Marrying the Musketeer (7 page)

His tongue demanded.
 
She gave in to his demands, leaning her whole body into his kiss.

She shuddered he held her to him with one hand, close against his body.
 
His frame was solid and strong.
 
Encircled in his embrace she felt safe from all the world.
 
She felt more than simply desired – she felt protected and cherished as if she were his precious possession to be treasured and defended against all who would rob him of her.

His other hand swept past the planes of her back and settled on her bottom.
 
Shamelessly he caressed her bottom, urging her into him.
 
Shamelessly she pressed back against him, her desire building with every stroke of his hand and every touch of his tongue on hers.

She had never known that such urgency of feeling could exist.

He lifted his head from their kiss at last, looking straight into her eyes, vacant and unseeing with desire.
 
“Can I come and see you tomorrow?”

She nodded.
 
“Yes,” she said in a whisper.
 
She did not trust her voice to speak any louder in case it begged him to stay with her, by her side for ever.

He looked almost as shaken as she felt inside.
 
“I will walk back with you to your father’s house.”

Courtney hardly knew what they talked about on their way back.
 
Her whole body felt as though a tornado has passed over her – she was still shaking and trembling inside from the ravaging torrent that had possessed her.
 
Still, by the time they reached the door to her father’s house, she had mustered up enough self-control to ask him to come in.

He shook his head.
 
“I doubt that your father would welcome me into his house.”

Courtney was puzzled.
 
Her father was an hospitable man, always ready to welcome friends into his house.
 
“He does not like you?”

“I imagine he likes me well enough for what I am – a hired guard to look after the consignment he is preparing for the King.”

She saw his point immediately.
 
“But not as a suitor for his daughter?”

He shrugged.
 
“Your father is a wealthy man.
 
I am a poor soldier with few prospects unless the King singles me out for his special favor.”

She cold not think that her father was motivated by greed in such a matter as her marriage.
 
“My father cares naught for a man’s wealth, but for his honor.
 
He wants only for me to be happy.”

He looked uncomfortable at her words.
 
“Fathers and daughters are bound to disagree about which path may lead towards happiness.
 
I am not foolish enough to think that your father will welcome me because his daughter has a small fondness for me.
 
Indeed, I think that the opposite would be very much the case.”

She would bring her father round to her way of thinking.
 
Surely she could manage that.
 
She would not lose her lover to a cross word from her dear papa.
 
“Will you risk my father’s wrath, then, to see me again?”

He looked deep into her eyes as if they were the windows into her soul.
 
“I would risk the wrath of the King himself to see you again.
 
Will you walk with me again in the churchyard on the morrow if the weather is fair?”

She thought of the kisses he had stolen there today and her face grew red.
 
Walking with him on the morrow would mean more kisses, she knew.
 
Accepting his invitation was also implying an acceptance of the kisses that he would offer her there.
 
She felt her face grow hot as she murmured softly, “I will.”

He touched her lightly on the cheek as if to thank her for her words.
 
He, too, knew what he had just offered and what she had accepted so simply and honestly.
 
“Fare thee well, then, my sweet Courtney.
 
Until the morrow.”

She bid farewell to her handsome soldier and hurried up to her chamber, her face set in a straight line with unusual determination.
 
Her father would have to be made to understand that Monsieur de Tournay was her path to happiness.
 
She would make him see it.
 
He had never refused her anything before that she had set her heart upon.
 
Surely he would not refuse her in this most important of choices.

One of her windows looked out on to the street, the other on to the garden at the back of the house.
 
She pulled back the light curtains on the window that looked on to the street and watched as her Musketeer walked away, his jet-black hair gleaming in the sunshine.
 
She would confess to her father that she was in love with her handsome soldier – that she loved him as dearly and as deeply as ever he had loved her mother.
 
He would not refuse her then.

Her papa did not return home until late that evening.
 
His face looked drawn and weary and his steps were slow.
 
He called for a brandy and water and sat in his library drinking it in silence.

Courtney sat with him by the dying fire, putting the finishing touches on a tapestry case she had designed for him to keep his spectacles in.
 
“You look weary, papa,” she said at last, when the silence became too oppressive.

He sighed and stretched his feet out towards the feeble flames.
 
“I shall be glad when this last shipment for the Queen of France has been delivered.
 
I mislike dealing with royalty.
 
They are slippery customers.”

She could not see why.
 
Surely royalty could afford to buy her father’s jewels better than most.
 
“Do they not buy many jewels, and pay you royally for them?”

“The King of France, for all his spendthrift reputation, is a miser at heart and has no love for us Flemish merchants.
 
He thinks us not so loyal to him as Frenchman are and, who knows, maybe he is right to be suspicious.
 
For certain, I have no great love for him.
 
He examines every bill I send him with an eagle eye, looking only to find fault.
 
His soldiers are no better.
 
Sometimes I feel they have been sent to guard me, not the jewels I am sending to their master.”

Courtney felt her heart beat faster at the mention of Monsieur de Tournay.
 
“The soldiers I met the other night at my birthday celebration?”

He sighed again.
 
“I regret giving into the impulse of inviting them to my home.
 
It seemed a friendly enough gesture to make at the time, but now I am not so sure of the wisdom of it.
 
They seem to think that the home I have made for you, the furnishings provided with the profits from my dealings, are richer than an ordinary, honest merchant should be able to afford.
 
I do not like their snide insinuations.
 
I do not like them at all, I must confess, and would not have them in my house again.”

It pained her to hear of ill of the man she adored from the lips of her dear papa.
 
“Monsieur Charent and Monsieur de Tournay both have offended you?”

He caught the anxious tone in her voice.
 
“You were taken with Monsieur de Tournay, were you not, at your birthday party?
 
I noticed you scarcely danced with anyone else – not even with Justin.”

She felt her cheeks go hot.
 
“He was very pleasant to me.
 
I hope he has not offended you.
 
I am sure he would not want to earn your displeasure.”

“It matters not, my cherie.
 
Come Wednesday week they will both be gone back to Paris where they belong.
 
God willing, we shall never see either of them again.”
 
He swallowed the last of his brandy and gave a wide yawn.
 
“Off to bed with you, Courtney.
 
I would have you up betimes.
 
There are things we must discuss in the morn.
 
Things of more import than you can possibly imagine.”

Courtney lay awake in the darkness for a long time listening to the sound of her father in his study below.
 
Even as she drifted off to sleep she could hear the pacing of his footsteps up and down, the scraping of his chair legs against the wooden floor, the rustle of papers as he read and discarded them one by one.

She was sorry that her father had taken a dislike to Monsieur de Tournay.
 
He must be more worried than she had thought about this latest consignment of merchandise to King Louis and transferring his worry to the guards with whom he had to deal.
 
She hoped he could be persuaded out of his dislike of her beloved Musketeer.
 
Her papa’s approval was important to her.
 
She would have to make him see that Monsieur de Tournay was an honest man, and well fit for his precious only daughter.
 

She would not give in, even if her papa proved tenacious.
 
Like it or not, Papa would have to accept him as her favored suitor.
 
She loved Monsieur de Tournay with all her heart.
 
She would not lose this battle.

The first light of dawn was barely creeping over the horizon the next morning when her father was up and knocking on her chamber door.
 
“Make yourself ready,” he instructed her through the closed door.
 
“The carriage will be here any moment.”

She sat up in bed and rubbed the sleep from her heavy-lidded eyes.
 
Her father had said to be up early, he’d not mentioned that his idea of early was before it was yet light.
 
“Make myself ready for what?
 
Where are we going?”

“There is no need to don your best or dress your hair in aught but a couple of plain braids.
 
We are off to spend a day in the country.”

She couldn’t imagine what had gotten into her father.
 
He never went into the country on a pleasure jaunt.
 
Normally she would be delighted at the unaccustomed treat he had planned for her, but spending today in the country was little short of disastrous.
 
If she went to the country with her father this morning, she would miss her rendezvous with Monsieur de Tournay.
 
She would not see him all the day, and mayhap not on the morrow either.
 
Heaven only knows what pressing business he might have that would keep him occupied and unable to visit her for days maybe.
 

She did not have many days left to win whatever corner was left of his heart.
 
He was to leave for Paris in just over a week.
 
She had to make sure that when he left, he had plans to return again to claim her for his own.
 

Maybe if her father had planned for a large party to go into the country, she could plead a bad headache and stay behind.
 
Or even inveigle her papa into inviting Monsieur de Tournay along as well.
 
She threw a cotton wrap about her shoulders and clambered out of bed.
 
“Just you and me?
 
Or have you made up a party with some friends?”

“Just you and me and the picnic basket.
 
Hurry now.
 
We must leave presently.”

There was no hope of staying behind – she would not ruin her papa’s surprise with a fictitious illness.
 
She would have to resign herself to not seeing Monsieur de Tournay today.
 

Her pleasure had only been postponed, she told herself, not cancelled.
 
If he liked her as seriously as he seemed to, he would not be put off by her absence today.
 
She would surely see him again another day.

If he really did like her, that is.

She didn’t know why her father had suddenly taken it into his head to take her for a picnic in the country.
 
She puzzled over the reason as she hurriedly washed herself in the pitcher of warm water that Suzanne made haste to bring her, put on a pretty green gown with yellow ribbons, some green slippers, and patterns to wear over them in the mud.
 
She had Suzanne brush her hair and braid it in a simple plait that hung down her back.