On My Lady's Honor (All for one, and one for all) (22 page)

“You misunderstood me.
 
I have orders directly from the King himself that I was to deliver this prisoner to no one but you.
 
Here is the letter that will explain more.”
 
She reached into her jacket for the letter, but it was not there.
 
Maybe she had put it elsewhere?
 
She fumbled in the other side of her jacket, to no avail.
 
Surely she had not dropped it in the coach?
 
The King would be highly displeased with her carelessness, after he had enjoined her to strictest secrecy as well.

Miriame stepped forward, gave a deep bow, and handed the letter through the grille.
 
“From the King himself.”

Sophie looked daggers at her comrade.
 
Miriame had given her the fright of her life.
 
Her light-fingered companion must have picked her pocket so neatly that she had not noticed her loss before.

“Just practicing,” Miriame murmured in Sophie’s ear as she straightened up out of her bow.
 
“So as not to lose my touch.”

At least the letter was not lost, Sophie thought, as she elbowed Miriame sharply in the ribs for her mischief.

The governor opened the letter and read it by the dim light of the candle.
 
“Where’s the prisoner,” he demanded, once he had reached the end.

Sophie stepped back and urged the prisoner forward with one hand in the small of her back.
 

Henrietta looked up at the strong walls of the Bastille and shuddered as if she could already feel the cold air of the dungeon on her face.
 
Without further urging, she stepped daintily to the grille in her high-heeled shoes.
 
“Here I am.”
 
Her voice was strong and clear.
 
She was too rpoud to show her fear.

The governor’s face grew pale at the sight of the prisoner.
 
He drew up a big bunch of keys from his waist and unlocked the grille with fumbling fingers as he ushered her inside.
 
He turned to face her again, his hand on the gate.
 
“You have arrested Madame the Duchesse D’Orleans on the order of the King?
 
Are you sure this is not a mistake?”

Sophie watched as the prisoner stepped forward into the shadow of the Bastille.
 
The governor bowed nervously to her as she passed, the keys in his belt clanking with every move her made, but she went by him with her nose in the air.

The iron grille clanged shut behind her with an ominous bang.
 

Sophie watched her go with a feeling of foreboding, which she tried to squelch.
 
She was there to serve the King, not to question his orders, and his orders had been very clear.
 
The woman was a traitor who deserved her fate.
 
“Quite sure.
 
The King does not make mistakes.”

Henrietta sat on cold stone bench in her prison cell.
 
The thick velvet of her dress shielded her from the chill of the night air, but still she shivered.
 
King Louis would not forgive her for helping the Comte de Guiche to escape.
 
She had read the fury in his eyes when his guards had come back empty-handed, and had trembled.
 
She had known then that her punishment would not be long in coming.
 

Still she had not expected him to move so quickly, or so viciously.
 
Few returned from the Bastille, and those who did were broken in body and spirit.
 
Imprisonment in the Bastille was a death sentence.
 
The King had doomed her to a long, slow, torturous demise.

She wiped a renegade tear from her eye.
 
For the first time since she had crossed him, she realized in full how badly she had underestimated her opponent, the King.
 
Thwarted of his intended prey now the Comte had fled to safety, he had struck at her instead.
 
She would not feel sorry for herself.
 
She had known that she risked her life in helping her lover, and she had done so gladly.
 
She loved him more than she loved her own life or even the hopes of her own salvation.
 
She would not want to keep living if de Guiche had been harmed on her account.

It was too late to ask her brother for help.
 
He had plenty of troubles of his own in his island Kingdom.
 
She would not ask him to sacrifice his peace of mind for her and declare war against France to save her.
 

Besides, she was not sure that he would answer her call for aid.
 
His brotherly love did not run so deep as his love for his country, or even his love of frivolity and idleness.
 
She loved her brother dearly – better, perhaps, than he deserved.
 
She would rather die in peace and quiet than risk testing the depth of Charles’s love for her and finding it wanting.

She fingered the necklace around her neck.
 
She might still manage to break free from her jailer if he were to prove sufficiently greedy.
 
She had put on her jewels not to salvage her pride – a prisoner of the King could not afford such luxuries as pride – but to pay for the help she might need in escaping from her prison.
 

Any of the rings on her fingers, or the necklaces she kept hidden under the velvet of her dress might buy her freedom.
 
She relied on no man to come and rescue her from the hole she had dug for herself.
 
She was not without resources of her own to save her own skin.
 
She would explore them all before she gave her soul up to despair.

Chapter 6

Sophie threw her sword down on the ground in disgust and glared at her opponent.
 
She wanted to stamp her feet and shout at him, but she doubted it would do her cause any good.
 
She counted up to ten to master her anger before she spoke.
 
“What do you think you’re doing?”

Lamotte put up his own sword, looking relieved at the cessation of hostilities.
 
“Teaching you to fight, as I promised.”

Teaching her to fight?
 
Teaching her to dance was more like it!
 
He was big enough to break her in two with his bare hands if he felt like it.
 
Why then would he not fight with her?
 
“Have I suddenly turned into fragile porcelain overnight and you’re scared that I will break if you touch me?
 
Does becoming your wife somehow make me less of a soldier?
 
You’re not even trying to batter through my defense.”

He passed his hand over his eyes, his face suddenly weary.
 
“You know that I cannot fight you.”

What nonsense was he talking now?
 
“How can I learn if you do not teach me?”

He leaned on his sword.
 
“I cannot fight a woman – especially not the woman to whom I have pledged my troth,” he said, soft and low that none could overhear him.
 
“To fight my own wife? - it goes against everything that I have ever believed in.”

She spat on the dust at her feet.
 
“I suppose you think that women are soft creatures, to be cosseted away in silks and velvets in high towers far away from the world?”
 
She kept her voice soft, but she knew he could not help but hear the exasperation that was plain in her tone.
 
She wanted him to hear it.
 
She wanted him to know how absurdly she thought he was acting.

He shrugged his shoulders, plainly agreeing with her assessment but not wanting to admit it.
 
“I cannot fight a woman.”

She picked up her sword again.
 
She must break him out of his foolishness if she was to continue her education as a soldier.
 
Did he not see that her life might one day depend on how well he had taught her?
 
She prodded him in his leather jerkin with the point of her sword.
 
“What if a woman insists on fighting you?
 
What then?”

He did not rise to her bait.
 
“I do not think it likely.
 
Women should not fight.”

She smiled to herself.
 
She would make him admit his error before she had done.
 
She would force him to fight her.
 
“This one does.”
 
She prodded a little harder until he gave a slight wince as the tip of her sword came uncomfortably close to his navel.
 
“Would you strike back at me, or would you stand still and let me carve you into little pieces?”

He stood in the middle of the courtyard, his legs apart and his arms crossed in front of him.
 
“I doubt you would go that far, wife.”

She looked around her in panic at his words.
 
Thank the Lord there was no one close enough to hear him call her wife for all the world to know.
 
“Maybe not,” she said, and she flicked her sword to give him a light scratch on his cheek.
 
“Just spoil your beauty a bit, maybe.”

He stood where he was, but his fists clenched at his side and his green-brown eyes grew dark with rage as a tiny trickle of blood dribbled down his cheek.
 
“That was not a wise thing to do, wife.”

“Why not?” she asked, her voice all mock innocence.
 
“You won’t fight me, so what have I to fear from you?”
 
She flicked her sword again to cut his other cheek and flashed him a mischievous grin.
 
“That was just to even you up a little.
 
You shall have matching scars now – one on each side.
 
They will remind you each time you look in a mirror what a woman can do to do if you will not fight back.”

His knuckles were white, he clenched them so hard.
 
“Sophie, my sweet, you are playing with fire.”

“Fire?”
 
She snorted in derision.
 
“Pah.
 
There is nothing fiery about you.
 
You are as full of sober melancholy and phlegm as the saddest friar in the abbey.”
 
She moved the point of her sword rather lower and prodded him gently below the waist.
 
If this did not rouse him to rage, then nothing would.
 
“I wonder if you even have as much manhood as a friar, sworn to celibacy, does.”

With an inarticulate roar of fury at this last insult, Lamotte grabbed his sword out of its scabbard and forced her blade away from his groin.
 
“I warn you, wife, I will not stand much more of this.”

Sophie grinned to herself as she felt the strength of his blade connect with hers and the force of the impact travel up her arm in waves.
 
Success!
 
She had angered him into fighting her.
 
“So stop me then, if you can.”

She thrust in the general direction of his breeches and he parried quickly this time.
 
Around the courtyard they went, back and forth, from one side to the other, now advancing and now retreating, blades flashing in the sunlight and clashing at every step.
 

Lamotte was still holding back, she could tell.
 
He was not giving it his all.
 
He would only defend himself against her attacks – he would not make a positive move against her.
 
She would not be satisfied with that.

To test her theory, she deliberately made a lunge that left her side open to attack, but he failed to press his advantage.

Damn him.
 
She would not let him get away with this.
 
She needed him to forget that she was a woman, and to see instead that she was a fighter intent on doing him an injury.
 
Could he not see that his misplaced sense of honor was putting him in danger?

She redoubled her efforts, desperate to get through his defenses and prove to him that she was in earnest.
 
She watched him like a hawk watches the rabbit marked out for its prey.
 
Her eyes did not leave his, reading in them the movements he would make as soon as he knew himself what they would be.

He would not attack her.
 
She would use her knowledge of his weakness against him.
 
With a flurry of thrusts that left her vulnerable to counter-attack, she moved against him with renewed vigor.
 
She was never dare such a dangerous move with anyone else – but his foolish sense of honor meant that she ran no risk.