Marrying the Musketeer (28 page)

She wanted to believe it.
 
“You are sure you want to take the risk?”

The fire of excitement burning in Miriame’s face was all the answer she needed.
 
If anything, Miriame was surer of this than she was herself.

The next time Courtney visited the Duc of Orleans in his royal apartments there was no need for a blindfold.
 
He had taken her so far into his confidences that no amount of cloth on her eyes could save him if she chose to betray him.
 

She had already made up her mind that she would not betray him of her own volition.
 
Whether or not his rebellion were to succeed, he was her best hope to save her father.
 
She had made her decision to throw her lot in with the Duc – and hope against the odds that she had not made a foolish mistake.

Neither could Miriame betray him without getting herself hanged into the bargain.
 
As an acknowledged thief, she was lower than low.
 
The word of a far lesser man than the brother of the King would be sufficient to hang her.
 
Her only choice was to do the job that was required of her and fade away into obscurity once more as soon as she was able.

She stopped in the antechamber while Miriame, disguised in the clothes of a street sweep, went in to see the Duc.

The Duc’s low-voiced servant stopped her when she would depart and leave the Duc and the thief together.
 
“Monsieur has requested that you wait here until he has finished his business with your friend,” he said.
 

His words were polite enough, but she could see by the way that his hand hovered over the hilt of the dagger he wore at his side that he meant business.
 
She sized him up with a careful eye.
 
He was not all that large or strong and he moved his body more like a sneak thief than like a fighter.
 
Expert with a dagger in the back, but not quite so efficient when it came to meeting his enemy head on in a fair fight, was her conclusion.
 
She supposed she could fight her way out if she really needed to, but there was no need to pick a fight when she did not have to.

With a sigh of impatience, she flung herself down on an embroidered sofa to wait.

She was not kept waiting for long.
 
Before she had time to buff her fingernails more than twice each on the soft linen of her shirt, the door opened and she was beckoned inside the Duc’s apartments.

Miriame stood to one side, looking as pleased with herself as if she were a cat gotten into the dairy.
 

The Duc looked no less satisfied.
 
“You have found me a practiced thief.”

She bowed.
 
“I am your servant, Monsieur.”

He looked at her, a calculating look in his eyes.
 
“Are you, I wonder?
 
How far would your loyalty to me stretch, I would like to know, were it to be tested?”

She met his gaze with her own.
 
“You have the power to give me what I want – the life of my uncle,” she reminded him.
 
“Until he is freed, you have my service.”

“And after then?”

She shrugged.
 
“Who knows what man will command my loyalty then?”

“You are honest enough, at any rate.”

She did not want him to think she would cast him aside as soon as he gave her what she wanted, or he would use that as a lever against her, an excuse never to give her aught she asked for.
 
“I have cast my lot in with you, Sire.
 
I would not betray you unnecessarily.”

He gave a brief smile.
 
“I am glad to hear it.
 
But neither would you stay by my side without good cause, if it did not suit you?”

“I have sworn loyalty to the King, your brother.
 
It does not suit me to be loyal to him any longer if my disloyalty can give me back my uncle.
 
Why should I give to you more than I give to my King?”

“Because I will be a worthier King than ever my brother was?” he suggested with a gleam in his eyes.
 
“For the good of France?”

Having less confidence in his ability to govern the country than he evidently did, she refused to be drawn into such a discussion.
 
“You have my loyalty for now.
 
More than that I cannot promise for fear I should prove forsworn.”

“Such a short measure will have to suffice me, it seems.”
 
He gestured at Miriame, standing in the shadows.
 
“What has happened to the world I used to know?
 
I buy the thief’s loyalty with gold, and yours with your uncle’s life.
 
Will no man give me his loyalty simply for the love of me?”

That was a question that she would not venture to answer.
 
He would not like her reply.

He waited in silence, but no one spoke.
 
“So be it, then.
 
I will buy what I must have if it will not come to me else.
 
Your thief has promised to steal some papers for me – as soon as he has worked out a way to take them – but it is too risky for him to return to me here.
 
I cannot have it rumored abroad that I am consorting with unsavory men or my brother will have me watched.”

He was a fool to think that he was not already watched, Courtney thought to herself, but she did not say so.

“He will bring the papers to you.
 
You will have them brought to me.
 
I will take them at once to the King of England myself, and ride back into France at the head of ten thousand English troops.”

He made it all sound so easy.
 
Ridiculously easy.
 
She hoped he had not assumed it to be so.
 
Fate had a way of upsetting carelessly laid plans.

He waved one languid hand at her.
 
“Go, you are dismissed.
 
Take your thief with you.
 
Find a man or two that you can trust and be ready to ride with me to England when the time comes.”

She had been on the point of leaving him, but at those words she turned back to face him once more.
 
“Ride to England with you?”

“Of course.”
 
He looked surprised that she had questioned him.
 
“You surely did not think I would give you your uncle’s life for so small a thing as procuring me a thief, did you?”

That had been the agreement, but it seemed he had forgotten it.
 
“A thief is all you asked for in return for my uncle.”

“And now I am asking for more,” he said, his voice impatient.
 
“A life for a life – that seems fair to me.
 
You and your fellows shall be my guard as I ride to England and I shall free your uncle on my return.”

The Duc had been too clever for her, she thought with a frown as she lay in her bed that night, as alone as ever in the darkness.
 
He knew how much she wanted her father’s freedom, and he would trade on that for ever more.
 
Helping him to plot a theft was not sufficient to earn the reward she craved.
 
He had drawn her against her will into agreeing to actively join his rebellion.

She was in so far now that she could not easily draw back.
 
She may as well throw her lot in with him completely.
 
Slight as the hope was, it was better than despair.
 
She would protect Monsieur the Duc on his way to England and hope that the English King would send him back with an army big enough to subdue the troops of King Louis of France.

She grinned ruefully to herself in the dark.
 
By her agreement with the Duc she had made herself into a traitor to her King and country.
 
It was strange, but she did not feel different inside.
 
She had given up her loyalty to the King when he imprisoned her father.
 
The hardship she had endured since then had erased even the slightest lingering shreds of loyalty that had remained in her heart.
 
The King of France was no longer her king.

The King had taken her father.
 
She would betray the King without a second thought in the hopes of getting him back once more.

Pierre de Tournay had betrayed her father once, on the orders of the King.
 
It would only be fitting that he, too, should betray his King to help get her father back.
 
He would be the unknowing pawn in her game of life and death – helping to undo some of the wrong he had done to her.
 
She would use him as coldly and with as much calculation as he had used her – but with far fewer regrets.

Pierre was filled with anger and hatred of the King.
 
He had sworn he would lead a rebellion against his monarch.
 
Now was the time to test the sincerity of his words.

The two of them together would guard Monsieur as he fled to England.
 
She would not draw Miriame into the affair any more than she had done already.
 
Miriame had not harmed her.
 
She did not deserve to be led into needless danger.
 
Besides, what need did she have of more men?
 
Pierre with a sword was worth three of his fellows.
 
With him at her side, they could easily fight off any chance trouble they would meet on the way.

If the worst were to happen and the plot was discovered, no number of Miriames would save them then.
 
The King could send a whole company of men after them, who would overwhelm them by the sheer weight of their numbers.
 
In such a case, their whole party would be doomed, whether there were three of them or thirty and more.
 
There was no sense in having Miriame run such a risk for so little reason.

Still, Pierre might also serve a useful purpose even in that case.
 
His hatred of the King was no secret.
 
She could always turn King’s Witness and hand him over to his enemies in exchange for a pardon.
 
He would serve as a convenient scapegoat to lessen the guilt of the rest of them.
 
If she were to trade his life for her own, it was only what he deserved.

She wondered how he would like being dragged off in chains to spend the rest of his miserable life in an airless dungeon, deep in the bowels of the earth.
 
Not any more than her father liked it, to be sure.

Pierre de Tournay deserved more than a taste of his own bitter medicine.
 
With careful planning and a little luck, the Duc’s rebellion would give her the opportunity to feed it to him with a generous hand.

The opportunity to sound Pierre out on joining her alliance with the Duc came sooner than she had looked for.
 
She and Miriame were supping in her apartments talking over their plans for carrying out the robbery and guarding the Duc on his way to England.
 
Courtney had confided in Miriame some of her reasons for wanting Pierre de Tournay to join in the rebellion and they were debating the best way of embroiling him when a heavy knock on the door roused them into hurried action.
 
Miriame shoved her feet back into her boots, ready to face whoever was calling – whether fighting or running may be called for.
 
Courtney, startled at being interrupted in the very act of talking treason, clapped her hat back on her head and scowled fiercely.

Pierre de Tournay looked rather taken aback at the scowl on her face when he entered.
 
“Am I interrupting you in something important?”

Courtney shook her head.
 
Now was as good a time as any to let him in on their secret, she supposed.
 
She would have preferred to have more time to prepare herself to ask him, but time was the one thing they had to waste.
 
“Come in.
 
You are not interrupting anything.”

Miriame beckoned him in with an impish grin.
 
“On the contrary, you may help us solve a question that has been running through our heads for the last half hour.
 
The pair of us could not agree.
 
We will have to look to you for an answer.”

He flung himself down on a sofa and crossed his legs in front of him.
 
“Pour me a glass of wine and I’ll answer you gladly to the best of my ability.”