Marrying the Musketeer (11 page)

“I must go to Paris when the King orders me there, but I cannot bear to leave you behind for long.”
 
He clasped her hand in his and held it to his breast.
 
“Courtney, my love, I have only known you for a short while, but I have lost my heart to you.
 
Will you wait for me until I can return to you?
 
Will you plight your troth to me?
 
Promise to wed me and none but me?”

In an instant she had gone from black despair to gloriously shining happiness.
 
Her heart felt so full that it would burst with joy.
 
Pierre had asked for her hand in wedlock.
 
She could think of nothing she wanted to be more than Pierre’s wife.
 
She took him in her arms and hugged him close to her.
 
“Yes, my love – I will wait for you.
 
I will wait until the sky falls into the sea for you to come back to me.”

He stroked her hair in reassurance.
 
“I will not be that long, I promise you.”

She smiled in the darkness.
 
“I am glad of it.
 
I would find it hard to be that patient."

“You will wait?”
 
His voice was anxious all of a sudden.
 
“Your father will not try to marry you off to that friend of his while I am gone?”

How could her father object to their marriage when he saw how happy her darling Pierre would make her?
 
She would bring him around to the match.
 
Little by little she would make him see that Pierre and none other would be her husband.
 
He had never been able to refuse her aught that she begged for with all her heart.
 
He was sure to consent in the end – maybe sooner than she might normally hope for, given that he was eager to see her wed before long.
 
“I will wait for you until you return to me – I swear on my mother’s grave that I will have none but you.”

He held her close.
 
“I will go to Paris in the morn with a lighter heart now that I know the greatest treasure in all of France will keep herself safe for me.”
 
He sounded happy to have her vow.

They sat together on the window seat, clasped in each other arms.
 
Never had she felt such happiness, such contentment.
 
If the sky fell down on her that very instant, killing her where she sat entwined with her lover, she would die a happy woman.
 
She had tasted the blessing of true love and it was even sweeter than she had imagined it would be.

His moustache tickled her neck as he nuzzled into her.
 
“Ah, Courtney, my wife, how I do desire you.”

His hands moved lower until they rested on her breasts.
 
Her nipples tingled with excitement as he moved his hands over them, tormenting her with exquisite slowness.

She arched her breasts into his hands and moaned with pleasure.
 
“Oh, god, Pierre, my love, you should not be doing that.”

He pinched her nipple gently between his thumb and forefinger.
 
“Do you not like it?”

She moaned again as shivers of pleasure ran up and down her spine, making her tingle with the need to feel his hands on her, all over her.
 
“I like it far too much to let you continue.
 
You must stop now, or I shall have no will to stop you later.”

“You have sworn to become my wife,” he said, continuing to caress her breast until she moaned with the strength of the feelings he awoke in her.
 
“There is no sin in what we do.
 
In God’s eyes our embraces are no sin.”

She had to gasp for enough breath to speak.
 
“I am not yet your wife.”

“You will be, my love, I swear it.”

She believed him with all her heart.
 
He would not lie to her.
 
Not in such a moment as this.

“I have longed for you the moment I first met you.
 
Will you agree to consummate our union, here and now?”

“I…I do not know what to say.”

“Your father does not care for me.
 
He has forbidden me the house, or we would not be as we are now – talking in whispers in the dark of your chamber.
 
What if he betroths you to someone in my absence and forces you to wed without your consent?
 
This way at least I have some claim over you.
 
He would not force you to marry another if you had given yourself to me.”

Her father wished her to marry with all due haste.
 
Surely he would not condemn her for wanting to marry the man she loved so much?
 
After all, he had loved her mother so dearly that he had never even considered marrying again after her death.
 
“Should we not wait until we are married in the eyes of man as well as the eyes of God?”

He guided her hand to his breeches, where his manhood stood proud and strong, straining to escape the confinement of his clothes.
 
“Truly, my love, I cannot wait that long.”

Still she hesitated.
 
Her virginity was her most priceless possession.
 
Once gone, it was gone for good.
 
She would never get it back.
 
If anything should happen to Pierre to prevent him from keeping his vow, she would be lost indeed.
 
“We will not have to wait long, will we?
 
Your journey to Paris once done, you will be free to come back for me immediately?”

“Within the week, if I am able.
 
Within the month for certain.”

Within the week he could be her husband, to have and to hold as long as they both did live.
 
“Time will pass as slowly as if it rode on the back of a tortoise until you return to me.”

“I cannot wait another week for you.
 
I will die if I have to wait another week for you.”

She leaned back into the arms of her lover, her betrothed, her soon-to-husband and gave in to the inevitable.
 
If he could not return to keep his promise to wed her, she would be lost anyway, whether she gave him her virginity tonight or no.
 
She would not want to live without him by her side.
 
She may as well take her pleasure while she might and bind him to her side.
 
“I do not want to wait longer for you, either, my beloved.”

Pierre tiptoed out of the room where Courtney lay, sound asleep and snuggled under her bedcovers.
 
On his slippered feet he moved noiselessly down the staircase, feeling his way by touch in the blackness of the night.

He had spoken part of the truth at least that evening.
 
He did love Courtney – with all his heart – but he was not worthy for her to love him in return.
 
Did she but know the real reason for his visit to her house that night, his adroit prompting of her to have him a key to the house made, she would rightly revile him.

She loved him in all her youth and innocence, and he was about to betray her love in the worst possible way.
 
He would use her love for him to destroy the father she loved as dearly, if not more dearly, than she loved him.

He had made love to her not as a lover should do – in innocence and passion – but as a coldly calculated act of blackmail.
 
Should her father refuse to do as was demanded of him, should he prove stubborn in revealing where his ill-gotten gains were hid, they would threaten to ruin the reputation of his beloved daughter.
 
Courtney’s seduction was but an piece of the whole evil plan.

Monsieur de Charent had studied his enemy well.
 
Courtney, his sweet love, was the Achilles heel who would bring her father to his knees.
 
He, false lover and knave that he was, was the tool used to ruin them both.

He felt his way blindly into a pitch black room on the lower floor.
 
Courtney had let slip that her father’s most private study was not attached to his bedchamber as was common, but that instead he used one of the ground floor chambers to do his business.
 
The door once safely shut behind him, he made haste to strike a small light.

He was in luck.
 
Judging by the large mahogany desk in the middle of the room and the shelves of journals on the walls, he had found the study on his first attempt.

He lit a candle from a sconce on the wall and held it before him to illuminate his search.
 
The papers he sought would be well hidden, he was sure of that.
 
He knew his target well enough to know that he had no easy task ahead of him to find what was concealed.

He took the ring of keys from his pocket – identical to the ring of keys that his Courtney had given him the day before.
 
In the few minutes he had left her alone, he had taken impressions of each and every one if them in balls of softened wax and had them made up in haste by a blacksmith who had been paid well to keep his mouth shut.
 
There was no secret in this house to which he did not have access.
 
He felt a cramp of guilt assail his gut with a vicious pang.
 
Sweet, innocent Courtney had delivered her father’s head to him on a platter, without even suspecting for a moment what she had done.

The papers on the desk were innocuous enough.
 
He riffled through them with unhurried fingers, doubting they were what he sought, but not wanting to overlook the obvious.
 
He needed to find what he sought and find it fast so he could leave this place which was nothing but a torment to him.

The drawers of the desk were locked.
 
A small iron key on his ring fitted the locks and he opened them all with a soft click.

With a growing sense of impatience, he riffled through the contents of the drawers one after the other.
 
The papers he sought were not there.
 
He had to find what he needed.
 
If he returned empty-handed, the chase would only be prolonged, not stopped and Charent, damn his black heart, would be sure to make Courtney suffer for it one way or another.

With a sudden chill, he turned his gaze to the fireplace.
 
The grate was choked with a fine, powdery, gray ash – the ash that comes from burning papers.
 
He stifled a groan.
 
Had he come too late?
 
Had Monsieur Ruthgard been forewarned, or had he suspected that he was being watched and destroyed the evidence they needed to condemn him?
 
Had all his effort, his wrestling with his conscience, been in vain?

He would not given in that easily.
 
He owed a duty to his King that went beyond any duty he owed to any woman.
 
He would do his duty to his monarch – however painful he found it.
 
There must be other hiding places where a frightened man would hide the secrets that could hang him were they ever discovered.

Softly he lifted the rich Oriental rug on the floor and tested the floorboards with the palm of his hands.
 
There was no giveaway squeak that signaled a hiding place underneath.
 
He pulled each heavy volume out of the bookcase, inspecting it to be sure it was not a false front that hid a cunningly disguised cavity for secreting papers.

He found nothing.
 
Nothing at all.

His heart began to lift.
 
He had done his best to betray Courtney, but God had seen fit to take that burden of guilt away from him.
 
He could not find the evidence he needed.
 
He would return to Charent and take the stinging insults that would be delivered to him for his failure without a word.
 
As far as he could, he would try to protect Courtney from the consequences of his failure.
 

He would make one last effort, he decided, and then report back to his superior officer on his lack of success.
 
Monsieur de Charent would no doubt be furious, but he would not be able to do anything about it directly.
 
He had done his best.
 
He could not help it that his best had not been good enough.

He looked around the room, searching for other possible hiding places.
 
A collection of family portraits hung on the walls.
 
One by one, he looked behind them, searching for a secret safe in the walls.
 
He hesitated in front of the portrait of Courtney, unwilling to disturb her serenity.
 
She looked out at him through the eyes of the portrait, her face sad, as if she could see his efforts to betray her.
 
With trembling fingers, he unhooked the latch that hung her portrait on the wall.