On My Lady's Honor (All for one, and one for all) (39 page)

“You steal for him?”

“All the time.
 
Secrets, mostly.
 
They are easy to store and hard to prove on you if you are caught.”

“You think you could rescue Madame from the Bastille?”

He grinned, showing a set of fine, white teeth.
 
“Prisons are easy game.
 
They are built, you see, to keep people in, not to keep them out.
 
Once you have found a way in, all you need to do is to retrace your steps again, and voila, you are free.”

“You have broken many people out of prison?”

He gave her another easy grin.
 
“All the time.
 
Myself mostly.”

Lamotte chose this moment to come riding up to them.
 
The path was too narrow for three to ride alongside one another.
 
Sophie dropped back to leave the men together.
 
She was happy enough to be alone with her thoughts for the moment.

Indeed, she had much to sort out in her mind.
 
Her mission was over.
 
Hugh of Coventry would rescue the Princesse Henrietta and spirit her back to England, with no one the wiser.
 
The King would not be pleased that Lamotte had failed in his mission to stop her, but no doubt his misdemeanor would be overlooked.
 
The King would not know why he had not carried out his mission, and he could not be punished for mere failure.

Now that King Charles knew of his sister’s imprisonment, she felt relieved of the burden she had been carrying ever since Monsieur had begged for her help.
 
She was no longer the guardian of a dire political secret.
 
She had done her duty and satisfied her conscience.
 
The force that had kept her on her feet for the past days of relentless journeying towards her goal was dissipated.
 
She was a free agent once more.

What was she to do now, though?

She could not return to Paris as Gerard Delamanse if she did not want her life to be cut short.
 
Lamotte was right about that.
 
If nothing else, she had learned that those who disobeyed the orders of their King were doomed to a hasty death.

She was not ready to die.
 
She had too much to live for.

Neither did she even want to serve her King any longer.
 
She had become a Musketeer to win honor in the name of her brother.
 
There was no honor in serving a lecher who invested himself with the dignity of a Sun King, and then misused his power by imprisoning his own brother’s wife.
 
She had no pride in being a King’s man anymore.
 
The King was corrupt and evil.
 
She would not be his servant.
 
Loyalty in and of itself held no virtue – loyalty was only a merit when the obedience served some higher purpose.

Corrupting one’s sister was no virtue.
 
She no longer owed any loyalty to her King.

Her mind was made up.
 
She would be a Musketeer no longer.
 
But if not a soldier, then what?

She could hire her arm out as a mercenary, she supposed, fighting for whoever would pay her wages.
 
She would be free to wander where she pleased, fighting all over Europe if she chose to, wherever the winds of war blew and a strong arm could find a willing master.

That was no answer to her dilemma, though.
 
She would simply be changing one bad master for another.
 
She had no desire to fight for the sake of fighting.
 
She needed to fight on the side of righteousness, for a purpose, for honor and glory and justice.
 

She would have to cease soldiering and return home in defeat, foiled in her efforts.
 
Turn farmer and look after land, she supposed, though she had no one to look after it for, no future generations to pass it down to.

Why should she bother to practice good husbandry when on her death, the land would be gone, sold to strangers?
 
She may as well be a mercenary than lead a life of such pointless toil.

The thought of going home to the Camargue was no sanctuary, either.
 
She shuddered as she remembered the winter she had spent there, alone and afraid.
 
The manor house she had grown up in was haunted with the spirits of her family.
 
She would never live there in peace again.

Mayhap she would have to give up being a man and be a woman again.
 
She turned the thought over in her mind.
 
The more she thought about it, the more practical it seemed to be.
 
As Sophie Delamanse she would never be in high favor with the King, but neither would her life be in danger.

She would not go to Paris as Sophie Delamanse.
 
Now that she had decided to give up her commission in the Musketeers, Lamotte would have little interest in her.
 
There would be no need for her to live with him and Paris held no other attractions for her.
 
She would rather die than molder away her life living in a garret in the city, of use to no one and for nothing, living only for the rare, chance sighting of her husband in the streets she had once walked down with him.

She wondered if he would offer once more to send her to his home in Burgundy to live with his widowed mother.
 
She shuddered to herself at the prospect.
 
Such a fate would be worse than death.
 
She would rather toil on her own land, with the ghosts of her family to keep her company, than to be buried alive, alone and unloved, in a strange county.

She shook her skirts with an irritable hand.
 
She detested riding in skirts now that she was so used to the far more practical garb of breeches.
 
To make matters worse, she had no one to blame but herself for her discomfort – she herself had suggested she remain a woman for the time being to put any of King Louis’s remaining spies off the scent, if indeed they were still searching for her.
 
Somehow, having no one else to blame made her discomfort seem all the worse.

The disguise should serve its purpose.
 
With any luck the King’s spies would believe her drowned at the bottom of the channel, and Lamotte alongside her.
 
She would attract no attention as a woman.
 
Hugh of Coventry would have a better chance of rescuing Henrietta if they could slip into Paris unnoticed, rather than having to fight their way back.

Lamotte staggered off the boat, fell to his knees and kissed the ground beneath his feet, his heart full of thankfulness.
 
“Ah, French soil.
 
I swear I shall never leave the shores of beautiful France again for as long as I live.”

“Does that mean I shall have to journey to the Americas by myself then?”

He stared in horror at Sophie.
 
“You cannot want to go to the Americas.
 
I will not allow it.”

Her face dimpled into a smile.
 
He had never noticed before how her right cheek held a merry dimple in it.
 
He wanted to kiss his fingers and place them on the spot.
 
“I was jesting, milord.”

He heaved a sigh of relief.
 
“Thank the good Lord for that.
 
It was an ill jest to torment me with, lady wife of mine, while my guts are still heaving from the last crossing.”

She looked down her nose at him with a haughty expression on her face.
 
“The water was as smooth as silk, and calmer than a nun’s nature.”

She was irrepressible and how he loved her for it.
 
“Do not count on your pretty blue gown saving you from my just and righteous wrath, wife.”

She wrinkled her nose at him.
 
He knew how much she hated being called his wife, but he could not forebear reminding her of it.
 
She had married him.
 
They belonged to each other.
 
He would not let her go easily.

“I may be wearing a gown, but I still have my knife tucked into my bodice.”

“Ouch.
 
Be careful where you aim it.
 
I am not wearing a wig.”

She laughed and held out her arm to him.
 
“If you have finished spilling your guts on the ground, please be a gentleman and escort me to the place where we are to stay the night.”

Lamotte put on his haughtiest air for the proprietor of the tavern.
 
“A chamber for me and my lady wife, and another for my friend.
 
We are traveling incognito, without our entourage, so two chambers will be sufficient.”

Sophie watched him in amusement.
 
She had never seen him play the wealthy lord before.
 
He did it to perfection, with just the right mix of imperious demand and friendly condescension.
 
At any rate, he soon had the innkeeper and his maidservants bustling around to serve them both.

Hugh of Coventry stayed in the background, merging into the scenery and not opening his mouth unless he had to.
 
He spoke French with only the merest trace of an English accent, but even that could prove dangerous in the wrong company.

They met for a council of war in the larger chamber that Sophie and Lamotte were to share as husband and wife.
 
Lamotte stretched his legs out in front of him, his hands clasped behind his back.
 
“I shall hire a coach to take us to Paris.
 
We shall move more slowly than on horseback, but we shall seem less suspicious.
 
Two men and a woman on horseback would raise eyebrows wherever we passed through.”

Sophie shrugged.
 
Horseback or coach made little difference to her.
 
“Once we are in Paris, what then?”

Hugh steepled his fingers together.
 
“I have been considering the best way of rescuing Madame Henrietta.
 
I will need your help, Countesse.”

Lamotte growled.
 
“Sophie’s job is done.
 
She has taken the message to the King.
 
Her life is in danger were she to stay in Paris.”

Hugh raised his eyebrows.
 
“And mine is not?
 
Or yours, too, for that matter, if your part in this escapade should ever be known.”

“My safety is my own affair.
 
You are not a woman.
 
Or my wife.
 
Let you and I rescue the woman on our own.”

“We may well need Sophie to aid us.”

“Leave her out of it.”

Sophie shook her head.
 
“This was my mission to start with, not yours.
 
I may as well see it through to the end.”
 
She may as well make the most of her life while it still had some meaning to it.
 
She would be exiled away from Paris again soon enough.

Hugh nodded approvingly.
 
“You are a brave woman.
 
Had the Count not claimed you already, I carry you off back to England with me.”

Sophie smiled.
 
At least there was one man in the world who could appreciate her for what she was without desiring to turn her into a delicate porcelain figurine, to be protected from the world.
 
“Thank you for your offer.
 
Were I not already married to the Count, I might be able to be persuaded to accompany you willingly.”

Lamotte placed one arm around her shoulders and scowled at Hugh.
 
“Sophie is my wife.”

Hugh shrugged as he turned to leave for his own chamber.
 
“Unfortunately for me that is so.
 
If you ever get tired of your husband, Madame, come to Coventry.
 
I will always be glad to see you.”

She could not ever imagine getting tired of Lamotte.
 
“I will.”

Lamotte glared at the door as it shut behind Hugh’s departing back.
 
“He is an Englishman and a thief.
 
He is not worthy of you.”

Sophie kicked off her riding boots and tossed her cloak on the end of the bed.
 
Her husband deserved to be teased a little for his rudeness to their companion.
 
“He is in high favor with his master.”