Marrying the Musketeer (16 page)

Then one morning, as she lay in bed gazing unseeingly at a pattern of black mould spots on the ceiling of her bedchamber, her untouched breakfast beside her, she felt a tiny flutter in her stomach.

It was so soft and gentle and passed away so suddenly that she could not be sure whether she had only imagined it.
 
She put her hands to her stomach and held her breath to see if it would come again.
 
There it was, another fluttering, as if she had a butterfly trapped inside her.

For the first time in weeks she felt a spark of interest leap up in her breast.
 
Her child was moving.
 
She had a child growing inside her.
 
Pierre’s child.

She wanted this child.
 
She did not know where that thought had suddenly sprung from, but once she had thought it, she could not unthink it again.
 
She wanted Pierre’s child.
 

Her lover was gone from her now, but he had left a part of him behind.
 
She would cherish that part he had left with her.

She sat up in bed and looked thoughtfully at the breakfast tray beside her.
 
Her child would need sustenance.
 
She could not starve it as she had starved herself.
 
She would eat for her baby’s sake, even if not for her own.

The fresh milk was warm and creamy, and the bread rolls were crusty on the outside and soft and buttery on the inside.
 
She tucked into her food with new-found enthusiasm, savoring the flavor of every mouthful.
 
Such good, wholesome country food would make her child grow strong.

She rose weakly from her bed, donning a pair of thick fur slippers and wrapping a thick velvet gown around her to keep off the chill of early winter.
 
The fire in her room was banked low and gave off little heat.
 
Her breath turned to mist in the chill air of her chamber.

A light scattering of snow lay on the ground outside.
 
She wanted to be outside in the fresh air, in the snow and the wind.

First of all, though, she wanted a bath.
 
She pulled her mother’s silver hairbrush through her hair, grimacing at the oily, lank locks that hung limply on her shoulders.
 
Never before had she let herself fall into such slatternly ways.
 
Her father would be disgusted with her if he were to see her now.
 
She would bathe, wash her hair and ask Suzanne to dress it for her.
 
Then she would walk in the fields amidst the snow, her boots crunching through the icy top layer of the shallow snow drifts and think what she would do now.

Suzanne was delighted to see her out of bed and acting like her old self again.
 
Together the pair of them wrestled a small copper tub into the kitchen and heated up pots of water on the stove until there was enough warm water for a shallow bath.

A long soak later, Courtney sat in front of the fire drying her hair.
 
She had washed away more then the grime of her body – she felt as though the dirt on her soul was starting to lift, too.
 
Her spirits were lighter than they had been for many many weeks.
 
What was more - she wanted to live again.

The child in her womb was her blessing, not her curse.
 
It had given her a new meaning to her existence.
 
She was to be a mother soon.
 
She must live for her child now, not just for herself.

The wind was cold on her ungloved hands.
 
Courtney drew in great lungfuls of icy air, feeling as though she had not breathed properly for weeks.
 
She stomped through the fields close to the house, her legs feeling strangely weak from lack of use.
 
She forced herself to carry on.
 
She needed to be strong for her baby’s sake.

Her baby had been wronged by Pierre de Tournay as much as she had ever been.
 
Thanks to its father, her child would be branded a bastard and shunned by people with more piety than charity in their hearts.

She would have her revenge on Pierre – for her father, for herself and for her child.

As she walked through the icy fields, the glimmerings of a plan started to form in her mind – a plan that would allow her to rescue her father and avenge herself on his enemies.
 
It was a daring and audacious plan to be sure, and not guaranteed of success, but the more she thought about it, the more possible it seemed to her to be.
 

With an intoxicating feeling of excitement brewing in the pit of her belly she walked home again through the snow.
 
She had been foolish to give up and long for death.
 
Better by far it was to act like a man and get revenge on those who had wronged her.
 
Then she could live at peace with herself once more.

She grew stronger along with the child in her belly.
 
They needed milk from the village – she fetched it on foot, carrying it back on her shoulders like a peasant woman.
 
They needed firewood to keep the chambers warm in the bitter cold of winter – she gathered huge branches in the woods, dragged them inch by slow inch back to the house, and hacked at them with the axe until they were in small enough pieces to fit on to the fire.
 
She liked to hack at the wood, though it gave her blisters that made her hands red and raw.
 
With every blow that she struck, she let loose the anger she felt at her lover’s betrayal, until the wood chips fell like furies under her onslaught.
 

She even rode on the donkey into Lyons, disguised as a portly merchant, to sell more emeralds to Justin.
 
She knew he could not help but notice her swelling belly, but he made no comment.
 
She was grateful to him for his forbearance.
 
She had no wish to advertise her shame.

Emeralds were fetching a good price in some quarters of Lyons.
 
She bought some cheap in a tatty shop she came across in a poor area of the city, and sold them to Justin for a good profit.
 
Emboldened by this success, she kept her eyes and ears open for a good bargain.
 
Her father had taught her much about the quality of gem-stones, and she made few mistakes.
 
Soon she had obtained a small stock of her own and was making a small profit on her trades.

She loved the feeling of success it gave her, earning a living, paltry as it was, honestly as a trader.
 
Her father’s wealth would stay in the safe where he had placed it, waiting until she had rescued him from imprisonment.
 
She would not squander a penny of it, but keep it for him to start life afresh with.
 

She firmly squelched any suggestion that her mind might make to her in her darkest moments that her father was dead.
 
He could not be dead.
 
She would never believe it.
 
Not until she saw his lifeless body with her own eyes would she even entertain the possibility.
 
She would revenge him, and rescue him, and all would be well again.

All this time she turned over the plan in her mind, slowly thinking over every aspect of it, letting it mature until it was ripe and ready to be acted upon.

Her belly grew apace, until she could no longer comfortably ride the donkey to Lyons to trade emeralds.
 
She concentrated on building the strength she would need to carry out her plan.
 
She walked every day until she couldn’t walk any further and her legs became wiry and lean.
 
She chopped firewood for the entire house to keep them through the winter, making the muscles in her shoulders strong.
 
She grubbed in the garden, digging up the rock hard icy ground until her arms ached.
 
Spring came and she took to the river to swim, glad to have the weight of her child taken off her legs for those brief moments.

When her child was near due, she made one last trip to Lyons to sell emeralds.
 
Justin scolded her for coming into town in her condition – the first time he had ever made a direct reference to the child she carried inside her.
 
She smiled at him, thinking how much more he would scold her if he knew what she was planning.
 
“I needed the money.
 
I will not be back for a while.”

He glanced at her belly and nodded as if he understood what she was telling him.
 
“Will you not tell me where I can find you?
 
If something happens, you will need someone to look after you.”

She shook her head.
 
She would not embroil Justin in the mess she had made of her life.
 
“I have Suzanne to look after me.”

“She is only a servant.”

“She may be a servant, but she is also a better friend than most.”

“I am your friend, too, Courtney.
 
Do not forget that.”

“I thank you, Justin.
 
I will not forget it.
 
Fare thee well until we meet again.”
 
Even as she said the words and rose to take her leave, she wondered if she ever would see him again.
 
She was going to take another path that would lead her into danger and could well mean her death, but she would not shrink from it for all that.

She barely made it back to her house in the country in time.
 
Halfway home, she was gripped with sudden pains that made her cry out.
 
The pains grew steadily worse as each hour passed.
 
Soon she could no longer even ride the donkey, but had to walk beside it, holding on to its mane, doubling over in agony as each pain struck.

By the time she staggered up to the door of her country house, the pains were coming every few minutes and her whole body was running hot and cold in a sweat.

Suzanne and the cook helped her upstairs, laid her on the bed and undressed her.
 
She was incapable of doing anything else for herself.

For the next few hours she floated in and out of consciousness, exhaustion repeatedly claiming her for a moment’s sleep, but pain waking her once more to the land of the living.
 
In this state she lay, barely knowing whether she was still alive or roasting in the flames of Hell, and only wanting the agony to cease.

In the early hours of the following morning, her son was born.
 
She took one look at his sweet face, pink and wrinkled as a newborn’s was, cradled him in her arms against her chest to keep him safe from harm, and slept.

She did not idle long, even after such an ordeal as the birth of her son.
 
In a few days she was back on her feet again, determined to reclaim the body she had lost in the last heavy days of her pregnancy.
 
In between feeding her son and rocking him to sleep, she forced herself to the point of exhaustion, working herself until she was as lean and able to endure as ever she lad been.

Now that her babe was born, and she was fast regaining her strength once more, it was time to put her plan into action.
 
Abandoning the house in the country when he was scarcely a fortnight old, she hired a carriage and headed for Paris, taking along only Suzanne to be his nurse.
 
The other servants she left in the country house to look after it and keep it safe until she could return.

In the outskirts of Paris she found a small cottage covered with honeysuckle vines on a plot of land just large enough to keep a cow, fatten a pig, and have some chickens. It was far enough away to keep her secrets safe from the prying eyes of the city friends she soon intended to make, but close enough for her to ride there and back in a day to visit her precious son when she was not otherwise engaged.
 
With the money from the emeralds, she bought it outright and hired a local girl to keep it clean and tidy.
 
There she stayed while she regained the strength she had lost during the birthing and her son grew fat and strong on her milk.

It almost broke her heart to wean him and leave him behind in Suzanne’s tender care, but her plan called out to her.
 
Before she could rest in peace with her son, she had a father to rescue and her own honor to avenge.

Chapter 5

Courtney adjusted her hat to a more rakish angle as she rode along, her other hand tight on the reins.
 
She was still uncomfortable on the back of a horse – the boy she had carried in her belly had stopped her from riding more than the slow, solid little donkey for many long months and she was out of practice.