On My Lady's Honor (All for one, and one for all) (42 page)

“That company was none of my choosing.
 
They would have died by my hand if you and my dear wife had not gotten to them before I could.”

She raised her eyebrows.
 
“Out done by a woman?
 
Twice?
 
Shame upon you, Monsieur Musketeer.”

She was too quick and slippery for him for sure.
 
He turned away, swallowing his rage with some difficulty.
 
He would not demean himself by trading insults with a mere woman, for all that she had the viciousness and dexterity of a venomous snake.
 
Sophie, his Amazonian Sophie, was a positive haven of softness and sweetness compared with her sisters-in-arms.
 
“If you would rescue the sister of your King,” he barked at Hugh, “you had best hurry before it is too late.”

Hugh ignored the interruption.
 
“Once you are inside…” he said to Sophie.

“Once
you
are inside,” he corrected the arrogant Englishman, his fingers itching to teach the pup a lesson in manners that he would not soon forget.
 
“My wife will not be going anywhere with you.
 
As I said, you had best hurry, or once
you
are inside, all you will find will be the Duchesse’s corpse.”

Sophie at least took heed of him.
 
She looked up, her eyes wide and shining with excitement and determination.
 
“Have you news from the King?”

“Yes - what news from your lord and master, Monsieur Musketeer?” chimed in the venomous snake.

He took off his hat and tossed it on the ground.
 
“I am no longer a Musketeer in the King’s employ.
 
He asked me to kill the English princess: garrotte her or poison her or anything that could make it look like it had been an accident.
 
He wants her dead without seeming to be responsible for her death.
 
Even now he may have found some one else to do his dirty work for him.
 
As you sit her talking, she could already be dead.”

“We cannot afford to wait.
 
We must go straight away.”

Hugh finally dragged his eyes away from Sophie.
 
“I have not made arrangements yet for the princess’s carriage out of Paris.
 
Getting her out of the Bastille is the easy part.
 
Getting her out of France will require more time.”

The snake shrugged one shoulder.
 
“We have no more time if she is to be rescued.”

Lamotte shot her an evil look.
 
“As if you care aught for her.”

“True - I care more for the good French gold I have been promised for her rescue.
 
Why else would I risk my skin on a fool’s errand?”

Sophie shushed her with one hand and talked urgently to Hugh.
 
“Miriame and I will go into the Bastille alone on the plan you have made for us.
 
We have no need of you.
 
While we are inside, you make all the arrangements you can.”

His wife was surely not thinking of going into the Bastille to rescue a prisoner with only a single companion to help her.
 
“I will not let you go alone.”

“Sophie will be safe enough inside the Bastille.”

He glared at the Englishman.
 
“She is not your wife.
 
I will go with her or she will not go.”

“She has no need of an escort to help her get inside, but both of them will need help to escape the guards once they are out again.
 
I will take Henrietta away.
 
Let you look to the safety of your wife and her companion.

“It seems like we do not have a second to lose.
 
Ladies, your costumes, please.”

Sophie and the snake grabbed a collection of tattered garments and began to disrobe as Hugh pored over his chicken scratchings once more.

He watched scandalized as Sophie and her friend transformed themselves in seconds to women of the street, tattered, ragged and world-weary.
 
“What are you intending?”

Hugh walked around them, inspecting with the eye of a true connoisseur.
 
“Take your neckline a little lower,” he said, as he tugged on Sophie’s bodice until her breasts were nearly ready to spill out.
 
“Try not to appear nervous.
 
You’re a tart now – a cheap streetwalker.
 
You’ve seen it all, done it all before.
 
You’re after the money – remember that.
 
A gold coin that will pay the rent and put food in your belly for another day.”

He looked appraisingly at the snake.
 
“Perfect – you’ve got the look exactly right.
 
Greed and distrust in equal parts.
 
Just try not to look as though you will bite the man’s head off if he got too close.
 
It will put off your potential customers like nothing else could.”

They had not answered his question.
 
He stood in front of Sophie, blocking out her light.
 
“What are you intending to do dressed in that garb?”

She looked up at him with those blue, blue eyes and his heart turned over in his chest.
 
When had she become so dear to him?
 
How had she pierced through to the innermost core of his heart, this unlikely woman with her fierce ways and her determined will?
 
“To rescue Henrietta – the best way I know how.”

“That is the task of a soldier.
 
You are dressed as a woman.”

She smiled into his face.
 
“The better to put them off their guard.
 
They will not expect any tricks from a woman.
 
Women do not fight, do they?”

She was throwing his own words back in his face, the minx.
 
He would kiss her if they were not in such a confounded hurry.

Hugh buckled on a knife under his jacket.
 
“Don’t waste your breath arguing.
 
Time is too short to think of another plan.”

Sophie smiled at him and his heart turned over in his breast at her brave beauty.
 
“My job is only half done.
 
There will be little danger in it for Miriame and me.
 
You cannot come with us or you will spoil our charade.”

He did not like to leave Sophie to break into the prison without his aid, but she was a soldier and a Musketeer.
 
He had trained her as best he could.
 
Whether or not he liked the idea, he had no right to stop her from doing her duty as she saw fit.

Miriame gave a mocking smile.
 
“If you are afraid, Monsieur Musketeer, leave it to others who are not.”

No one would ever call him a coward.
 
He would not leave Sophie to endanger herself alone but he would protect her, even in the shadow of the Bastille.
 
“What would you have me do to help?”

Hugh grinned at him, showing a row of even white teeth.
 
“You can hold the horses outside and be ready for when we need you for the escape.
 
Come with me and I will explain the plan to you on the way.”

Sophie’s insides were achurn with nervous excitement as the cheap hired coach trundled along in the deepening twilight, the poor tired horse clopping over the cobbles with weary legs.
 
She was about to face a battle of a different kind, where her wits and not her strength with a sword would be her best ally.

Miriame looked as calm and detached as ever.
 
“No need to be nervous,” she advised.
 
“Men are ruled by what lies between their legs.
 
Pull your bodice a little lower, show them some more bosom and a bit of leg and they won’t have a drop of blood left in their head to think with.”

They passed Lamotte, pulling along a street barrow.
 
She hardly recognized him in the failing light with his hair matted and filthy, his face smudged with dirt and wearing Hugh’s tattered clothes and thick peasant’s boots.
 
It gave her some measure of comfort to know that he would be waiting for them outside, ready to whisk them off and out of danger as soon as they had rescued Henrietta.
 
She had put her life in his hands before, and he had saved her.
 
She felt secure and protected whenever he was around.
 
She only hoped that he would not run into any trouble as he watched and waited for them.

She clutched Miriame’s hand tightly as they alighted in front of the Bastille.
 
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” she said to Miriame as she looked up at the forbidding gray walls in front of her.
 
They were enough to send a chill though the bones of even the most stout-hearted person.
 
“I will think none the worse of you if you pulled out now.”

“And give up the reward that Hugh has promised me if we are successful?
 
Enough money to keep my belly full for a year or more?”
 
Miriame shook her head.
 
“I think not.
 
If you knew me better you would not waste your breath suggesting such a thing.”

The guards leered at them through the darkness with greedy eyes as they banged on the door.

“We wos sent for,” whined Miriame in a voice that Sophie had never heard her use before.
 
“The Guv wants us.”

One of the guards sniggered as he held his lantern so that the light shone right into their eyes.
 
“What could he want with a pair of dirty slatterns like you?”

Sophie tugged her bodice down a little lower.
 
Miriame was right about the power of naked flesh.
 
The eyes of both guards were fixated on her now.
 
“We have special talents, if you know what I mean.”

Miriame cackled.
 
“Naughty boys like to be punished, and the Guv’s been a very naughty boy lately.”

The guards sniggered again, but they unbolted the gate and let them in.

Sophie felt her breathing quicken as the gate slammed shut behind them.
 
They were trapped inside the most evil prison in France – and of their own free will, too.
 
There was no turning back now.
 
She would rescue Henrietta or die trying.

After a short but vicious argument, one of the guards left the gate to escort them to the Governor’s apartments.
 
The other stayed at the gate with a bad grace, spitting on the ground and muttering curses at their departing backs.

Their escort dawdled his way through the passages.
 
“Is the Guv in a hurry to see you?”

Sophie wiped the sweat off her palms surreptitiously on her tattered dress.
 
If the worst came to the worst, they both had daggers within easy reach and there were two of them against one of him.
 
Stringing along a lecherous guard had seemed easy enough while they were simply sitting around a table talking about it.
 
It was a lot harder to do for real, when the stone walls of the prison were all around her and the scent of prison misery corrupted the very air she was breathing.
 
“You wanna quickie afore we go in to him, eh soldier?”

Miriame sidled up to him, took his arm in hers and ran her free hand over the bulge in his groin with an appreciative coo.
 
“I ain’t never been in here before.
 
Show us where you keep all the prisoners and Polly ‘n me – we’ll give you one for free, right Poll?”

He licked his lips with greedy anticipation.
 
“What about the governor?
 
Won’t he be expecting you?”

Sophie sidled up to him on the other side and took hold of his other arm.
 
“He can wait on us for a bit.
 
Won’t do him no harm.”

With a woman on each side, the guard led them through the passages, opening peepholes in every dungeon they passed to show them the human misery that lay behind each door.
 
Sophie felt her heart sink with every chamber she looked into.
 
Human misery she saw aplenty, but there was no sign of the woman she had come to rescue.

“Aint you got no one famous in here?” Miriame whined after they’d gone through a half-dozen corridors with no sight nor sign of the imprisoned Duchesse.
 
“We wanna see the famous prisoners, don’t we, Poll.”