save her papa. I told her what you had done and she left again without a word. She looked as though her heart was breaking in two.”
So his instincts had been right. Justin knew where she was. “Where is she now?”
“I do not know where she is. But even if I did know, I would not tell you. She has suffered enough at your hands already. I would not be the cause of sending her yet more grief.”
“Is she still unwed? Or has she married someone else while I have been away?” He had to ask the question, little as he wanted to hear the answer. He feared that it would be little to his liking. She had mu
ch cause to despise and hate him for what he had done to her, and no reason to wait for him.
“I told you already – I do not know where she is. She has refused to marry me more than once, but who is to say whether or not she has found someone who can offer her more than I can? At any rate, she never told me where she was living, though I asked her many a time. ‘In the country’ was all she would ever say.”
He did not believe that Justin was as ignorant as he made out. “But you see her from time to time? You could carry a message to her from me?”
“I used to see her once in a while,” the merchant admitted. “For some months she brought in things for me to sell if I could – she had nothing else to live on. It is a while since she has come to see me here – three months or more. I have not seen her since some weeks before her lying-in was to fall due. I have been worried about her myself, hoping that both she and her babe are safe and well, but I do not know where to find her.”
He felt as though he had been picked up and dropped from a great height. All the air left his lungs and he felt faint. “Her babe? She has a babe?”
The merchant nodded, satisfied to find that one of his barbs at least had hit home. “She was with child when you left her.”
His words were bitter enough, but Pierre’s thoughts were more bitter still. He had not once thought that she could have conceived his babe in her womb. He had been too busy trying to escape the pangs of his conscience to consider the matter.
How she would hate him now. How much more did he deserve to be hated than even he knew.
The merchant looked as though he were telling the truth. His face was too pained for him to be lying. He must be concerned about her in his own small way.
Pierre knew he ought to feel grateful to him for his concern, but he could not. Courtney Ruthgard belonged to him and to him alone. No other man had the same right to look after her and take care of her as he did. He was her promised husband and the father of her babe.
