On My Lady's Honor (All for one, and one for all) (29 page)

She looked behind her once more.
 
The foremost rider was Lamotte, she was sure of it.
 
He was riding easily, with no sign of any wound.
 
She felt a huge weight lift from her shoulders.
 
Miriame had been true to her word and fought only the battle that she had felt due to her.

They were approaching a narrow part of road, where it wove a crooked path between a copse of trees.
 
Their pursuers were so close now that Sophie could see Lamotte’s face clearly.
 
His face was frozen in a look of fierce determination that made her quake in her boots.
 
Never had she seen her husband look so wild.

Courtney pulled her horse to a standstill just before the path disappeared into the trees.
 
“Ride as fast as your horse can carry you.
 
I can hold the two of them off here for long enough to get you well away.”

Sophie shook her head.
 
“I will not leave you behind.”

Courtney grinned.
 
“Don’t be daft.
 
I cannot ride on this damned beast any longer.
 
I will never make it all the way to Calais.
 
With me alongside you, you will be caught for sure.
 
Without me, you stand a chance of getting there.
 
The least I can do for you is hold them off for long enough to get you safe away.”

Lamotte wanted to shout with rage as he saw the hindmost rider stop in the narrowest part of the path and wheel about, sword raised in the air, as Sophie put her heels to her horse’s flanks and urged her mount away into the gloom of the forest.
 
He would have to fight his way through yet another of his wife’s minions before he could reach her.

He spurred his horse on faster.
 
God willing, he would dispatch this one in haste and catch his wife before she got into further trouble.

He yelled a battle cry, waved his sword around his head and pulled back tightly on the reins to make his horse rear up, her forelegs flailing in the air.

His opponent’s horse, spooked by his noise and the motion of his sword, reared up as well.
 
The Musketeer on its back grabbed for its mane with his free hand and held on for dear life.
 
With only one hand to hold on, he could not keep his grip.
 
He slid unceremoniously off over its rump and landed with a thud on the ground, a look of utter consternation on his face.

Lamotte heard a thump as the hired thug behind him slid off his horse as well, intending no doubt to make short work of the fallen soldier.
 
He wheeled around to protect him.
 
He had no use for murder.
 
If this Musketeer deserved to die for debauching his wife, then die he would, but in a fair fight, and knowing what he died for.

The Musketeer lay on his back on the ground, winded from his fall.
 
Lamotte cantered up to his prone body and slipped off his horse just as the gruff-voiced assassin drew a wicked-looking knife from his belt and leaned over him with an attitude of menace.

“By God, it’s woman, not a soldier at all.”
 
The face of the gruff-voiced assassin broke into an ugly leer.
 
He ripped the Musketeer’s shirt open with the point of his knife and pawed at her breasts with greedy fingers.
 
“I knew it,” he crowed with evil delight.
 
“What a piece of luck, huh?
 
We can have a bit of fun with her before I stick her with my pretty little knife.”

With his free hand, the killer fumbled with the lacings of his breeches, but they were knotted, and he could not get them free.

Lamotte saw a film of red appear before his eyes.
 
His wife was a soldier, too.
 
It could just as well be his wife that the killer was proposing to rape and then murder.
 
“Let her go.”

The hired assassin looked up at him in puzzlement.
 
“Let her what?
 
Have you gone mad?
 
I’m just going to have a bit of fun with her.
 
It won’t take long, and then you can have your turn, too, afore I kill her nice and slow, like.
 
We’ll catch up with the other one later.”

His dagger was in his hand, trembling with the will to leap out and strike of its own accord.
 
“I said, let her go, or I shall…”

He never got the chance to finish his threat.
 
With a lethal swish, a feathered bolt came hurtling out of the woods to one side, hurtling past him mere inches from his chest, and burying itself deep in the killer’s throat.
 

The killer’s eyes grew wide and he gave just the beginning of a strangled cry before it was cut off with a choke.
 
Clawing uselessly at the bolt with desperate fingers, he fell to one side with a gurgle, the bright red blood spurting out of him in a ghoulish fountain.
 
His body twitched and then lay still.

Lamotte looked around in the direction from which the arrow had come.
 
He saw nothing stirring in the trees, but it had to have come from Sophie.
 
She had mentioned once what a crack shot she was with a bow and arrow.
 
He put his hand on his chest in a protective gesture.
 
He owed his life to the fact that she had not been making an idle boast.

The Musketeer on the ground pushed the bleeding body off her with a shudder and got shakily to her feet, her face as white as milk and her left arm dangling uselessly at her side.
 
She looked at the dagger in Lamotte’s hand.
 
“Ach, don’t make me fight you, too,” she said, her shoulders slumped and her voice weary.
 
“I’m stiff as a board from falling off that damned horse all afternoon and I’d rather have a soak in a hot tub than a fight.
 
Besides, it wouldn’t be worth it - Sophie made me promise not to hurt you anyways.”

Lamotte dropped his dagger arm.
 
It seemed that Sophie was not the only Amazon in France.
 
Here was another, a regal blonde beauty, for all that her face was smudged and her shirt torn and one of her hands hung limply from a broken wrist.
 
“You’re a woman.
 
I do not need to kill you after all.”

There was a crashing behind them in the bushes to the side of the path.
 
He turned around and held out his hands as Sophie, his errant Sophie, appeared, a short bow in her hands and a look that mingled horror and relief in equal parts on her face.
 

Sophie peered through the leaves and took the most careful aim she had ever made with her bow.
 
She forced her hands to stop shaking so her aim would be true.
 
The only sounds she could hear were the pounding of her heart and the harsh rasp of her breath as she forced the air in and out of her chest.
 
This was one time she could not afford to miss.

“Do not move,” she whispered to herself, her eyes glued to her intended victim, willing him to stay steady with the force of her thoughts.
 
Her eyes fixed on her target, she loosed her arrow with a twang.
 
It flew through the air almost faster than her eye could follow it, and buried itself exactly where she had aimed.

People were harder to shoot than ducks, she thought, her arms wobbling with relief.
 
Just a few inches off target and she would have buried the arrow in Lamotte’s chest.
 
She bowed her head for a moment, giving thanks to the Lord that he had guided her arrow swiftly and surely to its intended mark.

Her heart still pounding with the aftereffects of her fear, she ran to her husband, ignoring the hands he held out to her, and flung herself into his arms instead.
 
“I didn’t miss.
 
I didn’t miss,” she babbled as she hugged him tightly to her.
 
She looked at the corpse on the ground over his shoulder.
 
She had killed a man.
 

Her stomach heaved at the sight of so much blood.
 
She stepped back out of Lamotte’s embrace and was promptly sick all over his boots.
 
“I killed him.”

“You saved me the trouble.”
 
Courtney and Lamotte both spoke at once, and then grinned at each other.

Courtney handed her a flask of water and a clean handkerchief.
 
“I wouldn’t shed any tears over that beast.
 
He was a vile worm like all of his kind.
 
He deserved to die.”

Sophie rinsed her mouth out with the brackish water and spat it on to the ground.
 
“Eugh,” she said with feeling as she wiped her mouth and tossed the handkerchief on to the ground.
 
Thank the Lord she had slipped off her mare and doubled back through the woods to help her friend.
 
She looked searchingly into Courtney’s face as she handed back the flask of water.
 
“Are you alright?”

Courtney rubbed her buttocks a trifle gingerly with her good hand.
 
“I’m not getting on any damn horse bareback again for as long as I live.”
 
Sophie gasped as she held out a wrist that flopped at an unnatural angle.
 
“I don’t know which pains me more – a broken wrist or a pair of very sore buttocks.”

“I got the bastard who would’ve raped you,” Sophie said, with grim satisfaction, now that her stomach had stopped heaving.
 
“I’d rather shoot a villain like him than a brace of ducks any day.”
 
Still, she avoided looking at the body again.
 
Knowing that he deserved to die did not take away the horror of his death.

Courtney looked sideways at Lamotte.
 
“You should have ridden off,” she said to Sophie.
 
“They would never have caught you.”

Sopihe was too relieved at Courtney’s rescue to care that she herself was caught.
 
“I would not leave you to fight the pair of them alone.
 
We are sisters, remember?”

Lamotte wrapped his arms around her from behind.
 
“You are my wife.
 
I will never fight you again, however much you provoke me.”

Sophie sighed at his words even as she took comfort from the feeling of his arms wrapped around her body.
 
“Can you please give that wife stuff a rest for now?
 
Courtney needs a doctor to set her arm.”

The three of them rode in silence back along the path they had just come.
 
Courtney perched on the pommel of Lamotte’s saddle, in too much pain from the break in her arm to manage on her own.
 
Lamotte guided his mare with one hand, while with the other he held her tightly against his chest.

Sophie felt a gnawing sensation in the pit of her belly at the sight of his arm wrapped around Courtney’s middle.
 
She knew that he did it merely to keep her upright on the horse and to stop her from falling if she fainted with the pain, but she couldn’t help wishing that she was the one he was cradling in his arms.
 
She wanted to be the one he held on to, his strong hand around her waist to clasp her closely to him.
 
She wanted to be the one to whom he bent his head to whisper in her ear.
 
She wanted to feel the touch of his body pressing against hers.

She had a moment of secret gladness that Courtney was in too much pain to enjoy her position, and then chided herself for her mean spirit.
 
She would spend no energy harboring jealous thoughts of her friend, or waste her spirit in delighting at her friend’s misfortunes.
 
She had troubles enough of her own to deal with.
 
Her husband had caught up with her and would no doubt try to drag her back to Paris by the ears as he had threatened.
 
Once Courtney was safely settled, she would have to find some way of evading his guard and continuing on her quest to save Henrietta from the clutches of the Bastille.

She turned her head to look at Lamotte, and was absurdly gratified to see that he was watching her, rather than looking at the woman he carried in his arms.
 
He is probably thinking only how he can keep ahold of me now that he has caught me
, she thought with a grimace, but it still made her happy.
 
She caught his eye and smiled at him.

He looked startled for a moment, and then smiled back.
 
His smile softened the harsh angles of his face and eased the frown from his forehead.
 
She felt as though she could go on looking at him for ever.